"Bless you, sir," cried the woman, "she'd be right glad, but we'd have to carry her, and the poor babe's asleep, so it's too late now. She be very bad, rambling in her head too, and looks awful in her black skin."
"A black woman, did you say?—A stranger and foreigner?" said the Squire.
"We're all ready, please, your honour," said the guard, touching his hat, not disposed to delay for a black beggar's story.
"One moment, friends. Just let us hear how far she wants to go, and perhaps she can be helped somehow. Do you know, good woman, where she was making for when your kind lad found her?"
"Yes, sir, she keeps all the while crying out about some place called 'Moat House,' and one Squire Hazelwoods, and begs to be took there, but it must be a big way off these parts."
Before the sentence was ended, Squire Hazelwood had swung himself from the coach-box to the ground.
"I shall wait here, guard," said he. "Give that letter at the doctor's gate, and if my carriage is waiting for me at 'The Nelson,' tell one of the servants to bring it on here, changing horses if needful, and another to gallop home and say all's well, but I am hindered for a few hours, and shall be with them, please God, to breakfast. Now my portmanteau—all right—good-night, guard."
The astonished coachman and guard pocketed their liberal fees with much respect, privately suggesting to the nearest passengers that anybody in distress was enough to hinder Squire Hazelwood, even if he'd been going to meet the House of Lords.
THE START.