“I’m a little anxious about Harry,” said Joan, “and so is mother—mother far more than me; you know she will never take things easy.”
Simon nodded his head a great many times in energetic assent; no doubt he knew—who better? had not he been sent off for the doctor a hundred times when there was not much need of the doctor, and seen the Mistress wringing her hands over what seemed to the household in general very small occasion a hundred times more? To be sure she took nothing easy. That was very well known.
“Harry,” said Joan, “walked over last night, I think, to Will’s; but it’s a long walk, and you know he’s used to towns now, not to country ways.”
To this Simon responded with his usual nod, but shook his head all the same, by way of protest against bringing up a Joscelyn in a town.
“It’s a pity? Well, it may be,” said Joan; “but it’s the fact, Simon. Now I think most likely he stopped at the ‘Red Lion,’ not to wake us up again or disturb my mother. She never sleeps but with one eye open, I believe, and hears like a hare. You heard what happened to me last night. The door blew to behind me when I was just out, looking what kind of a night it was. Ne’er a one heard in the house but mother. That’s just like her. Now Harry knows that, and he would think it would disturb her if he came back.”
Simon listened to all this with a perfectly stolid countenance; but he knew as well that his young mistress was romancing, and inventing as she went on—as well as the most fine critic could have done. He listened with his eye upon her, with a word now and then to show that his interest was fully kept up; but he saw through her, and Joan was partly aware of his scepticism.
“So we think—or I think,” said Joan, “that he may have stopped at the ‘Red Lion;’ and I want to know; but, Simon, I don’t want you to go like a lion roaring and ask, has Mr. Harry Joscelyn slept a’ night here? I want you to go warily and find out—find out, you understand?”
“Withoot askin’? ay, ay, Miss Joan, I ken what ye mean,” Simon said, with many nods of his white head.
“Then bless us, man, go!” said Joan, whose anxiety had little ebullitions from time to time, paroxysms which astounded her afterwards. She put her hand on Simon’s arm and almost shook him in her passion; then stopped and laughed at herself—“I have a deal of mother in me after all,” she said. “There, go as fast as your old legs will carry you, and bring me back word.”
Simon liked to be taken into the confidence of his masters. He was of the old fashion, not much unlike a slave or serf bound to the soil, not perhaps a desirable kind of human being, but very useful to the masters of him, and a much more picturesque figure than a modern servant. He arraigned the family before his tribunal, and judged them much as Joan did, knowing the weaknesses of each. He was of the kind of valet to whom his master is never a hero; he saw them as do children, exactly as they were, and knew all their fretfulness and pettiness as well as their larger faults. But this did not interfere with his faithfulness and devotion. He did not believe in them as perfect, nor in anything as perfect. He was such a cynic as imperfect gods must always make. The objects of his devotion were poor creatures enough, as he was well aware, but this rather made him certain that all men were poor creatures than that his “owners” were exceptionally petty. He gave them the first place in his universe all the same, and served them, and considered their interest before his own. Perhaps, however, this is rash to say. He had no special interests of his own; he was an old bachelor, without relations to whom he had attached himself. He had attached himself to “the family” instead of these ties, and though he did not contemplate the family in any ideal light, yet it had all the soul he possessed, and its interests were his first object. He nodded his head a great many times after Joan left him, as he prepared to go to the village. “I understand,” he said to himself. But it was very doubtful whether he did understand; he did not connect Joan’s supposed escapade with this curious mission; notwithstanding, as he was wily by nature, he set off with all the intention of accomplishing what he had to do with wile. He took a basket on his arm in which he packed the butter which was sold in the village. Joan making the discovery to her dismay, yet not without a smile, of more and more of her mother in her, could scarcely endure all his preparations, and had nearly rushed out of her dairy and pushed him out with her own hands; but she recollected in time that it was useless to interfere with Simon, who never did anything except in his own way.