She assented, apparently with no very clear understanding of what he meant.
"What a charming setting this old house makes for such things," he said.
She nodded, looking doubtfully at the rag carpet.
"The Manor House was much finer," she observed. "Come to the window and I'll show you where it stood. They were fine folk, the Lockwoods, Hunts, and Fanchers."
They rose and she laid one pretty hand on his sleeve and guided him into a corner of the window, where he could see.
"Hello," he said uneasily, "there is a main travelled road! I thought that here we were at the very ends of civilisation!"
"That is the Bedford road," she said. "Over there, beyond those chestnuts, is the Stamford road. Can you see those tall old poplars? Beyond the elms I mean—there—where the crows are flying?"
"Yes. Eight tall poplars."
"The Manor House stood there. Tarleton burnt it—set it afire with all its beautiful furniture and silver and linen! His hussars ran through it, setting it afire and shooting at the mirrors and slashing the silks and pictures! And when the Major's young wife entered the smoking doorway to try to save a pitiful little trinket or two, an officer—never mind who, for his descendants may be living to-day in England—struck her with the flat of his sword and cut her and struck her to her knees! That is the truth!"
He said politely: "You are intensely interested in—er—colonial and revolutionary history."