Massock’s opinion, that Hyde would return in a day or two, proved to be a mistaken one. Rimmer, at the Silver Bear, got a letter from a lawyer in Worcester, asking him to release Mr. Stockhausen from Virginia Cottage—which Hyde had taken for three years. But, this, Rimmer refused to do. So Hyde had to make the best of his bargain: and every quarter, as the quarters went on, the rent was punctually remitted to Henry Rimmer by the lawyer: who gave, however, no clue to his client’s place of abode. It was said that Hyde had been reconciled to his uncle, Parson Hyde (now getting into his dotage), and was by him supplied with funds.
One fine evening, however, in the late spring, when not very far short of a twelvemonth had elapsed, Hyde astonished Deborah Preen by his return. After a fit of crying, to show her joy, Deborah brought him in some supper and stood by while he ate it, telling him the news of what had transpired in the village since he left.
“Are those beautiful brickfields being worked still?” he asked.
“‘Deed but they are then, Master Hyde. A sight o’ bricks seems to be made at ’em. Pitt the foreman, he have took your place as manager, sir, and keeps the accounts.”
“Good luck to him!” said Hyde, drinking a glass of ale. “That queer old lady in the red cloak: what has become of her?”
“What, that gipsy hag?” cried Preen. “She’s dead, sir.”
“Dead!”
“Yes, sir, dead: and a good riddance, too. She went away the very night you went, Mr. Hyde, and never came back again. A week or two ago Abel Carew got news that she was dead.”
(Shortly before this, some wandering gipsies had set up their camp within a mile or two of Church Dykely. Abel Carew, never having had news of Ketira since her departure, went to them to make inquiries. At first the gipsies seemed not to understand of whom he was speaking; but upon his making Ketira clear to them, they told him she had been dead about a month; of her daughter, Kettie, they knew nothing.)
“She’s not much loss,” observed Hyde in answer to Deborah: and his face took a brighter look, as though the news were a relief—Preen noticed it. “The old gipsy was as mad as a March hare.”