“Polly”, he said, “oh, Polly dear, how could you serve me so? What will your poor mistress say”?
Polly could neither recriminate nor defend herself; so she only looked at him beseechingly, and what she meant was, “Oh, do get up”.
So Rufus arose, and dusted himself, and kissed Polly for forgiveness, and she, if she had only learned how, would have stooped like a camel before him. He mounted, with two or three groans for his back, and left the mare to her own devices to find the road again. It was very pretty to see in the moonlight how carefully she went with him, not even leaping the small water–courses, but feeling her footing through them. And so they got into the forest–track, some half mile from where they had left it; they saw the gleam of Bull Garnetʼs windows, and knew the straight road to the Hall.
Sir Cradock Nowell did not appear. Of course that was not expected; but kind John Rosedew came up from the parsonage to keep Rufus Hutton company. So the two had all the great dinner–table to themselves entirely; John, as the old friend, sat at the head, and the doctor sat by his right hand. Although there were few men in the world with the depth of mind, and variety, the dainty turns of thought, the lacework infinitely rich of original mind and old reading, which made John Rosedewʼs company a forest for to wander in and be amazed with pleasure; Rufus Hutton, sore and stiff, and aching in the back, thought he had rarely come across so very dry a parson.
John was not inclined to talk: he was thinking of his Cradock, and he had a care of still sharper tooth—what had happened to his Amy? He had come up much against his wishes, only as a duty, on that dreary Saturday night, just that Mr. Hutton, who had been so very kind, might not think himself neglected. John had dined four hours ago, but that made no difference to him, for he seldom knew when he had dined, and when he was expected to do it. Nevertheless he was human, for he loved his bit of supper.
Mr. Rosedew had laboured hard, but vainly, to persuade Sir Cradock Nowell to send some or any message to his luckless son. “No”, he replied, “he did not wish to see him any more, or at any rate not at present; it would be too painful to him. Of course he was sorry for him, and only hoped he was half as sorry for himself”. John Rosedew did not dream as yet of the black idea working even now in the lonely fatherʼs mind, gaining the more on his better heart because he kept it secret. The old man was impatient now even of the old friendʼs company; he wanted to sit alone all day weaving and unravelling some dark skein of evidence, and as yet he was not so possessed of the devil as to cease to feel ashamed of him. “Coarse language”! cries some votary of our self–conscious euphemism. But show me any plainer work of the father of unbelief than want of faith in our fellow–creatures, when we have proved and approved them; want of faith in our own flesh and blood, with no cause for it but the imputed temptation. It shall go hard with poor old Sir Cradock, and none shall gainsay his right to it.
Silence was a state of the air at once uncongenial to Dr. Huttonʼs system and repugnant to all his finest theories of digestion. For lo, how all nature around us protests against the Trappists, and the order of St. Benedict! See how the cattle get together when they have dined in the afternoon, and had their drink out of the river. Donʼt they flip their tails, and snuffle, and grunt at their own fine sentiments, and all the while they are chewing the cud take stock of one another? Donʼt they discuss the asilus and œstrum, the last news of the rinderpest, and the fly called by some the cow–dab, and donʼt they abuse the festuca tribe, and the dyspepsia of the sorrel? Is the thrush mute when he has bolted his worm, or the robin over his spiderʼs eggs?
So Rufus looked through his glass of port, which he took merely as a corrective to the sherry of the morning, cocked one eye first, and then the other, and loosed the golden bands of speech.
“Uncommonly pretty girls, Mr. Rosedew, all about this neighbourhood”.
“Very likely, Dr. Hutton; I see many pleasant faces; but I am no judge of beauty”. He leaned back with an absent air, just as if he knew nothing about it. And all the while he was saying to himself, “Pretty girls indeed! Is there one of them like my Amy”?