'Well, I don't see that it mightn't happen. A man having this money to carry, and afraid of being robbed, might put it to himself that rough characters—specially gipsies—often let a woman pass where they'd attack a man. Or suppose, now, the man was a gipsy?—he'd sold three horses, we'll say, at Tregarrick Christmas Fair, and was trudging it back to his camp somewhere on the moors. A gipsy would be the very man to hit on that kind of disguise, it being against his own principles to hurt any woman but his wife.'
'This man was a butcher, ma'am, and no gipsy.'
'O—oh!' cried the widow, with a little gasp. 'How do you know?'
'Never mind how I know, ma'am. He was a butcher, right enough; and, on your hypothesis that I've committed highway robbery upon an innocent man, I'd like you to explain how he comes to be carrying about this paper. "One large chest" he credits you with possessing; it is to be handled quickly and hidden in the orchard, if necessary— that is, I suppose, if he should be surprised; and to resist him you have nobody on the premises but your servant maid Tryphena. For what innocent purpose, pray, does he carry about this memorandum?'
''Myes, I suppose you are right,' Mrs Tresize assented with a little sigh, and forthwith shifted the conversation. 'But taste your brandy, please, and tell me how you like it—though, to be sure, it won't compare with Squire Peneluna's.'
It was, nevertheless, good sound brandy, genuine juice of the grape, soft and well-matured. The doctor after a sip nodded his approval.
'I dare say, now,' she went on, 'you're accustomed to this sort of thing? I mean, you must pass a good many nights, year's end to year's end, in other folk's parlours. . . .' She broke off, and this time with a genuine sigh. 'I used to wonder in days gone by, if ever you'd be sitting here. I used to picture you . . . and now it's for a robber you're waiting!' She ended with a laugh, yet turned her face away.
But either the doctor was nettled or his mind refused to be diverted by small talk from the business in hand. He somewhat curtly commanded Mrs Tresize to indicate on the gun-rack the weapons her late husband had commonly used, and to find him powder and shot. For a moment she pouted her lips mutinously, but ended by obeying him, with a shrug of her handsome shoulders.
She stood watching him while he carefully loaded the weapons and rammed home the wads. It is possible that she had a mind to relent, and suggest his whiling the time away with a game of dominoes. At any rate she went so far as to hazard—with a glance at the ivory tablets, and another at the hearth and the elbow-chairs—that he would find the waiting tedious.
'Not if you can supply me with a book, ma'am,' he answered, laying the two guns on the table, after sweeping the dominoes aside to make room for them.