“And then I says to myself, he won’t be long before he comes, for its a pyntment.”
“Yes. Well?” said the doctor, who, generally cool to excess, now felt his heart heating strangely.
“Oh, you needn’t believe it without you like, sir. I dessay I am a canting old humbug, sir; but far as in me lies, I means well by him, as I’ve eat his bread and his father’s afore him this many a year.”
“I’m afraid I’ve wronged you, Monnick,” said the doctor hastily.
“You aren’t the first by a good many, sir; but you may as well speak low, or they’ll maybe hear, for I walked up torst the house, and I see him pass the window, and then I watched him. P’r’aps I oughtn’t, but I knowed it weren’t right, and Sir James ought to know.”
“You—you knew of this, then?”
“Yes, sir. Was it likely I shouldn’t, when it was all in my garden! Why, a slug don’t get at a leaf, or a battletwig, or wops at a plum, without me knowing of it; so, was it likely as a gent was going to carry on like that wi’out me finding of it out?”
“And—and is he down the garden now?” said the doctor, involuntarily pressing his hand to his side, to check the action of his heart.
“Ay, that he be, sir; and him a gent as seemed so religious and good, and allus saying proper sort o’ things. It’s set me agen saying ought script’ral evermore.”
There was a dead silence for a few moments; and then the doctor hissed out: “The scoundrel!”