“I dare say he is at home by this time. I have left a word for him there, and promised to go in and see him to-night. If he will undertake not to be up to wrong things again, no one shall ever know of this from me.”
She went away easier, and I sauntered on towards South Crabb. Eager as Tod and I had been for the day’s holiday, it did not seem to be turning out much of a boon. In going home again—there was nothing worth staying out for—I had come to the spot by the three-cornered grove where I saw Maria, when a galloping policeman overtook me. My heart stood still; for I thought he must have come after Daniel Ferrar.
“Can you tell me if I am near to Crabb Cot—Squire Todhetley’s?” he asked, reining-in his horse.
“You will reach it in a minute or two. I live there. Squire Todhetley is not at home. What do you want with him?”
“It’s only to give in an official paper, sir. I have to leave one personally upon all the county magistrates.”
He rode on. When I got in I saw the folded paper upon the hall-table; the man and horse had already gone onwards. It was worse indoors than out; less to be done. Tod had disappeared after church; the Squire was abroad; Mrs. Todhetley sat upstairs with Lena: and I strolled out again. It was only three o’clock then.
An hour, or more, was got through somehow; meeting one, talking to another, throwing at the ducks and geese; anything. Mrs. Lease had her head, smothered in a yellow shawl, stretched out over the palings as I passed her cottage.
“Don’t catch cold, mother.”
“I am looking for Maria, sir. I can’t think what has come to her to-day, Master Johnny,” she added, dropping her voice to a confidential tone. “The girl seems demented: she has been going in and out ever since daylight like a dog in a fair.”