Chapter XI.
THE next day I had something to do in the village, which was only about half a mile from the Park gates; but little Sara, when I asked her to go with me, had got some piece of business to her fancy in the greenhouse, and was not disposed to leave it, so I went off by myself. I went in, as I passed the lodge, to ask for little Mary Williams, who had a cough which I quite expected would turn to hooping-cough, though her mother would not believe it (I turned out to be right, of course). Mrs. Williams was rather in a way, poor body, that morning. Mary was worse and worse, with a flushed face and shocking cough, and nothing would please her mother but that it was inflammation, and the child would die. It is quite the strangest thing in the world, among those sort of people, how soon they make up their minds that their children are to die. I scolded her well, which did her good, and promised her the liniment we always have for hooping-cough, and said I should bring up a picture-book for the child (it’s a good little thing when it is well) from the new little shop in the village. This opened up, as I found out, quite a new phase of poor Williams’ trouble.
“I wouldn’t encourage it ma’am, no sure, I wouldn’t, not for a hundred picture-books. I wouldn’t go for to set up them as ’tices men out of their houses and lads fro’ home. No! I seen enough of that when poor old Williams was alive, and we was all in Liverpool. It’s all as one as the public-houses, ma’am. I can’t see no difference. Williams, it was his chapell; and the boy, it’s his night-school and his reading. I don’t see no good of it. In the old man’s time, many’s the weary night I’ve sat by mysel’ mending their bits o’ things, and never a soul to cheer me up; and now, look’ee here, the boy’s tooken to it; and if I’m to lose Mary——”
“You ridiculous woman,” cried I, while the poor creature fell sobbing and took to her apron, “what’s to make you lose Mary? The child’s going in for hooping-cough, as sure ever child was, and I see no reason in the world why she shouldn’t get over it nicely, with the spring coming on as well. Don’t fret; trouble comes soon enough without going out of the way to meet it. What’s all this story you’ve been telling me about poor Willie, and the shop in the village, and the night-school? Don’t you know, you foolish woman, the night-school may be the making of the boy?”
“I don’t know nothink about it, ma’am, nor I don’t want to know,” said our liberal-minded retainer. “I know it takes the boy out o’ the house most nights in the week; and I sits a-thinking upon my troubles, and listening to all the sounds in the trees, sometimes moidered and sometimes scared. I’d clear away thankful any night, even washing night, when I’m folding for the mangle, to have him write his copy at home; and have a hearth-stone for him, though I say it as shouldn’t, as bright as a king’s. But he’s a deal grander nor the like o’ that, he is—he’ll stay and read the papers and talk. Bother their talk and their papers! I ask you, ma’am, wouldn’t Willie be a deal better at home?”
“I shouldn’t say but what I might perhaps think so too,” said I; “but then the gentlemen say not, and they should know best.”
“The gentlemen! and there’s another worry, sure,” said Mrs. Williams; “who would you think, ma’am, has been in the village, but a Frenchman, a-spying all about, and asking questions; and had the impudence to come to my very door, to the very park gates, to ask if I knowed a lady with a French name that was here or hereabout. I answered him short, and said I knew nothink about the French, and shut the door in his face, begging your pardon, ma’am; for, to be sure, he was after no good, coming asking for outlandish ladies here.”
“Very odd,” said I, “I hope it’s no robber, Williams. You were quite right to shut the door in his face.”
“And if I might make so bold,” said Williams, coming closer and speaking low, “Jacob, he maintains it was a French fellow with a mustache that scared Miss Sarah the day afore yesterday. Jacob seen him, but took no notice; and directly after Miss Sarah up and pulled the string, and told him to drive round by Eden Castle, a good five-mile round, and to go quick. You may depend Miss Sarah took him for a robber, or somethink; and I’m dead sure it was the same man.”
I was very much startled by this, though I could scarcely tell why; but, of course, I would not let Williams suppose there was any mystery in it. “Very likely,” said I; “my sister goes out so little, she’s timid—but I am losing my time. Good-bye, little Mary, I’ll fetch you your picture-book; and be sure you rub her chest well with the liniment. I have always found it successful, and I’ve tried it for ten years.”