They found Mr. Salton’s bailiff looking out for them on the dock, and he brought them at once to where the carriage was waiting in the street.  Richard Salton pointed out with pride to his young companion the suitability of the vehicle for every need of travel.  To it were harnessed four useful horses, with a postillion to each pair.

“See,” said the old man proudly, “how it has all the luxuries of useful travel—­silence and isolation as well as speed.  There is nothing to obstruct the view of those travelling and no one to overhear what they may say.  I have used that trap for a quarter of a century, and I never saw one more suitable for travel.  You shall test it shortly.  We are going to drive through the heart of England; and as we go I’ll tell you what I was speaking of last night.  Our route is to be by Salisbury, Bath, Bristol, Cheltenham, Worcester, Stafford; and so home.”

Adam remained silent a few minutes, during which he seemed all eyes, for he perpetually ranged the whole circle of the horizon.

“Has our journey to-day, sir,” he asked, “any special relation to what you said last night that you wanted to tell me?”

“Not directly; but indirectly, everything.”

“Won’t you tell me now—­I see we cannot be overheard—­and if anything strikes you as we go along, just run it in.  I shall understand.”

So old Salton spoke: 

“To begin at the beginning, Adam.  That lecture of yours on ’The Romans in Britain,’ a report of which you posted to me, set me thinking—­in addition to telling me your tastes.  I wrote to you at once and asked you to come home, for it struck me that if you were fond of historical research—­as seemed a fact—­this was exactly the place for you, in addition to its being the home of your own forbears.  If you could learn so much of the British Romans so far away in New South Wales, where there cannot be even a tradition of them, what might you not make of the same amount of study on the very spot.  Where we are going is in the real heart of the old kingdom of Mercia, where there are traces of all the various nationalities which made up the conglomerate which became Britain.”

“I rather gathered that you had some more definite—­more personal reason for my hurrying.  After all, history can keep—­except in the making!”

“Quite right, my boy.  I had a reason such as you very wisely guessed.  I was anxious for you to be here when a rather important phase of our local history occurred.”

“What is that, if I may ask, sir?”

“Certainly.  The principal landowner of our part of the county is on his way home, and there will be a great home-coming, which you may care to see.  The fact is, for more than a century the various owners in the succession here, with the exception of a short time, have lived abroad.”

“How is that, sir, if I may ask?”