He was quite right, though, in saying that worry had told upon me. Why, worry enough to tell upon a large family had thought proper to concentrate itself upon me, Adolphus Slocombe, a quiet single gentleman no longer walking on what is called the sunny side of fifty. First, there was that law-suit—the one, I mean, which had been dragging on for years about Crofton's Spinney; and when the case was settled this spring in my favor, the expenses of litigation so nearly balanced the value of the property, that the modest sum of £7 10s. 3d. was all the gain resulting from the trouble and anxiety of the law-suit. The wind was very much in the east, too, this spring. I remember there was a biting frost the very day my lawyer's bill came in—a frost that cut off all the young wall-fruit which a previous mild fortnight had coaxed into setting. I am partial to wall-fruit, particularly so to what is grown in my own garden; in fact, the garden is a hobby of mine, and those long, red-brick walls, on which the sun shines soft and warm when other aspects are in chilly shadow, had been a sheet of blossoms pink and promising, and such as not one of all my neighbors could exhibit, only the day before.
People say calamities are apt to hunt in couples; mine came just then in a regular pack. I was trying to be quiet for a while after dinner, and, sitting in a cozy chair by the dining-room fire, had just thrown a handkerchief across my forehead, the better to think over my troubles undisturbed by the lights in the room, when a knock sounded on the door, and my housekeeper presented herself with:
"If you please, sir, could I speak to you?"
Her voice sounded rather odd, and she had a nervous way with her hands so altogether unlike herself that I knew at once some fresh catastrophe had happened, and she was come to "break it" to me. I had told her to shut the door behind her, which she did; and then, as she stood trembling and hesitating just inside the room, I added, to reassure her:
"Well, Mrs. Parker, what is it? I am afraid the cows must be ill, or one of the maids has given you trouble, and you want me to give her warning."
"If you please, sir," replied Parker, as though that really was just what she wanted.
"But which is it?" I asked, "the cows or the housemaids?"
"Please sir," began Mrs. Parker again; then she paused for a full minute, and finally burst out quite suddenly, "It's me, sir, please."
"You, Parker? I don't understand," which was certainly not surprising, considering the want of clearness in her remarks. However, now she had begun to speak, she seemed to feel more equal to the occasion, and presently went on:
"Please, sir, it's me, sir; you said 'to give warning,' you know, sir."