“Oh! he’s here,” she laughed, then called, “Come here, Henry, where are you?” and then she added, “He’s never left here once since he came home from sea eighteen years ago. We’re both so very attached to the old place. A bit lonely, folks would call it, but Burghwallis is only a mile away.”
At mention of her husband’s return from sea we both pricked up our ears. Here was evidently the man for whom Burton Blair had searched the length and breadth of England.
Chapter Nineteen.
Which Contains a Clue.
A door opened and there came forward a tall, thin, wiry old man with white hair and a pointed grey beard. He had evidently retired on our arrival in order to change his coat, for he wore a blue reefer jacket which had had but little wear, but the collar of which was twisted, showing that he had only that moment assumed it.
His face was deeply wrinkled with long, straight furrows across the brows; the countenance of a man who for years had been exposed to rigours of wind and weather in varying climates.
Having welcomed us, he laughed lightly when we explained our admiration for old houses. We were Londoners, we explained, and toll-houses and their associations with the antiquated locomotion of the past always charmed us.
“Yes,” he said, in a rather refined voice for such a rough exterior, “they were exciting days, those. Nowadays the motor car has taken the place of the picturesque coach and team, and they rush past here backwards and forwards, blowing their horns at every hour of the day and night. Half the time we have a constable lying in wait in the back garden ready to time them on to Campsall, and take ’em to the Petty Sessions afterwards!” he laughed; “and fancy this at the very spot where Claude Duval held up the Duke of Northumberland and afterwards gallantly escorted Lady Mary Percy back to Selby.”