For Stixon's own attitude had reminded me of a little point in Jacob Rigg's description, which otherwise might have escaped me.
“Lor', now, and he carried his chin like that!” resumed the butler, with an increase of intelligence by no means superfluous. “Why, let me see, now, let me see. Something do come across my mind when you puts out your purty chin, miss; but there, it must have been a score of years agone, or more—perhaps five-and-twenty. What a daft old codger I be getting, surely! No wonder them new lights puts a bushel over me.”
“No,” I replied; “you are simply showing great power of memory, Stixon. And now please to tell me, as soon as you can, who it was—a tall man, remember, and a handsome one, with dark hair, perhaps, or at any rate dark eyes—who resembled (perhaps not very closely, but still enough to mislead at a distance) my dear father—Master George, as you call him, for whose sake you are bound to tell me every thing you know. Now try to think—do please try your very best, for my sake.”
“That I will, miss; that I will, with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength, as I used to have to say with my hands behind my back, afore education were invented. Only please you to stand with your chin put out, miss, and your profield towards me. That is what brings it up, and nothing else at all, miss. Only, not to say a word of any sort to hurry me. A tracherous and a deep thing is the memory and the remembrance.”
Mr. Stixon's memory was so deep that there seemed to be no bottom to it, or, at any rate, what lay there took a very long time to get at. And I waited, with more impatience than hope, the utterance of his researches.
“I got it now; I got it all, miss, clear as any pictur'!” the old man cried out, at the very moment when I was about to say, “Please to leave off; I am sure it is too much for you.” “Not a pictur' in all of our gallery, miss, two-and-fifty of 'em, so clear as I see that there man, dark as it was, and a heavy wind a-blowing. What you call them things, miss, if you please, as comes with the sun, like a face upon the water? Wicked things done again the will of the Lord, and He makes them fade out afterwards.”
“Perhaps you mean photographs. Is that the word?”
“The very word, and no mistake. A sinful trespass on the works of God, to tickle the vanity of gals. But he never spread himself abroad like them. They shows all their ear-rings, and their necks, and smiles. But he never would have shown his nose, if he could help it, that stormy night when I come to do my duty. He come into this house without so much as a 'by your leave' to nobody, and vexed me terrible accordingly. It was in the old lord's time, you know, miss, a one of the true sort, as would have things respectful, and knock down any man as soon as look. And it put me quite upon the touch-and-go, being responsible for all the footman's works, and a young boy promoted in the face of my opinion, having my own son worth a dozen of him. This made me look at the nature of things, miss, and find it on my conscience to be after every body.”
“Yes, Stixon, yes! Now do go on. You must always have been, not only after, but a very long way after, every body.”
“Miss Erma, if you throw me out, every word goes promiscuous. In a heffort of the mind like this it is every word, or no word. Now, did I see him come along the big passage?—a 'currydoor' they call it now, though no more curry in it than there is door. No, I never seed him come along the passage, and that made it more reproachful. He come out of a green-baize door—the very place I can point out to you, and the selfsame door, miss, though false to the accuracy of the mind that knows it, by reason of having been covered up red, and all the brass buttons lost to it in them new-fangled upholsteries. Not that I see him come through, if you please, but the sway of the door, being double-jointed, was enough to show legs, had been there. And knowing that my lord's private room was there, made me put out my legs quite wonderful.”