“No; for Mrs. Mellish.”
“But I daren’t,” exclaimed Stephen Hargraves; “I daren’t go nigh the house; least of all to speak to her. I don’t forget the day she horsewhipped me. I’ve never seen her since, and I don’t want to see her. You think I am a coward, don’t ’ee?” he said, stopping suddenly, and looking at the trainer, whose handsome lips were curved into a contemptuous smile. “You think I’m a coward, don’t ’ee, now?” he repeated.
“Well, I don’t think you are over-valiant,” answered Mr. Conyers, “to be afraid of a woman, though she was the veriest devil that ever played fast and loose with a man.”
“Shall I tell you what it is I am afraid of?” said Steeve Hargraves, hissing the words through his closed teeth in that unpleasant whisper peculiar to him. “It isn’t Mrs. Mellish. It’s myself. It’s this”—he grasped something in the loose pocket of his trousers as he spoke—“it’s this. I’m afraid to trust myself a-nigh her, for fear I should spring upon her, and cut her thro‑at from ear to ear. I’ve seen her in my dreams sometimes, with her beautiful white thro‑at laid open, and streaming oceans of blood; but, for all that, she’s always had the broken whip in her hand, and she’s always laughed at me. I’ve had many a dream about her; but I’ve never seen her dead or quiet; and I’ve never seen her without the whip.”
The contemptuous smile died away from the trainer’s lips as Steeve Hargraves made this revelation of his sentiments, and gave place to a darkly thoughtful expression, which overshadowed the whole of his face.
“I’ve no such wonderful love for Mrs. Mellish myself,” he said; “but she might live to be as old as Methuselah, for aught I care, if she’d—” He muttered something between his teeth, and walked up the little staircase to his bedroom, whistling a popular tune as he went.
He came down again with a dirty-looking leather desk in his hand; which he flung carelessly on to the table. It was stuffed with crumpled untidy-looking letters and papers, from among which he had considerable difficulty in selecting a tolerably clean sheet of notepaper.
“You’ll take a letter to Mrs. Mellish, my friend,” he said to Stephen, stooping over the table and writing as he spoke; “and you’ll please to deliver it safe into her own hands. The windows will all be open this sultry weather, and you can watch till you see her in the drawing-room; and when you do, contrive to beckon her out, and give her this.”
He had folded the sheet of paper by this time, and had sealed it carefully in an adhesive envelope.
“There’s no need of any address,” he said, as he handed the letter to Steeve Hargraves; “you know who it’s for, and you won’t give it to anybody else. There, get along with you. She’ll say nothing to you, man, when she sees who the letter comes from.”
The “Softy” looked darkly at his new employer; but Mr. James Conyers rather piqued himself upon a quality which he called determination, but which his traducers designated obstinacy, and he made up his mind that no one but Steeve Hargraves should carry the letter.
“Come,” he said, “no nonsense, Mr. Stephen! Remember this: if I choose to employ you, and if I choose to send you on any errand whatsoever, there’s no one in that house will dare to question my right to do it. Get along with you!”
He pointed, as he spoke, with the stem of his pipe, to the Gothic roof and ivied chimneys of the old house gleaming amongst a mass of foliage. “Get along with you, Mr. Stephen, and bring me an answer to that letter,” he added, lighting his pipe and seating himself in his favourite attitude upon the windowsill—an attitude which, like everything about him, was a half-careless, half-defiant protest of his superiority to his position. “You needn’t wait for a written answer. Yes or No will be quite enough, you may tell Mrs. Mellish.”
The “Softy” whispered something, half inaudible, between his teeth; but he took the letter, and pulling his shabby rabbit-skin cap over his eyes, walked slowly off in the direction to which Mr. Conyers had pointed, with a half-contemptuous action, a few moments before.
“A queer fish,” muttered the trainer, lazily watching the awkward figure of his attendant; “a queer fish; but it’s rather hard if I can’t manage him. I’ve twisted his betters round my little finger before today.”
Mr. Conyers forgot that there are some natures which, although inferior in everything else, are strong by reason of their stubbornness, and not to be twisted out of their natural crookedness by any trick of management or skilfulness of handling.
The evening was sunless but sultry; there was a lowering darkness in the leaden sky, and an unnatural stillness in the atmosphere that prophesied the coming of a storm. The elements were taking breath for the struggle, and lying silently in wait against the breaking of their fury. It would come by-and-by, the signal for the outburst, in a long, crackling peal of thunder that would shake the distant hills and flutter every leaf in the wood.
The trainer looked with an indifferent eye at the ominous aspect of the heavens. “I must go down to the stables, and send some of the boys to get the horses under cover,” he said; “there’ll be a storm before long.” He took his stick and limped out of the cottage, still smoking; indeed, there were very few hours in the day, and not many during the night, in which Mr. Conyers was unprovided with his pipe or cigar.
Steeve Hargraves walked very slowly along the narrow pathway which led across the park to the flower-garden and lawn before the house. This north side of the park was wilder and less well kept than the rest; but the thick undergrowth swarmed with game, and the young hares flew backwards and forwards across the pathway, startled by the “Softy’s” shambling
