So he glanced once more at the spent man upon the stone seat of the porch and went.
At first he saw nothing about him, but soon the shock of unexpected joy, which stuns for a while like unexpected sorrow, gave place to realisation. Then every dewdrop, on every little blade of grass he passed, seemed like a joybell ringing; and the fine branches of the leafless trees wrote love letters upon the tender sky, and a huntsman’s horn far off was like love’s herald, ushering in the bride.
But when he stood at the Attertons’ door asking if Mr. Atterton were at home, things became more ordinary; and when the man replied that his master had gone to Bardswell, but the mistress was at home, Andy replied in a state of embarrassed discomfiture that he wished to see Mrs. Atterton alone.
In a moment or two the man returned and ushered Andy into the morning-room where Elizabeth and her mother sat together. After one glance at his face, Elizabeth’s own grew very pale, and she stood with her hands crushed together, not offering to greet him.
“If I might have a moment with you alone, Mrs. Atterton?” said Andy, very grave and nervous.
“My husband!” exclaimed Mrs. Atterton. “Oh—that young horse—I have begged him not——”
“No, no. It’s not Mr. Atterton—nothing to do with him,” interrupted Andy hastily. “Nobody is hurt. I have only come with a message from Mr. Stamford.”
“Then why did you frighten me like that?” demanded Mrs. Atterton, not unnaturally. “Knowing as you do that my back will not stand shocks of any kind.”
Poor Andy’s sense of doing it as badly as such a thing could be done, was intensified by this to a pitch where he found the greatest difficulty in continuing; and Elizabeth’s wide eyes, dark with startled emotion, never left his face.
“I was to ask to see you alone, Mrs. Atterton,” he said, lamely enough.