All porters and guards touch their hats to him; the station-master rushes up and down frantically, shouting, "Where are those horse-boxes? Now then, look alive!" for Mark is chairman of the line, and everybody's friend beside; and as he stands there being scraped, he finds time to inquire after every one of the officials by turns, and after their wives, children, and sweethearts beside.
"What a fine specimen of your English squire!" says Stangrave.
"He is no squire; he is the Whitbury banker, of whom I told you."
"Armsworth!" said Stangrave, looking at the old man with interest.
"Mark Armsworth himself. He is acting as squire, though, now; for he has hunted the Whitford Priors ever since poor old Lavington's death."
"Now thenthose horse-boxes!"
"Very sorry, sir; I telegraphed up, but we could get but one down."
"Put the horses into that, then; and there's an empty carriage! Jack, put the hounds into it, and they shall all go second class, as sure as I'm chairman!"
The grinning porters hand the strange passengers in, while Mark counts the couples with his whip-point,
"RavagerRoysterer; MelodyGay-lass; all right. Why, where's that old thief of a Goodman?"
"Went over a gate as soon as he saw the couples; and wouldn't come in at any price, sir," says the huntsman. "Gone home by himself, I expect."
"Goodman, Goodman, boy!" And forthwith out of the station-room slips the noble old hound, grey-nosed, grey-eyebrowed, who has hidden, for purposes of his own, till he sees all the rest safe locked in.
Up he goes to Mark, and begins wriggling against his knees, and looking up as only dogs can. "Oh, want to go first-class with me, eh? Jump in, then!" And in jumps the hound, and Mark struggles after him.
"Hillo, sir! Come out! Here are your betters here before you," as he sees Stangrave, and a fat old lady in the opposite corner.
"Oh, no; let the dog stay!" says Stangrave.
"I shall wet you, sir, I'm afraid."
"Oh, no."
And Mark settles himself, puffing, with the hound's head on his knees, and begins talking fast and loud.
"Well, Mr. Mellot, you're a stranger here. Haven't seen you since poor Miss Honour died. Ah, sweet angel she was! Thought my Mary would never get over it. She's just such another, though I say it, barring the beauty. Goodman, boy! You recollect old Goodman, son of Galloper, that the old squire gave our old squire?"
Claude, of course, knowsas all do who know those partswho The Old Squire is; long may he live, patriarch of the chase! The genealogy he does not.
"Ah, wellMiss Honour took to the pup, and used to walk him out; and a prince of a hound he is; so now he's old we let him have his own way, for her sake; and nobody'll ever bully you, will they, Goodman, my boy?"
"I want to introduce you to a friend of mine."
"Proud to know any friend of yours, sir."
"Mr. StangraveMr. Armsworth. Mr. Stangrave is an American gentleman, who is anxious to see Whitbury and the neighbourhood."
"Well, I shall be happy to show it him, thencan't have a better guide, though I say itknow everything by this time, and everybody, man, woman, and child, as I hope Mr. Stangrave'll find when he gets to know old Mark."
"You must not speak of getting to know you, my dear sir; I know you intimately already, I assure you; and more, am under very deep obligations to you, which, I regret to say, I can only repay by thanks."
"Obligation to me, my dear sir?"
"Indeed I am: I will tell you all when we are alone." And Stangrave glanced at the fat old woman, who seemed to be listening intently.
"Oh, never mind her," says Armsworth; "deaf as a post: very good woman, but so deafought to speak to her, though"and, reaching across, to the infinite amusement of his companions, he roared in the fat woman's face, with a voice as of a speaking-trumpet"Glad to see you, Mrs. Grove! Got those dividends ready for you next time you come into town."
"Yah!" screamed the hapless woman, who (as the rest saw) heard perfectly well. "What do you mean, frightening a lady in that way? Deaf, indeed!"
"Why," roared Mark again, "ain't you Mrs. Grove, of Drytown Dirtywater?"
"No, nor no acquaintance! What business is it of your'n, sir, to go hollering in ladies' faces at your age?"
"Well:but I'll swear if you ain't her, you're somebody else. I know you as well as the town clock"
"Me? If you must know, sir, I'm Mrs. Pettigrew's mother, the Linendraper's establishment, sir; a-going down for Christmas, sir!"
"Humph!" says Mark: "you seewas sure I knew herknow everybody here. As I said, if she wasn't Mrs. Grove, she was somebody else. Ever in these parts before?"
"Never: but I have heard a good deal of them; and very much charmed with them I am. I have seldom seen a more distinctive specimen of English scenery."
"And how you are improving round here!" said Claude, who knew Mark's weak points, and wanted to draw him out. "Your homesteads seem all new; three fields have been thrown into one, I fancy, over half the farms."
Mark broke out at once on his favourite topic,"I believe you! I'm making the mare go here in Whitford, without the money too, sometimes. I'm steward now, bailiffha! ha! these four years pastto Mrs. Lavington's Irish husband; I wanted him to have a regular agent, a canny Scot, or Yorkshireman. Faith, the poor man couldn't afford it, and so fell back on old Mark. Paddy loves a job, you know. So I've the votes and the fishing, and send him his rents, and manage all the rest pretty much, my own way."
When the name of Lavington was mentioned, Mark observed Stangrave start; and an expression passed over his face difficult to be definedit seemed to Mark mingled pride and shame. He turned to Claude, and said, in a low voice, but loud enough for Mark to hear,
"Lavington? Is this their country also? As I am going to visit the graves of my ancestors, I suppose I ought to visit those of hers."
Mark caught the words which he was not intended to.
"Eh? Sir, do you belong to these parts?"
"My family, I believe, lived in the neighbourhood of Whitbury, at a place called Stangrave-end."
"To be sure! Old farm-house now; fine old oak carving in it, though; fine old family it must have been; church full of their monuments. Hum,ha! Well! that's pleasant, now! I've often heard there were good old families away there in New England; never thought that there were Whitbury people among them. Humwell! the world's not so big as people think, after all. And you spoke of the Lavingtons? They are great folks hereor were" He was going to rattle on: but he saw a pained expression on both the travellers' faces, and Stangrave stopped him, somewhat drily
"I know nothing of them, I assure you, or they of me. Your country here is certainly charming, and shows little of those signs of decay which some people in America impute to it."
"Decay!" Mark went off at score. "Decay be hanged? There's life in the old dog yet, sir! and dead pigs are looking up since free trade and emigration. Cheap bread and high wages now: and instead of lands going out of cultivation, as they threatenedbosh! there's a greater breadth down in wheat in the vale now than there ever was; and look at the roots. Farmers must farm now, or sink; and by George! they are farming, like sensible fellows: and a fig for that old turnip ghost of Protection! There was a fellow came down from the Carltonyou know what that is!" Stangrave bowed, and smiled assent. "From the Carlton, sir, two years since, and tried it on, till he fell in with old Mark. I told him a thing or two; among the rest, told him to his face that he was a liar; for he wanted to make farmers believe they were ruined, when he knew they were not; and that he'd get 'em back Protection, when he knew that he couldn'tand, what's more, he didn't mean to. So he cut up rough, and wanted to call me out."