“Are you locked out, like me?” he said, putting violence on himself to speak civilly.
“Yes, sir,” answered the man; “but for a better reason.”
“What do you mean by that?”
The creature was as thick-set as a bull. He could have broken this elegant like a stick across his knee. He commanded the situation, massive and impassive, from his own standpoint.
“Look’ee here, sir,” he said, speaking through a grip of little strong teeth in a square jaw, “I’m going to tell you what I mean. I’m going to make no bones about it. You meet Miss Molly fair and open, or you don’t meet her at all. Do I know what I’m saying? Yes, I do know. She didn’t come to you to-night—because why? Because I interdicted of her. That’s it. She might have thought better—or worse—of it, bein’ a woman, and soft; and that’s why I laid by, watchin’ that no harm should come of it if she did. But she was wise, and didn’t. I seen you all the time in the wood, and I tell you this. A word’s got to be enough. You meet her by fair means, or not at all. Never mind the Squire there. It’s me that says it. If she admires you, nine stun ten—which there’s no accounting for tastes—I’m not the one to make difficulties. But you go like a honest man and ask her straight of her father. That’s the ticket, and don’t you make no error. Don’t you flatter your fancy no more with randy-voos in the moonshine. Why, if ever there’s a light calc’lated to lead a gentleman astray, it’s that. I say it, and I know. You go to the girl’s father; and, after, we’ll see what we’ll see.”
He cleared his throat with a quarrelling sound, and came out of the shadow.
“Now,” said he, “here’s a house you’ve been locked out of, and you want to get in without disturbin’ of the family—is that it? Very well, sir; now we understand everything; and step this way, if you please.”
Almost with the words, he had clawed himself up to a window-sill of the ground-floor, and was very softly manipulating the sash. Mr. Le Shore, voiceless, hardly gasping, stood, just conscious of himself, in an absolute rigor of fury and astonishment. He was “stound,” as Spenser would have put it. Presently he snapped his eyelids, and woke aware that Mr. Hissey, standing on the grass, was loweringly inviting him to enter by way of an opened window. With a shock, he recovered his nerves of motion, and, stalking to the place, vaulted stiffly to the sill, and sat thereon like a cavalryman.
“I’ve just a word or two for you, before I—I avail myself of this,” he said. “You’ve been gadding, and got drunk, I suppose; and this is your way of trying to make capital of a belated guest. Perhaps the means you’ve adopted ’ll appear less excellent to you in the sober morning. As to your method of entry, there’s nothing in it incompatible with the character I’d already formed of you. But that, and your quite outrageous insolence, will be made matters for your master’s consideration to-morrow. I mention this in honour, before I——” He waved his hand towards the room.
“I could twist your neck with two fingers, here and now,” said the man.