But his guests, over their cigars, were busy with some local news, and, catching Faversham’s name, Tatham presently recalled his thoughts sufficiently to listen to what was being said.  The topic, naturally, was Faversham’s appointment.  Every landowner there was full of it.  He had been seen in Brampton on market day driving in a very decent motor; and since his accession he had succeeded in letting two or three of the derelict farms, on a promise of repairs and improvements which had been at last wrung out of Melrose.  It was rumoured also that the most astonishing things were happening in the house and the gardens.

“Who on earth is the man, and where does he come from?” asked a short, high-shouldered man with a blunt, pugnacious face.  He was an ex-officer, a J.P., and one of the most active Conservative wire-pullers of the neighbourhood.  He and Victoria Tatham were the best of friends.  They differed on almost all subjects.  He was a mass of prejudices, large and small, and Victoria laughed at him.  But when she wanted to help any particularly lame dog over any particularly high stile, she always went to Colonel Barton.  A cockney doctor attached to the Workhouse had once described him to her as—­’eart of gold, ’edd of feathers’—­and the label had stuck.

“A Londoner, picked up badly hurt on the road, by Undershaw, I understand, and carried into the lion’s den,” said Andover, in answer to Barton.  “And now they say he is obtaining the most extraordinary influence over the old boy.”

“And the house—­turned into a perfect palace!” said the rector, throwing up his hands.

The others, except Tatham, crowded eagerly round, while the rector described a visit he had paid to Faversham, within a few days of the agent’s appointment, on behalf of a farmer’s widow, a parishioner, under notice to quit.

“Hadn’t been in the house for twenty years.  The place is absolutely transformed!  It used to be a pigsty.  Now Faversham’s rooms are fit for a prince.  Nothing short of one of your rooms here”—­he addressed Tatham, with a laughing gesture toward the house—­“comparable to his sitting-room.  Priceless things in it!  And close by, an excellent office, with room for two clerks—­one already at work—­piles of blue-books, pamphlets, heavens knows what!  And they are fitting up a telephone between Threlfall and some new rooms that he has taken for estate business in Pengarth.”

“A telephone—­at Threlfall!” murmured Andover.

“And Undershaw tells me that Melrose has taken the most extraordinary fancy for the young man.  Everything is done for him.  He may have anything he likes.  And, rumour says—­an enormous salary!”

“Sounds like an adventurer,” grumbled Barton, “probably is.”

Tatham broke in.  “No, you’re wrong there, Colonel.  I knew Faversham at college.  He’s a very decent fellow—­and awfully clever.”

Yet, somehow, his praise stuck in his throat.