“My name is Dennis,” replied the comely farmer’s wife with a pleasant smile. “This is called Furze Down Farm, and Mr Anderson-James is a solicitor in Tunbridge Wells. So now you know all about us,” and the woman, in her big white apron, laughed merrily.
Kennedy and the girl exchanged glances.
“Well,” he said, “I’ll go out and try to put the machine right. It won’t take very long, I hope. If I can’t—well, we must go back by train. Where’s the nearest station, Mrs Dennis?”
“Well—Paddock Wood is about two miles,” was her reply. “If you can’t get your motor right my husband will put it into a cart and drive you over there. It’s the direct line to London.”
“Thanks so much,” he said, and went out, leaving Ella to rest in the cosy, well-furnished room which the solicitor from Tunbridge Wells occupied occasionally through the week-ends.
“Mr Anderson-James keeps this place as a hobby. He’s retired from practice,” the woman went on, “and he likes to come here for fresh air. When you’ve rested I’ll show you round the houses—if you’re interested in a dairy-farm.”
“I’m most interested,” declared the girl. “I don’t want to rest. I’d rather see the farm, if it is quite convenient to you to show it to me.”
“Oh, quite, miss,” was the woman’s prompt response. She came from Devonshire, as Ella had quickly detected, and was an artist in butter-making, the use of the mechanical-separator, and the management of poultry.
The pair went out at once and, passing by clean asphalt paths, went to the range of model cowhouses, each scrupulously clean and well-kept. Then to the piggeries, the great poultry farm away in the meadows, and, lastly, into the white-tiled dairy itself, where four maids in white smocks and caps were busy with butter, milk, and cream.
Ranged along one side of the great dairy were about thirty galvanised-iron chums of milk, ready for transport, and Ella, noting them, asked their destination.