O, Keith of Ravelston,
The sorrows of thy line!’
They’ve been running in my head all the afternoon ever since I saw ‘Keith Radipole,’ on those beer-barrels.”
Nance, however, was too eager to reach the real Ravelston to pay much heed to his poetic allusion.
“Oh, it sounds like—oh, I don’t know—Tennyson, perhaps!” and she pulled him forward towards the trees.
These proved to be a group of tall French poplars which, just then, were muttering volubly in the rain-smelling wind. They hurried past them and paused before a gate in a very high wall.
“What’s this?” exclaimed Sorio. “This can’t be Ravelston. It looks more like a prison.”
For a moment his eyes encountered Nance’s and the girl glanced quickly away from what she read in his face. She called out to an old man who was hoeing potatoes behind some iron railings where the wall ended.
“Could you tell me where Ravelston Grange is?” she enquired.