water and a quick-spreading ring where a fat trout rose lazily in
midstream.

Somehow, too, he resisted the first impulse of the active side of his
temperament, and did not instantly tug at the rope.

Instead, he shouted:--

"Hi, Bates!"

An answering hail came from behind a screen of laurels on the right of
the house. There lay the stables, and Bates would surely be grooming the
cob which supplied a connecting link between The Hollies and the railway
for the neighboring market-town.

Bates came, a sturdy block of a man who might have been hewn out of a
Sussex oak. His face, hands, and arms were the color of oak, and he moved
with a stiffness that suggested wooden joints.

Evidently, he expected an order for the dogcart, and stood stock still
when he reached the lawn. But Grant, who had gathered his wits, summoned
him with crooked forefinger, and Bates jerked slowly on.

"What hev' ye done to yer face, sir?" he inquired.

Grant was surprised. He expected no such question.

"So far as I know, I've not been making any great alteration in
it," he said.