Stafford accepted, and presented his cigar case.  He asked the distance to the new house on the other side of the lake, and having been informed, spoke of the fishing.

“You did very well to-day, sir.” said Mr. Groves.  “You were fishing in the Heron water, I suppose?”

This was what Stafford wanted.

“Yes,” he said.  “I was poaching.  I mistook it for the Lesset water.  I must go over and apologise to Mr. Heron.  By the way, I was told I was poaching by a young lady who rode down to the stream while I was fishing.  I had some little conversation with her, but I did not learn her name.  She was a young lady with dark hair, rode a big horse, and had a couple of dogs with her—­a collie and a fox-terrier.”  The landlord had nodded assentingly at each item of the description.

“That must have been Miss Ida—­Miss Heron, the squire’s daughter, sir,” he said.

Stafford’s brows went up.

“No wonder she stared at me,” he said, almost to himself.  “But are you sure?  The young lady I saw was not dressed, well—­like a squire’s daughter, and she was looking after some sheep like—­like a farmer’s girl.”

The landlord nodded again.

“That was Miss Ida, right enough, sir,” he said, with a touch of respect, and something like pride in his tone.  “Indeed, it couldn’t be anyone else.  No doubt Miss Ida had come down to look after the sheep in the valley; and there’s no farmer’s daughter in the vale that could do it better, or half so well, as she.  There isn’t a girl in the county, or, for that matter, a man, either, who can ride like Miss Ida, or knows more about the points of a horse or a dog—­yes, and you may say a cow—­than the squire’s daughter.  And as to her being poorly dressed—­well, there’s a reason for that, sir.  The family’s poor—­very poor.”

“Yet the dale seems to be called after them?” Stafford remarked.

“It is, sir!” assented the landlord.  “At one time they owned more land than any other of the big families here; miles and miles of it, with some of the best farms.  But that was before my time, though I’ve heard my father tell of it; there’s not very much left now beyond the dale and the home meadows.”  He sighed as he spoke and looked sadly at the costly cigar which he was smoking.  The feudal spirit still exists in the hearts of the men who were born in these remote dales and towering hills, and the landlord of the little inn was as proud of the antiquity of the Heron family, and as sorry for its broken fortune as any villein of the middle ages could have been for the misfortunes of his feudal baron.