"Eh! but we've got a master!" one old man said, quite unimpressed by Guy's careful quoting of his brother's name, as he gave orders about repairs and improvements, and made himself acquainted with every dilapidation. He bearded old Cowperthwaite, the publican of the Dragon, in his den, resisted the telling plea that Cowperthwaites had kept the Dragon before Waynfletes lost the Hall, and refused him the renewal of his lease at Michaelmas on the ground of disorder and disreputableness, and of various poaching scandals, which he hunted up as diligently as if old Margaret had bought back Waynflete for the single purpose of preserving its game. It was a proceeding calculated to bring a hornet's nest about Godfrey's ears; but Guy was as determined as if no other spot in the valley would have served for a village club. His aims were so visionary, and his methods of carrying them out so practical, that the vicar felt as if two men were working beside him. Guy knew nothing of the parochial side of a country squire's life; but he hunted down the old Dragon, as if turning a public-house into a coffee-tavern was his life work. One glorious morning of spring and promise, as he was riding in and out of the lanes in the valley, his pony cast a shoe. He took him into the forge, which was close to the Dragon, to have him re-shod, and, while he waited, strolled on by the side of the dancing, laughing beck towards the old footbridge. In this blue and sunny air, when the once weird and desolate wood was beginning to swell with living green, when the birds were singing, and the earth was full of life, he felt able to look again on the scene of his trial. He saw the rocky field down which he had stumbled in weary haste, now fresh and green, with a dozen or so of little black-faced lambs skipping about on it. The sunlight shot through and through the opposite wood, now bright and delicate with primroses and anemones; the sky was of cold, but radiant blue. Rawdie pricked his long black ears, and watched the lambs with deep interest, but with admirable self-restraint. Guy sat down on a bit of broken wall at the foot of the field, and looked across the river. The haunted hollow was lovely with all the rough charm of the north; for Guy it had the charm of home. "New heavens and a new earth!" he thought. "Good day t' ye, Mr Waynflete!" He turned with a start, and saw a tall old woman, with a red shawl over her head and a handsome, weather-beaten face. "Good day," he said. "Mrs Outhwaite, isn't it?" "Ay, sir. Margaret Outhwaite's my name. My old man and I were cousins--I'm as good as the last of 'em. Ye'll ha' heard, sir, maybe, that the Outhwaites ha' the reet to see t' owd Guy--_him as walks_--as John Outhwaite, my husband, could have told ye." "Ay!" said Guy. "So I've heard. Won't you sit down, and tell me about it?"