Works of Ellen Wood, page 381
“About eight or nine days ago.”
“Has he made his fortune?”
Mr. Gordon laughed. “I fancy not. Cannonby was always of a roving nature. I expect he got tired of the Australian world before fortune had time to find him out.”
Sibylla was soon deep in her flirtations again. It is not erroneous to call them so. But they were innocent flirtations — the result of vanity. Lionel moved away.
Another commotion. Some great long-legged fellow, without ceremony or warning, came striding in at the window close to Lucy Tempest. Lucy’s thoughts had been buried — it is hard to say where, and her eyes were strained to the large yew-tree upon the grass. The sudden entrance startled her, albeit she was not of a nervous temperament. With Indian bow-strings in the mind, and fancied moonlight spies before the sight, a scream was inevitable.
Whom should it be but Jan! Jan, of course. What other guest would be likely to enter in that unceremonious fashion? Strictly speaking, Jan was not a guest — at any rate, not an invited one.
“I had got a minute to spare this evening, so thought I’d come up and have a look at you,” proclaimed unfashionable Jan to the room, but principally addressing Lionel and Sibylla.
And so Jan had come, and stood there without the least shame, in drab trousers, and a loose, airy coat, shaking hands with Sir Rufus, shaking hands with anybody who would shake hands with him. Sibylla looked daggers at Jan, and Lionel cross. Not from the same cause. Sibylla’s displeasure was directed to Jan’s style of evening costume; Lionel felt vexed with him for alarming Lucy. But Lionel never very long retained displeasure, and his sweet smile stole over his lips as he spoke.
“Jan, I shall be endorsing Lady Verner’s request — that you come into a house like a Christian — if you are to startle ladies in this fashion.”
“Whom did I startle?” asked Jan.
“You startled Lucy.”
“Nonsense! Did I, Miss Lucy?”
“Yes, you did a little, Jan,” she replied.
“What a stupid you must be!” retorted gallant Jan. “I should say you want doctoring, if your nerves are in that state. You take—”
“Oh, Jan, that will do,” laughed Lucy. “I am sure I don’t want medicine. You know how I dislike it.”
They were standing together within the large window, Jan and Lionel, Lucy sitting close to them. She sat with her head a little bent, scenting her verbena.
“The truth is, Jan, I and Lucy have been watching some intruder who had taken up his station on the lawn, underneath the yew-tree,” whispered Lionel. “I suppose Lucy thought he was bursting in upon us.”
“Yes, I did really think he was,” said Lucy, looking up with a smile.
“Who was it?” asked Jan.
“He did not give us the opportunity of ascertaining,” replied Lionel. “I am not quite sure, mind, that I did see him; but Lucy is positive upon the point. I went to the tree, but he had disappeared. It is rather strange why he should be watching.”
“He was watching this room attentively,” said Lucy, “and I saw him move away when Mr. Verner went on the lawn. I am sure he was a spy of some sort.”
“I can tell you who it was,” said Jan. “It was Roy.”
“Roy!” repeated Lionel. “Why do you say this?”
“Well,” said Jan, “as I turned in here, I saw Roy cross the road to the opposite gate. I don’t know where he could have sprung from, except from these grounds. That he was neither behind me nor before me as I came up the road, I can declare.”
“Then it was Roy!” exclaimed Lionel. “He would have had about time to get into the road, from the time we saw him under the tree. That the fellow is prying into my affairs and movements, I was made aware of to-day; but why he should watch my house I cannot imagine. We shall have an account to settle, Mr. Roy!”
Decima came up, asking what private matter they were discussing, and Lionel and Lucy went over the ground again, acquainting her with what had been seen. They stood together in a group, conversing in an undertone. By and by, Mrs. Verner passed, moving from one part of the room to another, on the arm of Sir Rufus Hautley.
“Quite a family conclave,” she exclaimed, with a laugh. “Decima, however much you may wish for attention, it is scarcely fair to monopolise that of Mr. Verner in his own house. If he forgets that he has guests present, you should not help him in the forgetfulness.”
“It would be well if all wished for attention as little as does Miss Verner,” exclaimed Lord Garle. His voice rung out to the ends of the room, and a sudden stillness fell upon it; his words may have been taken as a covert reproof to Mrs. Verner. They were not meant as such. There was no living woman of whom Lord Garle thought so highly as he thought of Decima Verner; and he had spoken in his mind’s impulse.
Sibylla believed he had purposely flung a shaft at her. And she flung one again — not at him, but at Decima. She was of a terribly jealous nature, and could bear any reproach to herself, better than that another woman should be praised beside her.
“When young ladies find themselves neglected, their charms wasted on the desert air, they naturally do covet attention, although it be but a brother’s.”
Perhaps the first truly severe glance that Lionel Verner ever gave his wife he gave her then. Disdaining any defence off his sister, he stood, haughty, impassive, his lips drawn in, his eyes fixed sternly on Sibylla. Decima remained quiet under the insult, save that she flushed scarlet. Lord Garle did not. Lord Garle spoke up again, in the impetuosity of his open, honest nature.
“I can testify that if Miss Verner is neglected, it is her own fault alone. You are mistaken in your premises, Mrs. Verner.”
The tone was pointedly significant, the words were unmistakably clear, and the room could not but become enlightened to the fact that Miss Verner might have been Lady Garle. Sibylla laughed a little laugh of disbelief, as she went onwards with Sir Rufus Hautley; and Lionel remained enshrined in his terrible mortification. That his wife should so have forgotten herself!
“I must be going off,” cried Jan, good-naturedly interrupting the unpleasant silence.
“You have not long come,” said Lucy.
“I didn’t leave word where I was coming, and somebody may be going dead while they are scouring the parish for me. Good-night to you all; good-night, Miss Lucy.”
With a nod to the room, away went Jan as unceremoniously as he had come; and, not very long afterwards, the first carriage drew up. It was Lady Verner’s. Lord Garle hastened to Decima, and Lionel took out Lucy Tempest.
“Will you think me very foolish, if I say a word of warning to you?” asked Lucy, in a low tone to Lionel, as they reached the terrace.
“A word of warning to me, Lucy!” he repeated. “Of what nature?”
“That Roy is not a good man. He was greatly incensed at your putting him out of his place when you succeeded to Verner’s Pride, and it is said that he cherishes vengeance. He may have been watching to-night for an opportunity to injure you. Take care of him.”
Lionel smiled as he looked at her. Her upturned face looked pale and anxious in the moonlight. Lionel could not receive the fear at all: he would as soon have thought to dread the most improbable thing imaginable, as to dread this sort of violence, whether from Roy, or from any one else.
“There’s no fear whatever, Lucy.”
“I know you will not see it for yourself, and that is the reason why I am presumptive enough to suggest the idea to you. Pray be cautious! pray take care of yourself!”
He shook his head laughingly as he looked down upon her. “Thank you heartily all the same for your consideration, Lucy,” said he, and for the very life of him he could not help pressing her hand warmer than was needful as he placed her in the carriage.
They drove away. Lord Garle returned to the room; Lionel stood against one of the outer pillars, looking forth on the lovely moonlight scene. The part played by Roy — if it was Roy — in the night’s doings disturbed him not; but that his wife had shown herself so entirely unlike a lady did disturb him. In bitter contrast to Lucy did she stand out to his mind that night. He turned away, after some minutes, with an impatient movement, as if he would fain throw remembrance and vexation from him, Lionel had himself chosen his companion in life, and none knew better than he that he must abide by it; none could be more firmly resolved to do his full duty by her in love. Sibylla was standing outside the window alone. Lionel approached her, and gently laid his hand upon her shoulder.
“Sibylla, what caused you to show agitation when Cannonby’s name was mentioned?”
“I told you,” answered Sibylla. “It is dreadful to be reminded of that miserable time. It was Cannonby, you know, who buried my husband.”
And before Lionel could say more, she had shaken his hand from her shoulder, and was back amidst her guests.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
MR. DAN DUFF IN CONVULSIONS.
Jan had said somebody might be going dead while the parish was being scoured for him; and, in point of fact, Jan found, on reaching home, that that undesirable consummation was not unlikely to occur. As you will find also, if you will make an evening call upon Mrs. Duff.
Mrs. Duff stood behind her counter, sorting silks. Not rich piece silks that are made into gowns; Mrs. Duff’s shop did not aspire to that luxurious class of goods; but humble skeins of mixed sewing-silks, that were kept tied up in a piece of wash-leather. Mrs. Duff’s head and a customer’s head were brought together over the bundle, endeavouring to fix upon a skein of a particular shade, by the help of the one gas-burner which flared away overhead.
“Drat the silk!” said Mrs. Duff at length. “One can’t tell which is which, by candle-light. The green looks blue, and the blue looks green. Look at them two skeins, Polly; which is the green?”
Miss Polly Dawson, a showy damsel with black hair and a cherry-coloured net at the back of it — one of the family that Roy was pleased to term the ill-doing Dawsons, took the two skeins in her hand.
“Blest if I can tell!” was her answer. “It’s for doing up mother’s green silk bonnet, so it won’t do to take blue. You be more used to it nor me, Mrs. Duff.”
“My eyes never was good for sorting silks by this light,” responded Mrs. Duff. “I’ll tell you what, Polly; you shall take ’em both. Your mother must take the responsibility of fixing on one herself; or let her keep ’em till the morning and choose it then. She should have sent by daylight. You can bring back the skein you don’t use to-morrow; but mind you keep it clean.”
“Wrap ’em up,” curtly returned Miss Polly Dawson.
Mrs. Duff was proceeding to do so, when some tall thin form, bearing a large bundle, entered the shop in a fluster. It was Mrs. Peckaby. She sat herself down on the only stool the shop contained, and let the bundle slip to the floor.
“Give a body leave to rest a bit, Mother Duff! I be turned a’most inside out.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Mrs. Duff, while Polly Dawson surveyed her with a stare.
“There’s a white cow in the pound. I can’t tell ye the turn it give me, coming sudden upon it. I thought nothing less, at first glance, but it was the white quadruple.”
“What! hasn’t that there white donkey come yet?” demanded Polly Dawson; who, in conjunction with sundry others of her age and sex in the village, was not sparing of her free remarks to Mrs. Peckaby on the subject, thereby aggravating that lady considerably.
“You hold your tongue, Polly Dawson, and don’t be brazen, if you can help it,” rebuked Mrs. Peckaby. “I was so took aback for the minute, that I couldn’t neither stir nor speak,” she resumed to Mrs. Duff. “But when I found it was nothing but a old strayed wretch of a pounded cow, I a’most dropped with the disappointment. So I thought I’d come back here and take a rest. Where’s Dan?”
“Dan’s out,” answered Mrs. Duff.
“Is he? I thought he might have took this parcel down to Sykes’s, and saved me the sight o’ that pound again and the deceiver in it. It’s just my luck!”
“Dan’s gone up to Verner’s Pride,” continued Mrs. Duff. “That fine French madmizel, as rules there, come down for some trifles this evening, and took him home with her to carry the parcel. It’s time he was back, though, and more nor time. ’Twasn’t bigger, neither, nor a farthing bun, but ’twas too big for her. Isn’t it a-getting the season for you to think of a new gownd, Mrs. Peckaby?” resumed Mother Duff, returning to business. “I have got some beautiful winter stuffs in.”
“I hope the only new gownd as I shall want till I gets to New Jerusalem, is the purple one I’ve got prepared for it,” replied Mrs. Peckaby. “I don’t think the journey’s far off. I had a dream last night as I saw a great crowd o’ people dressed in white, a-coming out to meet me. I look upon it as it’s a token that I shall soon be there.”
“I wouldn’t go out to that there New Jerusalem if ten white donkeys come to fetch me!” cried Polly Dawson, tossing her head with scorn. “It is a nice place, by all that I have heard! Them saints—”
A most appalling interruption. Snorting, moaning, sobbing, his breath coming in gasps, his hair standing up on end, his eyes starting, and his face ghastly, there burst in upon them Master Dan Duff. That he was in the very height of terror, there could be no mistaking. To add to the confusion, he flung his arms out as he came in, and his hand caught one of the side panes of glass in the bow window and shattered it, the pieces falling amongst the displayed wares. Dan leaped in, caught hold of his mother with a spasmodic howl, and fell down on some bundles in a corner of the small shop.
Mrs. Duff was dragged down with him. She soon extricated herself, and stared at the boy in very astonishment. However inclined to play tricks out of doors, Mr. Dan never ventured to play them, in. Polly Dawson stared. Susan Peckaby, forgetting New Jerusalem for once, sprang off her stool and stared. But that his terror was genuine, and Mrs. Duff saw that it was, Dan had certainly been treated then to that bugbear of his domestic life — a “basting.”
“What has took you now?” sharply demanded Mrs. Duff, partly in curiosity, partly in wrath.
“I see’d a dead man,” responded Dan, and he forthwith fell into convulsions.
They shook him, they pulled him, they pinched him. One laid hold of his head, another of his feet; but, make nothing of him, could they. The boy’s face was white, his hands and arms were twitching, and froth was gathering on his lips. By this time the shop was full.
“Run across, one of you,” cried the mother, turning her face to the crowd, “and see if you can find Mr. Jan Verner.”
CHAPTER XLIX.
“I SEE’D A DEAD MAN!”
Jan Verner was turning in at his own door — the surgery — at a swinging pace. Jan’s natural pace was a deliberate one; but Jan found so much to do, now he was alone in the business, that he had no resource but to move at the rate of a steam engine. Otherwise he would never have got through his day’s work. Jan had tried one assistant, who had proved to be more plague than profit, and Jan was better without him. Master Cheese, promoted now to tail-coats and turn-up collars, was coming on, and could attend to trifling cases. Master Cheese wished to be promoted also to “Mister” Cheese; but he remained obstinately excessively short, and people would still call him “Master.” He appeared to grow in breadth instead of height, and underwent, in consequence, a perpetual inward mortification. Jan would tell him he should eat less and walk more; but the advice was not taken.
Jan Verner was turning into the surgery at a swinging pace, and came in violent contact with Master Cheese, who was coming out at another sharp pace. Jan rubbed his chest, and Cheese his head.
“I say, Jan,” said he, “can’t you look where your going?”
“Can’t you look?” returned Jan. “Where are you off to?”
“There’s something the matter at Duff’s. About a dozen came here in a body, wanting you. Bob says Dan Duff was dying.”
Jan turned his eyes on Bob, the surgery-boy. Bob answered the look —
“It’s what they said, sir. They said as Dan Duff was a-dying and a-frothing at the mouth. It’s about five minutes ago, sir.”
“Did you go over?” asked Jan of Cheese. “I saw a crowd round Mrs. Duff’s door.”
“No, I didn’t. I am going now. I was indoors, having my supper.”
“Then you need not trouble yourself,” returned Jan. “Stop where you are, and digest your supper.”
He, Jan, was speeding off, when a fresh deputation arrived. Twenty anxious faces at the least, all in a commotion, their tongues going together. “Dan was frothing dreadful, and his legs was twitchin’ like one in the epilepsies.”
“What has caused it?” asked Jan. “I saw him well enough an hour or two ago.”
“He see a dead man, sir; as it’s said. We can’t come to the bottom of it, ‘cause of his not answering no questions. He be too bad, he be.”
“He did see a dead man,” put in Polly Dawson, who made one of the deputation, and was proud of being able to add her testimony to the asserted fact. “Leastways, he said he did. I was a-buying some silk, sir, in at Mother Duff’s shop, and Susan Peckaby was in there too, she was, a-talking rubbish about her white donkey, when Dan flounders in upon us in a state not to be told, a-frightening of us dreadful, and a-smashing in the winder with his arm. And he said he’d seen a dead man.”
Jan could not make sense of the tale. There was nobody lying dead in Deerham, that he knew of. He pushed the crowd round the door right and left to get space to enter. The shop was pretty full already, but numbers pushed in after Jan. Dan had been carried into the kitchen at the back of the shop, and was laid upon the floor, a pillow under his head. The kitchen was more crowded than the shop; there was not breathing space; and room could hardly be found for Jan.
The shop was Mrs. Duff’s department. If she chose to pack it full of people to the ceiling, it was her affair: but Jan made the kitchen, where the boy lay, his.
“What’s the matter with him, sir?” was the eager question to Jan, the moment he had cast his eyes on the invalid.
“Has he made his fortune?”
Mr. Gordon laughed. “I fancy not. Cannonby was always of a roving nature. I expect he got tired of the Australian world before fortune had time to find him out.”
Sibylla was soon deep in her flirtations again. It is not erroneous to call them so. But they were innocent flirtations — the result of vanity. Lionel moved away.
Another commotion. Some great long-legged fellow, without ceremony or warning, came striding in at the window close to Lucy Tempest. Lucy’s thoughts had been buried — it is hard to say where, and her eyes were strained to the large yew-tree upon the grass. The sudden entrance startled her, albeit she was not of a nervous temperament. With Indian bow-strings in the mind, and fancied moonlight spies before the sight, a scream was inevitable.
Whom should it be but Jan! Jan, of course. What other guest would be likely to enter in that unceremonious fashion? Strictly speaking, Jan was not a guest — at any rate, not an invited one.
“I had got a minute to spare this evening, so thought I’d come up and have a look at you,” proclaimed unfashionable Jan to the room, but principally addressing Lionel and Sibylla.
And so Jan had come, and stood there without the least shame, in drab trousers, and a loose, airy coat, shaking hands with Sir Rufus, shaking hands with anybody who would shake hands with him. Sibylla looked daggers at Jan, and Lionel cross. Not from the same cause. Sibylla’s displeasure was directed to Jan’s style of evening costume; Lionel felt vexed with him for alarming Lucy. But Lionel never very long retained displeasure, and his sweet smile stole over his lips as he spoke.
“Jan, I shall be endorsing Lady Verner’s request — that you come into a house like a Christian — if you are to startle ladies in this fashion.”
“Whom did I startle?” asked Jan.
“You startled Lucy.”
“Nonsense! Did I, Miss Lucy?”
“Yes, you did a little, Jan,” she replied.
“What a stupid you must be!” retorted gallant Jan. “I should say you want doctoring, if your nerves are in that state. You take—”
“Oh, Jan, that will do,” laughed Lucy. “I am sure I don’t want medicine. You know how I dislike it.”
They were standing together within the large window, Jan and Lionel, Lucy sitting close to them. She sat with her head a little bent, scenting her verbena.
“The truth is, Jan, I and Lucy have been watching some intruder who had taken up his station on the lawn, underneath the yew-tree,” whispered Lionel. “I suppose Lucy thought he was bursting in upon us.”
“Yes, I did really think he was,” said Lucy, looking up with a smile.
“Who was it?” asked Jan.
“He did not give us the opportunity of ascertaining,” replied Lionel. “I am not quite sure, mind, that I did see him; but Lucy is positive upon the point. I went to the tree, but he had disappeared. It is rather strange why he should be watching.”
“He was watching this room attentively,” said Lucy, “and I saw him move away when Mr. Verner went on the lawn. I am sure he was a spy of some sort.”
“I can tell you who it was,” said Jan. “It was Roy.”
“Roy!” repeated Lionel. “Why do you say this?”
“Well,” said Jan, “as I turned in here, I saw Roy cross the road to the opposite gate. I don’t know where he could have sprung from, except from these grounds. That he was neither behind me nor before me as I came up the road, I can declare.”
“Then it was Roy!” exclaimed Lionel. “He would have had about time to get into the road, from the time we saw him under the tree. That the fellow is prying into my affairs and movements, I was made aware of to-day; but why he should watch my house I cannot imagine. We shall have an account to settle, Mr. Roy!”
Decima came up, asking what private matter they were discussing, and Lionel and Lucy went over the ground again, acquainting her with what had been seen. They stood together in a group, conversing in an undertone. By and by, Mrs. Verner passed, moving from one part of the room to another, on the arm of Sir Rufus Hautley.
“Quite a family conclave,” she exclaimed, with a laugh. “Decima, however much you may wish for attention, it is scarcely fair to monopolise that of Mr. Verner in his own house. If he forgets that he has guests present, you should not help him in the forgetfulness.”
“It would be well if all wished for attention as little as does Miss Verner,” exclaimed Lord Garle. His voice rung out to the ends of the room, and a sudden stillness fell upon it; his words may have been taken as a covert reproof to Mrs. Verner. They were not meant as such. There was no living woman of whom Lord Garle thought so highly as he thought of Decima Verner; and he had spoken in his mind’s impulse.
Sibylla believed he had purposely flung a shaft at her. And she flung one again — not at him, but at Decima. She was of a terribly jealous nature, and could bear any reproach to herself, better than that another woman should be praised beside her.
“When young ladies find themselves neglected, their charms wasted on the desert air, they naturally do covet attention, although it be but a brother’s.”
Perhaps the first truly severe glance that Lionel Verner ever gave his wife he gave her then. Disdaining any defence off his sister, he stood, haughty, impassive, his lips drawn in, his eyes fixed sternly on Sibylla. Decima remained quiet under the insult, save that she flushed scarlet. Lord Garle did not. Lord Garle spoke up again, in the impetuosity of his open, honest nature.
“I can testify that if Miss Verner is neglected, it is her own fault alone. You are mistaken in your premises, Mrs. Verner.”
The tone was pointedly significant, the words were unmistakably clear, and the room could not but become enlightened to the fact that Miss Verner might have been Lady Garle. Sibylla laughed a little laugh of disbelief, as she went onwards with Sir Rufus Hautley; and Lionel remained enshrined in his terrible mortification. That his wife should so have forgotten herself!
“I must be going off,” cried Jan, good-naturedly interrupting the unpleasant silence.
“You have not long come,” said Lucy.
“I didn’t leave word where I was coming, and somebody may be going dead while they are scouring the parish for me. Good-night to you all; good-night, Miss Lucy.”
With a nod to the room, away went Jan as unceremoniously as he had come; and, not very long afterwards, the first carriage drew up. It was Lady Verner’s. Lord Garle hastened to Decima, and Lionel took out Lucy Tempest.
“Will you think me very foolish, if I say a word of warning to you?” asked Lucy, in a low tone to Lionel, as they reached the terrace.
“A word of warning to me, Lucy!” he repeated. “Of what nature?”
“That Roy is not a good man. He was greatly incensed at your putting him out of his place when you succeeded to Verner’s Pride, and it is said that he cherishes vengeance. He may have been watching to-night for an opportunity to injure you. Take care of him.”
Lionel smiled as he looked at her. Her upturned face looked pale and anxious in the moonlight. Lionel could not receive the fear at all: he would as soon have thought to dread the most improbable thing imaginable, as to dread this sort of violence, whether from Roy, or from any one else.
“There’s no fear whatever, Lucy.”
“I know you will not see it for yourself, and that is the reason why I am presumptive enough to suggest the idea to you. Pray be cautious! pray take care of yourself!”
He shook his head laughingly as he looked down upon her. “Thank you heartily all the same for your consideration, Lucy,” said he, and for the very life of him he could not help pressing her hand warmer than was needful as he placed her in the carriage.
They drove away. Lord Garle returned to the room; Lionel stood against one of the outer pillars, looking forth on the lovely moonlight scene. The part played by Roy — if it was Roy — in the night’s doings disturbed him not; but that his wife had shown herself so entirely unlike a lady did disturb him. In bitter contrast to Lucy did she stand out to his mind that night. He turned away, after some minutes, with an impatient movement, as if he would fain throw remembrance and vexation from him, Lionel had himself chosen his companion in life, and none knew better than he that he must abide by it; none could be more firmly resolved to do his full duty by her in love. Sibylla was standing outside the window alone. Lionel approached her, and gently laid his hand upon her shoulder.
“Sibylla, what caused you to show agitation when Cannonby’s name was mentioned?”
“I told you,” answered Sibylla. “It is dreadful to be reminded of that miserable time. It was Cannonby, you know, who buried my husband.”
And before Lionel could say more, she had shaken his hand from her shoulder, and was back amidst her guests.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
MR. DAN DUFF IN CONVULSIONS.
Jan had said somebody might be going dead while the parish was being scoured for him; and, in point of fact, Jan found, on reaching home, that that undesirable consummation was not unlikely to occur. As you will find also, if you will make an evening call upon Mrs. Duff.
Mrs. Duff stood behind her counter, sorting silks. Not rich piece silks that are made into gowns; Mrs. Duff’s shop did not aspire to that luxurious class of goods; but humble skeins of mixed sewing-silks, that were kept tied up in a piece of wash-leather. Mrs. Duff’s head and a customer’s head were brought together over the bundle, endeavouring to fix upon a skein of a particular shade, by the help of the one gas-burner which flared away overhead.
“Drat the silk!” said Mrs. Duff at length. “One can’t tell which is which, by candle-light. The green looks blue, and the blue looks green. Look at them two skeins, Polly; which is the green?”
Miss Polly Dawson, a showy damsel with black hair and a cherry-coloured net at the back of it — one of the family that Roy was pleased to term the ill-doing Dawsons, took the two skeins in her hand.
“Blest if I can tell!” was her answer. “It’s for doing up mother’s green silk bonnet, so it won’t do to take blue. You be more used to it nor me, Mrs. Duff.”
“My eyes never was good for sorting silks by this light,” responded Mrs. Duff. “I’ll tell you what, Polly; you shall take ’em both. Your mother must take the responsibility of fixing on one herself; or let her keep ’em till the morning and choose it then. She should have sent by daylight. You can bring back the skein you don’t use to-morrow; but mind you keep it clean.”
“Wrap ’em up,” curtly returned Miss Polly Dawson.
Mrs. Duff was proceeding to do so, when some tall thin form, bearing a large bundle, entered the shop in a fluster. It was Mrs. Peckaby. She sat herself down on the only stool the shop contained, and let the bundle slip to the floor.
“Give a body leave to rest a bit, Mother Duff! I be turned a’most inside out.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Mrs. Duff, while Polly Dawson surveyed her with a stare.
“There’s a white cow in the pound. I can’t tell ye the turn it give me, coming sudden upon it. I thought nothing less, at first glance, but it was the white quadruple.”
“What! hasn’t that there white donkey come yet?” demanded Polly Dawson; who, in conjunction with sundry others of her age and sex in the village, was not sparing of her free remarks to Mrs. Peckaby on the subject, thereby aggravating that lady considerably.
“You hold your tongue, Polly Dawson, and don’t be brazen, if you can help it,” rebuked Mrs. Peckaby. “I was so took aback for the minute, that I couldn’t neither stir nor speak,” she resumed to Mrs. Duff. “But when I found it was nothing but a old strayed wretch of a pounded cow, I a’most dropped with the disappointment. So I thought I’d come back here and take a rest. Where’s Dan?”
“Dan’s out,” answered Mrs. Duff.
“Is he? I thought he might have took this parcel down to Sykes’s, and saved me the sight o’ that pound again and the deceiver in it. It’s just my luck!”
“Dan’s gone up to Verner’s Pride,” continued Mrs. Duff. “That fine French madmizel, as rules there, come down for some trifles this evening, and took him home with her to carry the parcel. It’s time he was back, though, and more nor time. ’Twasn’t bigger, neither, nor a farthing bun, but ’twas too big for her. Isn’t it a-getting the season for you to think of a new gownd, Mrs. Peckaby?” resumed Mother Duff, returning to business. “I have got some beautiful winter stuffs in.”
“I hope the only new gownd as I shall want till I gets to New Jerusalem, is the purple one I’ve got prepared for it,” replied Mrs. Peckaby. “I don’t think the journey’s far off. I had a dream last night as I saw a great crowd o’ people dressed in white, a-coming out to meet me. I look upon it as it’s a token that I shall soon be there.”
“I wouldn’t go out to that there New Jerusalem if ten white donkeys come to fetch me!” cried Polly Dawson, tossing her head with scorn. “It is a nice place, by all that I have heard! Them saints—”
A most appalling interruption. Snorting, moaning, sobbing, his breath coming in gasps, his hair standing up on end, his eyes starting, and his face ghastly, there burst in upon them Master Dan Duff. That he was in the very height of terror, there could be no mistaking. To add to the confusion, he flung his arms out as he came in, and his hand caught one of the side panes of glass in the bow window and shattered it, the pieces falling amongst the displayed wares. Dan leaped in, caught hold of his mother with a spasmodic howl, and fell down on some bundles in a corner of the small shop.
Mrs. Duff was dragged down with him. She soon extricated herself, and stared at the boy in very astonishment. However inclined to play tricks out of doors, Mr. Dan never ventured to play them, in. Polly Dawson stared. Susan Peckaby, forgetting New Jerusalem for once, sprang off her stool and stared. But that his terror was genuine, and Mrs. Duff saw that it was, Dan had certainly been treated then to that bugbear of his domestic life — a “basting.”
“What has took you now?” sharply demanded Mrs. Duff, partly in curiosity, partly in wrath.
“I see’d a dead man,” responded Dan, and he forthwith fell into convulsions.
They shook him, they pulled him, they pinched him. One laid hold of his head, another of his feet; but, make nothing of him, could they. The boy’s face was white, his hands and arms were twitching, and froth was gathering on his lips. By this time the shop was full.
“Run across, one of you,” cried the mother, turning her face to the crowd, “and see if you can find Mr. Jan Verner.”
CHAPTER XLIX.
“I SEE’D A DEAD MAN!”
Jan Verner was turning in at his own door — the surgery — at a swinging pace. Jan’s natural pace was a deliberate one; but Jan found so much to do, now he was alone in the business, that he had no resource but to move at the rate of a steam engine. Otherwise he would never have got through his day’s work. Jan had tried one assistant, who had proved to be more plague than profit, and Jan was better without him. Master Cheese, promoted now to tail-coats and turn-up collars, was coming on, and could attend to trifling cases. Master Cheese wished to be promoted also to “Mister” Cheese; but he remained obstinately excessively short, and people would still call him “Master.” He appeared to grow in breadth instead of height, and underwent, in consequence, a perpetual inward mortification. Jan would tell him he should eat less and walk more; but the advice was not taken.
Jan Verner was turning into the surgery at a swinging pace, and came in violent contact with Master Cheese, who was coming out at another sharp pace. Jan rubbed his chest, and Cheese his head.
“I say, Jan,” said he, “can’t you look where your going?”
“Can’t you look?” returned Jan. “Where are you off to?”
“There’s something the matter at Duff’s. About a dozen came here in a body, wanting you. Bob says Dan Duff was dying.”
Jan turned his eyes on Bob, the surgery-boy. Bob answered the look —
“It’s what they said, sir. They said as Dan Duff was a-dying and a-frothing at the mouth. It’s about five minutes ago, sir.”
“Did you go over?” asked Jan of Cheese. “I saw a crowd round Mrs. Duff’s door.”
“No, I didn’t. I am going now. I was indoors, having my supper.”
“Then you need not trouble yourself,” returned Jan. “Stop where you are, and digest your supper.”
He, Jan, was speeding off, when a fresh deputation arrived. Twenty anxious faces at the least, all in a commotion, their tongues going together. “Dan was frothing dreadful, and his legs was twitchin’ like one in the epilepsies.”
“What has caused it?” asked Jan. “I saw him well enough an hour or two ago.”
“He see a dead man, sir; as it’s said. We can’t come to the bottom of it, ‘cause of his not answering no questions. He be too bad, he be.”
“He did see a dead man,” put in Polly Dawson, who made one of the deputation, and was proud of being able to add her testimony to the asserted fact. “Leastways, he said he did. I was a-buying some silk, sir, in at Mother Duff’s shop, and Susan Peckaby was in there too, she was, a-talking rubbish about her white donkey, when Dan flounders in upon us in a state not to be told, a-frightening of us dreadful, and a-smashing in the winder with his arm. And he said he’d seen a dead man.”
Jan could not make sense of the tale. There was nobody lying dead in Deerham, that he knew of. He pushed the crowd round the door right and left to get space to enter. The shop was pretty full already, but numbers pushed in after Jan. Dan had been carried into the kitchen at the back of the shop, and was laid upon the floor, a pillow under his head. The kitchen was more crowded than the shop; there was not breathing space; and room could hardly be found for Jan.
The shop was Mrs. Duff’s department. If she chose to pack it full of people to the ceiling, it was her affair: but Jan made the kitchen, where the boy lay, his.
“What’s the matter with him, sir?” was the eager question to Jan, the moment he had cast his eyes on the invalid.
