This subject lasted until the turnpike was reached. Tideswell lay not far from this, and the rest of the way was beguiled in discussing the exact nature of the commodities to be purchased in the town. Miss Stornaway, informing the Captain that it was her custom to stable Squirrel at the Old George while she transacted her business, would have driven there immediately, but as soon as the outlying buildings of the town came into sight John stopped her, saying that it would be best if he were to be set down there. “You may overtake me on the road when we have each of us done all this shopping,” he said. “It won’t do for you to be seen driving a gatekeeper, you know.”
“Good heavens, I don’t care for that!” she said scornfully.
“Then I must care for you,” he replied.
“Nonsense! You don’t look in the least like a gatekeeper! Besides, no one knows you!”
“They soon will. One of the disadvantages of being bigger than the average, ma’am, is that one is easily recognizable. No, don’t drive on!”
Except for a lift of her obstinate chin she gave no sign of having heard him. After a moment, he leaned forward, and, taking the reins above her hand, pulled Squirrel up. She flamed into quick wrath, exclaiming: “How dare you? Understand me, sir, I am not accustomed to submit to dictation!”
“I know you are not,” he said, smiling at her. “Never mind! You may very easily punish me by refusing to take me up again presently. Will an hour suffice us, do you suppose?”
He jumped down from the gig, and for a moment she eyed him uncertainly. There was so much amused understanding in his face that her little spurt of temper died, and she said: “Oh, if you choose to be so nonsensical—! Yes, an hour—and you will be well served if I make you trudge all the way to Crowford!”
She drove on, and he followed her on foot into the town.
By a stroke of good fortune, he found a pair of serviceable brogues in a warehouse that catered for the needs of farm labourers, but not all his endeavours could discover a coat into which he could squeeze his powerful shoulders. He was obliged to abandon the search, and to purchase instead a leather waistcoat. By the time he had acquired coarse woollen stockings, a supply of flannel shirts, and several coloured neckcloths, only a few minutes were left to him in which to write and to despatch a letter to the Hon. Wilfred Babbacombe, at Edenhope, near Melton Mowbray. This missive was necessarily brief, and requested Mr. Babbacombe, in turgid ink and on a single sheet of rough paper, to ransack two valises consigned to his guardianship and to wrench from them such shirts, neckcloths, nightshirts, and underlinen as they might be found to contain, and to despatch these, in a plain parcel, to Mr. (heavily underscored) Staple, at the Crowford Toll-gate, near Tideswell, in the County of Derbyshire.