“I do see it, and wish you luck with your job. Spare me ten minutes, and come down and speak to me.”
“I am in such a muck now, Mr. Fenwick, that I do wish to go on with it, if you’ll let me.”
But Mr. Fenwick, having taken so much trouble to get at the young man, was not going to be put off in this way. “Never mind your muck for a quarter of an hour,” he said. “I have come here on purpose to find you, and I must speak to you.”
“Must!” said Sam, looking down with a very angry lower on his face.
“Yes—must. Don’t be a fool now. You know that I do not wish to injure you. You are not such a coward as to be afraid to speak to me. Come down.”
“Afeard! Who talks of being afeard? Stop a moment, Mr. Fenwick, and I’ll be with you;—not that I think it will do any good.” Then slowly he crept back along the beam and came down through the interior of the building. “What is it, Mr. Fenwick? Here I am. I ain’t a bit afeard of you at any rate.”
“Where have you been the last fortnight, Sam?”
“What right have you to ask me, Mr. Fenwick?”
“I have the right of old friendship, and perhaps also some right from my remembrance of the last place in which I saw you. What has become of that man, Burrows?”
“What Burrows?”
“Jack the Grinder, whom I hit on the back the night I made you prisoner. Do you think that you were doing well in being in my garden about midnight in company with such a fellow as that—one of the most notorious jailbirds in the county? Do you know that I could have had you arrested and sent to prison at once?”
“I know you couldn’t—do nothing of the kind.”
“You know this, Sam—that I’ve no wish to do it; that nothing would give me more pain than doing it. But you must feel that if we should hear now of any depredation about the county, we couldn’t—I at least could not—help thinking of you. And I am told that there will be depredations, Sam. Are you concerned in these matters?”
“No, I am not,” said Sam, doggedly.
“Are you disposed to tell me why you were in my garden, and why those men were with you?”
“We were down in the churchyard, and the gate was open, and so we walked up;—that was all. If we’d meant to do anything out of the way we shouldn’t ’a come like that, nor yet at that hour. Why, it worn’t midnight, Mr. Fenwick.”
“But why was there such a man as Burrows with you? Do you think he was fit company for you, Sam?”
“I suppose a chap may choose his own company, Mr. Fenwick?”
“Yes, he may, and go to the gallows because he chooses it, as you are doing.”
“Very well; if that’s all you’ve got to say to me, I’ll go back to my work.”
“Stop one moment, Sam. That is not quite all. I caught you the other night where you had no business to be, and for the sake of your father and mother, and for old recollections, I let you go. Perhaps I was wrong, but I don’t mean to hark back upon that again.”
“You are a-harking back on it, ever so often.”
“I shall take no further steps about it.”
“There ain’t no steps to be taken, Mr. Fenwick.”
“But I see that you intend to defy me, and therefore I am bound to tell you that I shall keep my eye upon you.”
“Don’t you be afeard about me, Mr. Fenwick.”
“And if I hear of those fellows, Burrows and the other, being about the place any more, I shall give the police notice that they are associates of yours. I don’t think so badly of you yet, Sam, as to believe you would bring your father’s grey hairs with sorrow to the grave by turning thief and housebreaker; but when I hear of your being away from home, and nobody knowing where you are, and find that you are living without decent employment, and prowling about at nights with robbers and cutthroats, I cannot but be afraid. Do you know that the Squire recognised you that night as well as I?”
“The Squire ain’t nothing to me, and if you’ve done with me now, Mr. Fenwick, I’ll go back to my work.” So saying, Sam Brattle again mounted up to the roof, and the parson returned discomfited to the front of the building. He had not intended to see any of the family, but, as he was crossing the little bridge, meaning to go home round by the Privets, he was stopped by Fanny Brattle.
“I hope it will be all right now, Mr. Fenwick,” the girl said.
“I hope so too, Fanny. But you and your mother should keep an eye on him, so that he may know that his goings and comings are noticed. I dare say it will be all right as long as the excitement of these changes is going on; but there is nothing so bad as that he should be in and out of the house at nights and not feel that his absence is noticed. It will be better always to ask him, though he be ever so cross. Tell your mother I say so.”
XII
Bone’m and His Master
After leaving the mill Mr. Fenwick went up to the Squire, and,
