CHAPTER V.

THE OLD HOUSE AT MILNTHORPE.


The following afternoon Uncle Geoffrey, Allan, and I, started for
Milnthorpe. Youthful grief is addicted to restlessness--it is only
the old who can sit so silently and weep; it was perfectly natural,
then, that I should hail a few days' change with feelings of relief.

It was rather late in the evening when we arrived. As we drove
through the market place there was the usual group of idlers
loitering on the steps of the Red Lion, who stared at us lazily as we
passed. Milnthorpe was an odd, primitive little place--the sunniest
and sleepiest of country towns. It had a steep, straggling
Highstreet, which ended in a wide, deserted-looking square, which
rather reminded one of the Place in some Continental town. The weekly
markets were held here, on which occasion the large white portico of
the Red Lion was never empty. Milnthorpe woke with brief spasms of
life on Monday morning; broad-shouldered men jostled each other on
the grass-grown pavements; large country wagons, sweet-smelling in
haymaking seasons, blocked up the central spaces; country women, with
gay-colored handkerchiefs, sold eggs, and butter, and poultry In the
square; and two or three farmers, with their dogs at their heels,
lingered under the windows of the Red Lion, fingering the samples in
their pockets, and exchanging dismal prognostications concerning the
crops and the weather. One side of the square was occupied by St.
Barnabas, with its pretty shaded churchyard and old gray vicarage. On