Roy spoke to them all with boyish frankness and grace, and then eagerly demanded if tea might be on the terrace.  Miss Bertram agreed and while she went indoors for a chat with the housekeeper, the boys tore round the place dragging Rob after them.  The stables of course were visited, and an old groom who had known the boys’ fathers when boys, welcomed them with great warmth.

“Ye must grow quicker, Master Fitz Roy.  We want to see you here among us.  I’m looking to see all these stalls occupied by hunters and sich like again.  ’Tis mournful work to live year in and year out with only two bosses for company!”

“Tell us about the old times, Ben, do!”

Ben sat down and spread his hands out on his knees reflectively.

“All the young gentlemen were born riders,” he said, slowly; “I mind how Master Randolph would tear up the avenue after a long ride.  ‘There, Ben’ he’d say to me, chucking me the rein, and jumpin’ off as light as a feather, ‘we’ve worked our spirits h’off—­Ruby and me!’ When the old squire were alive, he’d have all three young gentlemen up, and then he’d mount them and bring them down to Ruddocks stream, and see them jump it.  He used to say, ’No grandson of mine is worth calling a Bertram if he can’t take that leap before he is twelve year old!’ They all did it before they was ten, and he used to stand chuckling and rubbing his hands as he saw them do it.”

“Is that the stream at the bottom of the back meadow?” asked Dudley, eagerly; “the one with the hedge in front?”

“Ay, to be sure!”

“But we have never jumped it,” exclaimed Roy.  “And I think we ought to for we’re his great-grandsons.”

“We shan’t be twelve for a long time yet,” said Dudley, “but we really ought to try.”

“Well, we’ll do it this evening after tea; and you shall come and see us do it, Ben.”

Ben grinned from ear to ear.

“You’ll go over it like a bird, if so be as your pony is accustomed to sich things!”

“We haven’t taken very high jumps,” admitted Dudley, candidly.

“Oh, we shall do it,” said Roy, with a little toss of his head; “we’ll make them go over!”

And then they turned to other subjects.

“What do you think of my house, Rob?” asked Roy, later on as he was escorting his humble friend through the empty rooms and corridors upstairs.

“It’ll take a powerful number of people to fill it,” said Rob, with awe.

“I shall have a lot of friends to stay with me, of course, and then I shall marry; men always do that, don’t they?”

“I b’lieve they mostly does,” was the grave reply.

“And won’t you like to come and live with me here?”

“That I should.”

“Well,” said Dudley, from a few paces behind; “if you’re going to travel, you won’t use your house much, Roy.  If Rob is going to be your follower, I’ll come and live here when you’re abroad, and when you come home, I’ll go away.”