For that good Sir Philip was a little uneasy, after shipping me off last autumn, lest he might have behaved with any want of gratitude towards me. Of course he had done nothing of the kind; for in truth I had raved for my country so—as I came to learn long afterwards—that when all the risk of infection was over, the doctor from Barnstaple said that my only chance of recovering reason lay in the air of my native land. But at any rate this kind baronet thought himself bound to come and look after me, in the spring of the year when the buds were awake, and the iron was gone from the soul of the earth. He had often promised that fine old tyrant Anthony Stew to revisit him; so now he resolved to kill two birds with one stone, as the saying is.
I had returned to my cottage now, but being still very frail and stupid, in spite of port wine every day, I could not keep the tears from starting, when this good and great landowner bent his silver head beneath my humble lintel, and forbade me in his calm majestic manner to think for a moment of dousing my pipe. And even Justice Stew, who of course took good care to come after him, did not use an uncivil word, when he saw what Sir Philip thought of me.
“Sir,” said the General to the Squire, after shaking hands most kindly with me, “this is a man whom I truly respect. There seems to be but one opinion about him. I call him a noble specimen of your fellow-countrymen.”
“Yes, to be sure,” answered Anthony Stew: “but my noble fellow-countrymen say that I am an Irishman.”
“No doubt whatever about that, your Worship,” was the proper thing for me to reply; but the condition of my head forbade me almost to shake it. If it had pleased the Lord to give me only a dozen holes and scars—which could not matter at my time of life—there would not by any means have arisen, as all the old women of Newton said, this sad pressure on the brainpan, and difficulty of coping even with a man of Anthony Stew’s kind. But, alas! instead of opening out, the subtle plague struck inwards, leaving not a sign outside, but a delicate transparency.
This visit from Sir Philip did not end without a queer affair, whereof I had no notice then, being set down by all the village as only fit to poke about among the sandhills, and then to die. But no one could take the church-clock from me, till the bell should be tolling for me; and as a matter of duty I drew some long arrears of salary.
It seems that Sir Philip drove down one day from Pen Coed to look after me, and having done this with his usual kindness, spread word through the children (who throughout our lane abounded) that really none of his money remained for any more sticks of peppermint. It was high time for them to think, he said, after ever so much education, of earning from sevenpence to tenpence a-week, for the good of the babies they carried. All the children gathered round him at this fine idea, really not believing quite that the purse of such a gentleman could have nothing more to say. And the girls bearing babes were concave in the back, while the boys in the same predicament stuck out clumsily where their spines were setting.
“Drive me away,” said Sir Philip to the groom; “drive me straight away anywhere: these Welsh children are so clever, I shall have no chance with them.”
“Indeed, your Honour, they is,” said the groom with a grin, as behoved a Welshman. “Would your Honour like to go down by the sea, and see our beautiful water-rocks, and our old annshent places?”
“To be sure,” said Sir Philip; “the very thing. We have four hours’ time to dinner yet; and I fear I have worn out poor Llewellyn. Now follow the coastline if you are sure that your master would like it, Lewis, with this young horse, and our weight behind.”
“Your Honour, nothing ever comes amiss to this young horse here. ’Tis tire I should like to see him, for a change, as we do say. And master do always tell me keep saltwater on his legs whenever.”
“Right!” cried Sir Philip, who loved the spree, being as full of spirits still, when the air took his trouble out of him, as the young horse in the shafts was.
So they drove away over the sands towards Sker, which it is easy enough to do with a good strong horse and a light car behind him. And by this time the neighbourhood had quite forgotten all its dread of sandstorms. In about half an hour they found themselves in a pretty place of grass and furze known as the Lock’s Common, which faces the sea over some low cliffs, and at the western end coves down to it. This is some half a mile from Sker House, and a ragged dry wall makes the parish boundary, severing it from Sker-land.
“Drive on,” cried Sir Philip; “I enjoy all this: I call this really beautiful, and this fine sward reminds me of Devonshire. But they ought to plant some trees here.”
The driver replied that there was some danger in driving through Sker warren, unless one knew the ground thoroughly, on account of the number of rabbit-holes; and the baronet, with that true regard which a gentleman feels for the horse of a friend, cancelled his order immediately. “But,” he continued, “I am so thirsty that I scarcely know what to do. My friend Llewellyn’s hospitality is so overpowering. The taste of rum is almost unknown to me; but I could not refuse
