“Then I can assure you solemnly, madam,” answered Millicent, with a look to match her words, “that is more than I did. Never can I forget the horrid moment when I thought that nasty black creature went about to take me by the hand. It made me feel creepy all over—faugh! I cannot find words to tell you!”
“Pray don’t trouble yourself,” calmly responded Mrs Jane. “I am going upstairs, so you need not give yourself the labour to look for them.”
Before many weeks were over, Colonel Lane came one evening into the drawing-room, to report a wonderful piece of good news.
“His Majesty hath escaped the realm!” cried he, “and is now clean over sea to France.”
“God be praised!” exclaimed his mother. “This is indeed good news.”
Farmer Lavender was almost as excited as his landlord, and declared that he would light a bonfire in the farm-yard, if he could be sure the stacks wouldn’t get alight.
“Nay, Joe, I wouldn’t,” said his prudent mother. “Thou can be as glad as thou wilt, and the Parliament ’ll say nought to thee; but bonfires is bonfires, lad.”
Will Jackson did not come back to Bentley, and Mrs Jane remarked in a satisfied tone that she supposed Colonel Wyndham had found a place to suit him.
Millicent contemptuously observed to Jenny that she wondered how Colonel Wyndham, who was a gentleman born, could take any trouble about that creature Jackson.
“Well, and I do too, a bit,” said Jenny, “for I’m sure the Colonel did not seem over pleased when Will would have taken him by the hand as we was a-coming up to the house.”