“You will do the best you can for me, Harry, I know,” said Charles, who knew nothing about horses, and was lazy in discussion. “But it’s rather a blow just now, when a poor devil wants every shilling he can get together, to find himself fifty pounds nearly out of pocket.”
Was it fancy, or did Alice’s pretty ear hear truly? It seemed to her that the tone in which Charlie spoke was a little more sour than need be, that it seemed to blame her as the cause of altered circumstances, and to hint, though very faintly, an unkind repentance. His eye met hers; full and sad it looked, and his heart smote him, for the intangible reproof was deserved.
“And here’s the best little wife in the world,” he said, “who would save a lazy man like me a little fortune in a year, and make that unlucky fifty pounds, if I could but get it, do as much as a hundred.”
And his hand was fondly placed on her shoulder, as he looked in her loving eyes.
“A good house-wife is she, that’s something,” said Harry, who was inspecting his spur. “Though by Jove it was hardly at Wyvern she learned thrift.”
“All the more merit,” said Charles, “it’s all her wise, good little self.”
“No, no; I can’t take all that praise; it’s your great kindness, Charlie. But I’ll try. I’ll learn all I can, and I’m sure the real secret is to be very anxious to do it well.”
“Ay, to be sure,” interrupted Harry, who, having completed his little arrangement, placed his foot again on the ground. “The more you like it the better you’ll do it—pare the cheeses, skin the flints, kill the fleas for the hide and tallow, pot the potato-skins, sweat the shillin’s and all that, and now I’ll be going. Good-night, Alice. Will you let Charlie see me down to the end o’ the lane, and I’ll send him safe back to you? Come along, Charlie. God bless you, girl, and I’ll look in again whenever I have a bit o’ news to tell ye.”
And with that elegant farewell, he shook Alice by the hand and clapped her on the shoulder, and “chucked” her under the chin.
“And don’t ye be faint-hearted, mind, ’twill all come right, and I didn’t think this place was so comfortable as it is. It is a snug old house with a bit o’ coal and a faggot o’ wood, and a pair o’ bright eyes, and a glass o’ that, a man might make shift for a while. I’d do it myself. I didn’t think it was so snug by half, and I’d rayther stay here to-night by a long chalk than ride to Barnsley, I can tell ye. Come, Charlie, it’s time I should be on the road; and she says, don’t you, Alice, you may see me a bit o’ the way.”