On settling down in Barford, Collingwood had spent a couple of weeks in looking about him for comfortable rooms of a sort that appealed to his love of quiet and retirement. He had found them at last in an old house on the outskirts of the town--a fine old stone house, once a farmstead, set in a large garden, and tenanted by a middle-aged couple, who having far more room than they needed for themselves, had no objection to letting part of it to a business gentleman. Collingwood fell in love with this place as soon as he saw it. The rooms were large and full of delightful nooks and corners; the garden was rich in old trees; from it there were fine views of the valley beneath, and the heather-clad hills in the distance; within two miles of the town and easily approached by a convenient tram-route, it was yet quite out in the country. He was just as much set up by his landlady--a comfortable, middle-aged woman, who fostered true Yorkshire notions about breakfast, and knew how to cook a good dinner at night. With her Collingwood had soon come to terms, and to his new abode had transferred a quantity of books and pictures from London. He soon became acquainted with the domestic menage. There was the landlady herself, Mrs. Cobcroft, who, having no children of her own, had adopted a niece, now grown up, and a teacher in an adjacent elementary school: there was a strapping, rosy-cheeked servant-maid, whose dialect was too broad for the lodger to understand more than a few words of it; finally there was Mr. Cobcroft, a mild-mannered, quiet man who disappeared early in the morning, and was sometimes seen by Collingwood returning home in the evening. Lately, with the advancing spring, this unobtrusive individual was seen about the garden at the end of the day: Collingwood had so seen him on the evening before the talk with Eldrick and Byner, busied in setting seeds in the flower-beds. And he had asked Mrs. Cobcroft, just then in his sitting-room, if her husband was fond of gardening. "It's a nice change for him, sir," answered the landlady. "He's kept pretty close at it all day in the office yonder at Mallathorpe's Mill, and it does him good to get a bit o' fresh air at nights, now that the fine weather's coming on. That was one reason why we took this old place--it's a deal better air here nor what it is in the town." "So your husband is at Mallathorpe's Mill, eh?" asked Collingwood. "Been there--in the counting-house--boy and man, over thirty years, sir," replied Mrs. Cobcroft. "Did he see that terrible affair then--was it two years ago?" The landlady shook her head and let out a weighty sigh. "Aye, I should think he did!" she answered. "And a nice shock it gave him, too!--he actually saw that chimney fall--him and another clerk were looking out o' the counting-house window when it gave way."