“I expect it is some rascal of a boy amusing himself,” said the farmer reassuringly. “A most unholy noise to make, I call it.”
He looked uneasily at his companion. If Mr. Barrimore were a nervous sort of man he might not take the bungalow, and the farmer wanted to let it.
The bungalow looked lovely now, covered by roses, but it was undeniably lonely at any time, and in winter desolate enough. He followed up his remark:
“If you come to live in the country, Mr. Barrimore, you will have to get used to queer noises. The owls at night hoot, and the way they breathe would almost make you believe it was a human being. But you soon get to take no heed to country sounds. If book-writing is your trade, you couldn’t find a better place to carry it on in than my bungalow. Wonderfully pretty it looks now, with the roses out. We shall be coming to it at the turn of the road.”
“I saw it just now, Mr. Pickett, from the top of the bank,” said Barrimore. “It looked charming. But I can’t get that sad singing out of my head. It was to me a heart-break set to music. But”—(Barrimore smiled, and for the first time his companion noted that the young man was good-looking)—“but authors are imaginative, and I am willing to accept your view of the case. You seem to think I am nervous!” (He smiled again.) “But I have never had that character. Here we are!”
On the right stood the big red-tiled bungalow, with its white verandah and its wealth of red rambler roses.
Pickett jingled a bunch of keys as he approached the padlocked gate.
“You see, sir, that the garden is in good order,” he remarked, as he unfastened the gate. “And the water in the well is beautiful, and cold as can be, even this weather. The painter-chap who built it spared no expense, and there’s flooring put down in yonder clear space for a stable, if you should like me to put one up, which I will do, if you take the bungalow for three years.”
“I think I can promise to do that if I like the place,” said Barrimore rather absently. “One can always shut it up, you know.”
Pickett stared. He could not understand the wastefulness suggested by the idea of paying rent and shutting up the place. However, it was all right so far as he personally was concerned, and this well-dressed young man, who carried a gold cigar-case, had probably a big banking account.