"This" was to go back a few paces, run forward, put her hands on the top and vault the gate as a boy vaults a "gym" horse. E. A. Gallup did not attempt to follow suit. He climbed over, clumsily enough, dropping his stick on the wrong side. When he had recovered it, he raised his muddy hat with a sweep. "I see we are in a road of some sort, perhaps you will kindly direct me to the village, and I will not trouble . . . er . . . Mr Heaven----"

"But much the nearest way to the village is down our front drive. And we pa.s.s the stables to go to it."

"I couldn't think of intruding in your drive. Have the goodness to direct me."

"But the woods are ours just as much as the drive; where's the difference? In fact, we'd _rather_ have people walk in the drive because of the pheasants."

"There _is_ a difference, though it may not be apparent to you . . . if I follow this road, do I come to the village?"

"Don't be silly," she said shortly. "If you prefer to be all over mud there's no more to be said, but I can't direct you any more than I've done. If you want to get to the village you must go down our drive, unless you go wandering another mile and a half out of your way. It's quite a short drive; only you must come by the stables to get to it.

_Are_ you coming?"

"I'm afraid I seem ungrateful," he began.

"You do rather," she interrupted.

"I a.s.sure you I am not. I appreciate your kindness, but I cannot see why I should trouble . . ."

"Oh, Heaven's used to it; _he_ wouldn't mind, but it's evident you would, so come along. It will be dark before long, and I'll get into no end of a row if I'm out alone, and father meets me when I get in. Not a soul will see you, please hurry."

She led him across a deserted stableyard, and round the back of the house through a wide-walked formal garden, where Christmas roses shone star white in the herbacious border, where yew trees were clipped into fantastic shapes, and tall grey statues looked like ghosts in the gathering dusk, till they reached the sweep of gravelled drive in front of the house. Wide lawns sloped steeply to the banks of the Marle, which flowed through the grounds. The red December sun was reflected in a myriad flames in the many mullioned windows of the Manor. As the girl had promised, not a soul was in sight, and it was very still.

"There, Mr Gallup," she announced, cheerfully, "follow the drive and you'll find the village outside the gates. Good-bye! I must go in by the side door with these boots." And before he could do more than lift his hat while he murmured inarticulate thanks, she had walked swiftly away and vanished round the angle of the house.

For a moment he stood quite still, looking at the beautiful old Jacobean manor-house so warmly red in the sunset. Then he, too, turned and walked quickly down the winding drive, and as he went he murmured softly: "So that's what they're like . . . curious anomaly . . . curious anomaly."

The girl entered the house by the side door, changed her muddy boots and hung up her coat and hat in a little room devoted to boot boxes and pegs, and ran upstairs to the schoolroom. Her elder brother, Grantly, who lounged smoking in the deep window-seat, swung his feet to the floor with a plump, and sat facing her as she came in, saying sternly:

"Mary, who on earth was that man you were with? Where did you pick him up?"

Mary laughed. "I literally picked him up from the very wettest part of the wood, where all the firs are, you know. He was sitting mournfully in a young pond, apparently quite incapable of getting up by himself, and very much afraid of Parker, who was barking furiously."

"Showed his sense; but what was that chap doing there, and who is he?"

"He was trespa.s.sing, of course; makes a point of it, he says, but he'd evidently lost his way, so I put him right. I thought if he and the pater met there'd be words. He isn't at all a meek young man, and talks like that _Course of Reading_ Miss Glover loves so."

"If he talked so much, he must have told you something about himself."

"Not much; his name is E. A. Gallup, and he was going to pay a call in Redmarley."

"What's he like? I only saw his back, and deucedly disreputable it was.

He looked as if he had been rolling drunk."

Mary laughed again. "I shouldn't think _he_ ever got drunk," she said; "he's far too solemn. In appearance, he's rather like a very respectable young milkman, fresh-coloured, you know, and sort of blunt everywhere, but he speaks--if you can imagine a cross between a very superior curate and the pater--that's what he speaks like, except that there's just an echo of an accent--not bad, you know, but there."

Grantly took the pipe out of his mouth and pulled the lobe of his ear meditatively.

"Gallup," he repeated. "Gallup, I've heard something about that name quite lately. Surely, if you walked with him right from the Forty Firs and talked all the time, you must have found out something more?"

"He's going to make a speech at Marlehouse to-morrow night; he was spouting away like anything just before he fell down. That's what made Parker bark so."

"I've got it," cried Grantly. "He's the Liberal candidate, that's what he is. He's standing against poor old Brooke of Medenham, and they say he'll get in, too--young brute."

"Is he a Labour member?"

"No, Liberal, they couldn't run a Labour member at Marlehouse; not enough cash in the const.i.tuency . . . tell you who he is, son of old Gallup that kept the ready-made clothes shop in the market-place--'Golden Anchor' or something, they called it. Mother used to buy suits there for the kids in the village for Easter, jolly decent suits they were, too."

"And does he keep on the 'Golden Anchor'?"

"I don't think so, but I don't know. Jolly good cheek marching through our woods, as if they belonged to him. Wish I'd met him."

"My dear chap, we're the last people in the world who can say anything to people for marching through other people's property, you especially.

Why, nine-tenths of the bad rows, ever since any of us could walk, have been about that sort of thing."

"Good old Mary, that Radical chap's converted you. What else did he say?

Come on; get it off your chest."

At that moment, the door was opened by an elderly man-servant, who announced: "The master wishes to speak to you, Miss Mary."

"Oh, Botticelli! Cimabue! Burne Jones!" Mary e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "The pater must have been looking out of the window, too. What _bad_ luck."

"I wouldn't mention having _touched_ the chap in your interview with the pater," Grantly called after her.

As Eloquent neared the Manor gates--those great gates famous throughout the country for the gryphons on their posts and their wonderful fairy-like iron tracery--a little boy came out from amongst the tall chestnuts in the avenue. His face was dirty and his sailor-suit much the worse for wear, but his outstanding, high-bridged little nose and broad, confident smile proclaimed him one of the family. He stood right in the stranger's path, exclaiming:

"Hullo! had a sc.r.a.p with the keeper?"

His tone proclaimed a purely friendly curiosity. "Certainly not,"

Eloquent answered, coldly. "I had the misfortune to slip and fall."

"Why ever didn't they clean you up a bit at the house?" the little boy asked.

"Your sister was kind enough to suggest it----"

"Which sister?"

"Miss----" he hardly liked to say "M. B.," and paused.

"Big or little? There's only two."

"Rather big, I should say."

"Oh, that's Mary--did she b.u.mp into you?"

Eloquent looked hopelessly puzzled, and the boy hastened to add:

"She's a bit of a gawk, you know, and awfully strong. I thought she might have charged into you and knocked you over . . . she wouldn't mean to do it . . ."