I have no wish ever to score at their
expense. At the same time, Mr. White Mason, I claim the right to
work in my own way and give my results at my own time--complete
rather than in stages."
"I am sure we are honoured by your presence and to show you all
we know," said White Mason cordially. "Come along, Dr. Watson,
and when the time comes we'll all hope for a place in your book."
We walked down the quaint village street with a row of pollarded
elms on each side of it. Just beyond were two ancient stone
pillars, weather-stained and lichen-blotched, bearing upon their
summits a shapeless something which had once been the rampant
lion of Capus of Birlstone. A short walk along the winding drive
with such sward and oaks around it as one only sees in rural
England, then a sudden turn, and the long, low Jacobean house of
dingy, liver-coloured brick lay before us, with an old-fashioned
garden of cut yews on each side of it. As we approached it,
there was the wooden drawbridge and the beautiful broad moat as
still and luminous as quicksilver in the cold, winter sunshine.
Three centuries had flowed past the old Manor House, centuries of
births and of homecomings, of country dances and of the meetings
of fox hunters.
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