“Here’s matches,” said Will. He looked uneasy. Her grandfather seemed to be irritating the girl—it boded ill for his proposition.
“Don’t be afeared, Willie. She won’t fly at ye now. Easy, my beauties. Steady, Snowdrop!”
IX
“You don’t mind my clearing up,” said Jinny, pouncing upon Farmer Gale’s imperilled cake.
“Not if you don’t fly at me,” Will quoted with a nervous facetiousness.
Jinny smiled with equal nervousness: “Oh, I won’t fly at you—nor jump at you, neither.”
Will flinched. Had he not felt committed to her grandfather, he would have shrunk from the rebuff now menacing his proposition. Indeed, he was not quite clear as to how he could really amalgamate the two concerns. The notion of a girl guard, which had first flashed upon him as an inspiration, was now felt to be beset by obstacles. True, the operations of blowing such a long horn, taking so many fares, booking so many parcels, and locking and unlocking the boots, were a serious discount from the pleasures of driving, and a person familiar with the minutiæ of carrying, and a ready-reckoner incarnate, (and so agreeably incarnate) might well seem providential. But would the unfitness of so unconventional an occupation be glossed over by the existing acceptance of her in that line of business, and would his overlordship be a protection or an added scandal? Still, he was in for it now, unless she refused the post—which he hoped she would not! For after all, at the worst, with all these new circuits of his, he might still leave to her her little pottering round, counting it as a branch of the new Flynt and Quarles business. He would still have won the monopoly of the local carrying, and without the weight on his conscience of starving her out.
“I know you’ve got a deal of pride and all that,” he began diffidently, “but you’ll bear in mind your grandfather’s tickled with the notion.”
“It’s hardly Gran’fer’s business,” Jinny murmured, blushing.
“Oh, I quite understand that. Of course it’s your business really. Didn’t I ask you not to run away? I didn’t mean to reckon it settled unless you said ‘Yes.’ ”