At The Relton Arms Part 3

So far his news came within the ken of his audience, and they were quick to maintain a share in it.

"I saw him myself, I did," began Lily Eliza; but her mother promptly took up the tale.

"Lady Relton's d.i.c.k? Eh, but he come along nigh after sunset, he did, and he says to my man, he says, 'Seen Muster Brill?' he says. And my man told him, he did, as ye worn't long gone home, not to call it short neither, nor yet very long; leastways ye were gone along home, he said, didn't ye, Pete? Speak up, man, and say what ye know, and doan't sit starin' as though heavin and earth worn't big enough for your eyes to look into."

"Woman," said Peter, with unusual effort, "heaven and earth bain't big enough for your tongue to clapper in, nor yet they wouldn't be if t'

other place was joined on too."

Here Roger struck in afresh.

"Lady Relton's d.i.c.k said the rats in the stable worn't worth their keep.

Lady Relton told him she'd pay the corn for the horses, but the rats would have to go elsewhere if they wanted good grain, as she didn't intend for 'em to have hers. I said I'd go to-morrow, being promised to Farmer Wadsden's ricks to-day; but d.i.c.k, he says the world has to stop a turnin' round for my lady, he says, and she were in a taking along of them rats, so to-day I took the pup along and I went up to the Court."

"Ah," gasped the landlady; she had not meant to interrupt, but the approach of the pith of the story was too much for her, and with the desperate economy of the schoolboy, who leaves the biggest plum to the last, she again diverted the channel of conversation.

"Lady Relton's d.i.c.k fetched a gentleman from the station this mornin', and he took him back again an hour past. I knows he did, seeing as I was washing the precious baby's face, or was I hanging out Mrs. Walker's wash? when the dog-cart come by. Was it the gentleman as ye saw up at the Court, Muster Brill?"

Few sights are more melancholy than that of a man who has been robbed of his story by another; and good-natured Roger Brill pushed back his chair at this second interruption, and rose to his feet with something like offended dignity.

"If ye want to have the talkin' to yourself, missus, I be going to clear out. Cause why? It bain't reasonable to tell a body somethin' fresh when the body have heard it afore, and I ain't the man to spoil t' other body's tale, so good arternoon to ye."

But here Peter became peacemaker.

"Sit ye down, lad, and doan't heed her clapperin' tongue. _I_ doan't, and it's clipper-clappered at me this twenty year."

With an effort of generosity the injured Roger recognized a grievance greater than his own, and by drinking the remainder of his beer standing he considered he had compromised his dignity sufficiently to resume his seat and his story.

"Lord, what rats they was!" he exclaimed, his eye kindling at the recollection. "I never could have thought so well of my lady as that she'd leave 'em to get to that pitch before calling me in. Why, Peter, man, if she'd called me in only a month ago she'd have spoilt the sport summat! but here they was, eaten to bustin' with corn, and no thought of the morrow, as the Holy Scripture says. Eh, but that was a mornin', that was; well, I reckon I'd laid out some dozen or more in the stable yard, when up comes Lady Relton and Mr. Jack." He paused to watch the effect of his superior knowledge on his hearers, chose to ignore the landlady's triumphant whisper, "That's him," and sighed deeply. "I doan't know no more than the dead what business it was of his to come hangin' round my lady, what's all unprotected and alone like, bless her!"

"Nay, indeed," echoed his hearers feelingly.

"More partickler," continued Roger, warmly, and striking his fist on the wooden table till the tea-cups rattled, "more partickler as Mr. Jack be Mr. Raleigh's own brother, and my lady belongs to Mr. Raleigh if ever she belonged to anybody; and no one can't deny as it's been my intention to put 'em together this four year come harvest time. No one can't deny it, no one."

"True, lad, true," grunted Peter sympathetically, while his wife cunningly seized the opportunity to interrupt again by appearing to enter warmly into the rat-catcher's disturbed feelings.

"And to think of his precious baby," sniffed Mrs. Haxtell, pouring herself out another cup of tea; "to think of the dear lamb, with no mother and not much father to speak of, pa.s.sing of his innocent childhood without the woman's care his father ought to give him. I've no patience with such neglect, though I'm sure I hope I've done my best by the child, as I thought to myself only this mornin' when I saw him stuffin' his precious fat cheeks with green plums. It ain't every one would let a child do that!"

Lily Eliza became restive at this point.

"Tell about Mr. Jack, Muster Brill," she urged timidly.

"Daughter," said old Peter, sternly, "it ain't the part of a well-meanin', G.o.d-fearin' la.s.s to ask such a question, and if you worn't your mother's own daughter you wouldn't have such sinful desires to ask 'em."

In her anxiety to hear the rest of the story, the landlady allowed this backhanded attack on her morals to pa.s.s unnoticed, and Roger began afresh. "Well, up they comes together, talkin' and laughin' quite friendly like, and my lady says to him, she says, 'Here's the rats you said I was to have killed,' she says, 'and isn't it a dear little dog?'

she says. So I says to her, 'Aye, it be a good pup; it's killed fourteen since breakfast,' and I seemed to offend her like, for up she gets from where she'd been patting him, and she looks at Mr. Jack all in a blaze, and she says all angry like, 'That's what you call sport, is it?' she says. 'Mr. Digby wouldn't call it sport,' she says."

"No more he wouldn't," said both the women simultaneously.

"That's true enough," said Roger, slowly, "but Lady Relton, she bain't the smirking soft kind o' woman what likes to spare the rat and spoil the corn, and I can't rightly make out what's come over her to-day. She didn't seem herself to-day, not anyhow, and she seemed to take a pleasure in quarrelin' over everything Mr. Jack said, and then she laughed of him, she did. It worn't like my lady, it worn't, to talk soft stuff about killin' rats; that be more like t' other one what come after Mr. Raleigh last springtime, the one what had saucer eyes, and pretended to be fond of the child, with her nasty clingin', pretendin' ways."

The last words were said with biting contempt, and the women sat silent and sipped their tea approvingly. But old Peter had different views concerning the "other one" alluded to, and he again made the effort to interrupt.

"Eh, lad, but you be proper hard upon poor Miss Norah, proper hard you be, for sure. I wouldn't be saying as ye haven't your reasons for it, but she seemed a quiet sort of maiden enough, what didn't mean no harm to speak of, and what's suffered enough for her foolishness, I'll be bound."

"I hope she has, I hope she has," exclaimed Roger, vehemently. "Those as comes with their sneaking ways tryin' for to corrupt honest folk deserves to suffer for it. No one doan't know why she didn't come back when Mr. Raleigh sent that letter after her, and no one doan't know why she didn't even answer it; but you take my word for it, it was Providence as interposed and wouldn't have nothink to do with her, and it's Providence as opens the way now to Mr. Raleigh if he'd only see it, and not want Providence to come down from heaven and poke him into it, so to speak. Who be that coming across the street?"

"Why, that be Mr. Raleigh his own self, that be," exclaimed Lily Eliza, joyously, and then blushed for fear of another rebuke from her father.

This time, however, she did not get it, for old Peter for business reasons was always anxious to propitiate the musician in the flying visits he paid them, and was far more concerned now in getting to the door in time to open it than in his daughter's back-slidings. Besides, he really liked the open-handed young fellow who paid up so regularly every quarter for the keep of his son without examining the items of the bill, who always came in with a smile and an outstretched hand, and was so inordinately grateful for the little they had done for the child.

"Well, Mrs. Haxtell, and how's the boy?" he cried with his cheery voice as he stood on the doorstep. "I've brought you a new kind of baccy to try, sir; hope the youngster has been behaving himself, eh? Ah, Roger, how does the world go with you? And where's my Sonny?"

"There, now, to think of his father coming so unfortunate like, and he that's never out at tea-time more than twice in a twelve-month," fussed the landlady, dusting three chairs in succession, and wondering how her back hair was bearing the exertion; "that do seem hard, that do; but there, Lady Relton she come down and asked so coaxing like for him to go that I couldn't find it in my heart to refuse her; but that be the first time I've let him out o' my sight this many weeks. And I'm sure I've been so doleful like all the time he's been gone that I won't never let him go again, that I won't; I kept on thinkin' somethin' was going to happen to the precious, and I wouldn't never see him again, and what would his father say then, when I'd promised to look after him like my own--there, Mr. Raleigh, I feel as if somethin' terrible might come to Master Sonny afore we set eyes on him again, that I do!"

"I hope not, Mrs. Haxtell, I hope not," said Digby, encouragingly, wondering if he were a hard-hearted parent because he had none of the landlady's nervous sensations concerning his son. "It would take a good deal to hurt Master Sonny, I fancy, and he will be in here directly turning everything upside down again to your heart's content. Are you off, Mr. Roger? Then I'll walk home with you, and have a pipe to get rid of the London smoke. Ah! London is not fit for a dog this weather! And will you send the boy down to the castle meadow when he comes in, Mrs.

Haxtell? Thanks; let him come alone, and learn to be a man."

Only a few minutes later Lady Joan brought her piebald ponies to a standstill before the sign of the "Relton Arms," and threw the reins to her groom.

"Here we are, Mrs. Haxtell; did you think I was going to keep him altogether? I nearly did, he was so fascinating, and we had such a delightful flirtation together. He is the most charming little gentleman to flirt with, because he is never stupid enough to take it in for a moment. Look at him now," as the boy flew into the landlady's arms with a shout. "Oh, you ungrateful little beggar, after all the cake and the jam I have been giving you! Here, give me a kiss, Sonny, and I'll be off. What is it, Mrs. Haxtell? His father, did you say? Oh--yes--to be sure, his father--yes!"

Fortunately for her, the landlady was too much engaged with the stormy caresses of the child to notice her, as she walked to the window and looked at two hens quarrelling over a grain of corn in the yard.

"Aye, my lady, and the child was to go down to the castle meadow all along of himself to find his father, to learn to be a man, was what he said. I bain't one to make a fuss over trifles, but I don't like to let the child go quite, and yet--"

"What nonsense! of course not; how like a man," said Lady Joan, contemptuously, "besides, the child is much too tired to walk all that way. Now for my two kisses, Sonny; I will make it three if you don't give me them at once, sir! I will go and make it right with his father, Mrs. Haxtell, if you will tell d.i.c.k to take the ponies quietly home, please. And may I go across the orchard?"

"Eh, but she doan't care what the towns-folk say, do she?" reflected Mrs. Haxtell, admiringly, as she watched the tall figure disappearing among the trees.

"I wonder what made me come," thought Lady Joan to herself, as she climbed the stile into the castle meadow; and her courage half failed her when she caught sight of a man in a brown felt hat that she had seen before, sitting on a fragment of the old ruined wall by the side of the brook.

But he had already seen her, and was coming towards her; and with a recklessness which she evidenced at once by letting her skirt trail on the damp gra.s.s, she went on to meet him.

CHAPTER V.

"Then marry me," the musician was saying, half-an-hour later. It had not struck him before that she might not possibly want to do so.

"But I have already told you that I do not love you," persisted Lady Joan, who was enjoying herself immensely.

"What does that matter? It will come in time, it is sure to come.

Besides, I love you; is not that enough?"

It would have been, to most of his lady friends; but Lady Joan only caught the humor of his words, and laughed derisively.

"You think you are going to put me off by pretending to laugh," he went on patiently; this was to show his superior knowledge of her character; "but the truth is that you dare not be serious, Lady Joan; why don't you give in to your real feelings and stop making a joke of life just this once?"