Jasper made for the dining-room. In the Chippendale arm-chair by the window sat a shortish, thickset, hard-headed man in black, smoking a long pipe, and looking out on life with steel-black, whimsical eyes. He had one of those Roman heads, with harsh strong features, power in every line, and a cynical kindliness about the mouth.
"Why, Jeremy——!"
"Jeremy it is, lad. Come over and kiss me."
They laughed, and came together to grip hands with the impulsiveness of two men who have learned to love each other as men can.
"What are you doing down here?"
"Filling a chair and a bed."
"Good, by George! It's a year since we've seen you. Where's Squire Kit? Have you seen him?"
Jeremy settled the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe with the end of his little finger.
"Having a nap upstairs, Jasper. Curse me, lad, it's good to see you. Brown and lusty, eh, though you had a broken arm in the spring. What, Jack Bumpstead's no gossip. And how's that old blackguard, Goffin? I've brought him down a pound of snuff."
Jeremy Winter had been a gentleman of many adventures, and his picturesque career had culminated in the founding of a fencing school in a quiet street near St. James's. Jeremy and Jasper's mother had been cousins, and for twenty years Mr. Winter had descended at spasmodic intervals upon Rush Heath, never with much money in his pocket, but with plenty of audacity and cheerfulness in his eyes. He would have tales to tell of Canada, or the East Indies, or of service in the Austrian army, or of bronzed and ragged adventures in Spain. There was something lovable about the man. He was tough, capable, humorous, warm-hearted, a master of the small sword and the sabre, imperturbable and smiling in the face of odds.