‘Who was your companion?’
‘The granddaughter of the woman at the Lodge. Rather curious people, are they not?’
‘Yes, I have often wondered how my brother came to pick them up, for they are not natives of the soil, as almost every one else is at Penwyn. But Churchill says the old woman is a very estimable person, well worthy of her post, so one can say no more about it.’
When Maurice wanted to take leave, his new friends insisted that he should stay to dinner, Mr. Penwyn offering to send him home in a dog-cart. This favour, however, the sturdy pedestrian steadfastly declined.
‘I am not afraid of a night walk across the hills,’ he said, ‘and am getting as familiar with the country about here as if I were to the manner born.’
So he stayed, and assisted at Mrs. Penwyn’s kettledrum, which was held in the old Squire’s yewtree bower on the bowling-green, an arbour made of dense walls of evergreen, cool in summer, and comfortably sheltered in winter.
Here they drank tea, lazily enjoying the freshening breeze from the great wide sea, the sea which counts so many argosies for her spoil, the mighty Atlantic! Here they talked of literature and the world, and rapidly progressed in friendliness. But not one word was said of James Penwyn, who, save for that shot fired from behind a hedge, would have been master of grounds and bower, manor and all thereto belonging. That was a thought which flashed more than once across Maurice’s mind.
‘How happy these people seem in the possession of a dead man’s goods!’ he thought, ‘how placidly they enjoy his belongings, how coolly they accept fate’s awful decree! Only human nature I suppose.’
‘“Les morts durent bien peu, laissons les sous la pierre.”’
He stayed till ten o’clock, and left charmed with host and hostess.