A Suspicious Stranger.
While Mr Musgrave is boring the elderly spinster about new scarlet cloaks for the girls of the church choir, and other parish matters, George Shenstone is standing on the topmost step of the boat stair, in a mood of mind even less enviable than hers. For he has looked down into the dock, and there sees no Gwendoline—neither boat nor lady—nor is there sign of either upon the water, far as he can command a view of it. No sounds, such as he would wish, and might expect to hear—no dipping of oars, nor, what would be still more agreeable to his ear, the soft voices of women. Instead only the note of a cuckoo, in monotonous repetition, the bird balancing itself on a branch near by; and, farther off, the hiccol, laughing, as if in mockery—and at him! Mocking his impatience; ay, something more, almost his misery! That it is so his soliloquy tells:
“Odd her being out on the river! She promised me to go riding to-day. Very odd indeed! Gwen isn’t the same she was—acting strange altogether for the last three or four days. Wonder what it means! By Jove, I can’t comprehend it!”
His noncomprehension does not hinder a dark shadow from stealing over his brow, and there staying.
It is not unobserved. Through the leaves of the evergreen Joseph notes the pained expression, and interprets it in his own shrewd way—not far from the right one.
The old servant soliloquising in less conjectural strain, says, or rather thinks—
“Master George be mad sweet on Miss Gwen. The country folk are all talkin’ o’t; thinkin’ she’s same on him, as if they knew anything about it. I knows better. An’ he ain’t no ways confident, else there wouldn’t be that queery look on’s face. It’s the token o’ jealousy for sure. I don’t believe he have suspicion o’ any rival particklar. Ah! it don’t need that wi’ sich a grand beauty as she be. He as love her might be jealous o’ the sun kissing her cheeks, or the wind tossin’ her hair!”
Joseph is a Welshman of Bardic ancestry, and thinks poetry. He continues—
“I know what’s took her on the river, if he don’t. Yes—yes, my young lady! Ye thought yerself wonderful clever leavin’ old Joe behind, tellin’ him to hide hisself, and bribin’ him to stay hid! And d’y ’spose I didn’t obsarve them glances exchanged twixt you and the salmon fisher—sly, but for all that, hot as streaks o’ fire? And d’ye think I didn’t see Mr Whitecap going down, afore ye thought o’ a row yerself. Oh, no; I noticed nothin’ o’ all that, not I? ’Twarn’t meant for me—not for Joe—ha, ha!”
With a suppressed giggle at the popular catch coming in so apropos, he once more fixes his eyes on the face of the impatient watcher, proceeding with his soliloquy, though in changed strain: