"Poor old soul, she can't be long for this world," said Oldroyd one day
on receiving a message from Lindham, and, mounting Peter, he rode over
across the commons to the old cottage.
"Oh, you've come at last, then," said the old woman, raising herself in
bed and frowning heavily. "There, don't you go telling me no lies. I
know where you've been wasting the parish time as you're paid for."
"Wasting the time?" said Oldroyd, laughing.
"Ah, it's nothing to make fun of. When I told you to take to Miss Lucy,
I didn't mean you to go courting for months, but to marry her and done
with it, so as she might be a bit useful, visiting and nursing some o'
the sick folk on your rounds."
"Why, you dissatisfied old woman," cried Oldroyd merrily, "I rode over
as soon as I got your message."
"Well, then, why don't you do me some good at once, and not stand
talking. If you knowed the aggynies I suffer, you wouldn't stand
talking. You heered the news?"
"What, about the French?"
"Tchut! What do I know about the French? I mean about my grandbairn."
"Miss Hayle? No."
"The captain took her off, and we thought he'd married her, you know,
but he didn't."
"Poor girl!" said Oldroyd, sadly.
"Bah! I haven't patience with her. Got her head turned up at The
Warren, being with that girl there; and then, in spite of all I said,
and her father said, she must be always thinking of the captain, and
breaking her heart when she heard he was going to marry first this one
and then that. She got so that at last he had only to hold up his
finger and say come, and away she went; and now she's back in London,
left to shift for herself, with lots of fine clothes. She's writ home
to her father for help. But we shall see--we shall see."
"A scoundrel!" exclaimed Oldroyd.
"Yes, he's a bad un," said the old woman, "a reg'lar bad un, but he'll
get his deserts; you see if he don't. Ben Hayle arn't Sir John Day up
at the Hall. He won't let my gentleman off so easy; you see if he do.
Ah, it's a strange world, doctor, and I begin to think it gets worse and
worse."
Oldroyd listened to a good deal more of the old lady's moralising about
the state of the world, as he ministered to her "aggynies," and finally
left, after undertaking to call again very soon.
"Mind, you shut the door!" shouted the old woman; "the haps don't fit
well. You must try it after you've let go."
"I'll mind," said Oldroyd good-humouredly; and, mounting Peter, he was
thoughtfully jogging homeward, when the pony stopped in front of a gate,
on which a man was seated--the pony having apparently recognised an old
patient, and paused for the doctor to have a chat.
"Do, sir?" said the man, getting down slowly and touching his hat.
"Ah, Hayle, glad to see you looking so strong again."
"Ay, sir," said the man, smiling sadly; "you ought to be proud o' me,
and make a show of what you've done for me. 'Bout your best job, warn't
I?"
"Well, I suppose you were, in surgery," said Oldroyd, looking hard at
the man's pinched face and settled frown; "but, I say, my man, hadn't
you better drop that life now, and try something different?"
"Easier said than done, doctor," replied Hayle grimly. "Give a dog a
bad name and hang him. Nobody wouldn't employ me. S'pose I said to
you. `Change your life and turn parson.' Wouldn't be easy, would it?"
Oldroyd shook his head.
"Perhaps not," he said; "but you're too good a man for a poacher. Look
here, Hayle; Morton has left and gone to Lord Bogmere's. Sir John Day
is very friendly to me. Let me go and state your case to him frankly."
"Wouldn't be no good, sir."
"Don't say that. He's a thorough English gentleman, always ready to do
anyone a good turn. I believe in you, Hayle; and if I say to him that
you would gladly come and serve him faithfully, I should say so
believing honestly that you would. Shall I speak to him?"
"Thank you kindly, sir, but not now. I've got too much else on my
mind," said Hayle, gazing at the doctor searchingly. "Been to see the
old lady?"
"Yes."
"Did--did she tell you any news?"
Oldroyd nodded.
"Ah, she would," said the ex-keeper thoughtfully. "Hah! he's a bad un;
but I didn't think he'd be quite so bad as that to her; for she's a
handsome gal, doctor--a handsome gal."
"More's the pity," thought Oldroyd, though he did not speak.
"It's well for him that I haven't run again him, I can tell you. Don't
happen to know where the captain is, do you, sir?"
"No, I have not the least idea; and if I had, I don't think I should
tell you."
"S'pose not, doctor," said the man, with a strange laugh, "seeing what's
coming off."
"Why; what are you going to do?"
"Do, sir," said Hayle slowly, as he leaned on the gate, and looked down
the dark path in the wood. "When I was a young man, and made up my mind
to trap a hare or a fezzan, or p'raps only a rabbud, I trapped it.
P'r'aps I didn't the first time; p'raps I didn't the second or third;
but I kept on at it till I did, and I'm going to trap him."
"What, Captain Rolph! Make him pay for the injury to your daughter?"
"I'm going to see if he'll make it up to her first. If he won't, I'll
make him pay."
"Make it up! Do you mean marry her?"
"Yes; that's what I mean, sir," said Hayle slowly, and then, turning
round to face the doctor, and fix him with his big dark eyes. "He shall
pay his debt if he don't marry her!"
"Do you mean in money--breach of promise?"
"No," said the man, speaking to him fiercely. "No money wouldn't pay my
gal nor me. He took a fancy to her, and she liked him, and I forgive
him for his cunning way of following her when I was laid by. I forgive
him, too, for what he did to me. It was fair fight so far, but it was
his gun as shot me that night. I didn't bear no malice again him for
all that, as long as he was square toward Judith; but he's thrown her
off, and I'm going to see him about it."
"Man, man, what are you going to do?" cried Oldroyd.
"What am I going to do?" roared Hayle, blazing up into sudden fury.
"You're going to marry sweet young Miss Lucy, yonder. S'pose eighteen
or nineteen years, by-and-by, doctor, there's another Miss Lucy as
you're very proud on. You're genteel people, we're not; but the stuff's
all the same. I was proud o' my Judith, same as you'll be proud of your
Miss Lucy when she comes. What am I going to do? What would you do to
the man as took her from you, and when his fancy was over sent her off?"
Oldroyd stood gazing at the fierce face before him.
"Doctor, when I heerd first as he'd thrown her over, I said to myself,
`He's a proud chap--proud of his strong body, and his running and
racing: he shall know what it is to suffer now. Curse him, I'll break
him across my knee.' Then I stopped and thought, doctor, and made up my
mind that he should marry her, and if he don't--"
Hayle stopped short, with his lips tightened and his fists clenched; and
then, in a curiously furtive way, he turned his face aside, sprang
lightly over the gate into the wood, and disappeared from the doctor's
sight.
"If I had done that fellow a deadly wrong I should not feel very happy
and comfortable in my own mind," said Oldroyd, as he looked in the
direction in which the man had disappeared. "Ah, well, it's no business
of mine; and, thank goodness, I lead too busy a life to have many of the
temptations talked of by good old Doctor Watts."
"Now, then, I've taken my physic," he added, after a few minutes'
thought, and with a cheery smile on his countenance, "so I'll go and
have my sugar. Go on, Peter."
Peter went on, and, as if knowing where to go, took the doctor straight
to The Firs.
Volume 3, Chapter XV.