Bessy Rane: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Mrs. Gass entered cordially into Richard's plans. She would have put unlimited money into his new undertaking; but Richard would not have it. Some portion of her capital that had been embarked in the firm of North and Gass, of necessity remained in it--all, in fact, that was not lost--but this she counted as nothing, and wanted to help Richard yet further. "It's of no good crying over spilt milk, Mr. Richard," she said to him, philosophically; "and I've still a great deal more than I shall ever want." But Richard was firm: he would receive no further help: it was a risk that he preferred to incur alone.

Perhaps there were few people living that Richard North liked better than Mrs. Gass. He even liked her homely language; it was honest and genuine; far more to be respected than if she had made a show of attempting what she could not have kept up. Richard had learned to know her worth: he recognized it more certainly day by day. In the discomfort of his home at Dallory Hall--which had long been anything but a home to him--he had fallen into the habit of almost making a second home with Mrs. Gass. Never a day passed but he spent an hour or two of it with her; and she would persuade him to remain for a meal as often as she could.

He sat one afternoon at her well-spread tea-table. His arrangements were very nearly organized now; and in a day the works would open. The foreign workmen had arrived, and were lodging with their families in the places appointed for them. Two policemen, employed by Richard, had also taken up their position in Dallory, purposely to protect them. Of course their mission was not known: Richard North would not be the one to provoke hostilities; but he was quite aware of the ill-feeling obtaining amongst his former workmen.

"Downright idiots, they be," said Mrs. Gass, confidentially, as she handed Richard a cup of tea. "They want a lesson read to 'em, Mr. Richard; that's what it is."

"I don't know about that," dissented Richard. "It seems to me they could hardly receive a better lesson than these last few months must have taught them."

"Ah, you don't know 'em as I do. I'm almost double your age, sir; and there's nothing gives experience like years."

Richard laughed. "Not double my age yet, Mrs. Gass."

"Anyway, I might have been your mother--if you'll excuse my saying it," she contended. "You're hard upon thirty-three, and I'm two years turned fifty."

In this homely manner Mrs. Gass usually liked to make her propositions undeniable. Certainly she might, in point of age, have been Richard's mother.

"I know the men better than you do, Mr. Richard; and I say they want a lesson read to 'em yet. And they'll get it, sir. But we'll leave the subject for a bit, if you please. I've been tired of it for some time past, and I'm sure you have. To watch once sensible men acting like fools, and persisting in doing it, in spite of everybody and everything, wearies one's patience. Is it tomorrow that you open?"