"Head and shoulders? that's enough. Do you chance to know him?"
"I ain't thorough sure; but I think he be a Mr. Shenstone."
"Not much to speak of--only that he be a big gentleman, whose land lies along the river, two or three miles below."
The information is but slight, and slighter the gratification it gives. Captain Ryecroft has heard of the rich baronet whose estate adjoins that of Llangorren, and whose title, with the property attached, will descend to an only son. It is the _torso_ of this son he has seen above the red sandstone rock. In truth, a formidable rival! So he reflects, smoking away like mad.
"You've said you don't know the ladies we've helped out of their little trouble?"
"Parsonally, I don't, captain. But, now as I see where they live, I know who they be. I've heerd talk 'bout the biggest o' them--a good deal."
The biggest of them! As if she were a salmon! In the boatman's eyes, bulk is evidently her chief recommendation!
Ryecroft smiles, further interrogating:--
"That she be a _tidy_ young lady. Wonderful fond o' field sport, such as hunting and that like. Fr' all, I may say that up to this day, I never set eyes on her afore."
The Hussar officer has been long enough in Herefordshire to have learnt the local signification of "tidy"--synonymous with "well-behaved." That Miss Wynn is fond of field sports--flood pastimes included--he has gathered from herself while rowing her up the river.
One thing strikes him as strange--that the waterman should not be acquainted with every one dwelling on the river's bank, at least for a dozen miles up and down. He seeks an explanation.
"How is it, Jack, that you, living but a short league above, don't know all about these people?"
He is unaware that Wingate though born on the Wye's banks, as he has told him, is comparatively a stranger to its middle waters--his birthplace being far up in the shire of Brecon. Still that is not the solution of the enigma, which the young waterman gives in his own way,--
"Lord love ye, sir! That shows how little you understand this river. Why, captain, it crooks an' crooks, and goes wobblin' about in such a way, that folks as lives less'n a mile apart knows no more o' one the other than if they wor ten. It comes o' the bridges bein' so few and far between. There's the ferry boats, true; but people don't take to 'em more'n they can help 'specially women--seein' there be some danger at all times, and a good deal o't when the river's aflood. That's frequent, summer well as winter."