"Oh, I dunno. After your fine ways up at The Warren with Miss Marjorie and the missus, it must seem a big drop down to be here again." "Don't, father. You know I was never so happy anywhere as here." "But you are grown such a lady now; I'm 'most afraid of you." "No you are not. I sometimes wish that Mrs Rolph had never had me at the house." "Why?" "Because it makes you talk to me like that." "Well, then, I won't say another word. There, I must be off, but--" He hesitated as if in doubt. "Yes, father." "Well, I was only going to say, I see young Caleb has come back to the village, and knowing how he once--" "Come back, father!" cried Judith, with a look of alarm. "Yes, I thought I'd tell you; but I don't think he'll come nigh here again." "Oh, no, father, I hope not," said the girl, looking thoughtfully towards the wood, with her brows knitting. "He'd better not," said the keeper, picking up and tapping the butt of his gun. "Might get peppered with number six. Good-bye, my dear." He kissed her, walked to the edge of the dense fir wood, gave a look back at the figure by the porch, and then plunged in among the bushes and disappeared, closely followed by the eager dogs, while Judith stood frowning at the place where he had disappeared. "I wish father wouldn't be so close," thought the girl. "He must know why I'm sent back home. It wasn't my fault; I never tried; but he was always after me. Oh, how spiteful Miss Madge did look." She went into the cottage to stand by the well-polished grate, her hand resting upon the mantelpiece, whose ornaments were various fittings and articles belonging to the gamekeeper's craft, above which, resting in well-made iron racks, were a couple of carefully cared-for guns; one an old flint-lock fowling-piece, the other a strong single-barrel, used for heavier work, and in which the keeper took special pride. "Caleb," she said with a shudder, "come back! Well, I was so young then." As Ben Hayle went thoughtfully along the path, trying to fit into their places certain matters which troubled him, the man of whom they had both been thinking was near at hand, so that, as the gamekeeper was saying to himself,--"Yes: it's because young squire come home to stay that the missus has sent her back,"--Caleb Kent stood before him in the path, the dogs giving the first notice of his presence by dashing forward, uttering low growls, and slipping round the slight, dark, good-looking, gipsy-like fellow coming in the opposite direction. "Hallo, you, sir!" said the keeper sharply. "And hallo, you, sir!" retorted the young man, showing his white teeth as he thrust his hands far down in his cord breeches pockets, and, as he stopped, passing one cord legging over the other. "What are you doing here?" "Looking at you, Ben Hayle. Path's free for me as it is for you. No, I aren't got a gun in two pieces in my pockets. You needn't look. You know how that's done."