“Thank you, Mat. And be sure you don’t forget to tell him that Abel Squires is going to nurse him.”
“Ah’ll mahnd that. Good-night, Miss Olivia.”
“Good-night, Mat. I don’t know what I should have done without you this evening.”
Mat blushed. “You knaw, Miss,” he said, in a bashful, strangled voice, “you’re as welcome as t’ flowers in Meay to aught as Ah can do—neow and any toime.”
And he pulled off his cap awkwardly without looking at her, and ran off down the hill before he had even stopped to replace it; while Miss Denison, much more leisurely, started on her way home to the farm.
Long before Ned Mitchell’s illness was over, poor Olivia had grave reason to repent her choice of an attendant. Old Sarah Wall, who had been in the habit of coming in for a couple of hours daily to do the cleaning, was now installed permanently on the ground floor, which she had all to herself. The front door was kept on the chain, and to all inquirers it was Mrs. Wall’s duty to answer that Mr. Mitchell was getting on very well, but was not allowed to see any one. If any further questions were put to her, or a wish expressed to see his attendant, she put on a convenient deafness, and presently shut the door. No one was admitted but the doctor, even when Ned was well enough to sit up at the front window, with one or other of his fierce hounds at the side of his chair, and his odd-looking attendant in the back ground. The evident good understanding which existed between master and man filled Olivia with foreboding, and caused still deeper anxiety to Vernon Brander, who, having called at the cottage day after day, and failed to extract any information from Sarah Wall, deliberately walked round to the back garden and climbed into one of the windows of the upper floor by means of the water butt. Here he came face to face with Abel Squires, who, hearing the noise, came out of his master’s room to find out the cause. He tried to retreat on seeing Vernon, but the latter seized his arm and detained him.
“Look here,” said he, in a low voice, but very sternly; “you’ve broken faith, I see.”
Abel’s wooden face never changed.
“Well,” said he doggedly, “Ah doan’t say Ah haven’t. Boot it was forced aht o’ me when Ah wur droonk. That’s all Ah have to say.”
And to demonstrate this he folded his arms tightly, and met the clergyman’s eyes stubbornly and without flinching.