Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/90

 was still watching him, and the suspicion in her dark, glowing eyes was increased.

"Why, I don't know," she said, coldly. "Seems a queer time of the year to come a-pleasuring—nasty, damp weather like this—and as to making pictures of the house, I don't know how the master would be for that, I'm sure. Who might you be, and where do you come from—we're not favourable to strangers hereabouts."

Before Wedgwood could make any retort to these inhospitable remarks, a young man, carelessly dressed in rough country garments, untidy and unshaven, and with his hands thrust in the pockets of his riding breeches, came out of a door close by, and lounged forward. He was an oaf in appearance, thought Wedgwood, and he was not surprised to hear a voice as surly in accent as the lips from which it came were sullen and stupid in appearance.

"What's afoot?" asked the young man, staring furtively at the stranger. "What's he want, Janet?"

"Nay, some make of foolishness!" replied the woman, drawing aside. "Picture-making, or something soft—it caps me how folk can find time for such games—I can't, anyways!"

She retreated down the hall again, and