“He’s dead!” he muttered, “yon chap’s dead. It’s onlucky to carry a dead mon.”
But Freda besought him, coaxed, persuaded, promised until the stubborn Yorkshireman, impressed by her imperious manner, began to think that in obeying her, he was currying favour with the higher powers. So that at last he stooped, hoisted up the unfortunate man, placed him in his cart, lifted Freda herself into the front seat without waiting to be asked, and turned his horse’s head, by her direction, towards the Abbey.
Freda was trembling with triumph, but also with some apprehension. The Abbey was the only place to which she could take the wounded man, and yet she could not but fear that it might prove a very unsafe refuge. The little grinning man, whom they had left behind on the edge of the cliff, was a trusted person in her father’s mysterious house, and could go and come by secret ways, whenever he pleased. Her only hope lay with Mrs. Bean. Freda believed in the little woman’s real kindness of heart, and then too she would get at her first, before the housekeeper could be influenced by less honest counsels.
The cart with its occupants reached the Abbey-lodge in very few minutes. At the inner gate there was a little longer delay, and then Mrs. Bean appeared and let them in without question.
“I didn’t expect you to-night, Mr. Kemm,” was all she said.
But she started back in astonishment and dismay when he said:
“Ah’ve browt ye back a friend an’ a stranger, Mrs. Bean. One’s a leady, an’ t’other’s a gen’leman.”
At the same moment Freda, who had got down with Kemm’s help, ran up and put her arm round Nell’s neck.
“Mrs. Bean, dear Mrs. Bean,” she whispered, “it’s a friend of mine, the gentleman you saw me with at the churchyard, and he’s very, very ill. You’ll be kind to him, won’t you?”
But Nell was not at all sure about that. She even began by resolutely refusing to allow him to be brought into the house. Kemm, however, as resolutely refused to take him away again. At last Freda thought of away of overcoming the housekeeper’s objections.