"Captain Bingley," said Kenneth, entering my study somewhat hastily on
the following morning, "I am going to carry off Gildart for the day to
have a ride with me, and I looked in on you in passing to tell you that
Haco has arrived in his schooner, and that he is going to sail this
evening for London and will take your Russians to their consul if you
wish it."
"Thank you, lad; many thanks," said I, "some of them may be able to go,
but others, I fear, are too much hurt, and may require to be nursed in
the `Home' for some time yet. I will consider it; meanwhile will you
carry a note to your father for me?"
"With pleasure; at least I will send Dan Horsey with it, if that will do
as well."
"Quite as well, if you can spare him; send him into the kitchen while I
write the note. Adieu, lad, and see that you don't break Gildart's
neck. Remember that he is not much accustomed to horses."
"No fear of him," said Kenneth, looking back with a laugh as he reached
the door, "he is well used to riding out hard gales, and that is more
arduous work than steeple-chasing." When Dan Horsey was told to go to
the kitchen and await further orders, he received the command with a
cheerful smile, and, attaching the bridle of his horse to a post,
proceeded to obey it.
The kitchen of Bingley Hall was the abode of two females who severally
owned a distinct and dissimilar character, both mental and physical.
The first female--first in most senses of the word--was Bounder the
cook, who was fat, as cooks ought to be in order to prove that their
productions agree with them; and self-opinionated, as cooks generally
are, in order, no doubt, to prove that they know their business.
The second female was Susan Barepoles, a slim, graceful housemaid,
apparently modest, (cook did not even pretend to that virtue), and
wonderfully sharp-eyed. Both females were good-looking and young, and
both were desperately in love with Daniel Horsey. Each knew the fact,
and so did Dan. Each was mortally jealous of the other, and Dan was
dreadfully perplexed in consequence.
Not that he was uncertain as to which of the two he preferred, for
Susan's image was "engruven," as he expressed it, deeply on his heart,
to the exclusion of all other images, but he found that the jealousy of
the two interfered somewhat with the course of true love, causing it to
run in its proverbially rough channel.
"It's a fine mornin', my darlints," said Dan, as he entered the kitchen
with a swagger, and laid his hat and riding-whip on the dresser, at the
same time seating himself on the edge of a small table that stood near
the window. This seat he preferred to a chair, partly because it
enabled him to turn his back to the light, and partly because it
afforded him an opportunity of swinging his legs gently with an easy
motion that was agreeable, and, at the same time, in his opinion,
graceful.
"None o' yer imperance," said cook, stirring the contents of a large pan
carefully.
Susan tossed her head slightly, but admitted that the morning _was_
good.
"He's a-writin' of a letter to Grumpy," said Dan, pointing with his
thumb towards the ceiling, in order to indicate that the "he" referred
to was myself.
"Who's Grumpy?" inquired cook, with a look of interest.
"Arrah, now, don't ye know it's old Stuart?"
Susan laughed, and cook observed that the name seemed to her an
extremely disrespectful one.
"It's not bad enough for him, the old pair o' tongs," said Dan, taking
up his whip with a gentlemanly assumption of ease, and flipping the toe
of his boot with it; "av it wasn't for the love that my master Kenneth
bears me, I'd have left 'em long ago. But, you see, the young master is
a first-rater, and couldn't get on without me no how, so I'm willin' to
stop. Besides," continued Dan, with a _very_ small sigh, "I have
private raisons for not carin' to leave just now."
He accompanied the latter remark with a sly glance at Susan, who chanced
quite accidentally to cast a sly glance at Dan, so that their eyes met,
and the result was that Susan blushed and began to rub the silver
tea-pot, which she was cleaning, unmercifully, and Dan laughed.
Whereupon cook looked round hastily and asked what he was laughing at,
to which Dan responded that his own imagination, which happened to be a
brilliant one, had just then suggested a train of comical ideas which
had tickled his risible muscles so that he couldn't help it!
"I don't believe it," said cook, who observed Susan's confusion of face,
and became internally red hot with jealousy, "I b'lieve you was larfin'
at me."
"Och, Miss Bounder!" exclaimed Dan, looking at her with an expression so
awfully reproachful that cook instantly repented and laughed.
"There's bin some strange doin's up at the Villa," said Susan, by way of
changing the subject, while she polished the tea-pot yet more
unmercifully.
"Ah," exclaimed cook, "that's true; what does it all mean, Mr Horsey?"
"That's more nor myself can tell," said Dan; "the facts o' the case is
clear, so far as they come'd under our obsarvation. But as to the
circumstances o' the case, 'specially those of 'em as hasn't yet
transpired, I don't rightly know myself wot opinions I ought to
entertain."
Susan listened to these remarks with profound admiration, chiefly
because she did not understand them; but cook, who was more
matter-of-fact in her nature, and somewhat demonstrative in her
tendencies, advised Dan not to talk gammon, but to explain what he
meant.
"Explain what I mean, coolinary sunbeam!" said Dan; "isn't it explainin'
that I am as plain as the nose on yer face, (an' a purty wan it is),
though I haven't got the powers of a lawyer, nor yit a praist? Didn't a
drippin' wet sailor come to our door at the dead o' night an' ring the
bell as bowld as brass, an' when Mrs Niven, whose intellect was niver
much beyond that of a poplypus--"
"What's a poplypus?" interrupted cook.
"Well now," remonstrated Dan, "I ain't 'xactly a walkin' dictionary; but
I b'lieve it's a baist o' the say what hain't got nothin' but a body an'
a stummik, indeed I'm not sure but that it's all stummik together, with
just legs enough to move about with, or may be a fin or two, an' a hole
to let in the wittles; quite in your line, by the way, Miss Bounder."
"Imperance!" ejaculated cook.
"No offence," said Dan; "but `to resoom the thread o' the narrative,' as
the story books say, Mrs Niven she opened the door, and the drippin'
wet sailor he puts a little wet spalpeen in her arms, an' goes right off
without so much as by your lave, an' that's all we know about it. An'
Grumpy he goes ragin' about the house sayin' he'll have nothin' to do
wi' the poor little thing--who's not so little naither, bein' a
ten-year-old if she's an hour, an' a purty sweet face to boot--an' that
he'll send her to the workus' or pris'n, or anywhere; but in his house
she's not to stop another day. Well, not havin' the management o' the
whole of this world's affairs, (fort'nately, else a scrubbily managed
world it would be), Grumpy finds out that when he wants to send little
Emmie, (as she calls herself), off, she's knocked down by a ragin'
fever, an' the doctor he says it's as much as her life is worth to move
her. So Grumpy has to grin and bear it, and there's little Emmie lyin'
at this minit in our best bed, (where Mrs Niven put her the moment she
was took bad), a-tossin' her purty arms in the air, an' makin' her
yellow hair fly over the pillows, and kickin' off the close like a young
angel in a passion, and callin' on her mama in a voice that would make a
stone immage weep, all the while that Miss Penelope is snivellin' on one
side o' the bed, an' Mrs Niven is snortin' on the other."
"Poor dear," said Susan in a low voice, devoting herself with
intensified zeal to the tea-pot, while sympathetic tears moistened her
eyes.
I interrupted the conversation at this point by entering the kitchen
with my note to my friend Stuart. I had to pass through the kitchen to
my back garden when I wished to leave my house by the back garden gate.
I had coughed and made as much noise as possible in approaching the
cook's domains, but they had been so much engrossed with each other that
they did not hear me. Dan sprang hastily off the table, and suddenly
assumed a deeply respectful air.
"Dan," said I, "take this note to Mr Stuart as quickly as possible, and
bring me an answer without delay. I am going to see Haco Barepoles
at--"
"Oh, sir!" exclaimed Susan with a start, and looking at me
interrogatively.
"Oh, I forgot, Susan; your father has just arrived from Aberdeen, and is
at this moment in the Sailors' Home. You may run down to see him, my
girl, if you choose."
"Thank you, sir," said Susan, with a glow of pleasure on her
good-looking face, as she pushed the tea-pot from her, and dropt the
cloth, in her haste to get away to see her sire.
"Stay, Susan," said I; "you need not hurry back. In fact, you may spend
the day with your father, if you choose; and tell him that I will be
down to see him in a few minutes. But I shall probably be there before
you. You may take Mr Stuart's answer to the Home," I added, turning to
Dan; "I shall be there when you return with it."
"_Yes_, sir," said Dan in a tone so energetic as to cause me to look at
him. I observed that he was winking towards the kitchen door. Casting
my eyes thither I saw that Susan's face was much flushed as he
disappeared into the passage. I also noted that the cook's face was
fiery red, and that she stirred a large pot, over which she bent, with
unnecessary violence--viciously, as it were.
Pondering on these things I crossed my garden and proceeded towards the
Home, which stood on a conspicuous eminence near the docks, at the east
end of the town.