Miss Morgan said nothing, the warmth of Mr Bevan on the subject of Leavesley struck her as being somewhat strange; though she said nothing, like the parrot, she thought the more, and began to consider Mr Bevan more attentively and to "turn him over in her mind." Now the fortunate or unfortunate person whom Miss Morgan distinguished by turning them over in her mind, generally gave up their secrets in the process unconsciously, subconsciously, or sometimes even consciously. Those wide-open blue eyes that seemed always gazing into futurity and distance saw many happenings of the present invisible to most folk.
Professor Wilson and Hamilton-Cox had wandered away through the garden discussing Oxford and modern thought. Miss Pursehouse, Lambert, and old Miss Jenkins were talking and laughing, and seemingly quite happy and content. Said Miss Morgan, looking round:
"Every one's busy, like the children in the Sunday-school story, and we've no one to play with; shall we go for a walk in the village, and I'll show you the church and the pump and the other antiques?"
"Certainly, I'll be delighted," said Charles, rising.
"Then com'long," said Miss Morgan, "Pamela, I'm taking Mr Bevan to show him the village and the creatures that there abound. If we're not back by six, send a search-party."
Rookhurst is, perhaps, one of the prettiest and most quaint of English villages, and the proudest. If communities receive attention from the Recording Angel, amidst Rookhurst's sins written in that tremendous book will be found this entry, "It calls itself a town."
"Isn't the village sweet and sleepy?" said Miss Morgan, as she tripped along beside her companion; "it always reminds me of the dormouse in 'Alice in Wonderland'—always asleep except at tea-time, when it wakes up—and talks gossip. That's the chemist's shop with the two little red bottles in the window, isn't it cunning? The old man chemist doesn't keep any poisons, for he's half blind and's afraid of mixing the strychnine with the Epsom salts. His wife does the poisoning; she libels every one indifferently, and she gave out that Pamela was a lunatic and I was her keeper. She was the butcher's daughter, and she married the chemist man for his money ten years ago, hoping he'd die right off, which he didn't. He was seventy with paralysis agitans and a squint, and the squint's got worse every year, and the paralysis agitans has got better—serve her right. That's the butcher's with the one leg of mutton hanging up, and the little pot with a rose-tree in it. He drinks, and beats his wife, and hunts snakes down the road when he has the jumps—but he sells very good mutton, and he's civil. Here comes a queen, look!"
A carriage drawn by a pair of chestnut horses approached and passed them, revealing a fat and bulbous-faced lady lolling on the cushions, and seen through a haze of dust.
"A queen?" said Bevan; "she doesn't look like one."