"Daw? Daw?" repeated Mr. Chattaway, biting his lips to get some colour into them. "Where have I heard that name—in connection with a clergyman?"
"He said he had some correspondence with you years ago: at the time my mother died, and I was born. He knew my father and mother well: has been telling me this at old Canham's."
All that past time, its events, its correspondence, flashed over Mr. Chattaway's memory—flashed over it with a strange dread. "What has he come here for?" he asked quickly.
"I don't know," replied Rupert. "He said——Whatever's this?"
A tremendous shouting from people who appeared, dragging something behind them. Both turned simultaneously—the master of Trevlyn Hold in awful fear. Could it be the stranger coming back with constables at his heels, to wrest the Hold from him? And if, my reader, you deem these fears exaggerated, you know very little of this kind of terror.
It was nothing but a procession of those idlers you saw in the road, dragging home the unlucky dog-cart: Mr. Cris at their head.
CHAPTER XXV
NEWS FOR MISS DIANA
In that pleasant room at the parsonage, with its sweet-scented mignonette boxes, and vases of freshly-cut flowers, sat the Reverend Mr. Freeman at breakfast, with his wife and visitor. It was a simple meal. All meals were simple at Barbrook Parsonage: as they generally are where means are limited. And you have not yet to learn, I dare say, that comfort and simplicity frequently go together: whilst comfort and grandeur are often separated. There was no lack of comfort and homely fare at Mr. Freeman's. Coffee and rich milk: home-made bread and the freshest of butter, new-laid eggs and autumn watercress. It was by no means starvation.