Mavis and Merle, strolling round the stackyard, agreed with her. The place was certainly not the same without Bevis. It seemed very slack and slow indeed now he was gone. To kill time before lunch, while Dr. Tremayne saw his patients in the surgery, the girls took a walk down the town towards the beach. Midway in the quaint steep street there was a spot railed off where people could sit on benches and look out over the sea. It was a favourite lounge, and two or three old fishermen were generally there discussing catches and tides, or the village invalids were sunning themselves and collecting local news. In the middle stood a flagstaff where the Union Jack was kept flying. To-day as the Ramsays passed this observation point they noticed that the flag was at half-mast. "I wonder what's the matter?" said Merle. "I don't know. Somebody dead, I suppose, and we haven't heard yet. I hope it's not the King! Shall I ask?" "Yes, do. Ask that old man!" "Oh, I daren't! You do!" Merle, having more courage with strangers, made the necessary inquiry. The blue-jerseyed individual whom she addressed pulled his pipe from his mouth and grunted a reply: "It's General Talland as is gone. There was a telegram come this morning from the West Indies. He was only sixty-one. He ought to a' been good for another ten year or more." "They do say the climate is awful over there," chimed one of the loungers, quite willing to discuss the event. "Ay! He should a' stayed in his native air!" Other listeners had strolled up and began to give their opinions. "I don't hold with foreign parts myself." "Not to live, though it's nice to see them." "There's always fever about in those hot places." "He'll be buried out there!" "And his son was buried in India!" "It seems as if the luck was against the family." "Mr. Glyn Williams will be for buying the property now!" "If he can get hold of it." "It's what he's been after ever since he came here." "Well, I suppose he'd make a better landlord than some." Mavis and Merle were not remarkably interested in General Talland, so they said "Thank you" for the information they had received, and walked down to the shore, where they amused themselves till it was time to return for lunch. When they got back to Grimbal's Farm, however, they found Mrs. Penruddock full of the news, which she had learnt from some of her customers. "It seems trouble on trouble," she declared. "Everybody is saying that Mr. Glyn Williams will be sure to get hold of the estate now, and with our lease just falling in, and this business between Bevis and young Williams which they'll likely not forgive, we may be turned out of the farm for all I know. I came here when I was married twenty-five years ago, and Mr. Penruddock was born here. It would break our hearts to have to go anywhere else." "Oh, I hope it won't be as bad as that!" said Mavis consolingly. At lunch-time the girls told Uncle David about the matter.