Starvecrow Farm Part 11

When the room was clear she tapped Henrietta on the shoulder. "There's no gaol for you," she said bluntly. "Though it is not yourself you've got to thank for it. They've put you in my charge and you're to stay here, and I'm to answer for you. So you'll just say straight out if you'll stay, or if you'll run."

Had the girl burst into tears the landlady had found it reasonable.

Instead, "Where is he?" Henrietta whispered. She did not even turn her head.

"Didn't you hear," Mrs. Gilson retorted, "that he had not been taken?"

"I mean--I mean----"

"Ah!" Mrs. Gilson exclaimed, a little enlightened. "You mean the gentleman that was here, and spoke for you? Yes, you are right, it's him you've to thank. Well, he's gone to Whitehaven, but he'll see you tomorrow."

Henrietta sighed.

"In the meantime," Mrs. Gilson continued, "you'll give me your word you'll not run. Gilson is bound for you in fifty pounds to show you when you're wanted. And as fifty pounds is fifty pounds, and a mint of money, I'd as soon turn the key on you as not. Girls that run once, run easy," the landlady added severely.

"I will not run away," Henrietta said meekly--more meekly perhaps than she had ever spoken in her life. "And--and I am much obliged to you, and thankful to you," in a very small voice. "Will you please to let me go to my room, and you can lock me in?"

She had risen from her seat, and though she did not turn to the landlady, she stole, shamed and askance, a look at her. Her lip trembled, her head hung. And Mrs. Gilson, on her side, seemed for a moment on the verge of some unwonted demonstration; she stood awkward and large, and perhaps from sheer clumsiness avoided even while she appeared to invite the other's look. But nothing happened until the two pa.s.sed out, Henrietta first, like a prisoner, and Mrs. Gilson stiffly following.

Then there were half a dozen persons waiting to stare in the pa.s.sage, and the way Mrs. Gilson's tongue fell loose was a warning. In two seconds, only one held her ground: the same dark girl with the gipsy-like features whose mocking smile had annoyed Henrietta as she dressed that morning. Ah, me! what ages ago that morning seemed!

To judge from Mrs. Gilson's indignation, this girl was the last who should have stood.

"Don't you black-look me!" the landlady cried. "But pack! D'you hear, impudence, pack! Or not one drop of milk do I take from your old skinflint of a father! And he'll drub you finely, if he's not too old and silly--till you smile on the other side of your face! I'd like to know what's taken you to-day to push yourself among your betters!"

"No harm," the girl muttered. She had retreated, scowling, half-way down the stairs.

"And no good, either!" the landlady retorted. "Get you gone, or I'll make your ears ring after another fashion!"

Henrietta heard no more. She had shrunk from the uproar and fled quickly to her room. With a bursting heart and a new humility she drew the key from the wards of the lock and set it on the outside, hoping--though the hope was slender--to avoid further words with the landlady. The hope came nearer fulfilment, however, than she expected; for Mrs. Gilson, after panting upstairs, only cried through the door that she would send her up supper, and then went down again--perhaps with a view to catching Bess Hinkson in a fresh trespa.s.s.

Bess was gone, however. But adventures are for the brave, and not ten minutes pa.s.sed before the landlady was at issue with a fresh adversary. She found the coach-office full, so full that it overflowed into the hall. Modest Ann, called this way and that, had need of four hands to meet the demands made upon her; so furious were the calls for the lemons and rum and Old Geneva, the grateful perfume of which greeted Mrs. Gilson as she descended. Alas, something else greeted her: and that was a voice, never a favourite with her, but now raised in accents particularly distasteful. Tyson, the Troutbeck apothecary--a flashy, hard-faced young man in pepper-and-salt, and Bedford cords--had seized the command and the ear of the company in the coach-office, and was roasting Long Tom Gilson upon his own hearth.

"Not know who she is?" he was saying in the bullying tone which made him hated of the pauper cla.s.s. "You don't ask me to believe that, Tom?

Come! Come!"

"It's what I say," Gilson answered.

He sat opposite the other, his hands on his knees, his face red and sulky. He did not like to be baited.

"And you go bail for her?" Tyson cried. "You have gone bail for her?"

"Well?"

"And don't know her name?"

"Well--no."

The doctor sat back in his chair, his gla.s.s in his hand, and looked round for approbation.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, "what do you think of that for a dalesman?"

"Well, it wasn't long-headed, Tom," said one unwillingly. "Not to call long-headed, so to speak," with north-country caution. "I'd not go bail myself, not for n.o.body I'd not know."

"No," several agreed. "No, no!"

"No, but----"

"But what, Tom, what?" the doctor asked, waiting in his positive fashion for the other to plunge deeper into the mire.

"Captain Clyne, that I do know," Gilson continued, "it was he said 'Do it!' And he said something to the Rector, I don't doubt, for he was agreeable."

"But he did not go bail for her?" the apothecary suggested maliciously.

"No," Tom answered, breathing hard. "But for reason she was not there, but here. Anyway," he continued, somewhat anxious to shift the subject, "he said it and I done it, and I'd do it again for Captain Clyne. I tell you he's not a man as it's easy to say 'No' to, Mr.

Tyson. As these Radicals i' Lancashire ha' found out, 'od rot 'em!

He's that active among 'em, he's never a letter, I'm told, but has a coffin drawn on it, and yeomanry in his house down beyond both day and night, I hear!"

"I heard," said one, "in Cartmel market, he was to be married next week."

"Ay," said the doctor jocosely, "but not to the young lady as Tom is bail for! I tell you, Tom, he's been making a fool of you just to keep this bit of evidence against the Radicals in his hands."

"Why not send her to Appleby gaol, then?" Tom retorted, with a fair show of sense.

"Because he knows you'll cosset her here, and he thinks to loose her tongue that way! They can gaol her after, if this don't answer."

"Oh, indeed!"

"Ay, while you run the risk! If it's not that, what's he doing here?"

"Why should he not be here?" Gilson asked slowly. "Hasn't he the old house in Furness, not two miles from Newby Bridge! And his mother a Furness woman. I do hear that the boy's to be brought there for safety till the shires are quieter. And maybe it's that brings Captain Anthony here."

"But what has that to do with the young woman you're going bail for?"

the doctor retorted. "Go bail, Tom, for a wench you don't know, and that'll jump the moon one of these fine nights! I tell you, man, I never heard the like! Never! Go bail for a girl you don't know!"

"And I tell you," cried a voice that made the gla.s.ses ring, "I have heard the like! And I'll give you the man, my lad!" And Mrs. Gilson, putting aside the two who blocked the doorway, confronted the offending Tyson with a look comparable only to that of Dr. Keats of Eaton when he rolled up his sleeves. "I'll give you the name, my lad!"

she repeated.

"Well," the doctor answered, though he was manifestly taken aback, "you must confess, Mrs. Gilson----"

"Nay, I'll confess nothing!" the landlady retorted. "What need, when you're the man? Not give bail for a woman you don't know? Much you knew of Madge Peters when you made her your wife! And wasn't that going bail for her? Ay, and bail that you'll find it hard to get out of, my man, though you may wish to! For the matter of that, it's small blame to her, whatever comes of it!" Mrs. Gilson continued, setting her arms akimbo. "If all I hear of your goings-on is true! What do you think she's doing, ill and sick at home, while you're hanging about old Hinkson's? Ay, you may look black, but tell me what Bess Hinkson's doing about my place all this day? I never saw her here twice in a day in all my life before, and----"

"What do you mean?" Tyson cried violently. To hear a thing which he thought no one suspected brought up thus before a roomful of men! He looked black as thunder at his accuser.

"I mean no harm of your wife," the terrible landlady answered; something--perhaps this roasting of her husband on his own hearth--had roused her beyond the ordinary. "None, my gentleman, and I know none.

But if you want no harm said of her, show yourself a bit less at Hinkson's. And a bit less in my house. And a bit more in your own! And the harm will be less likely to happen!"

"I'll never cross your doorstep again!" Tyson roared.