“I should think,” said Chirk dryly, “them coves at Bedlam must be looking for you all over! You ain’t got a fancy to go on the rum-pad for a week or two, I s’pose?”
“Not I!” John grinned. “It’s pound dealing for me! Try it yourself!—I might be able to help you.”
“Thanking you kindly, I’d as lief stand on my own feet! Nor I don’t see why you should want to help me.”
“As you please! When you see Rose Durward, give her a message from me!”
This brought Chirk up on to his feet, with a scrape of his chair across the floor, and a dangerous look in his eye. “So that’s it, is it?” he said softly. “A man o’ the town, are you, Soldier? Would that be why you’re being so obliging as to keep the gate for Ned? Quite in the petticoat-line, I daresay! Well, if you’re to her taste, she’s welcome!”
“Tell her,” said the Captain, carefully trimming the lamp, which had begun to smoke, “that I’ll be hanged if I know what she finds to take her fancy in a damned, green-eyed, suspicious, quarrel-picking hedge-bird, but I’ll stable his mare for him—if only to please her!”
Considerably taken aback, Chirk stood staring at him, his humorous mouth thinned, and a challenging frown in his eyes. “There’s not a soul but her knows why I come here,” he said. “Not a soul, d’ye hear me? So if you know it, it looks uncommon like she told you, Soldier! P’raps you’ll be so very obliging as to tell me how that came about?” He had thrown off his greatcoat when he sat down to the table, but his pistol lay beside his plate, and he picked it up. “I’m a man as likes plain-speaking, Soldier—and a quick answer!” he said significantly.
“Are you?” said the Captain, a hint of steel in his pleasant voice. “But I am not a man who likes to answer questions at the pistol-muzzle, Mr. Chirk! Put that gun down!” He rose to his feet. “You’ll get hurt, you know, if you make me go to the trouble of wresting it away from you,” he warned him.
An involuntary grin lightened the severity of Chirk’s countenance. He lowered the pistol, and exclaimed: “Damme, if you don’t beat all hollow, Soldier! It ain’t me as would be hurt if I was to pull this trigger!”
“If you were to do anything so mutton-headed, you’d be an even bigger gudgeon than I take you for—which isn’t possible!” said John. “I’ve a strong liking for Rose, but I don’t dangle after women ten years older than I am, however comely they may be!”
“You’re Quality, and they’re not particular where they throw out their damned lures—just for a bit o’ sport to while away the time!” muttered Chirk.
“I shan’t be particular where I throw you out, if you make me lose my temper!” said the Captain grimly. “What the devil do you mean by talking of a decent woman as if she were a light frigate?”
Mr. Chirk flushed, and pocketed his pistol. “I never thought such!” he protested. “It just put me in a tweak, thinking—But I see as I was mistaken! No offence, Soldier! The thing is, I get fair blue-devilled! There’s times when I wish I’d never set eyes on Rose, seeing as she’s one as is above my touch. She’s respectable, and I’m a hedge-bird, and no help for it! But I did set eyes on her, and the more I make up my mind to it I won’t come here no more, the more I can’t keep away. Then I knew she’d whiddled the whole scrap to you—”
“Nothing of the sort! She never mentioned you,” interrupted John. “It was her mistress who told me the story!”
Much abashed, Chirk begged his pardon. He then eyed him sideways, and said: “A regular Long Meg she is, but a mort o’ mettle, that I will say! Much like yourself, Soldier! Not scared of my pops! Did she tell you how it chanced that I met Rose?”
“She did, and it seemed to me that hedge-bird though you are you’re a good fellow, for you didn’t take their purses from them. Or were you afraid of Rose?”
Mr. Chirk chuckled reminiscently. “Ay, fit to tear the eyes out of my head she was! And her own sparkling that pretty as you never did see! But, lordy, Soldier, I never knew it was only a couple o’ morts in the gig, or I wouldn’t have held ’em up!”
“I believe you wouldn’t indeed. Does Rose know that you come to this house?”
“No. Only you, and Ned, and young Ben knows that—and only you knows what my business is!”
“Never mind that! Tell Rose you’ve met me! There have been changes up at the Manor since you were last here!”
“Squire been put to bed with a shovel?” asked Chirk. “Sick as a horse, he was, by what Rose told me.”
“Not that. But his grandson is at Kellands, with a friend. Name of Coate. What brings him into Derbyshire, no one knows: nothing good, I fancy!”
“Flash cove?” said Chirk, cocking an intelligent eyebrow.
“I’ll cap downright!” said John, in the vernacular.
The eyebrows remained cocked; Chirk patted his pocket suggestively.
“No, no!” John said, laughing. “Just try if you can discover what brought him to Kellands, and whether Ned Brean was concerned in it!” He saw a quizzical look in Chirk’s face, and added: “Don’t gammon me you can’t do it! If there’s havey-cavey business afoot, you can get wind of it more easily than another!”
At that moment, the door opened, and Ben slid somewhat warily into the kitchen. Aware of having incurred his friend’s displeasure, he did not venture to address him; but Chirk said encouragingly: “Come here, Benny!” and stretched out a hand.
Much relieved, he bounded across the room. “It’s all right and tight, ain’t it?” he asked anxiously. “And I give Mollie——”
“Never you mind about Mollie! You tell me this, son! Where’s your dad loped off to?”
“I dunno. She knows me, Mollie does! She——”
“Don’t you tell me no lies!” said Chirk sternly. “Your dad never loped off without telling you when he’d be back!”
“Well, he did!” said Ben, wriggling to shake off the grip on his shoulder. “’Leastways, he said he’d be back in an hour, but he never said no more. It don’t matter, Mr. Chirk! I got Jack instead, and we has a bang-up dinner every day, and he’s learnt me to play cards. I like him better than me dad, much! He’s a swell cove!”
“There’s a young varmint for you!” said Chirk, with some severity. “Now, you stand still, Benny, else you don’t give Mollie another carrot as long as you live! Did you ever know your dad go off like this before?”
Ben shook his head vigorously, and once more proffered the suggestion that his dad had been pressed.
“And all the same to you if he was, I suppose!” said Chirk. “Think, now! Didn’t he ever leave you to mind the gate before?”
“Ay. He did when he went to market, or the Blue Boar.”
“Did he leave you all night?”
“No,” Ben muttered, hanging his head.
“Benny!” said Chirk warningly. “You know what’ll happen to you if you tell me any more bouncers, don’t you?”
“Me dad said I wasn’t to tell no one, else he’d break every bone in me body!” said Ben desperately.
“Well, I won’t squeak on you, so he won’t know you whiddled the scrap. And if you don’t, I’ll break every bone in your body, so you won’t be any better off,” said Chirk calmly. “This ain’t the first time your dad’s loped off, is it?”
“Yes, it is!” Ben asseverated. “Only onct, before, he went off and told me to mind the gate in the night, and if anyone was to ask where he was he said to tell ’em he was laid down on his bed with a touch o’ the colic! And he come back before it was morning, honest he did!”
“Where did he go to?”
“I dunno! It was dark, and he woke me up—’least, he didn’t, ’cos there was a waggon, or something, went through the gate, and that woke me. And me dad said as I was to sit by the fire in here till he come back, and to keep me chaffer close, ’cos he was going out.”
“How long was he gone, Benny?”
“A goodish while. All night, I dessay,” replied Ben vaguely. “Nobody comed through the gate, and I went to sleep, and when me dad come in the fire was gone out.”