"You had better come too, hadn't you?" she said; "it would be much quicker, and—"
"Aye, sir, there be room and to spare," put in the porter, encouragingly; "you've only got to put your arms round one another all tidy an' comfortable like, an' there ain't no fear o' tumbling out. Bless ye, sir, there be as many as six together in a cart like this on market days, all as safe and as pleasant as can be."
"An' there bain't no time to lose, Mr. Digby," added George, from the horse's head; "leastways, the end might come while we be gossipin' here, and the Lord grant him a peaceful—"
"Come and take the reins, George," interrupted Lady Joan, suddenly mounting the cart without any assistance at all, "and get in quickly, you two; there's loads of room, of course."
They began by sitting stiffly on the edge of the seat, as far away from each other as possible; but the first plunge forward of the restive pony nearly tipped up the seat and sent them all backwards, and a parting admonition from the friendly porter followed them up the road.
"Hold on tight to the lady, sirs; that be the only way of doin' it," he bawled at the top of his voice; and although it was an attitude that none of the three would have chosen at that moment, they were compelled by common prudence to follow his advice; and they completed the drive in silence, sitting on the narrow seat of the little rickety cart, with their arms locked together, and their hands unavoidably clasped.
The Squire's letter to the papers was never finished, and nobody ever told him how many rabbits were imported annually from Holland. It was a question he repeatedly asked of those around him on the last night of his life, though he varied it, when Joan and his two sons arrived, by wanting to know when Jack was going to be married.
"Soon, quite soon," Lady Joan whispered to him reassuringly, and she put her hand in Jack's to confirm the delusion. Jack knew it was a delusion, and did not press it; he had come to understand her at last.
They stood together in the library, a week after the Squire's death, on the eve of her departure for Relton.