I returned to the boat, and as I was obliged to move as stealthily as a cat, I could not help, as I approached, hearing Joe say emphatically, "I wunna." I cursed him silent, without troubling to ask what he was objecting to, and handed Mistress Waynflete out.
"Now, Joe," I whispered, "off you go back! The moon will be up in a few minutes, and you ought to do it in an hour. You can sit in the kitchen all to-morrow to make up for this."
"Jin said 'er'd sit up for me," he said, and I was glad he had such a good motive to keep him up to his hard task.
"Good-bye, Joe," said Mistress Waynflete, shaking the good fellow warmly by the hand. "Give my loving remembrances to your mistresses and to Jane. Say how grateful I am."
"Good-bye, my lady," he said simply, "and God bless you." So that only I could hear him, he added, "Tak' good keer on 'er, Master Noll. Jin's awful sot on 'er, and wunna luk at me if any 'arm 'appens 'er."
I gripped his hard hand, gave him my parting message home, and then crouched and pushed the boat into and down the stream. As I lifted my hand from her and she glided into the blackness, I felt in my heart that the last link with the old life was broken. Then, as I rose to my feet, a hand was placed on my arm, and I tingled in every fibre at this sweet link with the new life.
[CHAPTER V]
THE ANCIENT HIGH HOUSE
I had found Mistress Tonks in her little back room, where she manufactured marry-me-quick by day and slept by night. Her cottage contained only one other room, serving as shop and living room, and fronting on a narrow lane which turned abruptly from the main street at the bridge-end to follow the curve of the walls. By the time I returned with Mistress Waynflete she had shuttered the window of the shop, snuffed the candles, and stirred the fire into a blaze.
Marry-me-quick was an ancient, wizened, little woman, so small that she hardly escaped being a dwarf, humpbacked, and inexpressibly ugly. In times not so long gone by she would assuredly have burned as a witch, and many supposed her to be in league with the evil one. But in actual fact she was a cheery, voluble, and warm-hearted little body, and one on whom I could rely to serve us in this pinch.