“Trouble! Nonsense. It’s a splendid excitement. As far as I am concerned, I should like a pair of travellers overturned here once a week.”
He beckoned to Lucy, and led them the few steps back to the inn door. John Oldshaw was still standing in a defiant attitude on the doorstep, whence he had watched the proceedings with malicious interest. His son was still peeping out, sheepish and ashamed, from behind him.
“Here, Mat, will you run round to Mrs. Wall’s—tell her that Miss Denison has come, and ask for the key of the Hall?” said he. “And then you might lend me a hand to take some of the lady’s trunks into the house.”
Mat’s face brightened and flushed.
“All right, sir,” he said, and tried to push past his father.
But the elder man blocked the doorway with his arms, and stood like a rock.
“Nay,” he said, obstinately; “Mat doesna’ stir at tha’ bidding. Help the wenches thasel’; thoo’s used to ’t.”
Olivia drew back; she was shocked, frightened, by the dogged ferocity of the farmer’s face and by the sudden expression of some strong feelings—whether anger or anguish she could not quite tell—which for a moment convulsed the features of her unknown companion. As for Oldshaw’s coarse words, the strong Yorkshire dialect rendered them unintelligible to her. They, however, roused the spirit of the phlegmatic Mat.
“For shame, feyther!” cried he, in a voice which was a new terror for the young lady whose champion he thus declared himself to be. “Maister Brander, Ah’ll go loike a reace horse.”
And ducking his long body under his father’s left arm with an unceremonious roughness which shook that mighty man from his dignity, he touched his cap to Olivia with oafish respect, and ran off down the lane past the Hall barns with the best speed of his long legs.