CHAPTER XXXV.
ANOTHER HELPER.
On that same morning when so many things occurred, young Lord Stanton was seated in the library at Stanton, with a great deal of business to do. He had letters to write, he had the accounts of his agent to look over, and a hundred other very pressing matters which demanded his close attention. Perhaps it was only natural in these circumstances that Geoff should be unusually idle, and not at all disposed to tackle to his work. Generally he was so much interested in what was real work that he did it heartily, glad of the honest compulsion; but on this morning he was unsettled, and not in his usual mood of industry. He watched the leaves dropping from the trees outside, he listened idly to the sounds within; he scribbled on the margin of his accounts, now a bit of Latin verse (for Mr. Tritton was an elegant scholar), now a grotesque face, anything but the steady calculations he ought to have made. Now and then a sudden recollection of something he had read would cross his mind, when he would get up in the middle of a letter to seek the book in which he thought it was and verify his recollection on the spot, a thing he would not have taken the trouble to do had that floating recollection had any connection with the work in which he professed to be engaged. In short, he was entirely idle, distracted, and desœuvré. Mr. Tritton was reading to Lady Stanton in her morning room. It was early; the household were all busy and occupied,—all except the young master of it, who could not settle to his work.
He was sitting thus when his easily distracted attention was caught by a movement outside, not like anything that could be made by bird or dog, the only two living creatures likely to be there so close to his window. It was the same window through which he had gone out the evening he made his night expedition to the hills. The sound caught his attention, as anything would have done that gave him an excuse for raising his head from the letters he was now trying to write, having given up the accounts in despair. When he saw a shadow skirt the grass, Geoff watched with eager interest for what would follow—then there was a pause, and he had bent over the letter again, thinking it a mere trick of fancy, when a sound close to him made him start and look up. Some one was standing with his back to the morning light—standing across the window-sill with one foot within the room. Geoff started to his feet with momentary alarm. “Who are you? Ah! is it Bampfylde?” he said.
“Just me, my young lord. May I come in and speak a word?”
“Certainly—come in. But why not go to the front door and come in like any one else? You do not suppose I should have shut my doors on you?”
“Maybe, no; but I’m not a visitor for the like of you. I’m little credit about a grand house. I’ve not come here for nothing now, but to ask you a service.”
“What is it, Bampfylde? If I can do anything for you I will.”
“It’s not exactly for me, but you can do it if you will, my young lord. It’s something I’m hindered from doing. It’s for the young ones at the Castle, that you know of. Both the bairns are in trouble, so far as I can judge. I gave the little boy a carrier to let off if he wanted help. Me, and still more the old woman, we misdoubted that brother. And nigh a week ago the carrier came home, but I was away on—on a hard job, that I’m on still, and she did not understand. And when I saw her and told her yesterday what the sign was, what does the old woman do but tell the little lady—the little miss—and so far as I can hear she’s away, the creature herself, a flower of a thing, no bigger than my arm, the very image of our Lily: her—that atom—she’s away to deliver her brother, my young lord,” said the vagrant, leaning against the window. “I’m most worn out by the same sort o’ work. There’s far too much of that been done among us one way and another, and she’s away now on the same errand—to save her brother. It’s laughable if you think on’t,” he said, with a curious gurgle in his throat of forlorn ridicule.
Geoff, who had leaned forward at the name of the children, saw that Bampfylde was very pale and worn, his clothes in less order than usual, and an air of utter weariness and harassment about him. He looked like a man who had not slept or undressed for days.
“Has anything new happened?” Geoff asked hurriedly. “Of course I will do whatever I can for the children—but tell me first—has anything happened with you?”