But the squire sat there, motionless and upright, like a figure cut of
stone.
IV
The court of the manor seemed deserted half an hour before dinner-time.
There was a Sabbath stillness in the air to-day, sweetened, as it were,
by the bubbling of bird-music in the pleasaunce behind the hall and the
high woods beyond. On the strips of rough turf before the gate and
within it bloomed the spring flowers, white and blue. A hound lay
stretched in the sunshine on the hall steps; twitching his ears to keep
off a persistent fly. You would have sworn that his was the only
intelligence in the place. Yet at the sound of the iron latch of the
gate and the squire's footsteps on the stones, the place, so to say,
became alive, though in a furtive and secret manner. Over the half door
of the stable entrance on the left two faces appeared--one, which was
Dick's, sullen and angry, the other, that of a stable-boy, inquiring and
frankly interested. This second vanished again as the squire came
forward. A figure of a kitchen-boy, in a white apron, showed in the dark
doorway that led to the kitchen and hall, and disappeared again
instantly. From two or three upper windows faces peeped and remained
fascinated. Only the old hound remained still, twitching his ears.
All this--though there was nothing to be seen but the familiar personage
of the place, in his hat and cloak and sword, walking through his own
court on his way to dinner, as he had walked a thousand times before.
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