She stamped her foot upon the frosty ground as she spoke. Talbot Bulstrode saw and wondered at the gesture. He had half a mind to leave the carriage and join Aurora and her petitioner; but the ponies were restless, and he knew that it would not do to abandon the reins to poor timid Lucy.
“You needn’t take on so, Miss Floyd,” answered the man, whom Aurora had addressed as Matthew Harrison; “I’m sure I want to make things pleasant to all parties. All I ask is that you’ll act a little liberal to a cove wot’s come down in the world since you see him last. Lord, wot a world it is for ups and downs! If it had been the summer season, I’d have had no needs to worrit you; but what’s the good of standin’ at the top of Regent Street such weather as this with tarrier-pups and such likes? Old ladies has no eye for dawgs in the winter; and even the gents as cares for rat-catching is gettin’ uncommon scarce. There ain’t nothink doin’ on the turf whereby a chap can make a honest penny; nor won’t be, come the Craven Meetin’. I’d never have come a-nigh you, miss, if I hadn’t been hard up; and I know you’ll act liberal.”
“Act liberally!” cried Aurora. “Good heavens! if every guinea I have, or ever hope to have, could blot out the business that you trade upon, I’d open my hands and let the money run through them as freely as so much water.”
“It was only good-natur’d of me to send you that ere paper, though, miss, eh?” said Mr. Matthew Harrison, plucking a dry twig from the tree nearest him, and chewing it for his delectation.
Aurora and the man had walked slowly onward as they spoke, and were by this time at some distance from the pony-carriage.
Talbot Bulstrode was in a fever of restless impatience.
“Do you know this pensioner of your cousin’s, Lucy?” he asked.
“No, I can’t remember his face. I don’t think he belongs to Beckenham.”
“Why, if I hadn’t have sent you that ere Life, you wouldn’t have know’d; would you now?” said the man.
“No, no, perhaps not,” answered Aurora. She had taken her porte-monnaie from her pocket, and Mr. Harrison was furtively regarding the little morocco receptacle with glistening eyes.
“You don’t ask me about any of the particklars,” he said.
“No. What should I care to know of them?”
“No, certently,” answered the man, suppressing a chuckle; “you know enough, if it comes to that; and if you wanted to know any more, I couldn’t tell you; for them few lines in the paper is all I could ever get hold of about the business. But I allus said it, and I allus will; if a man as rides up’ards of eleven stone—”
It seemed as if he were in a fair way of rambling on for ever so long, if Aurora had not checked him by an impatient frown. Perhaps he stopped all the more readily as she opened her purse at the same moment, and he caught sight of the glittering sovereigns lurking between leaves of crimson silk. He had no very acute sense of colour; but I am sure that he thought gold and crimson made a pleasing contrast, as he looked at the yellow coin in Miss Floyd’s porte-monnaie. She poured the sovereigns into her own gloved palm, and then dropped the golden shower into Mr. Harrison’s hands, which were hollowed into a species of horny basin for the reception of her bounty. The great trunk of an oak screened them from the observation of Talbot and Lucy, as Aurora gave the man this money.
“You have no claim on me,” she said, stopping him abruptly, as he began a declaration of his gratitude, “and I protest against your making a market of any past events which have come under your knowledge. Remember, once and forever, that I am not afraid of you; and that if I consent to assist you, it is because I will not have my father annoyed. Let me have the address of some place where a letter may always find you—you can put it into an envelope and direct it to me here—and from time to time I promise to send you a moderate remittance; sufficient to enable you to lead an honest life, if you, or any of your set, are capable of doing so; but I repeat, that if I give you this money as a bribe, it is only for my father’s sake.”
The man uttered some expression of thanks, looking at Aurora earnestly; but there was a stern shadow upon the dark face that forbade any hope of conciliation. She was turning from him, followed by the mastiff, when the bandy-legged dog ran forward, whining and raising himself upon his hind legs to lick her hand.
The expression of her face underwent an immediate change. She shrank from the dog, and he looked at her for a moment with a dim uncertainty in his bloodshot eyes; then, as conviction stole upon the brute mind, he burst into a joyous bark, frisking and capering about Miss Floyd’s silk dress, and imprinting dusty impressions of his fore paws upon the rich fabric.
“The pore hanimal knows yer, miss,” said the man, deprecatingly; “you was never ’aughty to ’im.”
The mastiff Bow-wow made as if he would have torn up every inch of ground in Felden Woods at this juncture; but Aurora quieted him with a look.
“Poor Boxer!” she said; “poor Boxer! so you know me, Boxer.”
“Lord, miss, there’s no knowin’ the faithfulness of them animals.”
“Poor Boxer! I think I should like to have you. Would you sell him, Harrison?”
The man shook his head.
“No,
