CHAPTER XIV
SOME DESCRIPTION OF A KISS
Mrs. Agatha, gathering beans and aided by the Viscount's two valets, smiled and dimpled on each in turn while the Sergeant, busied in an adjacent corner with a ladder, cursed softly but with deep and sustained heartiness.
Mrs. Agatha's basket was three parts full and Sergeant Zebedee, having pretty well exhausted the English and French tongues, was vituperating grimly in Low Dutch, when a bell jangled distantly, a faint but determined summons, and immediately after, the Viscount's voice was heard near at hand and imperative:
"Arthur! Charles! Where a plague are the prepasterous dags! Oho, Charles! Arthur!"
The two valets, galvanised to action exceeding swift, started, saluted Mrs. Agatha and betook themselves within doors at commendable speed, and the Sergeant, having at last juggled his ladder into position, vituperated them out of sight and was in the act of mounting when he was aware of Mrs. Agatha at his elbow.
"'Tis surely a lovely day, Sergeant!" said she demurely.
"Is it so, mam?"
"Well, isn't it?"
"Why mam, I ain't had doo time to notice same, d'ye see. But, since you ax me I say no, mam, 'tis a dam—no, a cur—no, a plaguy hot day." Saying which, the Sergeant rolled snowy shirt-sleeve a little higher above a remarkably hairy and muscular arm and mounted one rung of the ladder.
"The house do be very—gay these days, Sergeant."
"O mam! And why?"
"Well, since Viscount Merivale came with his two gentlemen."
"His two what, mam? Meaning who, mam?"
"Lud, Sergeant, his gentlemen for sure, Mr. Arthur and Mr. Charles—so polite, so witty and they never swear!" The Sergeant snorted. "One can never be dull in their company. Mr. Charles has such a flow of talk and Mr. Arthur is a perfect mine of anecdote, ha'n't you noticed?"
"Why no, mam. The only mines as I'm acquainted with is the kind that explodes."
"But indeed, Sergeant, everything seems changing for the better—take his honour the Major, see how young he looks in his fine things—aye, as young as his nephew and handsomer. And now 'tis your turn to change——"
"I ain't given to change, mam."
"A frill to your shirt, say, and your wig powdered——"
"Frills, mam—never! And I haven't powdered my wig since we quit soldiering, why should I? What's a man of forty-three want to go a-powdering of his wig for? Frills, mam? Powder, mam? Now what I say to that is——"
"Ha' done, Sergeant!"
"Very good, mam! Only I leave frills and powder and such to young fly-b'-nights——"
"Powder, and frills, and ruffles at your wrists, Sergeant——"
"And talkin' o' fly-b'-nights, mam, brings me to a question I wish to ax you and meant to ax you afore."
"A—a question, Sergeant?" she repeated faintly, beginning to trace out a pattern on the path with the toe of her neat shoe.
"As I want you to answer prompt, mam, aye or no."
"Very well, Sergeant," said she, fainter than before. "I'm listening."
"D'ye sleep well o' nights, mam?"
Mrs. Agatha started, glanced up swiftly and, for no apparent reason, blushed very red under the Sergeant's direct gaze.
"Lud, Sergeant Zebedee, what's that to do with it—I mean——"
"Everything, mam!"
"And why shouldn't I sleep? I've no bad conscience to wake me, thank God."
"Then ye do sleep well?"
"Ye-es!"
"Then you ain't heard nor seen nothing toward the hour o' midnight—footsteps, say?"
"Footsteps! O Lud—where?"
"Anywhere! You never have?"
"Never!"
"P'r'aps you don't believe in ghostes, mam, spectres, or say—apparations?"
"I—I don't know. Why?"
"You've never happened to see a pale shape a-fluttering and a-flitting by light o' moon?"
"Gracious me—no, Sergeant! You make me all of a shiver! Have you?"
"No, mam!"
"O cruel, to fright one so!"
"But hope an' expect to observe same to-night towards the hour o' midnight or thereabouts and if so, shall immediately try what cold steel can do agin it."
"Gracious goodness, Sergeant, what d'you mean?"
"I mean as I'm a-going to find out what it is as walks o' nights."
"But ghosts don't walk, they glide."
"Maybe so, mam, but this ghost or apparation ain't a glider 'tis a walker, same being observed to leave footmarks. Also Roger Bent the second gardener as lives nigh the old mill has seen it twice—says same haunts the old mill o' moony nights, says—but there's Roger now, he shall tell you!" The Sergeant whistled, beckoned and the second gardener, a young-old, shock-headed man, approached, knuckling his forehead to Mrs. Agatha.
"Roger," said the Sergeant, "tell us what ye saw last night."
"A gobling!" said Roger, "a grimly gobling an' that's what."
"Bless us!" exclaimed Mrs. Agatha, "what was it like?"
"Why," answered Roger, ruffling his shock of hair with a claw-like right hand, "'twere rayther like a phamtom, mam—very much so, that's what!"
"O—where was it?"
"'Twas a-quaking i' the ruin o' the owd mill, mam, dithering and dathering glowersome like."
Mrs. Agatha gasped, noting which, Roger shook his head gloomily. "Always know'd th' owd mill was haunted but never seed nowt afore. I do 'ope as my hens aren't witched from laying, that's what."
"And then you followed it, Roger?"
"Aye, I did so, Sergeant, me 'aving a dried hare's-foot 'ung round my neck d'ye see which same do be a powerful charm, give me by old Betty the witch, a spell as no gobling nor speckiter can abide."
"And where did it go?"
"Along by the spinney, Sergeant, then along the back lane and I see it vanish it-self through th' orchard wall and that's what!"
"And there was its footmarks in the earth this morning, mam, sure enough. All right, Roger."
Hereupon Roger knuckled again to Mrs. Agatha and betook himself back to his duties.
"'Tis dreadful!" exclaimed Mrs. Agatha, clasping her pretty hands.
"'Tis queer, mam, queer—but 'twill be queerer if I don't find out all about it 'twixt now and to-morrow morning."
"Sergeant Zebedee—Zebedee, don't!"
"Mam, I must."
"For—my sake."
"Mam, I—'tis become a matter o' dooty with me."
"Have you any charm to ward off evil, Sergeant?"
"Why no, mam."
"Then I'll give you one," and speaking, she took a ribbon from her white neck, a blue ribbon whereon a small gold cross dangled. "You shall wear this!" said she, blushing a little. "Come, stoop your head!"
"Why, Mrs. Agatha I—I——"
"O pray stoop your head!"
The Sergeant obeyed and it naturally followed that the Sergeant's neat wig was very near Mrs. Agatha's pretty mob-cap, so near, indeed that a tress of her glossy hair tickled his bronzed, smooth-shaven chin; the Sergeant saw her eyes, grave and intent, the oval of a soft cheek, the curve of two lips—full, soft lips, ripely delicious and tempting and so near that he had but to turn his head——
The Sergeant turned his head and for a long, breathless moment lips met lips then:
"Why, Sergeant!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "O Sergeant—Zebedee—Tring!" And turning, she sped away into the house.
Left alone the Sergeant picked up his hammer, stared at it and put it carefully into his pocket; having done which, he laughed, grew solemn, and sighed.
"Well," said he at last, "all I says is——"
But for once he could find no words for it in English, French or Dutch.