While the youth was scrutinising the permit, evidently with suspicion, my father took stock of him, and saw his own past self in him too plainly—­knowing all he knew—­to doubt whose son he was.  He had the greatest difficulty in hiding his emotion, for the lad was indeed one of whom any father might be proud.  He longed to be able to embrace him and claim him for what he was, but this, as he well knew, might not be.  The tears again welled into his eyes when he told me of the struggle with himself that he had then had.

“Don’t be jealous, my dearest boy,” he said to me.  “I love you quite as dearly as I love him, or better, but he was sprung upon me so suddenly, and dazzled me with his comely debonair face, so full of youth, and health, and frankness.  Did you see him, he would go straight to your heart, for he is wonderfully like you in spite of your taking so much after your poor mother.”

I was not jealous; on the contrary, I longed to see this youth, and find in him such a brother as I had often wished to have.  But let me return to my father’s story.

The young man, after examining the permit, declared it to be in form, and returned it to my father, but he eyed him with polite disfavour.

“I suppose,” he said, “you have come up, as so many are doing, from Bridgeford and all over the country, to the dedication on Sunday.”

“Yes,” said my father.  “Bless me!” he added, “what a wind you have up here!  How it makes one’s eyes water, to be sure;” but he spoke with a cluck in his throat which no wind that blows can cause.

“Have you met any suspicious characters between here and the statues?” asked the youth.  “I came across the ashes of a fire lower down; there had been three men sitting for some time round it, and they had all been eating quails.  Here are some of the bones and feathers, which I shall keep.  They had not been gone more than a couple of hours, for the ashes were still warm; they are getting bolder and bolder—­who would have thought they would dare to light a fire?  I suppose you have not met any one; but if you have seen a single person, let me know.”

My father said quite truly that he had met no one.  He then laughingly asked how the youth had been able to discover as much as he had.

“There were three well-marked forms, and three separate lots of quail bones hidden in the ashes.  One man had done all the plucking.  This is strange, but I dare say I shall get at it later.”

After a little further conversation the Ranger said he was now going down to Sunch’ston, and, though somewhat curtly, proposed that he and my father should walk together.

“By all means,” answered my father.

Before they had gone more than a few hundred yards his companion said, “If you will come with me a little to the left, I can show you the Blue Pool.”

To avoid the precipitous ground over which the stream here fell, they had diverged to the right, where they had found a smoother descent; returning now to the stream, which was about to enter on a level stretch for some distance, they found themselves on the brink of a rocky basin, of no great size, but very blue, and evidently deep.