"Nothing--nothing," said the groom, and drove off, looking thoughtful.
It seemed to Allen that the lad had something to say to him relating to the wooden hand, but, thinking he would learn about the matter during the homeward drive, he dismissed the affair from his mind and walked up the path.
He found the front door closed, and knocked in vain. Finding that no one came, he strolled round to the back, and discovered Mrs. Merry talking to a ragged, shock-headed, one-eyed boy of about thirteen. "Just you say that again," Mrs. Merry was remarking to this urchin.
The boy spoke in a shrill voice and with a cockney accent. "Cain sez to me, as he'll come over and see you to-morrer!"
"And who are you to come like this?" asked Mrs. Merry.
"I'm Butsey, and now you've as you've heard twice what Cain hes t'saiy, you can swear, without me waiting," and after this insult the urchin bolted without waiting for the box on the ear, with which Mrs. Merry was prepared to favour him. Allen, quick in his judgments, saw that this was a true specimen of a London gamin, and wondered how such a brat had drifted to Wargrove. As a rule the London guttersnipe sticks to town as religiously as does the London sparrow.
"If I had a child like that," gasped Mrs. Merry as the boy darted round the corner of the cottage, "I'd put him in a corner and keep him on bread and water till the sin was drove out of him. Ah, Mr. Allen, that's you. I'm glad you've come to the house of mourning, and well may I call this place Misery Castle, containing a corp as it do. But I said the dream would come true, and true it came. Five knocks at the door, and the corp with three men bearing it. Your pa's inside, looking at the body, and Miss Eva weeping in the doring-room."
Allen brushed past the garrulous woman, but halted on the doorstep, to ask why she had not come to the front door. Mrs. Merry was ready at once with her explanation. "That door don't open till the corp go out," she said, wiping her hands on her apron. "Oh, I know as you may call it superstition whatever you may say, Mr. Allen, but when a corp enter at one door nothing should come between its entering and its going out. If anything do, that thing goes with the corp to the grave," said Mrs. Merry impressively; "police and doctor and your pa and all, I haven't let in by the front, lest any one of them should die. Not as I'd mind that Wasp man going to his long home, drat him with his nasty ways, frightening Miss Eva."
Waiting to hear no more, Hill went through the kitchen and entered the tiny drawing-room. The blinds were down and on the sofa he saw Eva seated, dressed in black. She sprang to her feet when she saw him. "Oh, Allen, I am so glad you have come. Your father said you could not, because of your foot."
"I sprained it, Eva, last night when----"