twise unless she's but lately come. I have never heard of
such a woman.'

'She may possibly be only visiting there.'

'Ah, perhaps that's the shape o't. Well, now you tell o't, I have seen a
strange face thereabouts once or twice lately. A young good-looking maid
enough, seemingly.'

'Yes, she's considered a very handsome lady.'

'I've heard the woodmen say, now that you tell o't, that they meet her
every now and then, just at the closing in of the day, as they come home
along with their nitches of sticks; ay, stalking about under the trees by
herself--a tall black martel, so long-legged and awful-like that you'd
think 'twas the old feller himself a-coming, they say. Now a woman must
be a queer body to my thinking, to roam about by night so lonesome and
that? Ay, now that you tell o't, there is such a woman, but 'a never
have showed in the parish; sure I never thought who the body was--no, not
once about her, nor where 'a was living and that--not I, till you spoke.
Well, there, sir, that's Arr'thorne Lodge; do you see they three elms?'
He pointed across the glade towards some confused foliage a long way off.

'I am not sure about the sort of tree you mean,' said Christopher, 'I see
a number of trees with edges shaped like edges of clouds.'

'Ay, ay, they be oaks; I mean the elms to the left hand.'

'But a man can hardly tell oaks from elms at that distance, my good
fellow!'

'That 'a can very well--leastwise, if he's got the sense.'

'Well, I think I see what you mean,' said Christopher. 'What next?'

'When you get there, you bear away smart to nor'-west, and you'll come
straight as a line to the Lodge.'

'How the deuce am I to know which is north-west in a strange place, with
no sun to tell me?'

'What, not know nor-west? Well, I should think a boy could never live
and grow up to be a man without knowing the four quarters. I knowed 'em
when I was a mossel of a chiel. We be no great scholars here, that's
true, but there isn't a Tom-rig or Jack-straw in these parts that don't
know where they lie as well as I. Now I've lived, man and boy, these
eight-and-sixty years, and never met a man in my life afore who hadn't
learnt such a common thing as the four quarters.'

Christopher parted from his companion and soon reached a stile,
clambering over which he entered a park. Here he threaded his way, and
rounding a clump of aged trees the young man came in view of a light and
elegant country-house in the