“He’s a relation, that young man is, and it’s a country saying, sir, as you shouldn’t speak up for your own. But I ain’t one as pays much ’eed to that, for, says I, you knows them that belong to you better nor any one else does. There’s my girl Patty, now; there ain’t one like her betwixt Guildford and Portsmouth, and who knows it as well as me?” “That’s a very satisfactory state of things,” said the visitor, “and, of course, you must know best. But I fear you won’t be able to keep Miss Patty long to yourself if she’s like that.” At this Patty’s father began to laugh a slow, inward laugh. “There’s ’eaps o’ fellows after ’er, like bees after a ’oney ’ive. But, Lord bless you! she don’t think nothing o’ them. She’s not one as would take up with a country ’Odge. She’s blood in her veins, has my girl. We’ve been at the Seven Thorns, off and on, for I don’t know ’ow many ’undred years: more time,” said Hewitt, waving his pipe vaguely towards Greyshott, “than them folks ’as been at the ’All.” “Ah, indeed! That’s the Pierceys, I suppose?” “And a proud set they be. But ’Ewitts was ’ere before ’em, only they won’t acknowledge it. I’ve ’eard my sister Patience, ’as ’ad a terrible tongue of ’er own, tell Sir Giles so to his face. ’E was young then, and father couldn’t keep ’im out o’ this ’ouse. After Patience, to be sure; but he was a terrible cautious one, was Sir Giles, and it never come to nought.” The landlord laughed with a sharp hee-hee-hee. “I reckon,” he said, “it runs in the blood.” “What runs in the blood?” “I don’t know, sir,” said the innkeeper, pausing suddenly, “if you’ve called for anything? I can’t trust neither to maid nor man to attend to the customers now Patty’s away.” “If you have cider, I should like a bottle, and perhaps you’ll help me to drink it,” said Colonel Piercey. “I’m sorry to hear that Miss Patty’s away.” “In London,” said Hewitt; “but only for a bit. She ’as a ’ead, that chit ’as! Them rooms along there, end o’ the ’ouse, ’asn’t been lived in not for years and years. She says to me, she does, ‘Father, let’s clear ’em out, and maybe we’ll find a lodger.’ I was agin it at first. ‘What’ll you do with a lodger? There ain’t but very little to be made o’ that,’ I says. ‘They don’t come down to the parlour to drink, that sort doesn’t, and they’re more trouble nor they’re worth.’ ‘You leave it to me, father,’ she says. And, if you’ll believe it, she’s found folks for them rooms already! New-married folks, she says, as will spend their money free. And coming in a week, for the rest of the summer or more. That’s Patty’s way!” cried the landlord, smiting his thigh. “Strike while it’s ’ot, that’s ’er way! Your good ’ealth, sir, and many of ’em. It ain’t my brewing, that cider. I gets it from Devonshire, and I think, begging your pardon, sir, as it’s ’eady stuff.” “But how,” said Colonel Piercey, “will you manage with your visitors, when your daughter is away?”