She rose slowly, paying no attention to the man—looking only at Geoff. “And you are the young lord?” she said with an intent look. There was a certain dignity about her movements, though she seemed to set herself in motion with difficulty, stiffly, as if the exertion cost her something. “I’ve had a long walk,” she added, with a faint smile and half apology for the effort, “there’s where age tells. And all my trouble for nothing!”
“If I can be of any use to you I will,” said Geoff. Then he paused and added, “I want you to do something for me.”
“What is it that old ’Lizabeth Bampfylde could do for a fine young gentleman? Your fortune?—ay, I’ll give you your fortune easy; a kind tongue and a bright eye carries that all over the world. And you look as if you had a kind heart.”
“It is not my fortune,” he said with an involuntary smile.
“You’re no believer in the likes of that? May be you have never met with one that had the power. It runs in families; it runs in the blood. There was one of your house, my young lord, that I could have warned of what was coming. I saw it in his face. And, oh that I had done it! But he would not have been warned. Oh! what that would have saved me and mine, as well as you and yours!”
“You think of my brother then when you see me?” he said, eager at once to follow out this beginning. She looked at him again with a scrutinizing gaze.
“What had I to do with your brother, young gentleman? He never asked me for his fortune any more than you; he did not believe in the likes of me. It is only the silly folk and the simple folk that believe in us. I wish they would be guided by us that are our own flesh and blood—and then they would never get into trouble like my boy.”
“What has he done?” asked Geoff, thinking to conciliate. He had followed her out of the house, and was walking by her side through the shrubberies by the back way.
“What has he done? Something, nothing. He’s taken a fish in the river, or a bird out of the wood. They’re God’s creatures, not yours, or Sir Henry’s. But the rich and the great, that have every dainty they can set their face to, make it a crime for a poor lad when he does that.”
Geoff did not make any answer, for he had a respect for game, and would not commit himself; but he said, “I will do anything I can for your son, if you will help me. Yes, you can help me, and I think you know you can, Mrs. Bampfylde.”