Hannah, a comely girl of fourteen, came running in.
“Here's John wants me to go over to his house. Get me the pen and ink, girl, out of the cupboard, and I'll write him a word or two any way.—Is there anything amiss?” said she quickly to the man.
“He came in with the black mare all in a lather, just after dinner, and he hasn't spoke to a soul since. That's all I know, missus. I think something has put him out, and he isn't soon put out, you know, he isn't.”
Hannah left the room, after placing the paper as she was bid.
“You will all be put out that trust to an arm of flesh, all of ye, master or man, Dick Messenger,” said the disciple of John Wesley somewhat grimly. “Ay, and be put out of the kingdom of heaven, too, if ye don't take heed.”
“Is that the news I'm to take back to Farnborough, missus?” said Messenger with quiet, rustic irony.
“No; I'll write to him.”
The old woman wrote a few lines reminding Meadows that the pursuit of earthly objects could never bring any steady comfort, and telling him that she should be lost in his great house—that it would seem quite strange to her to go into the town after so many years' quiet—but that if he was minded to come out and see her she would be glad to see him and glad of the opportunity to give him her advice, if he was in a better frame for listening to it than last time she offered it to him, and that was two years come Martinmas.
Then the old woman paused, next she reflected, and afterward dried her unfinished letter. And as she began slowly to fold it up and put it in her pocket—“Hannah,” cried she thoughtfully.
Hannah appeared in the doorway.