'I was born in it; I was never thirty miles away from it until I came here.'
'Oh,' cried Mary, 'then you must be the literary——' She stopped and reddened.
'The literary saw-miller,' said Rob, finishing her sentence; 'that was what they called me, I know, at Glen Quharity Lodge.'
Mary looked up at him with a new interest, for when she was there Glen Quharity had been full of the saw-miller, who could not only talk in Greek, but had a reputation for tossing the caber.
'Papa told me some months ago,' she said, in surprise, 'that the liter——, that you had joined the Press in England, but he evidently did not know of your being in Silchester.'
'But how could he have known anything about me?' asked Rob, surprised in turn.
'This is so strange,' Mary answered. 'Why, papa takes credit for having got you your appointment on the press.'
'It was a minister, a Mr. Rorrison, who did that for me,' said Rob; 'indeed, he was so good that I could have joined the Press a year ago by his help, had not circumstances compelled me to remain at home.'
'I did not know the clergyman's name,' Mary said, 'but it was papa who spoke of you to him first. Don't you remember writing out this clergyman's sermon in shorthand, and a messenger's coming to you for your report on horseback next day?'
'Certainly I do,' said Rob, 'and he asked me to write it out in longhand as quickly as possible. That was how I got to know Mr. Rorrison; and, as I understood, he had sent for the report of the sermon, on hearing accidentally that I had taken it down, because he had some reason for wanting a copy of it.'