The Master, being busy and abhorring calls, had stayed at home.
He was at work in his study; and Lady was drowsing in the cool lower hall.
A few minutes before the Mistress was due to return for dinner, a whiff of acrid smoke was wafted to the man's nostrils.
Now, to every dweller in the country, there is one all-present peril; namely, fire.

And, the fear of this is always lurking worriedly in the back of a rural householder's brain.

A vagrant breath of smoke, in the night, is more potent to banish sleep and to start such a man to investigating his house and grounds than would be any and every other alarm known to mortals.
Even now, in broad daylight, the faint reek was enough to bring the Master's mind back to earth and the Master's body to its feet.
Sniffing, he went out to find the cause of the smell.

The chimneys and the roof and the windows of the house showing no sign of smoke, he explored farther; and presently located the odor's origin in a small brush-fire at some distance behind the stables.

Two of the men were raking pruned vine-suckers and leaves onto the blaze.