“And very good stuff, too. By George! I haven’t had marrow jam for forty years.”
“You be pretty old then: older than feyther.”
“Well, d’you know, Tom, I am several years younger than I was two hours ago. Good-bye!”
CHAPTER II—HERR SCHWAB
One spring day, rather more than six years after the meeting of Mr. Greatorex and Tom Dorrell by Five Oaks Bridge, a shabby pony cart was jogging along the road that led from the little railway station of Midfont, through the sleepy village of the same name, to Midfont House, the rural retreat to which Mr. Greatorex betook himself from his business in the great manufacturing town of Burlingham some dozen miles away. The sole occupant of the cart was a large florid man of about forty-five, who eyed the surroundings curiously through heavy gold-rimmed spectacles, the sluggish pony he drove requiring little attention.
His costume, no less than his spectacles, was strangely out of keeping with the cart. That would have been a fit setting for a farm-hand, or a carrier, or some other wearer of fustian. But its present occupant was attired in a well-cut grey frock-coat, silk lined, a glossy silk hat, a lilac-coloured necktie in which flashed a diamond pin, and trousers of large check pattern. His hands were gloved in brown kid; between his teeth he held a long cigar.
He looked about him with intention. Unfenced fields stretched on either side of the road. Every now and again the driver would pull up, stand on the seat, and throw a searching glance around. Then, muttering under his breath words that were certainly strange to that part of the English midlands, he would drive on again, looking to right and left as before.
By and by he came to a part of the road where a long wooden fence on the right-hand side indicated an enclosure. To this the driver gave his whole attention, and when the fence was broken by a wide wooden gate, within which a carriage drive ran past a little lodge and between hedges of evergreen, he pulled up, alighted from the cart, and, leading the pony by the nose, went to the gate and gave the bell-pull a vigorous tug. It might have been noticed that he walked a little lame.
In response to his summons a man came to the gate—a young man, thin, clean-shaven, with a slight cast in one eye. He was bareheaded, wore a red waistcoat over a flannel shirt, and brown corduroy breeches, supported by a leather belt and somewhat creased above brown leggings.
“So!” said the driver of the pony cart, as the lodgekeeper rested his arms on the second bar of the gate and looked at him. “Zis, my goot friend, is Midfont House?”