“Couldn’t get here before: the Cartwrights kept us,” called out the Squire. “We are going to catch it, Johnny,” he whispered to me, with a laugh: “we’ve let the dinner spoil.”
But it was not the dinner. “Where’s Hugh?” asked Mrs. Todhetley.
“I’ve not seen Hugh,” said the Squire, flinging the reins to Luke Mackintosh, who had come up. Luke did all kinds of odd jobs about the place, and sometimes helped the groom.
“But you took Hugh out with you,” she said.
“Not I,” answered the Squire.
Mrs. Todhetley’s face turned white. She looked from one to the other of us in a helpless kind of manner. “Lena said you did,” she returned, and her voice seemed to fear its own sound. The Squire talking with Mackintosh about the pony, noticed nothing particular.
“Lena did? Oh, ay, I remember. I let Hugh get up at the door and drove him round to the fold-yard gate. I dropped him there.”
He went in as he spoke: Mrs. Todhetley seemed undecided whether to follow him. Tod had his back against the door-post, listening.
“What are you alarmed at?” he asked her, not even attempting to suppress his mocking tone.
“Oh, Johnny!” she said, “have you not seen him?”