Farmer Blaize was not so astonished at the visit of Richard Feverel as that young gentleman expected him to be.

The farmer, seated in his easy-chair in the little low-roofed parlour of an old-fashioned farm-house, with a long clay pipe on the table at his elbow, and a veteran pointer at his feet, had already given audience to three distinguished members of the Feverel blood, who had come separately, according to their accustomed secretiveness, and with one object.

In the morning it was Sir Austin himself.

Shortly after his departure, arrived Austin Wentworth; close on his heels, Algernon, known about Lobourne as the Captain, popular wherever he was known.

Farmer Blaize reclined in considerable elation.