bed's to be had for you there to-night, and if not, I'll have you with me, and bottle you, and exhibit you, for you're a rare specimen. Breakfast you may count on from Mr. Dale. I spy a gentleman.'
'It's Colonel De Craye.'
'Come after news of you.'
'I wonder!'
'Miss Middleton sends him; of course she does.'
Crossjay turned his full face to the doctor. 'I haven't seen her for such a long time! But he saw me last night, and he might have told her that, if she's anxious. — Good-morning, colonel. I've had a good walk, and a capital drive, and I'm as hungry as the boat's crew of Captain Bligh.'
He jumped down.
The colonel and the doctor saluted, smiling.
'I've rung the bell,' said De Craye.
A maid came to the gate, and upon her steps appeared Miss Dale, who flung herself at Crossjay, mingling kisses and reproaches. She scarcely raised her face to the colonel more than to reply to his greeting, and excuse the hungry boy for hurrying indoors to breakfast.
'I'll wait,' said De Craye. He had seen that she was paler than usual. So had Dr. Corney; and the doctor called to her concerning her father's health. She reported that he had not yet risen, and took Crossjay to herself.
'That's well,' said the doctor, 'if the invalid sleeps long. The lady is not looking so well, though. But ladies vary; they show the mind on the countenance, for want of the punching we meet with to conceal it; they're like military flags for a funeral or a gala; one day furled, and next day streaming. Men are ships' figure-heads, about the same for a storm or a calm, and not too handsome, thanks to the ocean. It's an age since we encountered last, colonel: on board the Dublin boat, I recollect, and a night it was.'
'I recollect that you set me on my legs, doctor.'
'Ah! and you'll please to notify that Corney's no quack at sea, by favour of the monks of the Chartreuse, whose elixir has power to still the waves. And we hear that miracles are done with!'
'Roll a physician and a monk together, doctor!'
'True: it'll be a miracle if they combine. Though the cure of the soul is often the entire and total cure of the body: and it's maliciously said that the body given over to our treatment is a signal to set the soul flying. By the way, colonel, that boy has a trifle on his mind.'
'I suppose he has been worrying a farmer or a gamekeeper.'
'Try him. You'll find him tight. He's got Miss Middleton on the brain.
There's a bit of a secret; and he's not so cheerful about it.'
'We'll see,' said the colonel.
Dr Corney nodded. 'I have to visit my patient here presently. I'm too early for him: so I'll make a call or two on the lame birds that are up,' he remarked, and drove away.
De Craye strolled through the garden. He was a gentleman of those actively perceptive wits which, if ever they reflect, do so by hops and jumps: upon some dancing mirror within, we may fancy. He penetrated a plot in a flash; and in a flash he formed one; but in both cases, it was after long hovering and not over-eager deliberation, by the patient exercise of his quick perceptives. The fact that Crossjay was considered to have Miss Middleton on the brain, threw a series of images of everything relating to Crossjay for the last forty hours into relief before him: and as he did not in the slightest degree speculate on any one of them, but merely shifted and surveyed them, the falcon that he was in spirit as well as in his handsome face leisurely allowed his instinct to direct him where to strike. A reflective disposition has this danger in action, that it commonly precipitates conjecture for the purpose of working upon probabilities with the methods and in the tracks to which it is accustomed: and to conjecture rashly is to play into the puzzles of the maze. He who can watch circling above it awhile, quietly viewing, and collecting in his eye, gathers matter that makes the secret thing discourse to the brain by weight and balance; he will get either the right clue or none; more frequently none; but he will escape the entanglement of his own cleverness, he will always be nearer to the enigma than the guesser or the calculator, and he will retain a breadth of vision forfeited by them. He must, however, to have his chance of success, be acutely besides calmly perceptive, a reader of features, audacious at the proper moment.
De Craye wished to look at Miss Dale. She had returned home very suddenly, not, as it appeared, owing to her father's illness; and he remembered a redness of her eyelids when he passed her on the corridor one night. She sent Crossjay out to him as soon as the boy was well filled. He sent Crossjay back with a request. She did not yield to it immediately. She stepped to the front door reluctantly, and seemed disconcerted. De Craye begged for a message to Miss Middleton. There was none to give. He persisted. But there was really none at present, she said.
'You won't entrust me with the smallest word?' said he, and set her visibly thinking whether she could dispatch a word. She could not; she had no heart for messages.
'I shall see her in a day or two, Colonel De Craye.'
'She will miss you severely.'
'We shall soon meet.'
'And poor Willoughby!'
L?titia coloured and stood silent.
A butterfly of some rarity allured Crossjay.
'I fear he has been doing mischief,' she said. 'I cannot get him to look at me.'
'His appetite is good?'
'Very good indeed.'
De Craye nodded. A boy with a noble appetite is never a hopeless lock.
The colonel and Crossjay lounged over the garden.
'And now,' said the colonel, 'we'll see if we can't arrange a meeting between you and Miss Middleton. You're a lucky fellow, for she's always thinking of you.'
'I know I'm always thinking of her,' said Crossjay.
'If ever you're in a scrape, she's the person you must go to.'
'Yes, if I know where she is!'
'Why, generally she'll be at the Hall.'
There was no reply: Crossjay's dreadful secret jumped to his throat. He certainly was a weaker lock for being full of breakfast.
'I want to see Mr. Whitford so much,' he said.
'Something to tell him?'
'I don't know what to do: I don't understand it!' The secret wriggled to his mouth. He swallowed it down. 'Yes, I want to talk to Mr. Whitford.'
'He's another of Miss Middleton's friends.'
'I know he is. He's true steel.'
'We're all her friends, Crossjay. I flatter myself I'm a Toledo when I'm wanted. How long had you been in the house last night before you ran into me?'
'I don't know, sir; I fell asleep for some time, and then I woke!..'
'Where did you find yourself?'
'I was in the drawing-room.'
'Come, Crossjay, you're not a fellow to be scared by ghosts? You looked it when you made a dash at my midriff.'
'I don't believe there are such things. Do you, colonel? You can't!'
'There's no saying. We'll hope not; for it wouldn't be fair fighting. A man with a ghost to back him'd beat any ten. We couldn't box him or play cards, or stand a chance with him as a rival in love. Did you, now, catch a sight of a ghost?'
'They weren't ghosts!' Crossjay said what he was sure of, and his voice pronounced his conviction.
'I doubt whether Miss Middleton is particularly happy,' remarked the colonel. 'Why? Why, you upset her, you know, now and then.'
The boy swelled. 'I'd do… I'd go… I wouldn't have her unhappy… It's that! that's it! And I don't know what I ought to do. I wishI could see Mr. Whitford.'
