Mrs Jane sat back on the floor and laughed.
“Ah, my dear young gentlewoman, you may laugh,” was the solemn comment of Millicent; “but I do assure you ’tis no laughing matter. If Mrs Jane will not listen to reason, madam, I beg you to hear me when I tell you what I have heard.”
The solemnity of Millicent’s tones was something awful. Mrs Jane, however, was so misguided as to laugh again; but her mother said, in a half-alarmed tone, “Well, Millicent, what is it? You speak of the new man, Jackson, I suppose?”
“Madam, Robin tells me that early this morning, as soon as my Lord Wilmot was gone, he went down to the blacksmith’s with something of the Colonel’s—a chain, I think he said, or was it—”
“Never mind what it was,” said Mrs Jane; “let us have the story.”
“Well, he was in the blacksmith’s shop, and to get out of the way of the blacks, which were flying all over, he had slipped behind the door; when who should come up but this Jackson, on Mrs Jane’s horse, that had cast a shoe. He could not see Robin, he being behind the door; I dare be bound if he had, he would not have been so free in his talk. You know, madam, what a horrid Roundhead the blacksmith is; Robin saith he wishes in his heart he never had to go near him. Well, as this fellow holds the horse’s foot (and Robin says he did it the most awkward he ever saw), he asks the smith what news. ‘Oh,’ saith he, ‘none that I know of, since the good news of the beating of the rogues of Scots.’ ‘What,’ saith Jackson, ‘are none of the English taken that were joined with the Scots?’ Then, madam, the smith said, saving your presence, for really it makes me feel quite creepy to repeat such shocking words, ‘I don’t hear,’ quoth he, ‘that that rogue Charles Stuart is taken, but some of the others are.’ Oh, madam, to speak so dreadfully of His Sacred Majesty!”
Mrs Millicent’s eyes went up till more white than iris was visible.
“Very shocking, truly,” said Mrs Lane. “Well, what further?”
“And then, madam, that Jackson said—Robin heard him!—‘If that rogue were taken,’ quoth he, ‘he deserves to be hanged more than all the rest, for bringing in the Scots.’ Oh, dear, dear! that I should live to tell you, madam, that a servant of my good master could let such words come out of his lips! Then quoth the smith, ‘You speak like an honest man.’ And so Jackson up on the horse and rode away.”
“Well, it doth but confirm me in my view that the man is a most unsuitable guard for you, Jane. I shall speak to your brother about making a change.”