“And likely to be, Mr. Ludlow, if it depends upon Jenkins’s coming on again,” was the answer. “Fine cattle, those that the governor has just driven off.”
He meant Bob and Blister, and they were fine; but I did not like the tone, or the word “governor,” as applied to Mr. Todhetley. “I can’t keep the window up,” I said; “I’m not well.”
“All right, sir; shut it. As for me, I must be about my work. There’s enough to do with the gardens, one way or another; and the responsibility lies on my shoulders.”
“You must not work to-day, Monk. Squire Todhetley never allows it on Good Friday.”
He laughed pleasantly; as much as to say, what Squire Todhetley allowed, or did not allow, was no concern of his; and went briskly away across the lawn. And not once, during the short interview, had his eyes met mine.
Wasn’t it dull that afternoon! I took old Duffham’s physic, and drank the tea Hannah brought me, and was hot, and restless, and sick. Never a soul to talk to; never a book to read—my eyes and head ached too much for that; never a voice to be heard. Most of the servants were out; all of them, for what I knew, except Hannah; and I was fit to die of weariness. At dusk I went up to the nursery. Hannah was not there. The fire was raked—if you understand what that means, though it is generally applied only to kitchen fires in our county—which proved that she was off somewhere on a prolonged expedition. Even old Hannah’s absence was a disappointment. I threw myself down on the faded sofa at the far end of the room, and, I suppose, went to sleep.
For when I became alive again to outward things, Hannah was seated in one chair at the fire, cracking up the coal; Molly, the cook with the sharp tongue and red-brown eyes, in another. It was dark and late; my head ached awfully, and I wished them and their clatter somewhere. They were talking of St. Mark’s Eve, and its popular superstition. Molly was telling a tale of the past, the beginning of which I had not heard.
“I can’t believe it,” exclaimed Hannah; “I can’t believe that the shadows come.”