“Very true, sir,” observed Mr. Peers; “three of those oaks, though, two of them little better than stumps, are there still; and Clewson of Heckleston has an old document——­”

Here, unhappily, the landlord entered the room in a fuss, and walking up to the stranger, said, “The chaise is at the door, Mr. Feltram, and the trunks up, sir.”

Mr. Feltram rose quietly and took out his purse, and said,

“I suppose I had better pay at the bar?”

“As you like best, sir,” said Richard Turnbull.

Mr. Feltram bowed all round to the gentlemen, who smiled, ducked or waved their hands; and the Doctor fussily followed him to the hall-door, and welcomed him back to Golden Friars—­there was real kindness in this welcome—­and proffered his broad brown hand, which Mr. Feltram took; and then he plunged into his chaise, and the door being shut, away he glided, chaise, horses, and driver, like shadows, by the margin of the moonlighted lake, towards Mardykes Hall.

And after a few minutes’ stand upon the steps, looking along the shadowy track of the chaise, they returned to the glow of the room, in which a pleasant perfume of punch still prevailed; and beside Mr. Philip Feltram’s deserted tea-things, the host of the George enlightened his guests by communicating freely the little he had picked up.  The principal fact he had to tell was, that Sir Bale adhered strictly to his original plan, and was to arrive on the tenth.  A few days would bring them to that, and the nine-days wonder run its course and lose its interest.  But in the meantime, all Golden Friars was anxious to see what Sir Bale Mardykes was like.

CHAPTER IV

The Baronet Appears

As the candles burn blue and the air smells of brimstone at the approach of the Evil One, so, in the quiet and healthy air of Golden Friars, a depressing and agitating influence announced the coming of the long-absent Baronet.

From abroad, no good whatever had been at any time heard of him, and a great deal that was, in the ears of simple folk living in that unsophisticated part of the world, vaguely awful.

Stories that travel so far, however, lose something of their authority, as well as definiteness, on the way; there was always room for charity to suggest a mistake or exaggeration; and if good men turned up their hands and eyes after a new story, and ladies of experience, who knew mankind, held their heads high and looked grim and mysterious at mention of his name, nevertheless an interval of silence softened matters a little, and the sulphureous perfume dissipated itself in time.

Now that Sir Bale Mardykes had arrived at the Hall, there were hurried consultations held in many households.  And though he was tried and sentenced by drum-head over some austere hearths, as a rule the law of gravitation prevailed, and the greater house drew the lesser about it, and county people within the visiting radius paid their respects at the Hall.