In the meanwhile Lawrence had to find Chilmark.  He had neither map nor compass and was unfamiliar with the lie of the land, but, mindful of the station master’s directions to go south and turn twice to the left, he shaped a course south-east and looked for a shepherd to ask his way of.  At present there were no shepherds to be seen and no houses; here and there a trail of smoke marked some hidden hamlet, sunk deep in cup or cranny, but which was Chilmark he could not tell.  Down went the track, plunging towards a stream that brawled in a wild bottom:  up over a rough hillside ruby-red with willowherb:  then down again to a pool shaded by two willows and a silver birch, and lying so cool and solitary in its own cloven nook, bounded in every direction by half a furlong of chalky hillside, that Lawrence was seized with a desire to strip and bathe, and sun himself dry on the brilliant mossy lawn at its brink.  But out of regard for the Wanhope lunch hour he walked on, following a trickle of water between reeds and knotgrafis, till in the next winding of the glen he came on a house:  only a labourer’s cot, two rooms below and one above, but inhabited, for smoke was coming out of the chimney.  Lawrence turned up a worn thread of path and knocked with his stick at the open door.

It was answered by a tall young girl with a dirty face, wearing a serge skirt pinned up under a dirty apron.  The house was dirty too:  the smell of an unwashed, unswept interior came out of it, together with the wailing of a fretful baby.  “I’ve missed my way on the moor,” said Lawrence, inobtrusively holding his handkerchief to his nose.  “Can you direct me to Chilmark?”

“Do you mean Chilmark or Castle Wharton?  Oh Dorrie, don’t cry!” She lifted the babe on her arm and stood gazing at Lawrence in a leisured and friendly manner, as if she wondered who he were.  “It isn’t far, but it’s a long rambling village and there are any number of paths down.  And if you want the Bendishes—­” Evidently she thought he must want the Bendishes, and perhaps Lawrence’s judgment was a little bribed by her artless compliment, for at this point he began to think her pretty in an undeveloped way:  certainly she had lovely eyes, dark blue under black lashes, which reminded him of other eyes that he had seen long ago—­but when?  He could not remember those wistful eyes in any other woman’s face.

“I’m making for Wanhope—­Major Clowe’s house.”

“Oh, but then you must be Captain Hyde,” exclaimed Miss Stafford:  “aren’t you? that Mrs. Clowes was expecting.”

“My name is Hyde.  No one met me at the station” in spite of himself Lawrence could not keep his grievance out of his voice “so, as there are no cabs at Countisford, I had to walk.”

“Oh! dear, how sad:  and on such a hot day too!  You’ll be so tired.”  Was this satire?  Pert little thing!  Lawrence was faintly amused—­not irritated, because she was certainly very pretty:  what a swan’s throat she had under her holland blouse, and what a smooth slope of neck!  But for all that she ought to have sirred him.