“Well,” said Manners, “as I have had my fright for nothing, my nature’s beginning to assert itself, and the main question now with me is breakfast. Now, boys, will you come and join me? I can’t smell them, but I can almost venture to say for certain that Mrs Drinkwater is frying trout. What do you say?”
“No, thank you, Mr Manners,” replied Will; “my father will want me, perhaps, to give orders to the men; but Josh has got to pass the cottage.”
“Of course,” cried Manners; “and you might honour me too, Mr Carlile.”
“Thanks, no,” said the Vicar. “Josh can stay, and he will be glad. I’ll go on, for they would be waiting breakfast at home.”
The artist gave a tug at a thick chain, and dragged out a heavy, old-fashioned, gold watch.
“Five o’clock,” he cried. “We should be done by six. Why, you’d be quite ready for a second breakfast, sir, by eight or nine.”
“Do come, father.”
“Very well,” said the Vicar, smiling; and the artist carried them off, leaving Willows with his son to walk slowly on to the broad dam where the foam-covered water brimmed the stones, as if only wanting the impulse of a puff of wind to sweep over the top.
They stopped about the middle, to stand looking up the vale.
“I say, father, do you feel that?” cried Will.