“I don't hear no one playing,” replied the man stolidly. She felt certain he was lying, but he gave her no opportunity for further interrogation, for he continued briskly—
“Come now, miss, please to move off from here. Trespassers aren't allowed.”
Sara spoke with a quiet air of dignity.
“Certainly I'll go,” she said. “I'm sorry. I had no idea that I was trespassing.”
The man's truculent manner softened, as, with the intuition of his kind, he recognized in the composed little apology the utterance of one of his “betters.”
“Beggin' your pardon, miss,” he said, with a considerable accession of civility, “but it's as much as my place is worth to allow a trespasser here on Far End.”
Sara nodded.
“You're perfectly right to obey orders,” she said, and bending her steps towards the public road from which she had strayed to listen to the unseen musician, she made her way homewards.
“Your mysterious 'Hermit' is nothing if not thorough,” she told Doctor Dick and Molly on her return. “I trespassed on to the Far End property to-day, and was ignominiously ordered off by a rather aggressive person, who, I suppose, is Mr. Trent's servant.”
“That would be Judson,” nodded Selwyn. “I've attended him once or twice professionally. The fellow's all right, but he's under strict orders, I believe, to allow no trespassers.”