"Come in a minute, lass," he said in a low, confidential voice, as they reached his branch shop, just beyond Malkin's. "I'll—" He paused.
A motor, apparently enormous, was buzzing motion-less in the wide entry by the side of the shop. It very slowly moved forward, crossed the footpath and half the street opposite the Town Hall, impeding a tram-car, and then curved backward into a position by the kerbstone. John's Ernest was at the steering-wheel. Councillor Batchgrew stood still with his mouth open to watch the manoeuvre.
"This is John's Ernest—my son John's eldest. Happen ye know him?" said Batchgrew to Rachel. "He's a good lad."
John's Ernest, a pleasant-featured young man of twenty-five, blushed and raised his hat. And Rachel also blushed as she nodded. It was astonishing that old Batchgrew could have a grandson with so honest a look on his face, but she had heard that son John, too, was very different from his father.
"Dunna go till I've seen thee," said Mr. Batchgrew to John's Ernest, and to Rachel, "Come in, Mrs. Fores."
John's Ernest silenced the car, and extricated himself with practised rapidity from the driver's seat.
"Where are ye going?" asked his grandfather.
"I'm going to lock the garage doors," said John's Ernest, with a humorous smile which seemed to add, "Unless you'd like them to be left open all Saturday afternoon." Rachel vividly remembered the playful, boyish voice which she had heard one night when the motor-car had called to take Mr. Batchgrew to Red Cow.
The councillor nodded.
In the small, untidy, disagreeable, malodorous shop, which in about half a century had scarcely altered its aspect, Thomas Batchgrew directed Rachel to a corner behind the counter and behind a partition, with a view of a fragment of the window. As she passed she saw one of the Batchgrew women (the wife of another grandson) and three little girls of various sizes flash in succession across an open doorway at the back. The granddaughter-in-law, who had an abode full of costly wedding-presents over the shop, had been one of her callers, but when they flashed across that doorway the Batchgrew women made a point of ignoring all phenomena in the shop.