‘You treated me so well when we were together that I ought to be very fond of you, no doubt,’ said Rebecca. ‘Come in, and eat. I’ll give you a meal and a night’s lodging if you like, but I’ll give you no more, and you’d better make yourself scarce soon after daybreak. My master is a magistrate, and has no mercy on tramps.’ ‘Then how did he come to admit you into his service? You hadn’t much of a character from your last place, I take it.’ ‘He had his reasons.’ ‘Ay, there’s a reason for everything. I should like to know the reason of your getting such a berth as this, I must say.’ He followed his mother into the lodge. The room was furnished comfortably enough, but dirt and disorder ruled the scene. Of this, however, the wanderer’s eye took little note as he briefly surveyed the chamber, dimly lighted by a single tallow candle burning in a brass candlestick on the mantel-piece. He flung himself into the high-backed Windsor arm-chair, drew it to the table, and sat there waiting for refreshment, his darkly bright eyes following Rebecca’s movements as she took some dishes from a cupboard, and set them on the board without any previous ceremony in the way of spreading a cloth or clearing the litter of faded cabbage-leaves and stale crusts which encumbered one side of the table. The tramp devoured his meal ravenously, and said not a word till the cravings of hunger were satisfied. At the rate he ate this result was quickly attained, and he pushed away the empty dish with a satisfied sigh. ‘That’s the first hearty feed I’ve had for a week,’ he said. ‘A snack of bread and cheese and a mug of beer at a roadside public has had to serve me for breakfast and dinner and supper, and a man of my stamina can’t live on bread and cheese. And now tell me all about yourself, mother, and how you came into this comfortable berth, plenty to eat and drink and nothing to do.’ ‘That’s my business, Paul,’ answered the woman, with a dogged air which meant resistance. ‘Come, you needn’t make a secret of it. Do you suppose I haven’t brains enough to find out for myself, if you refuse to tell me? It isn’t every day in the year that a fine gentleman and a lady take a gipsy fortune-teller into their service. Such things are not done without good reason. What sort of a chap is this Squire Penwyn?’ ‘I’ve nothing to tell you about him,’ answered the woman, with the same steady look.