The man with the flaxen beard hesitated. “I’m not very strong in history, sir,” he said weakly, and glanced at the others.
“That was it, sir,” said the youngster. “Boscastle, in the old Duchy of Cornwall—it’s in the southwest country beyond the dairy meadows. There is a house there still. I have been there.”
“Boscastle!” Graham turned his eyes to the youngster. “That was it—Boscastle. Little Boscastle. I fell asleep—somewhere there. I don’t exactly remember. I don’t exactly remember.”
He pressed his brows and whispered, “More than two hundred years!”
He began to speak quickly with a twitching face, but his heart was cold within him. “But if it is two hundred years, every soul I know, every human being that ever I saw or spoke to before I went to sleep, must be dead.”
They did not answer him.
“The Queen and the Royal Family, her Ministers, of Church and State. High and low, rich and poor, one with another—”
“Is there England still?”
“That’s a comfort! Is there London? Eh?” “This is London, eh? And you are my assistant—custodian; assistant-custodian. And these—? Eh? Assistant-custodians to?”
He sat with a gaunt stare on his face. “But why am I here? No! Don’t talk. Be quiet. Let me—”