But her best exertions were always forthcoming on behalf of Coombe Lorraine, both as containing the most conspicuous people of the neighbourhood, and also because in her early days she had been a trusty servant under Lady Valeria. Old Nanny’s age had become by this time almost an unknown quantity, several years being placed to her credit (as is almost always done), to which she was not entitled. But, at any rate, she looked back upon her former mistress, Lady Valeria, as comparatively a chicken, and felt some contempt for her judgment, because it could not have grown ripe as yet. Therefore the venerable Mrs. Stilgoe (proclaimed by the public voice as having long since completed her century) cannot have been much under ninety in the year of grace 1811.
Being of a rather stiff and decided—not to say crabbed—turn of mind, this old woman kept a small cottage to herself at the bend of the road beyond the blacksmith’s, close to the well of St. Hagydor. This cottage was not only free of rent, but her own for the term of her natural life, by deed of gift from Sir Roger Lorraine, in gratitude for a brave thing she had done when Roland was a baby. Having received this desirable cottage, and finding it followed by no others, she naturally felt that she had not been treated altogether well by the family. And her pension of three half-crowns a-week, and her Sunday dinner in a basin, made an old woman of her before her time, and only set people talking.
In spite of all this, Nanny was full of goodwill to the family, forgiving them all their kindness to her, and even her own dependence upon them; foretelling their troubles plentifully, and never failing to enhance them. And now on the very day after young Hilary’s conflict with his father, she had the good luck to meet Alice Lorraine, on her way to the rectory, to consult Uncle Struan, or beg him to intercede. For the young man had taken his father at his word, concluding that the door, not only of the room, but also of the house, was open for him, in the inhospitable sense; and, casting off his native dust from his gaiters, he had taken the evening stage to London, after a talk with his favourite Alice.
Old Nanny Stilgoe had just been out to gather a few sticks to boil her kettle, and was hobbling home with the fagot in one hand, and in the other a stout staff chosen from it, which she had taken to help her along. She wore no bonnet or cap on her head, but an old red kerchief tied round it, from which a scanty iron-grey lock escaped, and fluttered now and then across the rugged features and haggard cheeks. Her eyes, though sunken, were bright and keen, and few girls in the parish could thread a fine needle as quickly as she could. But extreme old age was shown in the countless seams and puckers of her face, in the knobby protuberance where bones met, and, above all, in the dull wan surface of skin whence the life was retiring.
“Now, Nanny, I hope you are well to-day,” Alice said, kindly, though by no means eager to hold discourse with her just now; “you are working hard, I see, as usual.”
“Ay, ay, working hard, the same as us all be born to, and goes out of the world with the sweat of our brow. Not the likes of you, Miss Alice. All the world be made to fit you, the same as a pudding do to a basin.”
“Now, Nanny, you ought to know better than that. There is nobody born to such luck, and to keep it. Shall I carry your fagot for you? How cleverly you do tie them!”
“’Ee may carr the fagot as far as ’ee wool. ’Ee wunt goo very far, I count. The skin of thee isn’t thick enow. There, set ’un down now beside of the well. What be all this news about Haylery?”
“News about Hilary, Nanny Stilgoe! Why, who has told you anything?”
“There’s many a thing as comes to my knowledge without no need of telling. He have broken with his father, haven’t he? Ho, ho, ho!”