er, making a
pretence of eating heartily, in accordance with Mr. Whitelaw's hospitable
invitation, while that gentleman himself ploughed away with a steady
persistence that made awful havoc with the ham, and reduced the loaf in a
manner suggestive of Jack the Giant-killer.

The visitor presently ventured to remark that tea-drinking was not much
in his way, and that, if it were all the same to Mr. Whitelaw, he should
prefer a glass of brandy-and-water; whereupon the brandy-bottle was
produced from a cupboard by the fire-place, of which Stephen himself kept
the key, judiciously on his guard against a possible taste for ardent
spirits developing itself in Mrs. Tadman.

After this the stranger sat for some time, drinking cold
brandy-and-water, and staring moodily at the fire, without making the
faintest attempt at conversation, while Mr. Whitelaw finished his tea,
and the table was cleared; and even after this, when the farmer had taken
his place upon the opposite side of the hearth, and seemed to be waiting
for his guest to begin business.

He was not a lively stranger; he seemed, indeed, to have something on his
mind, to be brooding upon some trouble or difficulty, as Mrs. Tadman
remarked to her kinsman's wife afterwards. Both the women watched him;
Ellen always perplexed by that unknown likeness, which seemed sometimes
to grow stronger, sometimes to fade away altogether, as she looked at
him; Mrs. Tadman in a rabid state of curiosity, so profound was the
mystery of his silent presence.

What was he there for? What could Stephen want with him? He was not one
of Stephen's sort, by any means; had no appearance of association with
agricultural interests. And yet there he was, a silent inexplicable
presence, a mysterious figure with a moody brow, which seemed to grow
darker as Mrs. Tadman watched him.

At last, about an hour after the tea-table had been cleared, he rose
suddenly, with an abrupt gesture, and said,

"Come, Whitelaw, if you mean to show me this house of yours, you may as
well show it to me at once."

His voice had a harsh unpleasant sound as he said this. He stood with his
back to the women, staring at the fire, while Stephen Whitelaw lighted a
candle in his slow dawdling way.

"Be quick, man alive," the stranger cried impatiently, turning sharply
round upon the farmer, who was trimming an incorrigible wick with a pair
of blunted snuffers. "Remember, I've got to go back to Malsham; I haven't
all the ni