The "Relton Arms" had the reputation of being the most respectable inn
in the little country town of Relton. It had no particular right to this
title, being smaller and more shabby than the "Red Lion" down the
street, which was a modern innovation run by a speculator from the
neighboring market-town, and promised particular advantages to cyclists
which they never quite seemed to reap; but it had outlived generations
of Reltons up at the old Court, and it bore their family escutcheon on
its sign-board, and all the club dinners were held in its oak-panelled
parlor; and the frequent presence of the rector on occasions when
alcohol was banished from the table had naturally helped it to keep up
its reputation. The fallacy was maintained equally strangely by the
silence of its landlord, who only grew more taciturn as he grew more
intoxicated, while the people who were fond of talking, notably his
wife, made capital out of his silence and applauded him for it, so that
he too became respectable in the eyes of Relton. And never having been
known to contradict any one in his life, respectable he accordingly
consented to remain.
It was on a sultry, still afternoon towards the end of the summer that
Roger Brill, the comely rat-catcher of the town, raised the latch of the
"Relton Arms" about tea-time.
"Mornin', missus," said he.
"And I'm sure it's mornin' to you, Muster Brill, notwithstandin' it's
being arternoon by time o'sun, which be a foolish difference to make
among old acquaintance; but there, there's a deal too much talkin' about
trifles in my thinkin'. And be you ready for a cup of tea, lad, or be it
the usual you'll be wantin'?"
Without waiting for the reply, which had been the same, like the
question, for the last fifteen years, the bustling landlady hastened
forward with a chair and sent her obedient husband for the beer. One of
the most remarkable phases of a monotonous incident is the way in which
some people contrive to give it the appearance of novelty. Mrs. Haxtell
belonged to such a class, and it did not in the least disturb her method
that her husband had usually filled the pewter pot before she had
finished inviting her customer to have it. But old Peter was a man of
deeds, not words, and he chose for his part to make the transaction a
purely business one, though he allowed his wife to hide it with a veneer
of hospitality if she would. And this she generally did in the most
feminine and transparent manner possible, until the time for payment
came, when she would meekly retire under cover of her sex, and leave her
husband to battle with the creditor.
"Good sport to-day, lad?" asked Peter presently.
"Aye, for sure," answered Roger; and then, glancing professionally at
the row of dead rats that hung from his waist, he added slowly, "more
ways nor one."
"Eh," said Peter, with a slight access of emphasis.
They all knew something more was coming, and Mrs. Haxtell's knowledge of
the rat-catcher's temperament sufficed to keep her breathlessly silent
in view of coaxing him to tell his news; though, with the jealousy of
the reformed thief who hates to see his brother continuing to thieve,
she glanced imploringly at her husband and daughter, who had no
intention of speaking, as if to silence them likewise.
"Lady Relton's Dick came down my way last night," began Roger,
deliberately filling his pipe.
So far his news came within the ken of his audience, and they were quick
to maintain a share in it.
"I saw him myself, I did," began Lily Eliza; but her mother promptly
took up the tale.
"Lady Relton's Dick? Eh, but he come along nigh after sunset, he did,
and he says to my man, he says, 'Seen Muster Brill?' he says. And my man
told him, he did, as ye worn't long gone home, not to call it short
neither, nor yet very long; leastways ye were gone along home, he said,
didn't ye, Pete? Speak up, man, and say what ye know, and doan't sit
starin' as though heavin and earth worn't big enough for your eyes to
look into."
"Woman," said Peter, with unusual effort, "heaven and earth bain't big
enough for your tongue to clapper in, nor yet they wouldn't be if t'
other place was joined on too."
Here Roger struck in afresh.
"Lady Relton's Dick said the rats in the stable worn't worth their keep.
Lady Relton told him she'd pay the corn for the horses, but the rats
would have to go elsewhere if they wanted good grain, as she didn't
intend for 'em to have hers. I said I'd go to-morrow, being promised to
Farmer Wadsden's ricks to-day; but Dick, he says the world has to stop a
turnin' round for my lady, he says, and she were in a taking along of
them rats, so to-day I took the pup along and I went up to the Court."
"Ah," gasped the landlady; she had not meant to interrupt, but the
approach of the pith of the story was too much for her, and with the
desperate economy of the schoolboy, who leaves the biggest plum to the
last, she again diverted the channel of conversation.
"Lady Relton's Dick fetched a gentleman from the station this mornin',
and he took him back again an hour past. I knows he did, seeing as I was
washing the precious baby's face, or was I hanging out Mrs. Walker's
wash? when the dog-cart come by. Was it the gentleman as ye saw up at
the Court, Muster Brill?"
Few sights are more melancholy than that of a man who has been robbed
of his story by another; and good-natured Roger Brill pushed back his
chair at this second interruption, and rose to his feet with something
like offended dignity.
"If ye want to have the talkin' to yourself, missus, I be going to clear
out. Cause why? It bain't reasonable to tell a body somethin' fresh when
the body have heard it afore, and I ain't the man to spoil t' other
body's tale, so good arternoon to ye."
But here Peter became peacemaker.
"Sit ye down, lad, and doan't heed her clapperin' tongue. _I_ doan't,
and it's clipper-clappered at me this twenty year."
With an effort of generosity the injured Roger recognized a grievance
greater than his own, and by drinking the remainder of his beer standing
he considered he had compromised his dignity sufficiently to resume his
seat and his story.
"Lord, what rats they was!" he exclaimed, his eye kindling at the
recollection. "I never could have thought so well of my lady as that
she'd leave 'em to get to that pitch before calling me in. Why, Peter,
man, if she'd called me in only a month ago she'd have spoilt the sport
summat! but here they was, eaten to bustin' with corn, and no thought of
the morrow, as the Holy Scripture says. Eh, but that was a mornin', that
was; well, I reckon I'd laid out some dozen or more in the stable yard,
when up comes Lady Relton and Mr. Jack." He paused to watch the effect
of his superior knowledge on his hearers, chose to ignore the landlady's
triumphant whisper, "That's him," and sighed deeply. "I doan't know no
more than the dead what business it was of his to come hangin' round my
lady, what's all unprotected and alone like, bless her!"
"Nay, indeed," echoed his hearers feelingly.
"More partickler," continued Roger, warmly, and striking his fist on the
wooden table till the tea-cups rattled, "more partickler as Mr. Jack be
Mr. Raleigh's own brother, and my lady belongs to Mr. Raleigh if ever
she belonged to anybody; and no one can't deny as it's been my intention
to put 'em together this four year come harvest time. No one can't deny
it, no one."
"True, lad, true," grunted Peter sympathetically, while his wife
cunningly seized the opportunity to interrupt again by appearing to
enter warmly into the rat-catcher's disturbed feelings.
"And to think of his precious baby," sniffed Mrs. Haxtell, pouring
herself out another cup of tea; "to think of the dear lamb, with no
mother and not much father to speak of, passing of his innocent
childhood without the woman's care his father ought to give him. I've no
patience with such neglect, though I'm sure I hope I've done my best by
the child, as I thought to myself only this mornin' when I saw him
stuffin' his precious fat cheeks with green plums. It ain't every one
would let a child do that!"
Lily Eliza became restive at this point.
"Tell about Mr. Jack, Muster Brill," she urged timidly.
"Daughter," said old Peter, sternly, "it ain't the part of a
well-meanin', God-fearin' lass to ask such a question, and if you worn't
your mother's own daughter you wouldn't have such sinful desires to ask
'em."
In her anxiety to hear the rest of the story, the landlady allowed this
backhanded attack on her morals to pass unnoticed, and Roger began
afresh. "Well, up they comes together, talkin' and laughin' quite
friendly like, and my lady says to him, she says, 'Here's the rats you
said I was to have killed,' she says, 'and isn't it a dear little dog?'
she says. So I says to her, 'Aye, it be a good pup; it's killed fourteen
since breakfast,' and I seemed to offend her like, for up she gets from
where she'd been patting him, and she looks at Mr. Jack all in a blaze,
and she says all angry like, 'That's what you call sport, is it?' she
says. 'Mr. Digby wouldn't call it sport,' she says."
"No more he wouldn't," said both the women simultaneously.
"That's true enough," said Roger, slowly, "but Lady Relton, she bain't
the smirking soft kind o' woman what likes to spare the rat and spoil
the corn, and I can't rightly make out what's come over her to-day. She
didn't seem herself to-day, not anyhow, and she seemed to take a
pleasure in quarrelin' over everything Mr. Jack said, and then she
laughed of him, she did. It worn't like my lady, it worn't, to talk soft
stuff about killin' rats; that be more like t' other one what come after
Mr. Raleigh last springtime, the one what had saucer eyes, and pretended
to be fond of the child, with her nasty clingin', pretendin' ways."
The last words were said with biting contempt, and the women sat silent
and sipped their tea approvingly. But old Peter had different views
concerning the "other one" alluded to, and he again made the effort to
interrupt.
"Eh, lad, but you be proper hard upon poor Miss Norah, proper hard you
be, for sure. I wouldn't be saying as ye haven't your reasons for it,
but she seemed a quiet sort of maiden enough, what didn't mean no harm
to speak of, and what's suffered enough for her foolishness, I'll be
bound."
"I hope she has, I hope she has," exclaimed Roger, vehemently. "Those as
comes with their sneaking ways tryin' for to corrupt honest folk
deserves to suffer for it. No one doan't know why she didn't come back
when Mr. Raleigh sent that letter after her, and no one doan't know why
she didn't even answer it; but you take my word for it, it was
Providence as interposed and wouldn't have nothink to do with her, and
it's Providence as opens the way now to Mr. Raleigh if he'd only see it,
and not want Providence to come down from heaven and poke him into it,
so to speak. Who be that coming across the street?"
"Why, that be Mr. Raleigh his own self, that be," exclaimed Lily Eliza,
joyously, and then blushed for fear of another rebuke from her father.
This time, however, she did not get it, for old Peter for business
reasons was always anxious to propitiate the musician in the flying
visits he paid them, and was far more concerned now in getting to the
door in time to open it than in his daughter's back-slidings. Besides,
he really liked the open-handed young fellow who paid up so regularly
every quarter for the keep of his son without examining the items of the
bill, who always came in with a smile and an outstretched hand, and was
so inordinately grateful for the little they had done for the child.
"Well, Mrs. Haxtell, and how's the boy?" he cried with his cheery voice
as he stood on the doorstep. "I've brought you a new kind of baccy to
try, sir; hope the youngster has been behaving himself, eh? Ah, Roger,
how does the world go with you? And where's my Sonny?"
"There, now, to think of his father coming so unfortunate like, and he
that's never out at tea-time more than twice in a twelve-month," fussed
the landlady, dusting three chairs in succession, and wondering how her
back hair was bearing the exertion; "that do seem hard, that do; but
there, Lady Relton she come down and asked so coaxing like for him to go
that I couldn't find it in my heart to refuse her; but that be the first
time I've let him out o' my sight this many weeks. And I'm sure I've
been so doleful like all the time he's been gone that I won't never let
him go again, that I won't; I kept on thinkin' somethin' was going to
happen to the precious, and I wouldn't never see him again, and what
would his father say then, when I'd promised to look after him like my
own--there, Mr. Raleigh, I feel as if somethin' terrible might come to
Master Sonny afore we set eyes on him again, that I do!"
"I hope not, Mrs. Haxtell, I hope not," said Digby, encouragingly,
wondering if he were a hard-hearted parent because he had none of the
landlady's nervous sensations concerning his son. "It would take a good
deal to hurt Master Sonny, I fancy, and he will be in here directly
turning everything upside down again to your heart's content. Are you
off, Mr. Roger? Then I'll walk home with you, and have a pipe to get rid
of the London smoke. Ah! London is not fit for a dog this weather! And
will you send the boy down to the castle meadow when he comes in, Mrs.
Haxtell? Thanks; let him come alone, and learn to be a man."
Only a few minutes later Lady Joan brought her piebald ponies to a
standstill before the sign of the "Relton Arms," and threw the reins to
her groom.
"Here we are, Mrs. Haxtell; did you think I was going to keep him
altogether? I nearly did, he was so fascinating, and we had such a
delightful flirtation together. He is the most charming little gentleman
to flirt with, because he is never stupid enough to take it in for a
moment. Look at him now," as the boy flew into the landlady's arms with
a shout. "Oh, you ungrateful little beggar, after all the cake and the
jam I have been giving you! Here, give me a kiss, Sonny, and I'll be
off. What is it, Mrs. Haxtell? His father, did you say? Oh--yes--to be
sure, his father--yes!"
Fortunately for her, the landlady was too much engaged with the stormy
caresses of the child to notice her, as she walked to the window and
looked at two hens quarrelling over a grain of corn in the yard.
"Aye, my lady, and the child was to go down to the castle meadow all
along of himself to find his father, to learn to be a man, was what he
said. I bain't one to make a fuss over trifles, but I don't like to let
the child go quite, and yet--"
"What nonsense! of course not; how like a man," said Lady Joan,
contemptuously, "besides, the child is much too tired to walk all that
way. Now for my two kisses, Sonny; I will make it three if you don't
give me them at once, sir! I will go and make it right with his father,
Mrs. Haxtell, if you will tell Dick to take the ponies quietly home,
please. And may I go across the orchard?"
"Eh, but she doan't care what the towns-folk say, do she?" reflected
Mrs. Haxtell, admiringly, as she watched the tall figure disappearing
among the trees.
"I wonder what made me come," thought Lady Joan to herself, as she
climbed the stile into the castle meadow; and her courage half failed
her when she caught sight of a man in a brown felt hat that she had seen
before, sitting on a fragment of the old ruined wall by the side of the
brook.
But he had already seen her, and was coming towards her; and with a
recklessness which she evidenced at once by letting her skirt trail on
the damp grass, she went on to meet him.