"Do you know of a house to let anywhere near? I want to be out on the moors, and yet not too far from a village like this of yours."
"It's a bit o' shooiting, likely, ye'd be after?" insinuated the host.
The stranger paused a moment before replying, and smiled a little to himself. "Yes, that's just what I want—some good shooting. Any house will do, but it must have shooting attached to it."
The landlord already had his eye on exactly the place required, but he was not disposed to give away the situation too lightly; he felt that Ling Crag ought to uphold its motto of "keeping itseln to itseln."
"There's none too many houses hereabouts," he observed slowly; "and what there is is fearful sought after."
"Are they, now? I should have thought, being so far away from a town, and——"
"Ay, sir, but—begging your pardon—it's a fine thing to be able to say ye come fro' Ling Crag: there's a sort o' respect goes with th' name in fowks's minds, an' we stay on here fro' generation to generation, seeing as how we could nobbut exchange for th' war. An' that maks houses scarce, like."
The stranger, beginning to understand his man better, laughed easily. "I shall try to be worthy of the honour, landlord, if you'll only find me the house."
The host rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then slapped his thigh with a great show of impromptu delight.
"Now that's queer; all th' time ye've been talking I niver once thought o' Wynyates Hall. Why, it's just th' place for ye, sir; two score acre o' shooiting, an' a regular old-fashioned sort o' house—just such as th' painter chaps come for to paint."