Page:Guy Boothby--A Bid for Fortune.djvu/66

56 party may once have known my father. I'll try him. Waiting till he had passed a load of hay coming along the lane, I put the question to him.

To my surprise he no sooner heard the name than he became as excited as it was possible for him to be.

"Hatteras! Be ye a Hatteras? Well, well, now, dearie me, who'd ha' thought it!"

"Do you know the name so well, then?"

"Ay! ay! I know the name well enough; who doesn't in these parts? There was the old Squire and Lady Margaret when first I remember. Then Squire Jasper and his son, the captain, as was killed in a mutiny in foreign parts—and Master James"

"James—that was my father's name. James Dymoke Hatteras."

"You Master James' son—you don't say! Well! well! Now to think of that too! Him that ran away from home after words with the Squire and went to foreign parts. Who'd have thought it! Lawksee me! Sir William will be right down glad to see ye, I'll be bound."

"Sir William, and who's Sir William?"

"He's the only one left now, sir. Lives up at the House. Ah, dear! Ah, dear! There's been a power o' trouble in the family these years past."

By this time the aspect of the country was changing. We had left the lane behind us, ascended a short hill, and were now descending it again through what looked to my eyes more like a stately avenue than a public road. Beautiful elms reared themselves on either hand and intermingled their branches overhead; while before us, through a gap in the foliage, we could just make out the winding river, the thatched roofs of the village of which we had come in search lining its banks, and the