Thus saying, he walked away, and trudged on over the fields till he came into Tarningham Park, by the road which leads over the hill just above the house. He did not follow the carriage-drive, however, but took the shorter path through the chestnut-trees, and in about ten minutes, after entering the gates, saw the house. There was a travelling-carriage standing before the hall-door, which was at the distance of a quarter of a mile, and hardly had Stephen Gimlet's eyes rested on it for an instant, when a servant got up behind, and the post-boy laid his whip light over his horses. The carriage rolled on, and the gamekeeper followed it with his eyes, with a feeling of misgiving; but he pursued his way to the house notwithstanding, and entering by the offices, asked the first servant he met, if he could speak for a moment with Lord Lenham. "That you can't, Ste," answered the man, "for he has just gone off to London. He will not be down for a week either, they say; and then comes the wedding, my lad, so that you have a poor chance of talking with him till the honeymoon is over." Stephen Gimlet looked down perplexed; and then, after a moment's thought, he said, "Ay, there is to be a wedding, is there? I heard something about it. He is a kind good gentleman as ever lived, and I hope he may be very happy." "I dare say he will now," said the footman, "for our young lady is fit to be the wife of a king, that she is. But as one marriage made him very unhappy, for a long time, it is but fit that another should cure it." "Then do you mean to say he has been married before?" asked the gamekeeper. "Ay, that he has," replied the servant, "none of our people, not even Sir John's gentleman, nor any one, knew a word about it till I found it out. I'll tell you how it was, Ste. The day before yesterday morning the butler says to me, 'I wish, Harrison, you'd just clear away the breakfast things for I've got the gout in my hand'--he has always got the gout, you know, by drinking so much ale, besides wine. Well, when I went into the breakfast-room after they were all gone, I saw that the door into the library was a little ajar; but I took no notice, and Dr. Miles and Sir John went on talking there and did not hear me at all in t'other room. I could not tell all they said; but I made out that my Lord Lenham had been married a long time ago, but that the lady had turned out a bad un, and that they had lived apart for many years, till the other day my lord heard from Paris she was dead, and then he proposed to Miss Isabella. Dr. Miles said something about not hurrying the marriage, but the jolly old barrownight said that was all stuff, that he would have a wedding before a fortnight was over, and he'd broach two pipes of port and fuddle half the county."