When about dusk the Squire rode along the road through Westways, he came on the rector and dismounted, leaving his horse to be led home by Pole's boy. "Glad to see you, Mark. How goes it; and how did you like Mr. Grey?"
"To tell you the truth, Squire, I did not like him. I was forced into a talk about politics. We differed, as you may suppose. He was not quite pleasant. He seemed to have been so mixed up with this sad business about Josiah that I kept away at last, so that I might keep my temper. Billy drove him to the station after lunch."
"Indeed!" said Penhallow, pleased that Grey had gone. It was news to him and not unwelcome. Ann would no doubt explain. "What put Grey on the track of Josiah as a runaway? Was it a mere accidental encounter?" He desired to get some confirmatory information.
"No—I suspect not." Then he related what Josiah had told him of Peter's threats. "I may do that reprobate injustice, but—However, that is all I now know or feel justified in suspecting."
"Well, come up and dine to-day; we can talk it out after dinner."
"With pleasure," said Rivers.
Penhallow moodily walking up the street, his head bent in thought, was made aware that he was almost in collision with Swallow and a large man with a look of good-humoured amusement and the wide-open eyes and uplift of brow expressive of pleasure and surprise.
"By George, Woodburn!" said the Squire. "I heard some one of your name was here, but did not connect the name with you. I last heard of you as in a wild mix-up with the Sioux, and I wished I was with you." As Penhallow spoke the two men shook hands, Swallow meanwhile standing apart not over-pleased as through the narrowed lids of near-sight he saw that the two men must have known one another well and even intimately, for Woodburn replied, "Thought you knew I'd left the army, Jim. The last five years I've been running my wife's plantation in Maryland."
The Squire's pleasure at his encounter with an old West Point comrade for a moment caused him to forget that this was the master who had been set on Josiah's track by Grey. It was but for a moment. Then he drew up his soldierly figure and said coldly, "I am sorry that you are here on what cannot be a very agreeable errand."
"Oh!" said Woodburn cheerfully, "I came to get my old servant, Caesar. It seems to have been a fool's errand. He has slipped away. I suppose that Grey as usual talked too freely. But how the deuce does it concern you? I see that it does."