This startling announcement became a marvel and a fascination to the
eyes of the villagers, every one of them coming out of their houses
to look at it, directly it was displayed.
"You'll be settin' the 'ouse on fire, Mr. Netlips, I'm afraid," said
Mrs. Frost, severely, putting her arms akimbo, and sniffing at the
board as though she could smell the spirit it proclaimed--"You don't
know nothink about petrol! An' we ain't goin' to have motor-cars
often 'ere, please the Lord's goodness!"
Mr. Netlips smiled a superior smile.
"My good woman,"--he said, with his most magisterial air--"if you
will kindly manage your own business, which is that of pruning the
olive and uprooting the vine, and leave me to manage my
establishment as the reversible movement of the age requires, it
will be better for the equanimity of the gastritis."
"Good Lord!" and Mrs. Frost threw up her hands--"You're a fine sort
of man for a grocer, with your reversibles and your gastritis! What
in the world are you talking about?"
Mr. Netlips, busy with the unpacking of a special Stilton cheese
which he was about to send 'up to the Manor,' waved her away with
one hand.
"I am talking above your head altogther, Mrs. Frost,"--he said,
placidly--"I know it! I am aware that my consonances do not
tympanise on your brain. Good afternoon!"
"Petrol Stored Here!"--said Bainton, standing squat before the
announcement, as he returned from his day's work--"Hor-hor-hor! Hor-
hor! I say, Mr. Netlips, don't blow us all into the middle of next
week. Where does ye store it? Out in the coal-shed? It's awful
'spensive, ain't it?"
"It is costly,"--admitted Mr. Netlips, with a grandiose manner,
implying that even if it had cost millions he would have been equal
to 'stocking' it--"But the traveling aristocrat does not interrogate
the lucrative matter."
"Don't he?" and Bainton scratched his head ruminatively. "I s'pose
you knows what you means, Mr. Netlips, an' you gen'ally means a lot.
Howsomever, I thought you was dead set against aristocrats anyway--
your pol'tics was for what you call masses,--not classes, nor asses
neither. Them was your sentiments not long ago, worn't they?"
Mr. Netlips drew himself up with an air of offended dignity.
"You forestall me wrong, Thomas Bainton,"--he said--"And I prefer
not to amplify the conference. A sentiment is no part of a political
propinquity."
With that, he retired into the recesses of his 'general store,'
leaving Bainton chuckling to himself, with a broad grin on his
weatherbeaten countenance.
The 'Petol' board displayed on the front of Mr. Netlips' shop,
however, was just one of those slight indications which showed the
vague change that had crept over the erstwhile tranquil atmosphere
of St. Rest. Among other signs and tokens of internal disquiet was
the increasing pomposity of the village post-mistress, Mrs. Tapple.
Mrs. Tapple had grown so accustomed to various titles and prefixes
of rank among the different guests who came in turn to stay at the
Manor, that whereas she had at one time stood in respectful awe of
old Pippitt because he was a 'Sir,' she now regarded him almost with
contempt. What was a 'Sir' to a 'Lord'? Nothing!--less than nothing!
For during one week she had sold stamps to a real live Marquis and
post-cards to a 'Right Honourable,' besides despatching numerous
telegrams for the Countess of Beaulyon. By all the gods and little
fishes, Sir Morton Pippitt had sunk low indeed!--for when Mrs.
Tapple, bridling with scorn, said she 'wondered 'ow a man like 'im
wot only made his money in bone-boilin' would dare to be seen with
Miss Vancourt's real quality' it was felt that she was expressing an
almost national sentiment.
Taking everything into consideration, it was not to be denied that
the new element infused into the little village community had
brought with it a certain stir and excitement, but also a sense of
discontent. And John Walden, keenly alive to every touch of feeling,
was more conscious of the change than many another man would have
been who was not endowed with so quick and responsive a nature. He
noted the quaint self-importance of Mrs. Tapple with a kindly
amusement, not altogether unmixed with pain,--he watched regretfully
the attempts made by the young girls of his little parish to trick
themselves out with cheap finery imported from the town of
Riversford, in order to imitate in some fashion, no matter how far
distant, the attire of Lady Beaulyon, whose dresses were a wonder,
and whose creditors were legion,--and he was sincerely sorry to see
that even gentle and pretty Susie Prescott had taken to a new mode
of doing her hair, which, though elaborate, did not suit her at all,
and gave an almost bold look to an otherwise sweet and maidenly
countenance.
"But I am old,--and old-fashioned too!"--he said to himself,
resignedly--"The world must move on--and as it moves it is bound to
leave old times behind it--and me with them. I must not complain--
nor should I, even in my own heart, find too many reproaches for the
ways of the young."