“You could not see what took place in the darkness and excitement of a fight, so hold your tongue. Such a charge would make endless mischief, and it must be a mistake.”
“All right, sir,” said Caleb.
“It would upset that poor girl, too, if she heard such a thing.”
“Yes, it would upset her sure enough if she heard,” said Caleb, with a peculiar smile, and he walked away.
“I ought to give you fellows a lecture on the danger of night poaching,” continued Oldroyd.
“Don’t, sir, please,” said one of the men, with a laugh, “for it wouldn’t do no good. ’Sides; we might want to hing a brace o’ fezzans or a hare up agin your door now and then.”
“Here, don’t you do anything of the kind, my lads,” cried Oldroyd. “I forbid it, mind. Now get me my pony.”
“All right, sir; we’ll mind what you says,” said the man who had spoken, looking mirthfully round at his companions, one of whom at once accompanied him to a low shed where the pony was munching some hay. The willing little beast was saddled while Oldroyd walked up and down the path with an abundance of sweet-scented and gay old-fashioned flowers on either side. Carnations and scarlet lychnis, and many-headed sun flowers and the like, were bright in the morning sunshine, for all seemed to have been well tended; but, all at once, he came upon a terrible tell-tale bit of evidence of the last night’s work upon the red bricks that formed the path—one that made him scrape off a little mould from the bed with his foot, and spread it over the ugly patch.
“The cottage looks simple and innocent enough, with its roses, to be the home of peace,” he muttered. “Ah! how man does spoil his life for the sake of coin. Thank you, my lad—that’s right,” he added, as his last night’s messenger brought the pony to the gate.
He mounted, and thrust a coin, that he could not spare, into his temporary ostler’s hand.