“Every one, you see, sir,” he said, “going the same way! Dust to dust!”

“If they’re all going that way,” remarked Lestrange, “it would cost every stick on the estate to rebind them!”

“I wouldn’t rebind any of them. An old binding is like an old picture. Just look at this French binding! It’s very dingy and a good deal broken, but you never see anything like that now!”

Lestrange was not exactly stuck-up. He had feared the fellow might say anything next. But by this time the young blacksmith’s admiration of the books pleased him and he became more cordial.

“Do you say all russia leather behaves in the same fashion?” he asked.

“Yes, now. I imagine it did not some years ago. There may be some change in the preparation of the leather. I don’t know. It is a great pity! Russia is lovely to look at—and smells so good. May I take a look at some of the old books, sir?”

“What do you call an old book?”

“One not later than, say, the time of James the First. Do you have a first folio? The folio of Shakespeare of 1623? There are, of course, many much scarcer. I saw one the other day that the booksellers themselves gave eight hundred guineas for!”

“What was it?” asked Lestrange.

“It was a wonderful copy of Gower’s Confessio Amantis—not a very interesting book, though I’m sure Shakespeare was fond of it.”

“Have you read Gower then?”

“A good deal of him.”

“Was it that same precious copy you read him in?”

“It was. But I hadn’t time for more than about half. I will have to finish with another edition another time.”

“How did you get hold of a book of such value?”

“The booksellers who bought it asked me to take it into my little book hospital. It needed a little patching.”

“You say it was not very interesting?”

“Not very.”

“Why did you read so much of it then?”

“When a book is hard to come by, you are the more inclined to read it when you have a chance.”

All the time they talked, old Simon stood to one side saying nothing, pleased to note how well his grandson could hold his own with the young squire.

“Where did you learn so much about our country’s literature?” asked Lestrange.

“From my own reading, mostly,” answered Richard. “And at King’s.”

“King’s!” cried Lestrange.

“King’s College, London, I mean,” said Richard. “They have evening classes there. My father always took care that I should have time for anything I wanted to do. I go whenever I’m at home and the lecturer takes up any special subject I want to know more about.”

“You’ll be an author yourself someday, I suppose!”

“There’s little hope or fear of that, sir! But I can’t bear not to know what’s in my hands. I can’t be content with the outsides of the books I bind. It would be a shame to come so near light and never see it shine.”