"Furnished?"
"Yes, sir, and some decent stuff in it, too. I'm surprised Messrs. Holloway & Dobb don't sell that, anyhow; but I believe they have a sort of order from Mrs. Garth that the property is to be sold as it stands, and not broken up piece-meal."
"Why did you describe it as the house 'round the corner?"
Mr. Walker smiled.
"That was for my son's benefit, sir," he explained. "The Elmdale cottages are clustered together on the roadside. The Grange stands above them, at one end, and a few yards up a road leading to the moor. It commands a fine view, too," he added regretfully.
"I'll take it," said the stranger.
Walker, junior, looked jubilant, but his father's years had weakened confidence in mankind. Many a good let was lost ere the agreement was signed and this one was beset by special difficulties.
"If you give me your name and address, I'll consult Messrs. Holloway & Dobb——" he began, and was probably more astonished than he would care to confess by the would-be tenant's emphatic interruption—
"Is this property to let, or is it not?"
"Yes, sir. Haven't I said so?"
"Very well! I offer you a quarter's rent, payable to you or your son when I have looked at the place. As a matter of form, I would like one of you to accompany me to Elmdale at once, because I must inquire into the fishing. I suppose you can hire a conveyance of sorts to take us there? Of course, in any event, I shall pay your fee for the journey. My name is Robert Armathwaite. I am a stranger in this part of Yorkshire, but if you, or Messrs. Holloway & Dobb, care to call at the local bank, say, in three days' time, you will be satisfied as to my financial standing. I'll sign an agreement for a yearly tenancy, terminable thereafter by three months' written notice, when I pay the first installment of the rent. As the place is furnished, you will probably stipulate for payment in advance throughout. I fancy you can draw up such an agreement in half an hour, and, if there is an inventory, it should be checked and initialed when we visit the house. Does that arrangement suit you?"
The Walkers were prosperous and pompous, but they knew when to sink their pomposity.
"Yes, sir, it can be done," agreed the elder man.
"Thank you. Which is the leading bank here?"
Walker, senior, indicated a building directly opposite.
"I'll have a word with the manager," said Mr. Armathwaite. "If I'm here in half an hour, will you have a carriage waiting?"
"A dog-cart, sir. My own. My son will attend to you."
"Excellent. Evidently, your firm understands business."
And Mr. Armathwaite went out.
The Walkers watched as he crossed the road, and entered the bank. Their side of the street being higher than the other, they could see, above the frosted lower half of the bank's window, that he approached the counter, and was ushered into the manager's private room.
"What d'ye make of it, dad?" inquired the "nut," forgetting his importance in the absorbing interest of the moment.
"Dad" tickled his bald scalp with the handle of the pen.
"Tell you what," he said solemnly. "Some houses have an attraction for queer folk. Whoever built the Grange where it is must have been daft. The people who lived there when I was a young man were a bit touched. Mr. Garth was mad, we know, an' Mrs. Wilkins was the silliest woman I ever met. Now comes this one."
"He looks all right."
"You never can tell. At any rate, we'll take his money, and welcome. I asked sixty, but wouldn't have sneezed at forty. Neither would Holloway & Dobb; they've some costs to collect since the Wilkins' affair. Go and get the trap ready. And mind you, Jim, no hanky-panky."
The youthful Walker winked.
"You leave that to me," he said. "What about the fee—will he stand a guinea?"
"You might try it, at any rate."
At the appointed time, half-past eleven o'clock, Mr. Armathwaite came, carrying a large parcel wrapped in brown paper. He cast an appreciative eye at a wiry cob, put the parcel in the back of the waiting dog-cart, and climbed to the seat beside the younger Walker, now attired de rigueur for the country.
"Will you kindly call at the railway station?" he said.
The request was unexpected, but the driver nodded, and showed some skill in turning through the congeries of vehicles which crowded the street.
At the station, the bag and other small articles were withdrawn from the parcels office, and deposited beside the package in brown paper. James Walker was mystified, but said nothing. Returning through the main street, he answered a few questions concerning local matters, and, once in the open country, grew voluble under the influence of a first-rate Havana proffered by his companion. Men of his type often estimate their fellows by a tobacco standard, and Walker privately appraised the cigar as "worth a bob, at the lowest figure." From that instant, Mr. Robert Armathwaite and Mr. James Walker took up their relative positions without demur on the part of either.
Oddly enough, seeing that the newcomer had expressed his dislike for society, he listened with interest to bits of gossip concerning the owners of the various estates passed on the way. He was specially keen on names, even inquiring as to what families one titled landowner was connected with by marriage. Then, as to the fishing, could the Walkers arrange that for him?
Forgetting his 'cuteness, Walker settled the point off-hand.
"You had better deal with the matter yourself, sir," he said. "There'll be no difficulty. Nearly all the Elmdale farms are freeholds, most of 'em with common rights on the moor. Why, when one of 'em changes hands, the buyer has the right to take over all the sheep footed on the seller's part of the moor. P'raps you don't know what 'footed' means. Sheep will always go back to the place where they were raised, and the habit is useful when they stray over an open moorland. So, you see, all you have to do is to get permission from two or three farmers, and you can fish for miles."
He tried to talk of the Garths, particularly of the pretty daughter, but his hearer's attention wandered; obviously, information as to the ways and habits of the local yeomanry was more to Mr. Armathwaite's taste than a "nut's" gushing about a good-looking girl.
Within an hour, after five miles of fair roadway and two of a switchback, mostly rising, Walker pointed with his whip to a thin line of red-tiled houses, here and there a thatched roof among them, nestling at the foot of a gill, or ravine, which pierced the side of a gaunt moorland. Above the hamlet, at the eastern end, rose an old-fashioned stone house, square, with a portico in the center, and a high-pitched roof of stone slabs.
"There's Elmdale," he said, "and that's the Grange. Looks a god-forsaken hole, doesn't it, sir?"
"If you pay heed to the real meanings of words, no place on earth merits that description," said Mr. Armathwaite.
Walker was no whit abashed.
"Well, no," he grinned.
"I ought to have asked sooner, but have you brought any keys?"
The agent instinct warned the other that his choice of an adjective had been unwise in more ways than one.
"That's all right, sir," he said cheerfully. "The keys are kept in the village—at Mrs. Jackson's. She's a useful old body. If you want a housekeeper, she and her daughter would suit you down to the ground."
Little more was said until the steaming pony was pulled up in front of a thatched cottage. Seen thus intimately, and in the blaze of a June sun, Elmdale suggested coziness. Each house, no matter what its size, had a garden in front and an orchard behind. Long, narrow pastures ran steeply up to the moor, and cattle and sheep were grazing in them. There were crops on the lower land. For all its remoteness,