Presently a great clucking and crowing was heard from the poultry-yard at the rear of the house, and a moment or two after a little old lady came trotting along the mossy path behind the yew hedge and picked her way daintily between the apple-trees in the orchard. As she proceeded she looked to right and to left as though in fear, yet her face was wreathed in the broadest of smiles, and every now and then she uttered an ecstatic chuckle. Now out at the wicket-gate and down the lane to the right. Lo! standing outlined against the purple expanse of moor a hundred paces or so from the gate an equipage was drawn up; two men were stationed by the horses’ heads, one of whom hurried forward to meet her, while the other stiffly climbed up on the box. The first, a tall burly old man, wearing a white top-hat, an old-fashioned embroidered waistcoat, and a spick-and-span suit of broadcloth, beckoned eagerly as he hastened towards her, while the figure on the box waved his whip, and jerked his elbow with every sign of impatience.
“So there ye be at last, my dear!” cried the old gentleman. “Blest if I didn’t think they’d catched ye. Come along, hurry up! Let’s be off; it’s close upon four o’clock.”
The lady, who was plump and somewhat short of breath, merely chuckled again by way of rejoinder, and suffered herself to be hoisted into the waiting chaise. It was an extremely old-fashioned chaise with a hood and a rumble; the coachman was equally antiquated in appearance, and wore a moth-eaten livery of obsolete cut and a beaver hat.
“Now off with ye, Jem,” cried the old gentleman in a stage whisper. “Let ’em go, my lad. Don’t spare the cattle! We must be miles away from here before the folks yonder have time to miss us. But whatever did keep ye so long, Susan?” he inquired, turning to the lady.
“My dear,” said she, with a delighted giggle, “I’ve been to feed the chickens.”
Thereupon her companion fell into a paroxysm of suppressed merriment, growing purple in the face, and slapping his thigh in ecstacy. The old coachman turned round upon the box and bent down his ear to catch the joke.
“Missus has been to feed chicken, Jem,” laughed his master. “Ho! ho! ho!—she wouldn’t leave out that part, ye may be sure.”
Jem grinned. “No, I d’ ’low she wouldn’t. Missus be a grand hand at feedin’ chicken; she’ve a-had practise, haven’t she, Measter? I’ll go warrant she have.”
“And I’ve been doing something else too, John,” continued she, when the explosion had in some measure subsided. “See here!”
She opened the lid of the little covered basket which she carried, and displayed three nosegays of white flowers.