stocked, indeed, that the abbots of a near monastery had used it for
many hundred years as a hunting ground. But the monastery had vanished
off the face of the earth, as not even its ruins were left, and the game
had disappeared as the forest grew smaller and the district around
became more populous. A Lambert of the Georgian period--the family name
of Lord Garvington was Lambert--had acquired what was left of the
monastic wood by winning it at a game of cards from the nobleman who had
then owned it. Now it was simply a large patch of green in the middle of
a somewhat naked county, for Hengishire is not remarkable for woodlands.
There were rabbits and birds, badgers, stoats, and such-like wild things
in it still, but the deer which the abbots had hunted were conspicuous
by their absence. Garvington looked after it about as much as he did
after the rest of his estates, which was not saying much. The fat, round
little lord's heart was always in the kitchen, and he preferred eating
to fulfilling his duties as a landlord. Consequently, the Abbot's Wood
was more or less public property, save when Garvington turned crusty and
every now and then cleared out all interlopers. But tramps came to sleep
in the wood, and gypsies camped in its glades, while summer time brought
many artists to rave about its sylvan beauties, and paint pictures of
ancient trees and silent pools, and rugged lawns besprinkled with
rainbow wild flowers. People who went to the Academy and to the various
art exhibitions in Bond Street knew the Abbot's Wood fairly well, as it
was rarely that at least one picture dealing with it did not appear.

Miss Greeby had explored the wood before and knew exactly where to find
the cottage mentioned by Lady Garvington. On the verge of the trees she
saw the blue smoke of the gypsies' camp fires, and heard the vague
murmur of Romany voices, but, avoiding the vagrants, she took her way
through the forest by a winding path. This ultimately led her to a
spacious glade, in the centre of which stood a dozen or more rough