Brandon wished to see Melcombe, even to examine some parts of the house and grounds, and he wanted if possible to hear something more about the ghost story; but it did not suit him to betray any special interest.  So he left it to work its way to the surface if it would.  It was not the business he had come about, but he had undertaken to transact that, on purpose because it gave him a chance of looking at the place.

This was the deep glen, then, that he had heard Valentine speak of?

“Yes; and mother says the old uncle Mortimer (that one who lived at Wigfield) improved it so much; he had so many trees thinned out, and a pond dug where there used to be a swamp.  We’ve got some carp in that pond.  Do you think, if I fed them, they would get tame?”

Brandon told some anecdote of certain carp that he had seen abroad, and then asked—­

“Do you like the glen, my boy—­is it a favourite place of yours?”

“Pretty well,” answered Peter.  “There are not so many nests, though, as there used to be.  It used to be quite dark with trees.”

“Did you like it then?”

“Yes, it was jolly; but——­”

“But what?” asked Brandon carelessly.

“Grandmother didn’t like it,” said the boy.

Brandon longed to ask why.

“She was very old, my grandmother.”

“Yes.  And so she didn’t like the glen?”

“No; but the old uncle has had a walk, a sort of path, made through it; and mamma says I may like it as much as I please, so does aunt Laura.”  “You know,” continued the child, in an argumentative tone, “there’s no place in the world where somebody hasn’t died.”

“Now, what does this mean?” thought Brandon.  “I would fain raise the ghost if I could.  Is he coming up now, or is he not?”

Presently, however, Peter made some allusion to the family misfortune—­the death of the eldest son, by which Brandon perceived that it had taken place in the glen.  He then dropped the subject, nothing more that was said till a few minutes before they reached the tutor’s lodgings being of the least interest.  Then, as they turned the edge of a wood, Peter looked back.

“You won’t forget the turn of the lane you are to take, will you, Mr. Brandon? and you’ve got the key?”

“Yes,” said Brandon.

“It’s a green sort of door, in the park-paling.  A new one has been made, because that one was so shabby.  It’s the one my uncles went through when they ran away, you know.”

“What uncles?” asked Brandon, not at all suspecting the truth, and not much interested.

“Why, that one who belonged to you,” said Peter, “and the other one who belongs to Bertie and Hugh.  Didn’t you know?” he exclaimed, having observed the momentary flash of surprise that Brandon made haste to conceal.  “They ran away,” he repeated, as Brandon walked beside him making no answer, “a very long time before my mamma was born, and they never came back any more till I was nearly six years old.”