“Why, I didn’t tell you who he was,” observed Rob, with staring eyes.
“We know him by sight,” said Mrs Brown, whose working mouth and nodding head stopped for the moment, in the fixedness of her attention. “We saw him pass this morning, afore he got off his horse; when you were ready to take it.”
“Ay, ay,” returned Rob, appearing to wish that his readiness had carried him to any other place.—“What’s the matter with her? Won’t she drink?”
This inquiry had reference to Alice, who, folded in her cloak, sat a little apart, profoundly inattentive to his offer of the replenished glass.
The old woman shook her head. “Don’t mind her,” she said; “she’s a strange creetur, if you know’d her, Rob. But Mr Carker—”
“Hush!” said Rob, glancing cautiously up at the packer’s, and at the bottle-maker’s, as if, from any one of the tiers of warehouses, Mr Carker might be looking down. “Softly.”
“Why, he ain’t here!” cried Mrs Brown.
“I don’t know that,” muttered Rob, whose glance even wandered to the church tower, as if he might be there, with a supernatural power of hearing.
“Good master?” inquired Mrs Brown.
Rob nodded; and added, in a low voice, “precious sharp.”