WHEN the doctor returned to the castle he found old Mr. Norris sitting on a wooden seat in the castle yard.
"Come along, sir, and rest yourself, Doctor," he said. "You've come a bit too quick up the hill. You are not used to hills like ours, I expect. It's made you a bit white-looking, I think."
Norman Forester sat down beside him, and the old man was anxious to know what he thought of Hildick. The doctor praised it warmly, and said he had been struck by the number of old people he had seen as he passed through the village. As a medical man he concluded that this must be a healthy place.
"You're right there, sir. We don't have many funerals here, and those we have are mostly of old people. Auntie Betty, as we call her, on the hill there, is over ninety, and so is Auntie Emma down in the village; and you'll find many that are over eighty. We don't live fast here like you do in your towns and cities, and so we live longer. My old grandmother was nearly a hundred when we laid her in the churchyard."
"There is another thing which struck me in the village," said Forester, "and that is the cleanliness of the whole place. There is not a sign of dirt in the cottages; everything is spick and span."
"That's the Dutch blood in them," said old Mr. Norris. "Hundreds of years ago a colony of Flemings settled here under the protection of the king, and Garroch is full of their descendants. I would say Garroch has fewer dirty houses than any village in England or in Wales. You can see the Dutch features in some of the people too, especially some of the old ones."
The twin girls, Hawthorn and May, now came through the courtyard gate followed by a pet lamb which came after them like a dog, and went with them into the house.
"That lamb's mother died when he was born," Mr. Norris explained, "and we've given him the bottle ever since. The children make no end of a fuss with him, and he wants to go wherever they go. He's a great pet with everybody is Jemmy, and he comes running whenever we call his name."
"Dinner isn't ready, grandpa," said Hawthorn, as she ran out again, still followed by the lamb. "I do want it, I'm so hungry."
"Have patience," said the old man. "Have patience, child. My old granny used to say to me when I sat in her chimney-corner: 'Patience is a virtue, never will it hurt you.'"
Forester laughed. "My mother gave me a different version," he said. "When I was in too great a hurry for anything, she said, 'Patience is a virtue, catch it if you can; seldom in a woman, never in a man!'"
"Run and look if your father's coming, Hawthorn. Go to the gate and look across the field," said her grandfather, smiling.
He was coming, and so was dinner, and soon they were all in their places round the table, with the pet lamb lying on the rug before the fire.
"Well, and what did that antiquarian say to you, Rupert?" asked his father.
"Not much. He was full of that friend of his who is coming tonight. It seems he's an artist, and is going to paint a fine picture that's to make his fortune. He wants to be allowed to make sketches of one or two parts of the castle. I told him I didn't think there could be any objection to his doing that."
"It's more than he would have got out of me," said the old man sharply. "Do you think the Sinclair family, when they come, will want this artist chap fussing round the place, followed about by his prying friend the antiquarian?"
"Oh, he doesn't want to be in this part of the castle, father. He won't interfere with the Sinclairs. It's an interior he's going to paint, and he wants to sketch bits inside the turret, the old staircase, and some of the broken stonework of the windows. He'll bring a small sketchbook and just make rough copies of these, and then when he gets back to London he'll put them all together and make a big picture from them. I'm sorry you're vexed about it, father."
"Well, what's done is done," said the old man. "I don't so much mind if he doesn't have the antiquarian always at his heels."
"What is an antiquarian, grandpa?" asked Leonard.
"It's a man that pokes about after old things and comes where he isn't wanted," said the old man. "Does anyone know anything about him, Rupert? What's his name, do you know?"
"He gave me his card, father. Here it is." Rupert handed the card across the table.