He had ridden out on horseback, but Sister Martin had promised to come and stay with him for a few days in his old home, and it was for her comfort he was so solicitous, and so particular as to what room she would occupy.
He also insisted upon seeing to his horse himself, for this would give him a peep at the old stable-yard, and a chance of finding out whether his old dumb friend Peggy was still alive.
But although Summerleigh as a whole had stood still through all the years he had been away, and the landlady herself was not much altered from what he had known her, still there had been changes.
Old Toby lay in the churchyard, and not one of the horses he had formerly tended at The Magpie was in its stables now. The old doctor and the constable too were dead, and the boys he had known, and often envied, were lounging, sleepy-looking men, like their fathers before them.
But before he had been an hour in the place, he heard that the village still boasted of its intolerance and hatred of strangers, especially Methodists.
"I wouldn't have one o' them pestilent people in my house, no, not if they was to pay me double, sir," said the mistress of The Magpie to Eric when he ventured to make some inquiry about these people. "Summerleigh wouldn't abide 'em," she continued. "One of 'em did attempt to preach here once, but a good ducking in our horsepond cured him, and we ain't never been pestered since."
Eric thought he would like to try what he could do to break down this prejudice, but just now he had to think of Sister Martin, for her health had given way, and she was coming to try what the forest air would do for her restoration.
Eric told her what he wished the next day, as they slowly walked along the grassy paths he remembered so well in the forest, and together they formed a plan by which Summerleigh should be taken by guile.
Life in London could not be long for her, the doctor had said; but here, in the fresh country air, her life might be prolonged for some years, and so, as they walked, it was arranged that the little cottage where Eric had lived, and his mother had died, should be bought by him now, for Sister Martin's future home.
The owner would be glad to sell it, they had heard, for no one stayed in it long, since the witch woman had lived there some years ago.