"Rupert Trevlyn is its rightful owner," said the stranger, almost as demonstratively as Nora herself could have spoken.
"Ah," said Nora, with a sort of indignant groan, "the whole parish knows that. But Chattaway has possession of it, you see."
"Why doesn't some one help Rupert Trevlyn to his rights?"
"Who's to do it?" crossly responded Nora. "Can you?"
Had the gentleman asserted that he might possibly cause the moon to shine by day instead of by night, Nora could not have shown more intense surprise. "Help--him--to--his--rights?" she slowly repeated. "Do you mean to say you could displace Chattaway?"
"Why--who are you?" uttered the amazed Nora.
A smile flitted for a moment over Mr. Daw's countenance, the first symptom of a break to its composed sadness. But he gave no reply.
"Do you know Rupert Trevlyn?" she reiterated.
But even to that there was no direct answer. "I came to this place partly to see Rupert Trevlyn," were the words that issued from his lips. "I knew his father; he was my dear friend."
"Who can he be?" was the question reiterating itself in Nora's active brain. "Are you a lawyer?" she asked, the idea suddenly occurring to her: as it had, you may remember, to old Canham.
Mr. Daw coughed. "Lawyers are keen men," was his answering remark, and Nora could have beaten him for its vagueness. But before she could say more, an interruption occurred.
This conversation had been carried on aloud; neither the stranger nor Nora having deemed it necessary to speak in undertones. The consequence of which was, that those in the midst of whom they stood had listened with open ears, drawing their own deductions--and very remarkable deductions some of them were. The knife-grinder--though a stranger to the local politics, and totally uninterested in them--had listened with the rest. One conclusion _he_ hastily came to, was, that the remarkable-looking gentleman with the white beard _was_ a lawyer; and he pushed himself to the front.
"You be a lawyer, master," he broke in, with some excitement. "Would you mind telling of me whether they _can_ harm me. If I ain't at liberty to ply my trade under a roadside hedge but I must be took up and punished for it, why, it's a fresh wrinkle I've got to learn. I've done it all my life; others in the same trade does it; can the law touch us?"
