There was about a dozen of them all told, including Wolf and Michael from over the sand. Only Brack was missing, and even as they realised it they heard his car on the flat road, and, a minute later, sitting low in his seat, with his hat on one side and a cigarette at the corner of his mouth, he swung gracefully round the stoup. It was a very effective entrance--the pretty curve, the easy pull-up at exactly the right point, the nod and the casual eyelids dropped in general greeting, the flicking of ash with a ringed finger over the glossy door--thoroughly well-staged in every detail. It was a pity that the most important person present should have chosen that particular moment for addressing a miserable barn-cat. Bluecaster had his own methods of conveying his opinions, and he was certainly fronting the right way a minute after, when Denny, carrying the belt like a floral funeral-offering, deposited it mournfully upon Brack’s bonnet. Brack’s temper was slightly on edge as he slid out of the car and stamped on the cigarette. He was a slim, dark young man, of the type glorified in tailors’ windows, and his neat suit and grey spats carried a suggestion of being still behind plate-glass. He would have been an ordinary person of rather vivid good looks but for his arresting eyes--of a clear, cold gray, with the pupils very black and steady. He lifted his hat to Bluecaster where his uncle had lifted a finger. Bluecaster acknowledged gravely. To Lanty he nodded. Lancaster--there is a whole code in the action--nodded back. After which they trooped into the house. Even there, though, settled round the kitchen table, with his lordship at one end and the agent at the other, there was a frivolous tendency to regard the meeting more as a friendly “crack” than a call to business. It was some time before Bluecaster, at last allowing Brack’s deeply-chagrined countenance to swim gently into his ken, hammered on the table for silence. Then he got to his feet diffidently, stammering and sticking a little, his glance travelling nervously from face to face. He had Will Holliday on his right hand, and Dockeray on his left, with Bownass of Moss End beyond, Bradley of Wilson Fold and old Simon Farrer of Meadow’s Ing. They looked at each other stolidly, and said “Ay, ay! Yon’s reet!” at intervals. Brack was about the middle, with Wolf on one side and a joyful Holliday cousin ready with gibes on the other. Denny sat directly across, and pretended to be rowing hard whenever he thought Bluecaster wasn’t looking. Brack stared over him and through him, and hated the whole lot of them, lock, stock and barrel. It was a pity they were too stuck in the mud to recognise real merit when they ran into it head first.