'Sacrilegious man!' cried Shady, shuddering more than once. His anxiety was appeased by learning that Sir Valary had not awoke since he took the sleeping-draught. Miss De la Mark had been sitting at his door for the last hour, watching.
'I haven't been able to get her to eat nor drink; she's as pale as a ghost, and trembles like a leaf; but I don't think it's fear she shakes with.'
Poor Shady! it was too much for him. Bloodworth was the only human being he regarded with dislike; notwithstanding his arrogant assumption, he was well known to be a man of low origin, who owed all his fortune to the family he served. If his insolence had been confined to those of his own rank, it would have been worthy only of contempt; but the indignation of the librarian knew no bounds when the dignity of De la Mark was tarnished by his insolent bearing and free speech; it was one of the very few subjects that deprived him of his habitual serenity.
Whatever were his own views as to the secret of Bloodworth's impunity, he listened without replying to many of Mrs. Gillies' half-hinted suspicions. 'Time will reveal all things,' he said. 'And now I must enter in my books the moneys expended. I must see, too, that those rebellious animals are properly secured; and if I can in a measure repair the damage they have done'—
'Mr. Higgs, sir,' said Robinson, appearing at the door with his empty cup and platter, 'please, sir, don't you want me to go and help to look arter them pigs?'
'Ah!' said Shady, smiling benignantly on him; 'I must leave your lesson to-night, Robinson.'
'It don't signify,' said Robinson cheerfully.
'No?' said Shady.
'Not for once, you know, Mr. Higgs, sir,' said the lad, who felt he had been too accommodating. Suddenly recollecting, the librarian guessed his drift, and, placing the knife in his hands, told him that nothing but learning was really worth desiring.