“Oh, yes, sir: of course. I’ve got the key in my pocket. But don’t let me interrupt you, sir, till you’ve quite done.”
“Done! What do you mean?” cried Chris in an angry whisper, as he fancied he detected a sarcastic ring in the man’s voice.
“Oh, nothing, sir. I thought perhaps you might be going to see somebody, and I’m in no hurry to go back home.”
“No, no; nonsense. I am not going to see anybody,” said Chris hurriedly. “Go on first; and look here, Brime, once more I must beg of you not to speak to any one of this meeting. It might cause trouble.”
“You may trust me, sir,” said the man sturdily.
“Thank you. Of course,” said Chris hastily, as the man led the way to a door in the thick wall of the garden, which door he opened, and Chris passed out.
“Who’d ever think as such games as that was being carried on?” muttered the gardener; “and Miss Claude all the while so prim, and looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. If it had been Miss Mary I shouldn’t have wondered, for she can be a bit larky. But he wouldn’t come to see her, poor little crooked wench. Now, I wonder what Mr Glider would say if he knowed,” continued the gardener, as he thoughtfully turned the key, and went slowly back towards the house. “There’d be a row, and I’ll bet a tanner that he’d come down handsome if I told him; and it would serve t’other right—a mean snob. Sixpence! Yah!”
He turned the coin over in his hand, and looked at it in the bright moonlight before putting it in his pocket.
“Sixpence!” he said, half aloud. “Why, I’d have given a bob myself if it had been me, and—well! That it is! Half-a-suffrin! He’s a trump, and I wouldn’t let out about it for any money.
“Why, of course!” he continued, “I might have known. So he came to see Miss Claude on the sly when the governor was asleep, and couldn’t see her because there’s company. Well, why not? He’s a good sort, that’s what he is, and if I can help him without getting into trouble with the gaffer, I will, and no mistake. Half-a-suffrin! why, that may be just like a bean as I sticks in the ground. It may come up and have lots more half-suffrins. I’m glad I come up to-night. Better than gardening ever so much, that it is. Now, if I knowed exactly when he was coming next, I might happen to be here again—by accident, of course.”