“Are you Master Conway?”

“That’s my name,” Ralph replied.

“A bed has been taken for you, sir, and a trap will be over here at nine o’clock in the morning to take you to Penfold Hall.”

Supper was already prepared for such passengers as were going to sleep in the hotel; but Ralph was too sleepy to want to eat, and had made a good meal when the coach stopped at six o’clock for twenty minutes to allow the passengers time for refreshments.  At eight o’clock next morning he breakfasted.  When he had finished the waiter told him that the trap had arrived a few minutes before, and that the horse had been taken out to have a feed, but would be ready to start by nine.  Ralph took a stroll for half an hour by the sea and then returned.  The trap was at the door, and his trunk had already been placed in it.  The driver, a man of twenty-three or twenty-four, was, as he presently told Ralph, stable-helper at Penfold Hall.

“I generally drive this trap when it is wanted,” he said.  “The coachman is pretty old now.  He has been in the family well-nigh fifty years.  He is all right behind the carriage-horses, he says, but he does not like trusting himself in a pair-wheel trap.”

“How far is it?”

“A matter of fifteen miles.  It would be a lot shorter if you had got off last night at the nearest point the coach goes to; but the master told the coachman that he thought it would be pleasanter for you to come on here than to arrive there tired and sleepy after dark.”

“Yes, it will much more pleasant,” Ralph said.  “The road was very dirty, and I should not like to arrive at a strange house with my clothes all covered with dust, and so sleepy that I could hardly keep my eyes open, especially as I hear that Mr. Penfold’s sisters are rather particular.”

“Rather isn’t the word,” the driver said; “they are particular, and no mistake.  I don’t believe as the master would notice whether the carriage was dirty or clean; but if there is a speck of dirt about they are sure to spot it.  Not that they are bad mistresses; but they look about all right, I can tell you, pretty sharp.  I don’t say that it ain’t as well as they do, for the master never seems to care one way or the other, and lets things go anyhow.  A nice gentleman he is, but I don’t see much of him; and he don’t drive in the carriage not once a month, and only then when he is going to the board of magistrates.  He just walks about the garden morning and evening, and all the rest of the time he is shut up in the library with his books.  It’s a pity he don’t go out more.”

“Are there any families about with boys?” Ralph asked.

“Not as I knows of.  None of then that ever comes to the Hall, anyhow.  It’s a pity there ain’t some young ones there; it would wake the place up and make it lively.  It would give us a lot more work to do, I don’t doubt; but we shouldn’t mind that.  I have heard it used to be different in the old squire’s time, but it has always been so as long as I can remember.  I don’t live at the house, but down at the village.  Jones he lives over the stables; and there ain’t no occasion to have more than one there, for there’s only the two carriage-horses and this.”