The morning post had brought a message to Simon Clegg concerning fruit and vegetables for the Manchester home, and having sought him in the kitchen-garden to deliver it, Jabez entered the house at dinner time by the lower staircase window (frequently used for entrance and exit). His passage through the best parlour was arrested by voices in the room beyond, one of which he knew too well. It was that of Laurence Aspinall. His painting was evidently under free criticism, and had been for some time. There was some jesting at the sign-painter.
“You see, Miss Ashton, what a few touches can affect!”
The speaker had apparently made free with Clegg’s colours and brushes, and there was a murmured sound of assent from Miss Ashton.
“Well, Barret, Nec scire fas est omnia; Ne sutor ultra crepidam. What say you?”
“Yes; let the cobbler stick to his last. If this Clegg would be an artist, let him stick to his brush; if a tradesman, let him stick to his trade. If a man means to succeed, he must never flirt with either art or trade. It’s just as bad as wooing two women at once.”
Jabez heard no more. The blow which had been aimed at his art-pretensions drove him back by the way he came, and he paced the long terrace parallel with the “Lovers’ Walk” for fully half-an-hour. When he turned the corner of the cottage, and went in at the front door, the critics were gone, but Aspinall’s “few touches” remained. They had indeed given life to the White Hart. Henceforth the “cobbler” resolved to “stick to his last.”
Ellen Chadwick had been away, with little Sim by the hand, to take some substantial comforts to Meg’s bedridden mother. She appeared annoyed when she heard of their masculine visitors from Buxton. Her evident displeasure set Jabez wondering what Travis meant by “after what has occurred,” and he wrote that afternoon for enlightenment, sending his letter as a packet by coach, there being no second post.
It has been said that the cellarage of the cottage was only accessible by flights of steps in the portion of the weed-grown Lovers’ Walk which lay at the windowless back of the long low building, where nettles grew so thick and rank that even the square unused trap over one set of steps was half hidden by them. The path was rarely used, the farmer having made a nearer cut from the farmyard to his ancient dwelling.
Tom Hulme was slowly recovering, under the care of a Buxton doctor who came thrice a week. He could walk about the garden with a stick, but there was no sending him to the dank cellar for anything. The doctor had ordered him port wine, and Bess, who kept the key, had asked Mr. Clegg to fetch a couple of bottles from the cellar.
Tea was over, but he fancied there was sufficient light to guide him without a lantern. He had got the wine, and was approaching the cellar door at the foot of the sunken steps when he heard the sound of voices coming along the walk from the direction of the moor.