“Don’t you know the drawing-room! Well, there it is,” and the young lady indicated it with her finger. “My turn now.”
And while the game was pursued in the hall, the visitor pushed open the drawing-room door and entered.
“And how is Miss Ally?”
“Oh, Harry! Really!”
“Myself as large as life. You don’t look half pleased, Ally. But I have nout but good news for you today. You’re something richer this week than you were last.”
“What is it, Harry? Tell me what you mean?”
“So I will. You know that charge on Carwell—a hundred and forty pounds a year—well, that’s dropped in. That old witch is dead—ye might ’a seen it in the newspaper, if you take in one—Bertha Velderkaust. No love lost between ye. Eh?”
“Oh, Harry! Harry! don’t,” said poor Alice, pale, and looking intensely pained.
“Well, I won’t then; I didn’t think ’twould vex you. Only you know what a head devil that was—and she’s dead in the old place, Hoxton. I read the inquest in the Times. She was always drinkin’. I think she was a bit mad. She and the people in the back room were always quarrelling; and the father’s up for that and forgery. But ’twasn’t clear how it came about. Some swore she was out of her mind with drink, and pitched herself out o’ the window; and some thought it might ’a bin that chap as went in to rob her, thinkin’ she was stupid; and so there was a tussle for’t—she was main strong, ye know—and he chucked her out. Anyhow she got it awful, for she fell across the spikes of the area-rails, and she hung on them with three lodged in her side—the mad dog-fox, she was!”
“Oh, Harry! How shocking! Oh! pray don’t!” exclaimed Alice, who looked as if she was going to faint.
“Well, she lay there, without breath enough to screech, twistin’ like a worm—for three hours, it’s thought.”
“Oh! Harry—pray don’t describe it; don’t, I implore. I feel so ill.”
“Well, I won’t, if you say so, only she’s smashed, and cold in her wooden surtout; and her charge is reverted to you, now; and I thought I’d tell ye.”
“Thank you, Harry,” she said, very faintly.
“And when did you come here? I only heard this morning,” asked Harry.
“Five weeks ago.”
“Do you like it; ain’t it plaguy lonesome?”
“I like the quiet—at least for a time,” she answered.
“And I’m thinkin’ o’ gettin’ married—upon my soul I am. What do you think o’ that?”
“Really!”
“Sure as you’re there, but it won’t be none o’ your love-matches.
‘Bring something, lass, along wi’ thee,
If thou intend to live wi’ me.’
That’s my motto. Sweetheart and honey-bird keeps no house, I’ve heard say. I like a body that can look after things, and that would rather fund fifty pounds than spend a hundred.
‘A nice wife and a back door
Hath made many a rich man poor,’
as they say; and besides, I’m not a young fellow no longer. I’m pushin’ sixty, and I should be wise. And who’s the little chap that’s playin’ skittles wi’ Amy in the hall?”
“Oh, that’s such a nice little boy. His father’s name is Henry, and his mother has been dead a long time. He lives with a good old woman named Marjory Trevellian. What’s the matter, Harry?”
“Nothing. I beg your pardon. I was thinkin’ o’ something else, and I didn’t hear. Tell me now, and I’ll listen.”
So she repeated her information, and Harry yawned and stretched his arms.
“ ‘For want o’ company,
Welcome trumpery,’
and I must be goin’ now. I wouldn’t mind drinkin’ a glass o’ sherry, as you’re so pressing, for I’ve had a stiff ride, and dust’s drouthy.”
So Harry, having completed his visit characteristically, took his leave, and mounted his nag and rode away.
LX
Tom Orange
Little Miss Amy had a slight cold, and the next tea-party was put off for a day. On the evening following Harry’s visit at Stanlake Farm, Marjory Trevellian being at that time absent in the village to make some frugal purchases, who should suddenly appear before the little boy’s eyes, as he lifted them from his fleet upon the pond, but his friend, Tom Orange, as usual in high and delightful spirits.
Need I say how welcome Tom was? He asked in a minute or two for Marjory, and took her temporary absence with great good humour. Tom affected chilliness, and indeed the evening was a little sharp, and proposed that they should retire to the cottage, and sit down there.
“How soon do you suppose, youngster, the old hen will come home?”
“Who?”
“Marjory Daw, down the chimney.”
“Oh, Granny?”
This nickname was the only pleasantry of Mr. Orange which did not quite please the boy.
Tom Orange here interpolated his performance of the jackdaw, with his eyelids turned inside out and the pupils quivering, which, although it may possibly have resembled the jackdaw of heraldry, was not an exact portraiture of the bird familiar to us in natural history; and when this was over he asked again—“How soon will she be home?”
“She walked down to the town, and I think she can’t be more than about halfway back again.”
“That’s a mile, and three miles an hour is the best of her paces if she was runnin’ for a pound o’ sausages and a new cap. Heigh ho! and alas and alack-a-day. No one at home but the maid, and the maid’s gone to church! I wrote her a letter the day before yesterday, and I must read it again before she comes back. Where does she keep her letters?”
“In her work-box on the shelf.”
“This will be it, the wery identical fiddle!” said Tom Orange, playfully, setting it down upon the little deal table, and, opening it, he took out the little sheaf of letters from the end, and took them one by one to the window, where
