After all his weary travels by land and sea, Philip Marsham had at last come back to find a man whom he had seen but once and for a brief time. Yet in that man he had such complete confidence as he had never had in any other, and since Jamie Barwick had left the man's service and taken the inn—who knew?
Striding over the same rolling country road that he had tramped with Martin long before, and coming soon to the park, he skirted it and pressed on, keeping meanwhile his eyes and wits about him, until he perceived a gate and a porter's lodge2. He went to the gate and finding it ajar slipped through and made haste up a long avenue with overarching trees. A man from the lodge came out and angrily called after the intruder, but Phil never looked back. The avenue turned to the left and he saw at a distance the great house; he was of no mind to suffer hindrance3 or delay.
The sunset sky threw long, still shadows across the grass, and countless4 wandering branches of ivy5 lay like a dark drapery upon the grey walls of the old house. A huge dog came bounding and roaring down the avenue, but when the lad smiled without fear and reached a friendly hand toward him, the beast stopped clamouring and came quietly to heel. Lights shone from the windows and softly on the still evening air the thin, sweet music of a virginal stole over the broad terraces and lawns.
The clamour of the dog, it seemed, had attracted the attention of those within, for a grey-haired servant met the stranger in the door. He stood there suspiciously, forbiddingly, and with a cold stare searched the young man from head to heel.
"I would have speech of Sir John Bristol," said Phil.
The servant frowned. "Nay6, you have blundered," he replied haughtily7. "The servants' hall—"
"I said Sir John."
"Sir John? It is—ahem!—impossible."
"I said Sir John."
The servant moved as if to shut the door.
"Come," said Phil quietly, "enough of that! I will have speech of Sir John Bristol."
For a moment the servant hesitated, then from within a great voice cried, "Come, Cobden, what's afoot?"
In haughty8 disapproval9 of the lad without, the servant turned his back, but to the man within he spoke10 with deference11, as if apologizing. "Yea, Sir John. The fellow is insistent12, but I shall soon have him off."
"Go, Cobden. Leave him to me."
The servant moved away and disappeared.
The virginalling had ceased, and on the lawns and the avenue and the park, which stretched away into the dark valley, a deep silence had come with the twilight13. The sun had set and the long shadows across the grass were lost in the greater shadow of evening. As the world without had grown darker, the lights within seemed to have grown brighter.
"Come, fellow, come into the hall. So! Have I not seen thee before?"
"Yea, Sir John."
"Ha! I can remember faces. Aye, there are few that escape me. Let us consider. Why, on my life! This is the lad that gave Barwick such a tumbling that the fellow walked
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