What I mean to say is, you are on the map. You have a sporting
chance. Whereas George... Well, just go over to England and try
wooing an earl's daughter whom you have only met once--and then
without an introduction; whose brother's hat you have smashed
beyond repair; whose family wishes her to marry some other man: who
wants to marry some other man herself--and not the same other man,
but another other man; who is closely immured in a mediaeval castle
. . . Well, all I say is--try it. And then go back to your porch
with a chastened spirit and admit that you might be a whole lot
worse off.
George, as I say, had not envisaged the peculiar difficulties of
his position. Nor did he until the evening of his second day at the
Marshmoreton Arms. Until then, as I have indicated, he roamed in a
golden mist of dreamy meditation among the soothing by-ways of the
village of Belpher. But after lunch on the second day it came upon
him that all this sort of thing was pleasant but not practical.
Action was what was needed. Action.
The first, the obvious move was to locate the castle. Inquiries at
the Marshmoreton Arms elicited the fact that it was "a step" up the
road that ran past the front door of the inn. But this wasn't the
day of the week when the general public was admitted. The
sightseer could invade Belpher Castle on Thursdays only, between
the hours of two and four. On other days of the week all he could
do was to stand like Moses on Pisgah and take in the general effect
from a distance. As this was all that George had hoped to be able
to do, he set forth.
It speedily became evident to George that "a step" was a euphemism.
Five miles did he tramp before, trudging wearily up a winding lane,
he came out on a breeze-swept hill-top, and saw below him, nestling
in its trees, what was now for him the centre of the world. He sat
on a stone wail and lit a pipe. Belpher Castle. Maud's home. There
it was. And now what?
The first thought that came to him was practical, even prosaic--
the thought that he couldn't possibly do this five-miles-there
and-five-miles-back walk, every time he wanted to see the place.
He must shift his base nearer the scene of operations. One of those
trim, thatched cottages down there in the valley would be just the
thing, if he could arrange to take possession of it. They sat there
all round the castle, singly and in groups, like small dogs round
their master. They looked as if they had been there for centuries.
Probably they had, as they were made of stone as solid as that of
the castle. There must have been a time, thought George, when the
castle was the central rallying-point for all those scattered
homes; when rumour of danger from marauders had sent all that
little community scuttling for safety to the sheltering walls.