‘It’s very good of you to compliment me, sir, but I expect it will make matters clearer to you by-and-by. You’re not the first tenants of Rushmere I’ve had to tell this tale to, I can tell you, and you won’t be the last, either. One night, when I couldn’t sleep for his nasty cough, and lay awake, wishing to goodness he’d go to bed like a Christian, I made sure I heard footsteps in the hall, a-creeping and a-creeping about like, as though some one was feeling their way round the house. “It can’t be the mistress,” I thought, “and maybe it’s robbers, as have little idea the master’s shut up in the study.” So I opened the door quickly, but I could see nothing.’
‘Exactly my own experience,’ I exclaimed.
‘Ah, sir, maybe; but they weren’t the same footsteps, poor dear. I wish they had been, and she had the same power to tread now she had then. The hall was empty; but at the same time I heard the master groaning and cursing most awful in the parlour, and I went into my own room again, that I mightn’t listen to his wicked oaths and words. I always hated and distrusted that man from the beginning. The next day I mentioned I had heard footsteps, before ’em both, and the rage Mr Greenslade put himself into was terrible. He said no robbers had better break into his house, or he’d shoot them dead as dogs. Afterwards his wife came to me and asked me what sort of footsteps they seemed; and when I told her, she cried upon my neck, and begged me if ever I heard a woman’s step to say nothing of it to her husband.
‘“A woman’s step, ma’am,” I replied; “why, what woman would dare break into a house?”
‘But she only cried the more, and held her tongue.
‘But that evening I heard their voices loud in the parlour, and there was a regular dispute between them.
‘“If ever she should come, Henry,” Mrs Greenslade said, “promise me you won’t speak to her unless you can say words of pity or of comfort.”
‘“Pity!” he yelled, “what pity has she had for me? If ever she or any emissary of hers should dare to set foot upon these premises, I shall treat them as house-breakers, and shoot them down like dogs!”
‘“Oh no! Henry, no!” screamed the poor woman; “think who she is. Think of her youth, her temptation, and forgive her.”
‘“I’ll never forgive her—I’ll never own her!” the wretch answered loudly; “but I’ll treat her, or any of the cursed crew she associates with, as I would treat strangers who forced their way in to rob me by night. ’Twill be an evil day for them when they attempt to set foot in my house.”