Mr. Raymond, as soon as he reached home, sat down and wrote a letter to Mendarva the Smith and another to Farmer Joll. Within a week the bargains were struck, and it was settled that Taffy should go at once.
"I may be calling before long, to look you up," said the Bryanite, "but mind you do no more than nod when you see me."
Joll's Farm lay somewhere near Carwithiel, across the moor where Taffy had gone fishing with George and Honoria. On the Monday morning when he stepped through the white front gate, with his bag on his shoulder, and paused for a good look at the building, it seemed to him a very comfortable farmstead, and vastly superior to the tumble-down farms around Nannizabuloe. The flagged path, which led up to the front door between great bunches of purple honesty, was swept as clean as a dairy.
A dark-haired maid opened the door and led him to the great kitchen at the back. Hams wrapped in paper hung from the rafters, and strings of onions. The pans over the fireplace were bright as mirrors, and through the open window he heard the voices of children at play as well as the clacking of poultry in the town-place.
"I'll go and tell the mistress," said the maid; but she paused at the door. "I suppose you don't remember me, now?"
"No," said Taffy, truthfully.
"My name's Lizzie Pezzack. You was with the young lady, that day, when she bought my doll. I mind you quite well. But I put my hair up last Easter, and that makes a difference."
"Why, you were only a child."
"I was seventeen last week. And—I say, do you know the Bryanite, over to Innis?—Preacher Jacky Pascoe?"
He nodded, remembering the caution given him.