“It’s much jollier to walk, Markworth,” remarked Tom, as they left the station, and he led the way over a stile into a little bypath across a field; “it’s a lovely afternoon, and we’ll get there in half the time we should if we drove by the road.”
“All right, my boy, I’m agreeable,” answered Markworth.
So they sauntered on, walking in a narrow foot-wide track, through acres of gleaming green fields of oats and wheat, with their wavy motion, like the sea, and their rustling tops, one of the railway porters following closely behind them, weighed down apparently by two heavy travelling-bags he carried, although, probably, he thought them but a trifle.
A pleasant walk it was on a fine summer day.
Presently Markworth could see a gaunt, grim stone wall in front of them, with a mass of tall, melancholy-looking, waving poplar trees behind it, all in a clump together.
“There’s the place,” said Tom. “We’ll be there in no time. We can go through that side-door,” pointing to a small gateway cut through the wall. “You must not mind, old chap, what my mother says, you know, at first. I told you she was a queer fellow, you know, and she will seem rough to you at first.”
“I sha’n’t mind, bless you, Tom—I oughtn’t to be afraid of any woman at my time of life, my hearty.”
In another minute they had arrived at the small door they had been making for, and Tom rang the bell with a sonorous peal.
After waiting about a quarter of an hour, and ringing some three times, the gate was at length opened by George, the Dowager’s “man of all work,” an honest, tall, beaming-looking countryman, who stood at the entrance with a broad grin of pleasure on his rustic face.
“Whoy! Lor sakes, measter Tummus! It beant you, be it? Well, to be sure!”