We had come back to the same point again, and again old Peter hesitated.
"You know Restormel?" he said at length.
"Restormel Castle, up by Lostwithiel?" I asked.
"No; Restormel in the parish of St. Miriam, a few miles north from here?"
"Oh, yes, I know."
"What do you know?"
Both old Peter and young Peter spoke in the same breath; both spoke eagerly, too—anxiously in fact.
"What is rumoured by certain gossips," I replied. "I expect there is no truth in it."
"But what have you heard?"
"It is said that the estate belongs to a chit of a maid," I replied; "that the maid's mother died at her birth, and that her father, Godfrey Molesworth, did not long survive her. That he was broken-hearted. That everything was left to a mere baby."