"If this place was the chapel in the old times, it must have been consecrated!" cried she breathlessly.
"Very like, 'um," was the lad's answer, in blissful ignorance of her meaning. "Them grey friars used to eat their meals in it, I've heard tell, and hold jollifications."
Preoccupied, the sinful insinuation escaped Miss Blake. The conviction, that this consecrated place would be the very thing needed for Mr. Cattacomb's church, was working in her brain. Tom Pepp was ensconced in a dark corner, his dog in his arms, devoutly hoping his master would not come that way until he had made his escape. The ruins belonged to Farmer Truefit, the boy said. The fact being, that they stood on the land the farmer rented; which land was part of the Andinnian estate.
"Has nothing been done with the room since it was used for the school!" asked Miss Blake.
"Nothing," was the boy's reply. It was kept locked up until Lady Andinnian's death: since then, nobody, so far as he knew, had taken notice of it.
"What a beautiful little chapel it will make!" thought Miss Blake. "And absolutely there's a little place that will do for a vestry! I'll lose no time."
She went off straight to an interview with Mr. Truefit; which was held in the middle of a turnip-field. The farmer, a civil man, stout and sturdy, upon hearing that she was a relative of his new landlord's wife, the young Lady Andinnian, and was staying at Foxwood Court, took off his hat and gave her leave to do what she liked to the room and to make it into a place of worship if she pleased; his idea being that it was to be a kind of Methodist chapel, or a mission-room.
This sublime idea expanding within her mind, Miss Blake walked hurriedly back to Foxwood--for Mrs. Cleeve was to depart at midday. In passing the Maze, the interest as to what she had heard induced her to go up to the gate again, and peer in. Turning away after a good long look, she nearly ran against a rather tall gentleman, who was slowly sauntering amid the trees outside the gate. A gentleman in green spectacles, with a somewhat handsome face and black whiskers--the same face and whiskers, Miss Blake thought, that had watched her from the opposite window. He wore grey clothes, had one black glove on and his arm in a sling.
Mr. Smith took off his hat and apologised. Miss Blake apologised. Between them they fell into conversation. She found him a very talkative, pleasant man.
"Curious place, the Maze?" he echoed in answer to a remark of Miss Blake's. "Well, yes, I suppose it may be called so, as mazes are not very common."