‘All that’s wrong with this old place,’ said George, ‘is the rats. But I reckon you’ve been sleeping rough and won’t notice them. This is our garden. Mary’s a great one for flowers.’ They had entered a drive that swept up in a spacious curve to the steps of the front-door, an entrance which had been closed for many years. In place of the lawns that had once been the pride of its inhabitants lay three long strips of garden, each carefully tilled and separated from its neighbour by a fence of wire netting, the remains of some dismantled fowl-run. A path of bricks, salved from one of the dilapidated stables of the mansion, ran down the middle of the nearest garden-patch, and in the centre of it two children sat playing in the sun, a fair-haired girl, some six years of age, and a boy, a little younger, in whose dark features Abner could trace a resemblance to the handsome face of George Malpas. ‘Them’s my youngsters,’ he said carelessly. He opened the gate and tweaked the girl’s ear as he passed. ‘Well, Gladys?’ he said; but neither of the children seemed much moved by his arrival, being more interested in the strange figure of Abner, whose progress up the path they watched with the vague suspicion of mountain sheep that stare before they plunge away through heather. ‘I’ll see if the missis is in,’ said George. ‘Mary . . .’ he called. ‘Where’s the girl got to? Sit yourself down.’ The room had once been the kitchen of the great house. An enormous iron range was built into the wall on one side, and on the other were racks and shelves which must once have held many dozens of plates. The sun slanted through a western window and showed Abner that the comfort of this stone-paved room lay in its cleanliness. The iron range was almost handsome in its massive, shining bulk above the whitened hearth, and in the fender a bundle of green bracken was set in an attempt at decoration. The fronds of this plant filled the room with a warm and drowsy odour. In a corner a grandfather clock, with a solemn face on which the name of _Carver_, _Hay_, was engraved, marked the passage of time with a slowly swinging pendulum. George Malpas called his wife again, and from a cool-smelling chamber on a lower level that might well have been a dairy, a woman appeared and stood in the doorway. ‘I’ve put the dinner away, George,’ she said. ‘It’s past three o’clock.’ ‘Don’t you worry your head about the dinner,’ he replied. ‘I’ve brought this chap back with me. He’s coming to work with us on the water job. Mother has a fancy she can’t take any one in at the Buffalo, so I’ve arranged to give him a lodge here. You’d better put him in the top room. I reckon you won’t find him particular.’