Gower heard those words from his father; and his father repeated them. To the prostrate worshipper of the Countess of Fleetwood, they were a blow on the head; madness had set in here, was his first recovering thought, or else a miracle had come to pass. Or was it a sham Countess of Fleetwood imposing upon the girl? His father was to go and see the great lady, at the greengrocer’s shop; at her request, according to Madge. Conjectures shot their perishing tracks across a darkness that deepened and made shipwreck of philosophy. Was it the very Countess of Fleetwood penitent for her dalliance with the gambling passion, in feminine need of pastor’s aid, having had report from Madge of this good shepherd? His father expressed a certain surprise; his countenance was mild. He considered it a merely strange occurrence.
Perhaps, in a crisis, a minister of religion is better armed than a philosopher. Gower would not own that, but he acknowledged the evidences, and owned to envy; especially when he accompanied his father to the greengrocer’s shop, and Mr. Woodseer undisturbedly said:
‘Here is the place.’ The small stuffed shop appeared to grow portentously cavernous and waveringly illumined.
CHAPTER XIX. THE GIRL MADGE
Customers were at the counter of the shop, and these rational figures, together with the piles of cabbages, the sacks of potatoes, the pale small oranges here and there, the dominant smell of red herrings, denied the lurking of an angelical presence behind them.
Sarah Winch and a boy served at the counter. Sarah led the Mr. Woodseers into a corner knocked off the shop and called a room. Below the top bars of a wizened grate was a chilly fire. London’s light came piecemeal through a smut-streaked window. If the wonderful was to occur, this was the place to heighten it.
‘My son may be an intruder,’ Mr. Woodseer said. ‘He is acquainted with a Lord Fleetwood...’
‘Madge will know, sir,’ replied Sarah, and she sent up a shrill cry for Madge from the foot of the stairs.
The girl ran down swiftly. She entered listening to Sarah, looking at Gower; to whom, after a bob and pained smile where reverence was owing, she said, ‘Can you tell me, sir, please, where we can find Lord Fleetwood now?’