'I can't say that I see that.'
'I do. But mind, I haven't spoken a word of this to any one. And I don't mean. What would be the good? I suppose she must marry him now?'
'Of course she must.'
'And be wretched all her life. Oh-h-h-h!' and he muttered a deep groan. 'I'll tell you what it is, Crofts. He is going to take the sweetest girl out of this country that ever was in it, and he don't deserve her.'
'I don't think she can be compared to her sister,' said Crofts slowly.
'What; not Lily?' said Eames, as though the proposition made by the doctor were one that could not hold water for a minute.
'I have always thought that Bell was the more admired of the two,' said Crofts.
'I'll tell you what,' said Eames. 'I have never yet set my eyes on any human creature whom I thought so beautiful as Lily Dale. And now that beast is going to marry her! I'll tell you what, Crofts; I'll manage to pick a quarrel with him yet.' Whereupon the doctor, seeing the nature of the complaint from which his companion was suffering, said nothing more, either about Lily or about Bell.
Soon after this Eames was at his own door, and was received there by his mother and sister with all the enthusiasm due to a hero. 'He has saved the earl's life!' Mrs Eames had exclaimed to her daughter on reading Lord De Guest's note. 'Oh, goodness!' and she threw herself back upon the sofa almost in a fainting condition.
'Saved Lord De Guest's life!' said Mary.
'Yes—under Providence,' said Mrs Eames, as though that latter fact added much to her son's good deed.
'But how did he do it?'
'By cool courage and good feeling;—so his lordship says. But I wonder how he really did do it?'
'Whatever way it was, he's torn all his clothes and lost his hat,' said Mary.
'I don't care a bit about that,' said Mrs Eames. 'I wonder whether the earl has any interest at the Income-tax. What a thing it would be if he could get Johnny a step. It would be seventy pounds a year at once. He was quite right to stay and dine when his lordship asked him. And so Dr Crofts is there. It couldn't have been anything in the doctoring way, I suppose.'
'No, I should say not; because of what he says of his trousers.' And so the two ladies were obliged to wait for John's return.
'How did you do it, John?' said his mother, embracing him, as soon as the door was opened.
'How did you save the earl's life?' said Mary, who was standing behind her mother.
'Would his lordship really have been killed, if it had not been for you?' asked Mrs Eames.
'And was he very much hurt?' asked Mary.
'Oh, bother,' said Johnny, on whom the results of the day's work, together with the earl's Falernian, had made some still remaining impression. On ordinary occasions, Mrs Eames would have felt hurt at being so answered by her son; but at the present moment she regarded him as standing so high in general favour that she took no offence. 'Oh, Johnny, do tell us. Of course we must be very anxious to know it all.'
'There's nothing to tell, except that a bull ran at the earl, as I was going by; so I went into the field and helped him, and then he made me stay and dine with him.'
'But his lordship says that you saved his life,' said Mary.
'Under Providence,' added their mother.
'At any rate, he has given me a gold watch and chain,' said Johnny, drawing the present out of his pocket. 'I wanted a watch badly. All the same, I didn't like taking it.'
'It would have been very wrong to refuse,' said his mother. 'And I am so glad you have been so fortunate. And look here, Johnny: when a friend like that comes in your way, don't turn your back on him.' Then, at last, he thawed beneath their kindness, and told them the whole of the story. I fear that in recounting the earl's efforts with the spud, he hardly spoke of his patron with all that deference which would have been appropriate.
