“Not much,” she replied. “Sometimes he goes fishing, and now and then he’ll carry a gun. But he usually becomes meditative over a stream, and is generally looking somewhere else if anything gets up in front of his gun, so his performances don’t amount to much.” She laughed again, and then looked half-archly, half-inquisitively at me.
“I’m wondering what you do with yourself,” she said.
“I? Oh! I paint a bit,” I answered.
“So, sometimes, does my guardian,” she remarked. “He calls it daubing, but they aren’t bad. There are two of his works of art on that panel.”
She pointed to two small water-colour sketches which, framed in gilt, hung in a recess near the hearth. I rose and looked at them. One was of the house, the other a view of the Cheviot. There was some feeling of performance in both.
“What do you think of them?” she asked. “Perhaps you’re a swell hand at that sort of thing?”
“Very nice,” I replied. “And interesting, to me. My reason for wandering round to-day was that I wanted to find a good subject. I think I’ve found one, this place. I could make a good picture of it, with the hills as the background.”
“Do, do!” she exclaimed. “And I’ll make my guardian buy it from you; he often buys pictures. You might put me in it, with my gun and my dogs; I’ll show you the dogs in the morning—beauties!”
We got on very well together, chatting in this light-hearted fashion. The evening passed on, but Mr. Parslewe did not come. We had supper; still he did not come. And at ten o’clock my hostess pronounced a decision.
“He won’t come to-night, now,” she said. “And it’s my bed-time. Tibbie will take charge of you, Mr. Craye, and I can promise you that your bed is properly aired. Don’t be afraid of the room; it looks as if it were haunted, but it isn’t.”