“I’ve come from old ’Lizabeth. She says if you like to start to-night along with me we’ll talk your business over, and if she can satisfy you she will. Look you here, my young lord, your lordship’s a deal of consequence to some, but it’s nothing to her and me. Come, if you like to come; it’s your business, not our’s. If there’s danger it’s your own risk, if there’s any good it’s you that will have it, not us—— ”
“Danger!” said Geoff; “the danger of a walk up the fells! and good—to me? Yes, you can say it is to me if you like, but you ought to be more interested than I am. However, words don’t matter. Yes, let us say the good is mine, and the danger, if any, is mine—— ”
“Have it your own way,” said Bampfylde. “I’ll come back again, since you’ve made up your mind, at ten to-night and show you the way.”
“But why at night?” said Geoff; “to-morrow would be better. It is not too far to go in a day.”
“There’s the difference between you and us. Night is our time, you see. It must be by night or not at all. Would you like to walk with me across country, my lord? I don’t think you would, nor I wouldn’t like it. We shouldn’t look natural together. But at night all’s one. I’ll be here at ten; there’s a moon—and a two hours’ walk, or say three at the most, it’s nothing to a young fellow like you.”
This was a very startling proposition, and Geoff did not know what to make of it. It grew more and more like a mysterious adventure, and pleased him on that side; but he was a modern young man, with a keen perception of absurdity, and everything melodramatic was alarming to him. Why should he walk mysteriously in the middle of the night to a cottage about which there need be no mystery on a perfectly innocent and honest errand? He stared at his strange visitor with a perplexity beyond words.
“What possible object could be gained,” he said at last, “by going in the night?”
“Oh, if you’re afraid!” said this strange emissary, “don’t go—that’s all about it: neither me nor her are forcing you to hear what we may happen to know.”
“I am not afraid,” said Geoff, colouring. It was an accusation which was very hard to bear. “But there is reason in all things. I don’t want to be ridiculous—” The man shrugged his shoulders—he laughed—nothing could have been more galling. Geoff standing, looking at him, felt the blood boiling in his veins.
“Quite right too,” said Bampfylde. “What can we know that’s worth the trouble? You’ll take a drive up some day in your coach and four, and oblige us. That is just what I would do myself.”