“Very spic and span. You keep them in good repair, evidently.”
“Oh, one of the gardeners has the job of looking after them,” Cecil explained, without showing much interest.
“I’ve never seen anything of the sort before. They might be Picts’ dwellings, or something of that kind; but why keep them in repair? And, of course, they’re not prehistoric at all. They’re comparatively modern, from the way they’re put together. What are they?”
“Ask me another,” said Cecil, who seemed bored by the subject. “They’re an ancestral legacy, or an heirloom, or a tenant’s improvement, or whatever you like to call it. Clause in the will each time, to provide for them being kept in good repair, and so forth.”
Sir Clinton seemed to prick up his ears when he heard of this provision, though his tone showed only languid interest when he put his next inquiry.
“Anything at the back of it all? It seems a rum sort of business.”
“The country-people round about here will supply you with all the information you can believe about it—and a lot you’re not likely to swallow, too. By their way of it, Lavington Knoll up there”—he pointed vaguely to indicate its position—“was the last of the fairy strongholds hereabouts; and when most of the fairies went away, a few stayed behind. But these didn’t care much for the old Knoll after that. Reminded them of past glories and cheery company too much, I suppose; and so they made a sort of treaty with an ancestor of ours. He was to provide houses for them, and they were to look after the general prosperity side of Ravensthorpe.”
Sir Clinton seemed amused by Cecil’s somewhat scornful summary.
“A case of ‘Farewell rewards and fairies,’ it seems, Cecil.”
Then, half to himself, he hummed a few lines of Corbet’s song: