The marquess said something in a low tone to his wife, jumped down, handed her from the carriage, and turned to Greaves, wooden with surprise upon the box, at this extraordinary conduct on the part of the bride and bridegroom.
“Drive on, Greaves; we’ll walk up presently. Now, Mrs. Sawyer, let’s have a look at the boiler.”
“You could have knocked me down with a feather!” Mrs. Sawyer was wont to say when dilating on the story afterwards. “For in they all come, as sure as I’m a living woman! and down goes his lordship on his knees, as interested in that boiler as if it was a newspaper full of the quarrellings of that there silly Parliament, and turns the tap about, and then jumps up and looks about to see if the workmen had left any putty, and as pleased as may be when he finds it, and down on his knees again—and thankful I was as I’d scrubbed the floor only that morning—and makes as neat a job of it as may be, just to last till the plumber comes to do it proper, he says; and full of jokes all the time he was, as made me laugh till I cried nearly!
“And her ladyship sitting by, in my best chair, and nursing Liza’s baby, as though she fair loved to have it on her knee; and our young lady, bless her! looking as bright and happy as though her world was just made of spring and sunshine, as I hopes it may be!
“And his lordship made a rare good job of the boiler too,” she would add, as though anybody had presumed to doubt his powers as a plumber, “and washed his hands in the back kitchen when he finished, and dried ’em on the round towel, not a bit proud, and when he knocks his ’ead against the lintel going out, he laughs again, and says, says he—‘Fane must make my tenants’ doors a little higher,’ says he, ‘for I mean there to be room for me to come in,’ he says.”
The three walked together through the Park with the late afternoon sunshine glittering on the glory of fresh green beneath and overhead, and up the marble steps to the splendid castle towering above them.
As they reached the top, St. Quentin raised his hat, and took a hand of each.
“Welcome home!” he said.