Page:Night and Day (1919).pdf/203

 sometimes to count the trucks on the goods’ trains, and they’re well over fifty—well over fifty, at this season of the year.”

The old gentleman had been roused agreeably by the presence of this attentive and well-informed young man, as was evident by the care with which he finished the last words in his sentences, and his slight exaggeration in the number of trucks on the trains. Indeed, the chief burden of the talk fell upon him, and he sustained it to-night in a manner which caused his sons to look at him admiringly now and then; for they felt shy of Denham, and were glad not to have to talk themselves. The store of information about the present and past of this particular corner of Lincolnshire which old Mr. Datchet produced really surprised his children, for though they knew of its existence, they had forgotten its extent, as they might have forgotten the amount of family plate stored in the plate-chest, until some rare celebration brought it forth.

After dinner, parish business took the Rector to his study, and Mary proposed that they should sit in the kitchen.

“It’s not the kitchen really,” Elizabeth hastened to explain to her guest, “but we call it so”

“It’s the nicest room in the house,” said Edward.

“It’s got the old rests by the side of the fireplace, where the men hung their guns,” said Elizabeth, leading the way, with a tall brass candlestick in her hand, down a passage. “Show Mr. Denham the steps, Christopher. When the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were here two years ago they said this was the most interesting part of the house. These narow bricks prove that it is five hundred years old—five hundred years, I think—they may have said six.” She, too, felt an impulse to exaggerate the age of the bricks, as her father had exaggerated the number of trucks. A big lamp hung down from the centre of the ceiling and, together with a fine log fire, illuminated a large