“Oh, quite by chance! I had been staying with one of my cousins, up in the north—the head of my family, in fact, and a very dull dog, poor fellow! There was no bearing it, so I made my excuses, and set out to ride into Leicestershire, to visit a friend of mine. Then my horse cast a shoe, up on the moors, I lost my bearings, became weather-bound, and reached this gate in darkness and drenching rain. Ben came out to open it for me. That seemed to me an odd circumstance. Moreover, it was easy to see he was scared. He told me his father had gone off on Friday evening, and hadn’t returned; so I thought the best thing I could do would be to put up here for the night.”
“Ah, that was kind!” she said warmly.
“Oh, no! not a bit!” he said. “I was deuced sick of the weather, and glad to have a roof over my head. I’m curious, too: I want to know what has become of Edward Brean.”
“It is odd,” she agreed, knitting her brows. “He is a rough sort of a man, but he has been here for a long time, and I never knew him to desert his post before. But you surely don’t mean to continue keeping the gate!”
“Oh, not indefinitely!” he assured her. “It’s not at all unamusing, but I expect it would soon grow to be a dead bore. However, I shall stay here for the present—unless, of course, the trustees find me out, and turn me off.”
“But your family—your friends! They won’t know what has become of you!”
“That won’t worry ’em. I’ve done it before.”
“Kept a gate?” she exclaimed.
“No, not that. Just disappeared for a week or two. I don’t know how it is, but I get devilish bored with watching turnips grow, and doing the civil to the neighbours,” he said apologetically.
She sighed. “How fortunate you are to be able to escape! I wish I were a man!”