“But it has, master; scrubbed clean; the flags are all wet still. And the rain-water barrel’s a’most empty, nearly every drop of water drawn out of it! I’d not say but the yard has had a bit of a scrubbing, too, near the garden, as well as the back’us.”
“Nonsense!” repeated Mr. Barbary, his light tone becoming irritable. “You see it has been raining! the rain has drifted into the brewhouse, that’s all; I left the door open last night. There! go back to your work.”
Joan was a simple-natured woman, but she was neither silly nor blind, and she knew that what she said was true. Rapidly turning the matter over in her mind, she came to the conclusion that Tom Noah had been in “unbeknown to the master,” and so left the subject.
“I suppose I may take out the spare jack now, sir?” she waited to say.
“Take out anything you like,” replied Mr. Barbary.
Afraid of her tell-tale face, Katrine had moved to the window, apparently to look at the weather. Too well she knew who had scrubbed out the place, and why.
The rain had ceased when she set off on her short walk—for it was not much more than a stone’s throw to the Manor; the sun was struggling from behind the clouds, blue sky could be seen. Alone with herself and the open country, Katrine gave vent to her pent-up spirit, which she had not dared to do indoors; sighs of anguish and of pain escaped her; she wondered whether it would be wrong if she prayed to die. But some one was advancing to meet her, and she composed her countenance.
It was Ben Gibbon. For the past week or so, since Katrine had been enlightened as to her father’s poaching propensities, she had somehow feared this man. He was son to the late James Gibbon, the former gamekeeper at Chavasse Grange, and brother to the present keeper, Richard. Of course one might expect that Mr. Benjamin would protect game and gamekeepers; instead of which, he was known to do a little safe poaching on his own account, and to be an idle fellow altogether. Katrine did not like his intimacy with her father, and she could not forget that he had passed part of that fatal evening with him and Edgar Reste.
“Showery weather to-day, miss,” was Ben Gibbon’s salutation.
“Yes, it is,” answered Katrine, with intense civility—for how could she tell what the man might know?