“At that fellow who has just taken himself off. Who is he?”
“I do believe you have on nothing but your nightshirt! You’ll be sure to take cold. Shut the window down, and get into bed.”
Four times over, in all, had I to ask about the man before I got an answer. Now it was the nightshirt, now catching cold, now the open window and the damp air. She always wanted to be as tender with us as though we were chickens.
“The man that met me in the path?” she got to, at length. “He made some excuse for being here: was not sure whose house it was, I think he said: had turned in by mistake to the wrong one.”
“That’s all very fine; but, not being sure, he ought to mind his manners. He came rapping at the dining-room window like anything, and it woke me up. Had you been at home, sitting there, good mother, you might have been startled out of your seven senses.”
“So I should, Johnny. The Coneys would not let me come away: they had friends with them. Good-night, dear. Shut down that window.”
She went on to the side-door. I put down the window, opened it at the top, and let the white curtain drop before it. It was an hour or two before I got to sleep again, and I had the man and the knocking in my thoughts all the time.
“Don’t say anything about it in the house, Johnny,” Mrs. Todhetley said to me, in the morning. “It might alarm the children.” So I promised her I would not.
Tod came home at mid-day, not the Squire: and the first thing I did was to tell him. I wouldn’t have broken faith with the mother for the world; not even for Tod; but it never entered my mind that she wished me to keep it a close secret, excepting from those, servants or others, who might be likely to repeat it before Hugh and Lena. I cautioned Tod.
“Confound his impudence!” cried Tod. “Could he not be satisfied with disturbing the house at the door at night, but he must make for the window? I wish I had been at home.”