“Well, papa, now, you must have been stupid, or had your whole mind upon our new cook, if you didn’t see Captain Chapman!”
“Captain Chapman!” cried the Rector, with something which in any other place would have been profane; “why, what in the world could he want here? He never came to hear me; that’s certain.”
“No, papa; nor to hear anything at all. He came to stare at poor Alice all the time; and to plague her with his escort home, I fear.”
“The poor child, with that ungodly scamp! Who were in the servants’ pew? I know pretty well; but you are sure to know better.”
“Oh, not even one of the trusty people. Neither the old butler, nor Mrs. Pipkins, nor even Mrs. Merryjack. Only that conceited ‘Mister Trotman,’ as he calls himself, and his ‘under-footman,’ as he calls the lad; and three or four flirty housemaids.”
“A guinea will send them all round the other way; and then he will pester Alice all the way back. Run home, that’s a dear, you are very quick of foot; and put the lamb back yourself nine inches; and tell Jem to saddle Maggie quick as lightning, and put my hunting-crop at the green gate, and have Maggie there; and let your mother know that sudden business calls me away to Coombe Lorraine.”
“Why, papa, you quite frighten me! As if Alice could not take care of herself!”
“I have seen more of the world than you have, child. Do as I order you, and don’t argue. Stop, take the meadow way, to save making any stir in the village. I shall walk slowly, and be at the gate by the time you have the pony there.”
Cecil Hales, without another word, went out of the vestry door to a stile leading from the churchyard into a meadow, and thence by an easy gap in a hedge she got into the rectory shrubbery.