“Won’t you want ’em, sir, next time you’re going down?”
“Mind your own business, fool, and get the things.”
Thompson stood at attention, winked to himself, and thought of how near he would be to Brackley, and how, in spite of the past he would be sure of a welcome in the servants’ hall. A month would be long enough to “pull that off;” and though he did not put it in words, to pull Mason’s savings out of the great British bank.
But then there was Sinkins, the village carpenter and parish clerk, who often did jobs at the Hall, a man with whom he had come in contact more than a year before, over the preparations for Glynne’s wedding, and had seen talking to Mason more than once, and whom he held in utter contempt.
It is of no use to disguise the truth, for no matter whether Matthew Sinkins was in his Sunday best, or in his regular carpenter’s fustian, he always exhaled a peculiar odour of glue. Certainly it was often dashed with sawdust, suggestive of cellars and wine, or the fragrant resinous scent of newly cut satin shavings; but the glue overbore the rest, and maintained itself so persistently that, even during the week when Sinkins had the French polishing job at Brackley, and the naphtha and shellac clung to his clothes, there, making itself perceptible, was the regular good old carpenter’s shop smell of glue.
Thompson said to Mason that it was disgusting, but she told him frankly that it was a good, clean, wholesome smell, and far preferable to that of the stables.
This, with toss of the head soon after Thompson’s arrival, for, in spite of bygones he found on getting himself driven over from The Warren, quite a warm welcome from old friends, one and all being eager to talk over the past and learn everything that could be pumped out of Thompson respecting his master’s doings since that terrible night.
Thompson was in the stable-yard smoking a cigar—a very excellent cigar, that had cost somewhere about a shilling—rather an extravagance for a young man in his position of life, but as it was one out of his master’s box, the expense did not fall upon him; and had any one suggested that it was not honest for him to smoke the captain’s cigars he would have looked at him with astonishment, and asked whether he knew the meaning of the word perquisites.
It was a very excellent cigar, and being so it might have been supposed to have a soothing effect; but whatever may have been its sedative qualities they were not apparent, for Thompson’s face was gloomy, consequent upon his having seen Matthew Sinkins go up to the side door with his basket of tools hanging from his shoulder, and kept in that position by the hammer being thrust through one of the handles, that handle being passed through its fellow.
“Him here, again?” exclaimed Thompson. “He’s always hanging about the place. Well, it’s as free for me as for him, I suppose. I shall go and see.”