“’E-es. ‘Lucky wound,’ says he, ‘to give I this chance!’ An’ he did say as if he were sent out again I should have to go too, for he couldn’t never stand the thought of sayin’ good-bye to I.”
“That ’ull do!” shouted Samuel, leaping from his chair and positively crowing with glee. “Now we’ve got him. He said you must go too—meanin’, of course, as his bride. That’s enough. Shake hands, Miss Clarke! We have got him fairly cornered now. Marriage or money—one or t’other. If I was you I’d go in for the money, Miss Clarke.”
Anne turned to him with a simper that sent a cold shiver down his back. “I’m not so sure o’ that,” she said.
“Good Lord,” muttered Cross to himself, “I wish she’d smile like that at Willcocks. The job ’ud be done then. It ’ud be enough to rout an army. Well, you leave the matter in my hands,” he continued aloud. “I’ll pull it through, you’ll see. You’ll hear from me before long, Miss Clarke.”
With that he took his leave, and was presently swallowed up in the darkness without. As he walked he cogitated:—
“I’ve half a mind to let it come to a action after all; there really seems to be the makin’s of it, and it ’ud give me a lift with the guv’nor. Lord, the old gal’s a caution. Trooper Willcocks ’ll shake in his shoes.”
He grinned to himself at the recollection of Anne’s face, and mimicked her last speech aloud: “‘I’m not so sure o’ that’. He! he! . . . It ’ud be the best joke ever known in Branston if it did come off, and the guv’nor ’d make the most of it. He’s uncommon tightfisted, the guv’nor is, though”—here his face clouded over—“none of the profits ’ud come my way I don’t think; best see what can be made out o’ the other chaps, p’r’aps. Come, we’ll work it some way. Blest if I’m going to have my long walk an’ my long talk for nothin’.”
A very anxious little group gathered round Mr. Cross when he entered the bar of the Three Choughs.
“Well?” cried Jim Hardy breathlessly.
“Well,” echoed Cross, wagging his head, “I think we’ve got our gentleman in a tight place, jest about! There he’ve been triflin’ with that tender young creetur yonder at the Roebuck that shameful that she’s determined to bring him to book. Called her his little charmer, he did—”