"A journey! You, Isaac!" exclaimed Lady Anne. "Is it a drive round the farm in your low carriage?"
"It is a longer journey than that. It will take me five or six hours' hard posting, with good roads and four good horses."
"Oh, Isaac! How can you continue to travel post when you can take the railway?"
"I do not like the railway," said Isaac, quietly.
"Well, I hope you will find relays. I thought all the old posting horses were dead and buried."
"I have not found any difficulty yet, Anne, Brumm sends on to secure them."
"But where are you going, Isaac?" asked Mrs. St. John.
"To Alnwick. I think I ought to go," continued Isaac, speaking in his grave, earnest, thoughtful manner. "Poor George left his boy partly in my charge, as you know; but what with ill-health, and my propensity to shut myself up, which gets harder to break through every year, I have allowed too long a time to elapse without seeing him. It has begun to lie upon my conscience: and whenever a thing does that, I can't rest until I take steps to remedy it."
"The little boy is in his own home with his mother," observed Mrs. St. John. "He is sure to be all right."
"I do not fear that he is not. I should be very much surprised to find that he is not. But that probable fact does not remove from me the responsibility of ascertaining it. I think I shall go on Thursday, and return on Friday."