"A man, sir, leastways a madman. Where he hailed from no one knowed, but years and years ago, when I was a' infant in arms, Congleton suddenlike come to Luscombe. He was a man about fifty then, and 'twas said that having waited to that age to fall in love, he got it very bad with a widder, who wouldn't have him. Love seems to be like measles, better had young. Well, Congleton took it so to heart that he made up his mind to live forlorn and lonely ever more. So he built a kind o' summer-house in the Hollow yonder; and when he tired o' that he set a small army o' laborers building the Folly, for so it got to be called; and there he lived for a dozen years in one room at the top all by himself, seeing nobody, having his food sent up twice a week by a pulley. And then he died. Congleton's Folly 'twas called then, and so it be called to this day: a sort of wilderness all round it, and a fearsome place on a dark night."
The old tar talked on, Jack doing the listening, until they came to a spot where, just after the road crossed a deep chine cutting through the cliff to the sea, there stood a large farm-building by the roadside.
"Is that one of my cousin's farms?" asked Jack.
"No, sir, that be Mr. Gudgeon's freehold."
Jack glanced at it idly. It was an old roving building of stone, with gables and mullioned windows, many barns and outhouses hemming it in. Across the road was the farmyard, with a large pond skirting the roadway; and beyond it a level triangular stretch of pasture and cornland extending to the edge of the cliff, which here jutted out prominently into the sea.
Just before they reached the farm-house, Jack noticed a dense cloud of smoke pouring from one of the chimneys.
"The kitchen chimney's afire, I suppose," he said.
"Ay, ay, sir. Mr. Gudgeon do have a bad lot o' chimbleys. And there's a many in Luscombe, too. Plenty of jobs hereabouts for a good sweep! And there's Mr. Gudgeon himself—Nathaniel's his chrisom name."
A very big burly man, curiously short in the legs, made his appearance in the doorway, and walking backwards across the road, watched the black column of smoke drifting slowly eastward on the light breeze.
So closely was his attention fixed that he did not at once notice the pedestrians or the donkey-cart, and not until he had backed almost across the road did he suddenly catch sight of Joe Gumley. Then he started slightly, and his attention being now divided between the old sailor and the chimney on fire, he failed to observe a deep rut left by a passing wagon, that had evidently been driven into the pond to allow the horses to drink.