So they settled it that way.
About three o’clock on the second day after the colonel’s departure from Cairn-corrie he and an elderly man of unmistakably legal appearance walked from Elmsdale station to the village. The station master, forewarned, had procured a dogcart from the “Black Lion,” but the visitors preferred dispatching their portmanteaux in the vehicle, and they followed on foot.
Thus it happened—as odd things do happen in life—that the two men met a boy walking rapidly from the village, and some trick of expression in his face caused the colonel to halt him with a question:
“Can you tell me where the ‘Black Lion’ inn is?”
“Yes, sir. On the left, just beyond the bend in the road.”
“And the White House Farm?”
The village youth looked at the speaker with interest.
“On the right, sir; after you cross the green.”
“Ah!”