“Well, Ensign, and who may you be?” the Earl enquired, smiling down at the boy. “Horatius, I fancy!”

“That’s Parson,” disclaimed the urchin. “I’m nobbut Tom Scrooby, come to mind the bridge, and see no one don’t come acrost, your honour, because it’s clean busted.” His round eyes, having thoroughly taken in the Earl, travelled to Theo. He pulled his sandy forelock. “Mr. Martin said as how he would tell Mr. Hayle, sir, and Father said when he come home that I could mind the bridge till Mr. Hayle come down to see it.”

“Mr. Martin — !” Theo checked himself. “Very well! See you mind it carefully, Tom! Mr. Hayle will be here presently.”

The Earl flicked a shilling to Master Scrooby, and set his horse in motion down the ride. Orthes was encouraged to break into an easy canter, but in a moment or two the roan caught up with him. Theo said in his quiet way: “You had better tell me what it is that troubles you, Gervase. If you are thinking that Martin should have warned you, I daresay he might not have heard you say that you would ride to Hatherfield this morning.”

“Is that what you think?”

“No,” said Theo bluntly.

“Nor do I think it. Do you know, I am becoming a little tired of Martin? Perhaps he would be happier at Studham after all. Or, at any rate, I should be.”

His cousin rode on beside him in silence, frowning slightly. After a pause, the Earl said: “You don’t agree?”

“That he would be happier there? No. That doesn’t signify, however. If you wish him to leave Stanyon, so be it! It will mean a breach, for he will not leave without making a deal of noise. Lady St. Erth, too, will not be silent, nor will she remain at Stanyon. What reason will you give for banishing Martin when he and she publish their wrongs to the rest of our relations?”

The Earl let Orthes drop to a walk. “Must I give any?”

“Unless you wish it to be thought that you have acted from caprice, or — which perhaps might be said by those who do not know you well — from rancour.”

There was a pause. “How very longheaded you are, Theo!” Gervase complained. “You are quite right, of course. But what is the boy about? Does he hope to drive me away from Stanyon? He cannot be so big a clodpole!”

Theo shrugged. “There is no saying what he may hope. But you cannot, I believe, shut your doors to him merely because he fenced once with the button off his foil, and did not warn you that a bridge was unsafe.”

“Ah, there is a little more than that!” Gervase said.

“What more?”

Gervase hesitated. “Why, I did not mean to tell you this, but I woke last night to the conviction that someone was in my room.”

Theo turned his head to stare at him under his brows. “In your room? Martin?”

“I can’t tell that. I have certain reasons for suspecting it may have been he, but by the time I was up, and could pull back my curtain, there was no one there.”

“Good God! Gervase, are you sure of this?”

“No, I am not sure, but I think that someone entered my room through the dressing-room. I heard what sounded to me like the click of a lock.”

“I cannot think it! Why, if — But what reason have you to think it was Martin?”

“I found him on the gallery outside my room.”

“What?”

“He said that he had been out — to Cheringham, a statement which I was disinclined to believe. Miss Morville, however, who was roused by the slamming of a door, considers that he may well have been speaking the truth. She seems to think he went there to see a cockfight.”

“Very likely. But I had no idea of this! I thought he had had the head-ache! And you believe — ”

“No, no, I believe nothing! But I have a strong notion I shall take my pistols to bed with me while I remain at Stanyon! It will be quite like Peninsular days.”

Theo smiled. “You have brought some desperate habits home with you! Only don’t rouse the household by firing at a mouse which is unlucky enough to disturb your rest!”

“Nothing less than a rat, I promise you!” Gervase said gravely.

They proceeded on their way without further mishap. The Earl faithfully visited his old friend, Yelden; his cousin inspected the new plantation; and they returned to Stanyon at noon, by way of the main avenue, which traversed the Home Park from the seventeenth-century lodge, with its wrought-iron gates, to the original Gate-tower of the Castle, still in remarkably good preservation, but no longer guarding a drawbridge. The moat having been filled in, the tower served no particular purpose, but figured in the guidebooks as a fine example of fourteenth-century architecture. Through its vaulted archway the east, and main, entrance to the Castle was reached, which opened on to what had once been the outer bailey, and was now a handsome court, laid out with a broad gravel drive, and formal flower-beds.

As the cousins rode through the archway, a sporting curricle came into sight, drawn up by the steps leading to the front-door. A smart-looking groom was standing at the heads of the wheelers; and the equipage plainly belonged to someone aspiring to the highest crack of fashion, since it was drawn by four horses. This made Theo exclaim that he could not imagine who could have come to visit Stanyon in such a turn-out. He sounded scornful, but Gervase said in mock-reproof that he showed a shocking ignorance. “A curricle-and-four, my dear Theo, is the mark of the Nonesuch, let me tell you! Now, whom have you in Lincolnshire who — Good God! I should know those horses!” He spurred forward as he spoke, and a gentleman in a driving-coat of white drab, and a hat with a high, conical crown and beaver brim, who had been conferring with Abney at the head of the wide stone steps, turned, saw him, and came down the steps again, calling out: “Hallo, there, Ger! Turn out, man! the enemy is upon you!”

“Lucy, by all that’s wonderful!” the Earl ejaculated, sliding from the saddle, and gripping both his friend’s hands. “My dear fellow! Where have you sprung from?”

“Been staying with the Caldbecks, dear old boy,” explained his visitor. “Couldn’t leave the country without seeing you! Now don’t, don’t think yourself bound to invite me to put up here! My man is following me with all my baggage, but I see how it is — you have no room!”

An airy gesture indicated the sprawling pile behind the speaker; a pair of bright eyes quizzed the Earl, who laughed, and retorted: “An attic — we will find room for you in an attic! Theo, can we house this fellow, do you think? My cousin, Lucy — Theo, this is Captain Lucius Austell — oh, no! I beg pardon! It is Lord Ulverston! When did you sell out, Lucy?”

“Not so long after you,” replied Ulverston, exchanging a cordial handshake with Theo. “M’father felt, when m’grandfather died, that he couldn’t have the three of us serving, so it fell to me to sell out. I told him I might as easily be killed in the streets of London as on any military service — never saw such a rabble of traffic in my life! Lisbon’s nothing to it, dear boy! — but nothing would do for him but to have me in England!”

By this time, Theo had grasped that his cousin’s friend was the heir to the Earl of Wrexham, who had lately succeeded to his father’s dignities. He enquired civilly after his youngest brother, Cornelius, whom he had once met in the house of a common acquaintance, and the Viscount replied, with the insouciance which characterized him: “Haven’t a notion how he is! Think he’s on the West Indian station, but these naval fellows, you know, jaunter about the world so that there’s no keeping up with them at all! Corney means to be a Rear or a Vice, or some such thing, but with the Frogs rompe’d, and poor old Boney sent off to some curst island or another, devil a bit of promotion will there be! Said so to Freddy, when I sold out, but he’s just got his company, and thinks he’ll command the regiment in a brace of shakes. D’you know my brother Freddy? No? Very dull dog: ought to have been the eldest! Often thought so!”

The Earl, who had been inspecting the horses, interrupted, saying over his shoulder: “How do you like ‘em, Lucy?”

“Why, you old horse-chaunter, didn’t you sell ‘em to me with a warranty they were sixteen-mile-an-hour tits? Not a second above fifteen-and-a-half — word of a gentleman! Now, Ger, why did you sell ‘em to me? Four good ‘uns — complete to a shade!”

“Oh, my cousin preached economy to me! You may say they are my breakdowns!”

“Economy!” exclaimed Theo. “Pray, what did you give for your grays?”

“Grays?” said the Viscount. “Ger, not Bingham’s grays? Well, by God, if I had known he had a mind to sell them — !”

His cloak-bag having been unstrapped from the back of the curricle, and borne into the house, the Viscount waved dismissal to his henchman, saying: “Take ‘em away, Clarence! take ‘em away!” and tucked a hand in the Earl’s arm. “Well, old fellow, how does it suit you after all? You look pretty stout!”

Theo took his bridle from Gervase, saying that he must go to the stables, and would lead Orthes. Gervase smiled his thanks, and led the Viscount into the Castle.

“I hope you mean to stay at Stanyon for several weeks, Lucy,” he said. “I warn you, however, that it is a dreadful place! I daresay my stepmother will dislike it excessively that you have come to visit me — and in such a rig!”

“Ger! The Four-Horse Club!” protested the Viscount, shocked.

“I am aware. She will think you a coxcomb, and you will leave Stanyon tomorrow, routed by her Roman nose!”

“Parrot-faced, is she?” said the Viscount, interested. “Lay you a monkey she don’t peck me! Dear boy, did you ever see my aunts? Three of ‘em, all parrot-faced, and all hot at hand! Father’s frightened of ‘em — m’mother’s frightened of ‘em — Freddy won’t face ‘em! Only person who can handle ‘em’s me! No bamming — true as I stand here! Ask anyone!”