"Art going abroad so early?" asked her uncle, returning her greeting, and taking up his wide-brimmed hat from the bench where he had dropped it when drinking his cup of small ale. "If so, we would go with thee, for I am fain to show thy cousin what manner of home he hath come to. To have such escort as thine will make our inspection doubly agreeable."
"I was but going to the stables to give these apples to my brother's favourite horse," answered Drusilla. "But if ye would see the grounds I will willingly bear you company."
"And how fares Master Gilbert, prithee?" inquired Jasper, leading the way out into the porchway, and standing there a moment looking out across the terrace and the wide expanse of lawn to the misty woodlands beyond.
"The wound in his arm hath troubled him but little," she answered, "but his sprained ankle hath swollen greatly and is very painful. I fear me it will be many days ere he can leave his bed."
"'Tis a pity the rascals who thus assailed him cannot be caught and brought to a speedy justice," remarked Philip with seeming sympathy in his tone, albeit with an unkindly curl of his upper lip. "Was your brother unarmed that he thus allowed a vagabond gypsy to overcome him?" he added.
"Nay, for who would go unarmed in these days?" returned Drusilla. "But even the skilfullest swordsman may sometimes be taken at a disadvantage. Gilbert's foot slipped upon the snow, and his adversary did thrust at him even as he fell. Timothy Trollope knew not of the matter until the three robbers had fled, or else I am very sure they should not have got away so easily."
"And, prithee, who may be this Timothy of whom you speak, cousin?" pursued Philip.
Drusilla answered:
"He is Gilbert's good and faithful servant—the same who brought him in yesternight. He is the son of Master Peter Trollope, the barber-surgeon of Plymouth town."
"Ah! methought I had seen him once before," observed Jasper. "He was even in his father's shop whilst I was there having my beard trimmed. And now—let us to the stables first, Mistress Drusilla, and then when we have made the round of the mansion and had a peep at the hawks in the mews and the deer in the chase, we shall haply go within again and introduce ourselves to your brother. Fortunate Gilbert, to be the heir to such vast and valuable estates as these!" he added covetously, as, standing at the end of the terrace where a spacious flight of stone steps led down to the lawn, he glanced towards the avenues of tall old trees that opened out before him. "Were I their owner, however, I should hew down those unsightly trees; they do but interrupt the view, and so much stout oak is but wasted while there be battle-ships to be built—to say naught of the price one might get in exchange for the timber withal."