"If her name wur Nellie Blisland, I would."

"I hope you will get on," said Mrs. Drake in her kindliest fashion. "You may come in any evening for a cup of coffee with the others, and tell your grandfather to stay to supper with you on Sundays after church."

"Thankye kindly," said Sidney.

"That's what I call a man, though he is only nineteen," observed Mrs.

Drake, when she and her nephew were alone again.

"Oh yes, he's a nice boy, a clever boy. A bit mealy-mouthed, and all that sort of thing," said George indifferently.

"Do you know anything against him?"

"I can see what's going on. The old man is one of the best, but Sidney isn't quite straight. This singing in the choir, you know, is just a blind. Nellie's not the only girl."

"Do you mean to say the boy is a humbug--like you are?"

"Find out for yourself," replied George fiercely, and stalked out of the room.

Local rumour was brought to Windward House every day by Robert, but Mrs. Drake had no direct communication with him. She inquired of Kezia concerning Sidney's character, and Kezia appealed to Bessie, who knew quite as much as her husband, although she could not speak with his authority. Robert declared he liked Sidney, and had never seen him with more than one young woman at a time; but he admitted some rather unkind things were being said against the two occupants of the lonely farm, especially by the women, who were of opinion that old Brock had disposed of his former relations by means of those illegal methods which made the ordinary Sunday newspaper such interesting and instructive reading. At all events, a man who was independent of female labour could not expect to be regarded as a Christian, even though he did attend church and had grown a patriarchal beard. The Brocks, in short, were not like other men; they were therefore mysteries; and anything of a mysterious nature was bound to be intimately connected with secret crime.

These things Robert admitted, quite forgetting--if the fact had ever dawned upon him--that it was the custom in Highfield, as in other places about the Forest of Dartmoor, for the parishioners to revile each other amongst themselves, and to defend one another against all outsiders. In the bad old days a certain vicar of Highfield had been a notorious drunkard, and was so hated by his people that he could hardly appear in the street without being insulted; but when the authorities sought to procure evidence against him, all were for their vicar, and the very men who had carried him home drunk the previous night swore they had never known him the worse for liquor. Mrs. Drake did not know of this peculiarity, and was therefore forced to the conclusion that Mr. Brock had a past, which was not wonderful considering his age; and that, if Nellie married Sidney and went to live at Black Anchor, it was quite possible she would not have a future. So she instructed Kezia not to encourage the young man, and advised Nellie to fall out of love as tactfully as possible.

In the meantime, George appeared to be pa.s.sing through the throes of reformation. Although actually the same unprofitable person, he succeeded, by a skilful change of methods, in making his aunt believe industry was now the one and the only thing he lived for. He displayed a pa.s.sion for railways; talked of little but express trains and timetables; constructed a model of a railway station out of a few packing cases; and drew caricatures of locomotives. He fumed every morning because the long expected letter from headquarters still failed to arrive. Mrs. Drake, who was easily deceived, quite supposed George had turned over a new leaf; and he had done so, but without changing his book. He had not the slightest intention of quitting Windward House, but he could see no prospect of carrying out his programme by persevering in the old methods. He continued to idle away his time; but he did so in a different fashion.

His next step was to develop the programme, and to indulge a few of the leading items to the other person whose name was writ large upon it.

This was no easy matter, since opportunity, resolution, and guileless speech would have to be obtained simultaneously. George's eloquence was of the meanest description; he was master of no honeyed phrase, while his method of expressing affection for another consisted in advertising the virtues of himself.

One afternoon he was lying beneath a favourite apple tree, when a fine specimen of the fruit fell upon his chest. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked round. Then he ate the apple and listened. The silence was profound; he seemed to be indolent monarch of a lazy world. George remembered that, shortly before sleep had gently touched his eyelids, Mrs. Drake and Kezia had pa.s.sed out of the garden. Miss Yard would be contentedly muddling through the maze of some missionary magazine. While the only other person in the house might be sitting beside a window at the back.

George comprehended that the falling apple had been a call to seize the opportunity; resolution he seemed to have acquired by devouring it; eloquence alone was wanting. But big words, he knew, could never fail brave people.

Fortune was smiling in the kindest way from the little upstairs window, where Nellie's head was bobbing over a sewing-machine, which she fed with yards of summer-cloud material. George went on steadily reforming and strenuously gazing; but Nellie did not condescend to throw a glance in his direction.

"There's a nice view from your window," he said at last; an unfortunate beginning, as the girl could see little except himself.

"Lovely," she said, without looking around.

"Are you sewing?" George inquired gently.

"Learning the typewriter," she replied.

George wanted to go into the house and procure a gla.s.s of cider, but dared not lose the opportunity.

"Nellie," he said, making as many syllables possible of her name, "do you mind me talking to you a little about yourself?"

"I can't prevent it unless I shut the window, and don't want to do that," she said.

"I wanted to say that--to remind you that my aunt is not going to live for ever," George continued.

"That's not talking about me."

"Ah, but I'm coming to you presently."

"You can stay where you are," she said coldly.

"Miss Yard won't live for ever either," said George, more confidently.

"She can't leave you anything, because all her money goes to my beastly cousin Percy. I know she is always promising to leave you money, but she can't do it."

"I am to have her furniture anyhow," said Nellie, removing her hands from the machine, and turning at last towards the window.

"Oh no! I get that. Aunt Sophy's furniture is to go with the rest."

"Is that really true?" asked Nellie, who had good reason to be suspicious of Miss Yard's promises.

"Yes, it all comes to me," said George eagerly. "I shall have the furniture, and the house, and the cash my aunt leaves. The two Chinese vases aunt keeps underneath her bed are worth a thousand pounds; that's a great secret, and I wouldn't tell any one but you. The other things will fetch five hundred pounds. Then I shall have the money that aunt leaves--perhaps another five hundred. Then the property will bring another thousand. So you see, when the old ladies die, I shall have pots of money."

"It will mean more to be you then than it does now," said Nellie darkly.

"Yes, I shall be quite rich. You see, there's no reason why I should work, as aunt is well past seventy."

"But I thought you were going to do something great and wonderful on the railway?"

"That was an idea, but I can't afford to leave the place; that's another secret, Nellie, and I wouldn't tell any one but you. I am so afraid aunt may give away the vases. She's getting a bit queer in her memory too, and she's always giving away things. When I went to see about a job on the railway she sent a lot of my things to a rummage sale. She has given Kezia the bed she sleeps on, and a lot more things; but they all belong to me, and I shall claim them when she dies."

"She has promised me the round table in the parlour," said Nellie.

"Of course I don't mind what she gives you," said George awkwardly.

"Many thanks. Now I must go and put on the kettle for tea. You have told me such a lot about myself."

"Yes, and I've got still more to say. I shall have quite three thousand pounds--and my tastes are very simple. I don't expect much, and I don't ask for much. It's my own belief that I can put up with almost anybody."

"Now I'm in for it!" Nellie murmured, with a scorching glance at the somewhat dejected figure in the garden.

"I have always flattered myself," George rambled on, with the feeling that eloquence had come to him at last, "I can get along anyhow with anyone."

"You mustn't be too complimentary. Flattery alone is not worth much, you know," she said carelessly.

"I mean all that I say, and--and I'm not so idle as they make out, but what's the good of breaking your back when you are coming into thousands? It's only taking a job from some other fellow. I can draw quite well, and paint, and prune roses, and I shall have all my uncle's famous furniture, and the house, and the money--"

"Oh, for goodness' sake, don't keep on talking about me," cried Nellie.

"If you won't let me say anything more, I'll write it all down," said George delightedly. "I have tried, but it's so hard to find a word to rhyme with Nellie, while Nell is just as bad. Now if your name had been Mary, there's dairy, and fairy, and hairy--"

"And wary," laughed the girl, as she ran away from the window.