Part 3

Josiah nodded. "Yes, boy, you will go through with it and one day you'll thank me that I brought it about. I know a good woman when I see one and I tell you she is that--good--good to the core--I'm not clever and not over well educated, Allan, like you are. I don't set up to be a gentleman, but there's one thing I can do, I can sum up my fellow men and women, too, come to that. You'll find Allan, I'm making no mistake when I say Lady Kathleen is as fine and as true a woman as ever stepped. You'll go through with this marriage, Allan, I count on you!"

"I've never failed you yet, Father."

"You never have, never, and never will!" A look of rare tenderness came into the commonplace, even vulgar face. He rose and went to his son and put a large trembling hand on his shoulder.

"No Allan, you've never failed me, not even when you were a little chap! Do you think I don't think of it? Do you think I don't thank God for it, do you think when I hear other men speaking of their sons and of--of the trouble some of 'em bring? Do you think I don't say to myself--'My boy's above that kind of thing, my boy's an honest man and a gentleman!'" He gripped the shoulder under his hand tightly.

"And now read that, read this letter----" he went on in a changed voice. "Read it, Allan!"

Allan took the letter and read it.

"Well, father?"

"It looks like being just the kind of place I'm after!"

"There are bound to be hundreds of others--hundreds!"

"That's just what there aren't. You know how I've advertised, you know how many places I've seen, twenty at least, and I wouldn't be found dead in any one of 'em. No! places like I want aren't to be found every day, and I've got an idea this might be the place. Besides that, these agents write, it's to be bought cheaply. I'm never above making a bargain, Allan. It's in pretty bad condition evidently and I daresay it'll cost some money to put right, but what's that matter if I get it off the purchase price? Now to-day I can't go and you see that this agent writes to say it's urgent. There's an American out for it and I don't like to be beat, Allan, and especially I don't like to be beat by an American. They are keen buyers and clever buyers and what I say is this--if this place is good enough for a rich American--why it might also be good enough for me!"

Allan nodded. "And you will go and see this place and----"

"That's just what I can't do, I've got two Company meetings and important ones they are, and I can't miss 'em. Time's short, it's a bit like having a pistol pointed at one's head; but there you are, you can't help it and so my boy you've just got to put that book of poems, or whatever it is, away and forget it for to-day--you've got to go down--to----" he paused and looked at the letter, "this place, this Little Stretton, Little Stretton----" he repeated. "I seem to know the name, been there before perhaps--motoring or something, however you'll have to go there to-day instead of--me! You're not a fool, Allan, you've got eyes in your head--After all, the place is to be for you when you are married to her Ladyship, and it's right you should be the one to see it, so go down there, boy, see the place, size it up and find out the price. Use your own judgment because you've got it to use. I'll leave it in your hands. I'll make out a cheque for five hundred and sign it and you can leave it as deposit if you decide to buy. Only make up your mind, don't beat about the bush, remember we're not the only ones--and if it's the right place I don't want to lose it!"

"But father--had you not better see it yourself, surely to-morrow----?"

"To-morrow won't do--it must be done to-day--I know, worse luck, you're not a good hand at making a bargain, but I've got to make the best of that! Do your best, if you like the place, if you think it's cheap, if there are possibilities in it--why, Allan, boy, snap it up--don't let anyone get ahead of you! Here's the cheque." Sir Josiah tore a cheque out and made it out for five hundred pounds and signed it "Josiah Homewood."

"And now you'd better look out a train to this place, this Little Stretton----" again he seemed to linger over the name. "Unless, of course," he added, "you'll go by the car?"

"I'll go by train----" Allan said. In the train he could read his beloved books. The car allowed no such relaxation. "I'll go by train!" he said.

*CHAPTER IV*

*HOW ALLAN CAME TO THE GARDEN*

For May it was a very hot day, almost an unnaturally hot day. It was a day that might well have belonged to August.

Allan stepped it from the station, a sign post told him that Little Stretton was yet a mile to go. He took off his hat and henceforth carried it in his hand. He had read his book all the way down in the train and his mind was still lingering on it, on the book rather than on realities. So when he came to where stood an old, a very, very ancient oak, the mere relic of a once noble tree, he looked at it vaguely, and then looked beyond for the little red tiled barn that some fancy told him would be there. And it was there, but it was a very old barn and the roof had fallen in, in places and lichen was growing on the broken tiles.

Allan stared at it, he felt faintly surprised.

"Strange!" he said aloud. "Strange--why----"

He had an idea that the barn was not so old, why it ought to have been almost a new barn, had he not seen----

"Good Heavens!" he said aloud. "I must be dreaming or something----" Then he walked on rapidly. He breasted a hill and descended on the far side, following the twisting, turning road between the hedgerows all sweet with May flowers, and so came at last to a little village of red houses roofed with slabs of old Sussex stone, all green and yellow with lichen, yellow mostly.

Allan stood still and looked at the village that lay almost at his feet.

"I suppose," he said slowly. "I suppose we must, have motored through here once!"

He seemed to know it all so well, the sleepy sloping street with the quaintly irregular houses, the little shops with curved bow windows thrusting out on to the pavement, and the low pitched doorways one gained by climbing perhaps three or more worn stone steps. The Inn, the sign of which swung from a beam that spanned the street. Yes surely he had seen it all before--on some motoring trip perhaps--and yet--and yet in a way it was strangely different, as the barn had differed from his expectations. For a time with a queer puzzled sensation, he stood, and then he came back to realities. He had journeyed here to see some house agent--what was his name?

Dalabey! yes Dalabey!

"Boy," he called to a dusty white haired urchin playing with a dog. "Boy, which is Mr. Dalabey's, the house agent?"

The boy pointed. "That be Dalabey's up they steps be Dalabey's shop."

So Allan went up the steps and found himself in the office of Dalabey and Son.

Mr. Dalabey, a stout, red haired man, wearing no coat, was talking with a visitor, he looked at Allan.

"My father had a letter about a house, an old house, he asked me----"

"Ah yes, to be sure, the house as Mr. Van Norden be after, well there be nothing settled as yet, sir," Mr. Dalabey said as he reached up for a huge key.

"I'll be ten minutes about," he said, "if you'll wait here while I get finished with this gentleman!"

"Couldn't I go on? If you direct me I might find it."

"Aye, and I'll follow. Well you can't make any mistake, 'tis just beyond the village, you'll see a high red wall, a very old wall it be, follow the wall for maybe a quarter of a mile, then you will come to the gates, well this key don't fit the gates, you'll hev to go a bit further till you come to a green door. This key is the key of the door, if you'll go on I'll get my bicycle and follow you and maybe I'll catch you up before you get there."

"Thanks!" Allan said, he took the key, a ponderous thing and smiled at it for its bigness and clumsiness.

Children in the roadway stared at the young man swinging the ponderous key in his hand, women standing in their doorways nodded to one another.

They knew the key. "Very like he be the rich American who be coming to buy the Manor," they said.

Allan walked on. Yes, certainly they must have motored through this village, he remembered it vaguely, and yet it seemed to him always a little changed. Now was there not, should there not be a Cross standing here where the road widened, in front of the Inn.

He paused and stared about him. There was no Cross, no suggestion of one.

An old man, typically Sussex, grey bearded and bent double by age, clad in a smock and an ancient tall hat, stared at him with rheumy eyes.

"Grandfather," said Allan, "wasn't there a cross here once?"

"Aye, a cross there were and a very fine cross it was tu," said the old man. "I du remember her, when I were a lad, seventy years ago; I du remember that Cross, seventy years ago knocked down her were in broad daylight, her were and I see it done, I did wi' my two eyes, see it done, I did!" He nodded his hoary head. "'Twere this a way, the doing of it. Village Street be wunnerful steep it be, they was bringing up two great el'ums on a lurry, three strappin' hosses they were a-pulling of the lurry up the hill, then down all on a sudden goes one o' the hosses, and down goes another. T'other hoss rares up her did and crack goes the chain, lurry wi' they two great el'ums goes running back'ard down the bill it did. I say it, as seen it done seventy years ago, seventy and one to be parfectly correct, and bash goes they el'um trunks into the Cross. Bash goes the Cross, down it falls in little pieces. I picked up a piece, I du remember, the bit I've got to this day, it stands on the chimbley shelf, it du. Seventy and one years ago, and me a lad of turned twelve a fine strapping lad tu."

Allan slipped a coin into the old man's willing palm.

Strange he should have thought that a Cross stood there. And yet, why strange? He had seen some other village street like this one, with a Cross set up in it. One often saw Crosses set up in old world villages.

So he went on, swinging the great key in his hand and presently he came to the end of the village, where was the beginning of the old brick wall, a very high brick wall it was, fully ten feet, and the bricks were of that rare rose tint, the like of which have never been made since Anne was Queen, but these seemed to go back far before the time of Anne and here and there the wall was somewhat broken. But nature had done her best to make good the gaps, filling them up with lichen and moss of brilliant green and vivid yellow, a feast of colour for eyes tired of London's sombre streets.

And he knew, because Mr. Dalabey had told him, that a quarter of a mile on, he would come to the gates, wide gates of iron hung on stone pillars and on each stone pillar was set the head of a deer, also carved in stone.

And presently he came to the gates, and the pillars stood all moss covered, surmounted, as he knew they would be, by the sculptured heads of deer; but one had lost its antlers, and the other had its muzzle broken short off.

Allan looked up at them and smiled, and then his smile vanished. Mr. Dalabey had not told him of the deers' heads, and yet--they were here. Curious! he thought.

It was as though he had come on a place that he had visited in a dream, he could not shake off the feeling of familiarity, the knowledge, the certainty that attended his every step. He knew that the green door would be arched at the top and that it would be studded with great nails and bound with iron in many places.

He knew that it would be and it was! He fitted the heavy key in the lock and it turned at last with much rasping and complaining.

The door gave on a paved yard and in the crevices of the great flat topped cobbles grew weeds of all kind that bloomed and flourished untouched.

And now the feeling of familiarity, the knowledge of the place had grown on him, so that he wondered at it no longer. He accepted it, because it was right, because--he refused to consider it at all. He knew!

To the left stood the kitchen part of the house, he glanced towards it, but turned to the right and picked his way across the weed grown yard and came to a small wicket gate, between two tumble down buildings. The wicket gate had fallen into rottenness and lay all in fragments on the ground, but through the opening that was left he passed and found himself in the wild tangle of the great garden.

Through the garden he walked, a man waking, yet in a strange dream. He followed the flagged pathway past the old sundial that had lost its gnomon, beyond the wild yew hedge and so to the lake, from which rose the slim figure of a stone girl and at her he stared long.

He suddenly realised that, he had come here to see her, he had come on purpose, just to see this stone figure of a girl. He would have been disappointed, almost shocked, if she had not been here--and she was here--but the pitcher on her shoulder was empty and the upflung water flashed no longer in the sunlight.

Slowly, very slowly, he turned away, he went back through the rose garden with bowed head, he came to the great circle of stone in the midst of which was set the old sundial, and on a stone seat, warmed by the sun, he sat down.

"Strange!" he said. He said it aloud. "Strange!" he repeated. "I seem to know----" He stretched his arm out and laid it on the back of the old stone seat, and sat there staring at the moss grown sundial pedestal--staring till it seemed to waver, to become all uncertain before his sight.

And then--then he lifted his head and looked about him.

He saw a garden all glowing with flowers, and trim green lawns, the weeds, the desolation and the ruin of centuries had passed as with a breath. The garden was all glowing and blowing as perhaps it had two hundred years ago, and then slowly he turned his head and looked towards the house and saw that doors and windows stood open and that curtains swung from the casements lazily in the breeze. And as he watched a door opened and into the sunshine stepped, somewhat timidly he thought, a little maid, a trim, slim bodied little maid. She wore a flowered cotton gown, short at the ankles and low in the neck, and how the sun seemed to kiss it! And the little face above, a rarely sweet little face, purely oval with ripe red lips and the bluest eyes in the world. So she came hurrying along the wide stone pathway to him, a smile on her red lips and the copper red of her hair all flaming in the sunlight under the dainty mob cap.

But ere she reached him, she stood still suddenly and looked at him with a pretty frown that was yet half a smile on her little face.

"Allan!" she said. "Allan, be you still angry wi' your Betty now, dear? Will 'ee take back the words 'ee did speak in your anger, Allan? For you should know I would not have let a gawky rogue like Tim Burnand buss me, Allan, if I could 'a helped it. Before I could tell what he was at, he did steal a kiss, and I have rubbed my poor face sore to rub it all away for--for I want no kisses but thine Allan, my--my dear!"

Her voice was very soft and sweet and the tears gathered in her wonderful blue eyes, tears that seemed to wring his heart.

"I--I was overharsh and rough wi' thee, my Betty," he said. "I know 'twas not your fault, but all the fault of Tim Burnand whose bones I'll break for him, may----"

"Nay--swear not!" she said. "Oh Allan, I love thee for thy jealousy, I love thee for it!" Her eyes were laughing and joyous now and her face was all smiles and dimples and so she came to him, daintily, and put her two small hands, little brown hands in queer black lace mittens, on his shoulders and rising on her toes, she kissed him on the eyes.

"And never, never more will 'ee be angry and jealous of your Betty?" she said.

"Never again!" he said. "But because I do love thee so, my maid I could not bear to think that other lips----"

"Have never touched mine, 'twas but my cheek he bussed, and I boxed his ears soundly for him--but hush--I hear my lady calling to me--Listen! Betty! Betty! yes--I did but steal away, seeing you here--just to tell thee----" She paused for breath for a moment "to tell thee, my Allan, how I do love thee! Hark, my lady is calling again!"

"Blow me; sir, if I didn't think you'd been and lost yourself or fell down the old well, which I did ought to have reminded you about, or something!" said a voice.

Allan started up, stared up into the round red and over-heated face of Mr. Dalabey. He looked about him with dazed eyes. Weeds were rioting over the old garden, the grass stood knee high on the lawns, dandelions thrust their golden heads between the paving stones at his feet. He stared at the house and saw it all, sombre and lifeless, a house of the dead. Its windows were broken, desolation and ruin were upon it, and then he looked back at the jolly red face of Mr. Dalabey.

"Fell asleep!" Mr. Dalabey said. "And been dreaming!" he added.

"Yes--dreaming----" Allan said quietly. "Dreaming!"

*CHAPTER V*

*IN WHICH ALLAN BUYS THE MANOR HOUSE*

In and out and up and down Mr. Dalabey led Allan over the old house. They pried into dark and dusty corners, they ascended narrow and rickety stairs. It was a wonderful, rambling old place, the years had set their mark on it. The old oaken floors, worn and roughened by a thousand feet, took on many a queer pitch; from the pine panelling the paint had come away in great flakes; scarce a window but had its broken pane and through the pane some impertinent creeper thrust into the room and nodded to them familiarly.

Allan followed the stout, red faced, good humoured man up and down the stairs and in and out the old rooms. A great talker was Mr. Dalabey, a born seller of houses.

"This here be the banquetting hall, a very noble room, sir, very noble, fit for the aristocracy, her be, and a good many of the aristocracy it hev seen, sir, and many a bottle hev been drunk here, sir, I'll wager! Look at the ceiling, sir, some of the finest old plaster work to be met with in the kingdom, wonderful fine plaster work it be, as many gents as be connoisseurs, hev remarked. Greatly took with the plaster work was Mr. Van Norden."

"Yes," Allan said, and "Yes!" For his thoughts were far away, he looked through the broken and dusty windows into the garden with its weeds and its broken pathways and overgrown flower beds, and a strange sense of loss came to him. He felt a little ache at his heart, for the girl who had come to him in that same strange dream and had kissed his eyes and called him "her dear."

How real she had been. He marvelled now at the feeling that had been his at the time, that she was a very part of his life. How sweet and musical her voice, how warm and soft the touch of her red lips and yet it had only been a dream!

"This be one o' the guest rooms and you'll notice the wig cupboard, sir," said Mr. Dalabey; "very remarkable this wig cupboard, you'll see 'em in most of the bedrooms where the quality of them days kep' their wigs. Much took Mr. Van Norden was with they wig cupboards!"

"Yes!" said Allan, and all the time his thoughts were with the maiden of the garden, she who had kissed his eyes and had vanished as she had come, leaving him with this strange sense of loneliness and longing and hunger, and above all that deep, deep sense of loss.

"And now I think we've pretty well done it, sir, there's the stables, rare fine stables they was once. Seldom less than twenty hosses did they keep in them stables in the Elmacott's days----"

"Whose days?"

"Elmacott, that were the name o' the folk, dead and gone they be now--Sir Nathaniel were the last, a rare wild devil of a man according to history, my old grandfather, a wonderful man he were, would tell me many a story of Sir Nat, as they called him, when I were a boy. Stories my old granddad had from his father before him--well sir," Mr. Dalabey paused, "well, sir, there it be, I've shewn you all there is to see, hiding nothing, a rare lot of money'll be wanted to be spent on it, sir, and there be no disguising the fact, nor have I attempted to disguise it, as you'll bear witness, sir, but there be this Mr. Van Norden keen set on the place and likely for to make up his mind any moment, considering of it he is at this very time, I daresay!"

"Who are the owners?" Allan asked.

"A gentleman of the name of Stimpson be the owner, a distant relative of the Elmacotts by marriage. I do understand, out in Canada he be, born and bred there and never clapped eyes on the place, nor ever likely to. I've got to get the best price I can for the place, seeing he be my client, and the price I've asked Mr. Van Norden----" Dalabey paused. He looked at Allan, he had no great opinion of Allan. "Queer and dreamy like," Mr. Dalabey thought, "not businesslike, one of they sort who goes through the world mooning----"

"And the price?" Allan asked.

"Er--thirty thousand pounds," said Dalabey.

"It's a great deal of money," Allan said, he said it more for the sake of saying something than for any other reason. Had Dalabey said fifty thousand pounds, he would probably have said the same thing.

"Open to an offer I be, but the offer's got to come quick and soon, or Mr. Van Norden----"

"I know, I know!" Allan stood and stared out over the garden. He wondered at its strange fascination for him. Of course it had only been a dream, yet a dream so strangely real, so clear cut, so logical and why--why should it have come to him here in this old garden--why?

Mr. Dalabey was staring at him.

"Gone to sleep he hev seemingly."

"Thirty thousand, sir, and that be no more than forty pounds an acre for good Sussex land by my reckoning, to say nothing of the old house and the buildings and a dozen cottages in the village wi' the alehouse, the Elmacott Arms."

"Yes, yes!" Allan said. "Yes! I am acting for my father. I have his permission to--to settle--the house will cost a great deal to repair, a great deal!"

"I haven't disguised nothing from you and no one can say----"

"I will offer you twenty-five thousand on my father's behalf!"

"Oh sir, oh consider! A fine house her be and wunnerful good land the best in all Sussex and twenty-five thousand b'ain't no more than about thirty pounds an acre, a terribul little money that, sir, for land so good and the historical association and all!"

"Twenty-seven!" Allan said briefly.

"There be Mr. Van Norden a considering of it at this very moment----"

Allan hated bargaining, hated money. His life had been spent in an atmosphere of money. He knew that above and before all he wanted to be rid of this man, he wanted to go back to the old garden and sit there on the sun warmed stone seat and see if his dream would not come back to him.

"Twenty-eight thousand, then, and no more, I have done, take it or leave it!"

"You'll like to see the cottages and the Inn, a wunnerful old Inn her be with historical interest and----"

"No!" said Allan. "No! do you take my offer, yes or no? Tell me now!"

Mr. Balabey stroked his chin. He did not like to do business in this way. True it was profitable business, for Mr. Van Norden was considering the offer at twenty-five thousand.

"Very well, sir, done and done!" said Mr. Dalabey. "Done with you, sir, and I congratulate you on a rare bargain, I do, sir!" He held out his large and moist hand.

Allan took it.

"Now," he said, "I will ask you to do me a favour! I have purchased the place at twenty-eight thousand pounds. I have a cheque for five hundred pounds as deposit in my pocket, if I had a pen----"

"I've got a fountain pen with me, sir," said Dalabey, "always carry one I du!"

"Very well then, we will sit down here--and if you will lend me your pen----?"

They sat down on the old stone seat and Allan filled in the cheque.