“I know that he is trying to find out a secret; a secret which I think you know.”
“Maybe Ah do; maybe Ah don’t; anyhow, Ah doan’t prate abaht it!”
“Then what do you want to see Mr. Mitchell for?”
“Ah think he got summat aht o’ me last toime Ah see him; Ah want to knaw how mooch.”
The girl’s face cleared.
“Could you nurse a sick man?” she asked. “Mr. Mitchell is ill, delirious, and I don’t want to trust him to any prattling old woman.”
“Ay,” said Abel, promptly; “Ah can do’t.”
“Come in with me, and let us see what the doctor says,” said Olivia, leading the way into the cottage with eager footsteps.
She was surprised at her own daring in taking this step; but she argued with herself that if the tramp, possessing Vernon’s secret, as she knew he did, should wish to turn informer, there was no possibility of preventing him, while he would be within reach of Vernon’s influence as long as he was attending on the sick man. If, on the other hand, he was loyally anxious to keep it, there could be no better person to watch over the man from whom she wished to keep the truth.
The doctor asked Abel a few questions, and agreed that he might be tried as sick nurse. Tramp though he was, Squires was a man of some intelligence, and had picked up many a scrap of practical knowledge in the wanderings in which his life had been almost wholly spent. Before the doctor and Olivia had left the house, they felt that the patient was in no unskilful hands, while the hounds were under control of a man entirely without fear.