“I dare say you get a breath of the woods now an’ again while the folks are away?”
“All I can. These stirring times make me long to be a gamekeeper—just like when the country goes to war, we men all want to be soldiers. I’m afraid poor old Sweetland gets beyond his work. There’s been more trouble in the preserves since Sir Reginald went to Scotland.”
This information apparently reminded the mistress of Hangman’s Hut that she had offered Titus no hospitality.
“I’ll draw some cider for ’e. ’Tis all I’ve got. Dan promised never to drink nought else after we was married. An’ if you want for to smoke, please do it.”
The footman pulled out a pouch of tobacco and a pipe from his pocket; as he did so he groaned.
“What’s the matter?” inquired Mrs Beer. “That’s the noise my old man makes in his sleep when the rheumatics be at him.”
“My side. I had a cruel dig in the ribs two days agone. Slipped and fell on the cellar stairs with a scuttle o’ coals. I thought I’d broke every bone in my body. And a pang shoots through an’ through my side yet when I move my right arm. But ’tis better than ’twas.”
Minnie expressed active regret and brought Mr Sim a cushion for his back. His bright eyes looked round the little comfortable kitchen hungrily. He already pictured the time when he might fill a dead man’s shoes, for he was among the many who believed that Daniel Sweetland had in reality perished and would be heard of no more. Minnie never undeceived him.
Now the mistress of Hangman’s Hut poured her visitor out his drink, then sat and watched the tobacco smoke curl from his lips. Presently she spoke.
“Do you still use that wooden pipe what my Dan gived ’e? ’Twas cut very cunning in the shape of a fox’s mask wi’ li’l black beads for eyes. I should like to think as you smoke it sometimes an’ remember him as gived it to you.”