"Yes, if you wish it," said John, hesitatingly. "But would it not be better if you and your daughter were to see them first of all alone? I would travel with you, of course, if you wish it."
"I shall not take Helen with me," said Wilson. "They mightn't take to her, or she mightn't take to them. No! If you will go and help me through with it, well and good. If not, it must drop."
"Oh, it mustn't drop," said John, cheerily.
It might be a week or more after this conversation that as the small family at Low Beech Farm were seated at their midday meal, in the large stone-floored kitchen, a single gentle, not to say timid, knock was heard at the outer door of the adjoining hall or passage.
"Go and see who it is, Martha," said the old farmer to the servant-of-all-work, who sat at the same table with her master and mistresses, and drank her portion from the same general pewter pot which served for all dinner purposes: "one of those travelling tinkers, I guess; I saw old Ripley about yesterday. They're none too honest, I think, and their room is better than their company."
While thus discharging himself of his grumble, Martha had opened the door, and before she had recovered her surprise, the two strangers whom she had admitted walked slowly by her, and softly entered the kitchen.
They were a singular and yet not ill-assorted pair. One of them was a gentleman—rather lean-visaged and pale in complexion, partially bald, and what hair he had, inclining to grey. There was a kindly, half-pitying, half-inquiring glance in his dark grey eyes—that is to say, if the eyes expressed what was then uppermost in his mind. He was well-dressed, though plainly, in black.
The other stranger, who, like him, had entered bare-headed, was leaning heavily on his friend's arm, for he was very feeble. His face was masked in a dark beard, which, however, did not altogether conceal the strong muscular working of his lips as he, more than once, vainly attempted to utter the word which would not come. His dress was warm, though of a rougher texture than that of his companion.
For one moment, the old farmer and his wife and daughter sat suddenly transfixed, as it seemed, with astonishment at the intrusion; and then a gleam of intelligence lighted up Matthew's countenance.
"Mr. Tincroft, if I am not mistaken?" said he, without any great emotion.