“It grows late,” quoth he. “Molly will be in a taking at my keeping supper waiting so long, but I must stretch my legs first, after all this sitting.”
As he stood in the wainscotted hall without, in the act of taking down his hat, he was startled by loud rapping at the great wooden gates of the yard, which had been closed and bolted for the night, together with the sound of several voices raised in unison. He threw open the hall-door and stood for a moment on the threshold, listening; and the rapping was repeated, and the voices called—some gruffly and some shrilly:—
“Let us in—you there! Let us in! What, is everyone in the place dead or deaf?”
John went slowly down the flagged path between the lavender hedges, and began with a grating, grinding sound to draw back the heavy bolts, the voices on the other side of the stout oak portals keeping up, meanwhile, a running commentary of impatient ejaculations, intermingled with little bursts of laughter.
“Now, good fellow, who ever you may be, put a little goodwill into your efforts.”
“Fie! what a disagreeable noise! Sir, ’tis to be wished that your master would expend a pennyworth of oil on this screeching ironwork.”
“La! what a time the rascal takes! Pray, Hodge, or Giles, or whatever thy name may be, tell us who lives here. We had thought you deaf; and now, faith, it would seem as if you were dumb.”
“Nay, Tufty, do not distract the poor yokel. These rustics have not wit enough to attend to more than one thing at a time. Tug away at thy bolt, good man, and let us in; it grows chilly here.”
At length, with a final shriek, the last bolt was withdrawn from its rusty hasp, and the doors parted in the middle under John’s hand; then, removing his round hat, he was preparing, with his usual gravity, to enquire the reason of this unexpected visit, when, with many expressions of relief and satisfaction, a party of what seemed to be very grand folk brushed past him into the enclosure. There was a rustling of silken skirts, a waving of long feathers—a diffusion of sweet strange odours—such odours as had never yet greeted the honest country nostrils of John Cotley, though they would have been familiar enough to any frequenter of high company in town; odours of powder and pomatum, and the scented bags that women of fashion lay among their tuckers. Thus the ladies filed past, one, two, and three; and then the gentlemen came—very fine gentlemen, indeed. John could see, even in the dim light, the glitter of gold lace and sparkling buckles, the pale gleam of silk-stockinged legs and powdered heads.
“La, how sweet it smells,” cried one of the ladies. “What is it? Roses, think you—gilly-flowers? Nay, ’tis lavender! See these ghostly hedges are all of lavender.”