She marked presently an old man limping slowly on a stick toward where the drive debouched, and thought at once:  “He oughtn’t to be coming this way.  I expect he doesn’t know the way round to the back.  Poor man, he’s very lame.  He looks respectable, too.”  She got up and went toward him, remarking that his face with nice gray moustaches was wonderfully regular, almost like a gentleman’s, and that he touched his dusty hat with quite old-fashioned courtesy.  And smiling—­her smile was sweet but critical—­she said:  “You’ll find the best way is to go back to that little path, and past the greenhouses.  Have you hurt your leg?”

“My leg’s been like that, m’m, fifteen year come Michaelmas.”

“How did it happen?”

“Ploughin’.  The bone was injured; an’ now they say the muscle’s dried up in a manner of speakin’.”

“What do you do for it?  The very best thing is this.”

From the recesses of a deep pocket, placed where no one else wore such a thing, she brought out a little pot.

“You must let me give it you.  Put it on when you go to bed, and rub it well in; you’ll find it act splendidly.”

The old man took the little pot with dubious reverence.

“Yes, m’m,” he said; “thank you, m’m.”

“What is your name?”

“Gaunt.”

“And where do you live?”

“Over to Joyfields, m’m.”

“Joyfields—­another of my sons lives there—­Mr. Morton Freeland.  But it’s seven miles.”

“I got a lift half-way.”

“And have you business at the house?” The old man was silent; the downcast, rather cynical look of his lined face deepened.  And Frances Freeland thought:  ’He’s overtired.  They must give him some tea and an egg.  What can he want, coming all this way?  He’s evidently not a beggar.’

The old man who was not a beggar spoke suddenly: 

“I know the Mr. Freeland at Joyfields.  He’s a good gentleman, too.”

“Yes, he is.  I wonder I don’t know you.”

“I’m not much about, owin’ to my leg.  It’s my grand-daughter in service here, I come to see.”

“Oh, yes!  What is her name?”

“Gaunt her name is.”

“I shouldn’t know her by her surname.”

“Alice.”

“Ah! in the kitchen; a nice, pretty girl.  I hope you’re not in trouble.”

Again the old man was silent, and again spoke suddenly: 

“That’s as you look at it, m’m,” he said.  “I’ve got a matter of a few words to have with her about the family.  Her father he couldn’t come, so I come instead.”

“And how are you going to get back?”

“I’ll have to walk, I expect, without I can pick up with a cart.”

Frances Freeland compressed her lips.  “With that leg you should have come by train.”

The old man smiled.

“I hadn’t the fare like,” he said.  “I only gets five shillin’s a week, from the council, and two o’ that I pays over to my son.”