John rose, and carried both empty tankards over to the barrel. Having refilled them, he handed one to Mr. Lydd again, slightly lifted his own in a silent toast, and said: “You’re a very good fellow, Joe, and I hope you will continue to take care of Miss Nell. I shan’t hinder you.”
“Well, now, I had a notion that maybe you wouldn’t,” disclosed Mr. Lydd. “I’ve been mistook in a man, in my time, but not often. You may be what they call a flash cull, or you might have come into these backward parts because you was afraid of a clap on the shoulder, but somehow I don’t think it. If I may make so bold as to say so, I like the cut of your jib. I don’t know what kind of a May game you’re playing, because—not wishing to give offence!—you can’t slumguzzle me into thinking you ain’t Quality. Maybe you’re kicking up a lark, like. And yet you don’t look to me like one of them young bucks, in the heyday of blood, as you might say.”
“In the heyday of blood,” said John, “I was a lieutenant of Dragoon Guards. I came into these parts by accident, and I am remaining by design. No shoulder-clapper is on my trail, nor am I a flash cull. More than that I don’t propose to tell you—except that no harm will come to your mistress at my hands.”
Mr. Lydd, after subjecting him to another of his fixed stares, was apparently satisfied, for he nodded, and repeated that there was no offence meant. “Only, seeing as I’ve had me orders to mind the pike tomorrow, while you go jauntering off to Tideswell with Miss Nell—let alone Rose getting wind of it, and talking me up to find out what your business is till I’m fair sick of the sound of her voice—”
“Who is Rose?” interrupted John.
“Miss Durward,” said Mr. Lydd, with bitter emphasis. “Not that I’m likely to call her such, for all the airs she may give herself. Why, I remember when she first came to Kellands to be nursemaid to Miss Nell! A little chit of a wench she was, too! Mind, I’ve got nothing against her, barring she’s grown stoutish, and gets on her high ropes a bit too frequent, and I don’t say as I blame her for being leery o’ strangers—Miss Nell not having anyone but Squire to look after her, and he being burned to the socket, the way he is.”
It was by this time apparent to John that orphaned though she might be Miss Stornaway did not lack protectors, and it came as no surprise to him when, shortly after eight o’clock next morning, he sustained a visit from Miss Durward. He was enjoying a lively argument with a waggoner when she came walking briskly down the road, this ingenious gentleman, recognizing in him a newcomer, making a spirited attempt to convince him that the proper charge for the second of his two vehicles, which was linked behind the first, was threepence. But Captain Staple, who had usefully employed himself in studying the literature provided by the Trustees of the Derbyshire Toll-gates for the perusal of his predecessor, was able to point out to him that as the vehicle in question was mounted on four wheels it was chargeable at the rate of two horses, not of one. “What’s more, it’s loaded,” he added, interrupting an unflattering description of his personal appearance and mental turpitude, “so it pays double toll. I’ll take a horde and tenpence from you, my bully!”
“You’ll take one in the bread-basket!” said the waggoner fiercely.
“Oh, will I?” retorted the Captain. “It’ll be bellows to mend with you if you’re thinking of a mill, but I’ve no objection! Put ’em up!”
“I seen a man like you in a fair onct,” said the waggoner, ignoring this invitation. “Leastways, they said he was a man. ’Ardly ’uman he was, poor creature!”
“And now I come to think of it,” said the Captain, “didn’t I see you riding on the shaft? That’s unlawful, and it’s my duty to report it.”
Swelling with indignation, the waggoner spoke his mind with a fluency and a range of vocabulary which commanded the Captain’s admiration. He then produced the sum of one shilling and tenpence, defiantly mounted the shaft again, and went on his way, feeling that his defeat had been honourable.
The Captain, shutting the gate, found that he was being critically regarded by a buxom woman who was standing outside the toll-house, with a basket on her arm. Her rather plump form was neatly attired in a dress of sober gray, made high to the throat, and unadorned by any ribbons or flounces. Over it she wore a cloak; and under a plain chip hat her pretty brown hair was confined in a starched muslin cap, tied beneath her chin in a stiff bow. She was by no means young, but she was decidedly comely, with well-opened gray eyes, an impertinent nose, and a firm mouth that betokened a good deal of character. Having listened without embarrassment to John’s interchange with the waggoner, she said sharply, as he caught sight of her: “Well, young man! Very pretty language to be using in front of females, I must say!”
“I didn’t know you were there,” apologized John.
“That’s no excuse. The idea of bandying words with a low, vulgar creature like that! What have you done to your shirt?”
John glanced guiltily down at a jagged tear in one sleeve. “I caught it on a nail,” he said.
She clicked her tongue, saying severely: “You’ve no business to be wearing a good shirt like that. You’d better let me have it, when you take it off, and I’ll mend it for you.”
“Thank’ee!” said John.
“That’s quite enough of that!” she told him, an irrepressible dimple showing itself for an instant. “Don’t you try and hoax me you’re not a gentleman-born, because you can’t do it!”
“I won’t,” he promised. “And don’t you try to hoax me you’re not Miss Stornaway’s nurse, because I wouldn’t believe you! You put me much in mind of my own nurse.”
“I’ll be bound you were a rare handful for the poor soul,” she retorted. “If you are going to town this morning, see you buy a couple of stout shirts! A sin and a shame it is to be wearing a fine one like this, and you very likely chopping wood, and I don’t know what beside! What your mother would say, if she was to see you, sir—!”
Concluding from this speech that he had been approved, John said, with a smile: “I will. I’ll take good care of your mistress, too. You may be easy on that head!”
“Well, it’s time someone did, other than me and Joseph—though what good he could do it queers me to guess!” she said. “I don’t know who you are, nor what you’re doing here, but I can see you’re respectable, and if you did happen to fall out with a nasty, bracket-faced gentleman, with black hair and the wickedest eyes I ever did see, I don’t doubt he’d have the worst of it. With your good leave, sir, I’ll step inside to have a word with Mrs. Skelling, if that’s her I hear in the kitchen. I’ve got some of our butter for her, which Miss Nell promised she should have. And I was to tell you, Mr. Jack—if that’s what you’re wishful to be called—that Miss Nell will be along with the gig just as soon as those two gentlemen have taken themselves off to Sheffield!”
With these words she marched through the office to the kitchen, where she found Mrs. Skeffling, a widow of many years’ standing, zestfully engaged in turning out the contents of the cupboard, and scrubbing its shelves: a thing which, as she informed Miss Durward, she had long wanted to do. After both ladies had expressed, with great frankness, their respective opinions of the absent Mr. Brean’s dirty and disorderly habits, Mrs. Skeffling paused from her labours in order to enjoy a quiet gossip about the new gatekeeper.