Edward Cossey looked round with a stare of rage. Then muttering one most comprehensive curse he stalked from the room, and in another minute was driving fast through the ancient gateway.
Let us pity him, for he also certainly received his due.
George followed him to the outer door and then did a thing that nobody had seen him do before; he burst out into a loud laugh.
“What are you making that noise about?” asked his master sternly. “This is no laughing matter.”
“Him!” replied George, pointing to the retreating dog-cart—“he’s a-going to pull down the Castle and throw it into the moat and to send the plough over it, is he? Him—that varmint! Why, them old towers will be a-standing there when his beggarly bones is dust, and when his name ain’t no more a name; and there’ll be one of the old blood sitting in them too. I knaw it, and I hev allus knawed it. Come, Squire, though you allus du say how as I’m a fule, what did I tell yer? Didn’t I tell yer that Prowidence weren’t a-going to let this place go to any laryers or bankers or thim sort? Why, in course I did. And now you see. Not but what it is all owing to the Colonel. He was the man as found it, but then God Almighty taught him where to dig. But he’s a good un, he is; and a gintleman, not like him,” and once more he pointed with unutterable scorn to the road down which Edward Cossey had vanished.
“Now, look here,” said the Squire, “don’t you stand talking all day about things you don’t understand. That’s the way you waste time. You be off and look after this gold; it should not be left alone, you know. We will come down presently to Molehill, for I suppose that is where it is. No, I can’t stop to hear the story now, and besides I want Colonel Quaritch to tell it to me.”
“All right, Squire,” said George, touching his red nightcap, “I’ll be off,” and he started.
“George,” halloaed his master after him, but George did not stop. He had a trick of deafness when the Squire was calling, that is if he wanted to go somewhere else.
“Confound you,” roared the old gentleman, “why don’t you stop when I call you?”
This time George brought his long lank frame to a standstill.