“No,” returns Chockey. “She ain’t.”
“Well, whereabouts is she? For if it’s as far as the Injies, Grigson’s bound to find her and deliver this love-letter!”
“I don’t know where she is, Sir,” whimpers Chock.
“There, there! Don’t be a-cryin’ and a-sobbin’, Duckie, I ain’t gone, yet! Go ask His Lordship the address; bring me a mug of ale, and I’ll give you a kiss.”
“Drat you, Sir,” cries Chockey. “Don’t you be talkin’ like that!” Yet sidles she quite cozily in the encircling arm of the admirable Grigson.
“His Lordship, nor Her Ladyship, nor no one else knows where my mistress is.”
“What! eloped? Scuttled! Flown the nest! When? How? Where?” cries Sir Percy’s man thunder-struck. “She ain’t gone with Sir Percy! Can it be with Sir Robin McTart?”
Chockey shook her head vigorously.
“Look a-here,” says Mr. Grigson, now regarding the girl attentively. “Damme, but you knows where she is. Tell me and I’ll give you two kisses and ten pounds to boot.”
“Oh, Sir!” cries Chock, pushing away both kisses and pounds with one and the same hand. “I does know; leastways I knows my young lady’s up in London, but whereabouts in that pit of sin and willainy, I can’t say, nor who she’s with, nor how long she’s goin’ to stop; only she charged me make His Lordship and Her Lady mother believe she was gone to Kent, back again to see her godmother. There! I’ve been bursting to tell some one, and you’ll swear you’ll keep it secret, won’t you, Sir?”