“Oh, bless you, sir, she’s a-coming with ’em, she says in her letter, if not before. Patty knows well I ain’t the one for lodgers. I sits in my own parlour, and I don’t mind a drop to drink friendly-like with e’er a man as is thirsty, or to see a set of ’orses put up in my stables, or that; but Richard ’Ewitt of the Seven Thorns ain’t one to beck and bow afore folks as thinks themselves gentry, and maybe ain’t not ’alf as good as ’er and me. No, sir; I wasn’t made, nor was my father afore me made, for the likes of that.” “It is very good of you, I’m sure, Mr. Hewitt, to sit for half an hour with me, who may be nobody, as you say.” “Don’t mention it, sir,” said Hewitt, with a wave of the pipe which he still carried like a banner in his hand: “I ’ope I knows a gentleman when I sees one; and as I said, I sits at my own door and I takes a friendly drop with any man as is thirsty. That ain’t the same as bowing and scraping, and taking folks’s orders, as is nothing to me.” “And Miss Patty, you say, is in London? London’s a big word: is she east or west, or----” “It’s funny,” said Hewitt, “the interest that’s took in my Patty since she’s been away. There’s been Sally Ferrett, the nurse up at Greyshott, asking and asking, where is she, and when did she go, and when she’s coming back? I caught her getting it all out of ’Lizabeth the girl. What day did she go, and what train, and so forth? ’Lizabeth’s a gaby. She just says ‘Yes, Miss,’ and ‘No, Miss,’ to a wench like that, as is only a servant like herself. I give it ’em well, and I give Miss her answer. ‘What’s their concern up at Greyshott with where my Patty is?” “That’s true,” said Colonel Piercey, “and what is my concern? You are quite right, Mr. Hewitt.” “Oh, yours, sir? that’s different: you ask out o’ pure idleness, you do, to make conversation; I understand that. But between you and me I couldn’t answer ’em, not if I wanted to. For my Patty is one as can take very good care of ’erself, and she don’t give me no address. She’ll be back with them young folks, or maybe, afore ’em, next week, and that’s all as I want to know. I wants her then, for I’ll not have nothing to do with ’em, and ’Lizabeth, she’s a gaby, and not to be trusted. Lodgers in my opinion is more trouble than they’re any good. So Patty will manage them herself, or they don’t come here.” “The family at Greyshott takes an interest in your daughter, I presume, from what you say,” said Colonel Piercey. Upon this Hewitt laughed low and long, and winked over and over again with his watery eye. “There’s one of ’em as does,” he said. “Oh, there’s one of ’em as does! If so be as you know the family, sir, you’ll know the young gentleman. Don’t you know Mr. Gervase?--eh, not the young ’un, sir, as is Sir Giles’s heir? Oh, Lord, if you don’t know him you don’t know Greyshott Manor, nor what’s going on there.” “I have never seen the young gentleman,” said Gerald; “I believe he is not very often at home.”