“Here we are,” cried Sam, who could sleep by the mile, and be wide awake at the direction-post; “what a heavy-headed chap you are! Just look to our bags, while I see about a trap. We have five miles to drive, and then we put up at old Cranky’s. There we have a shake-down, and I fare to want it, as the folk in this part of the world express it. They all know me here, and they have a black mare who can travel.”
For five miles we drove through a sleepy-looking land, with scarcely anybody yet astir, but a multitude of birds quite wide awake; and then we put up at a wayside inn; where Sam seemed, as usual, to be well-known. He told me to take it easy, and he set a fine example; for he very soon peopled the house with his sleep, while I wandered about to see how the land lay.
“Pots is never up till twelve o’clock,” Sam explained at breakfast-time; “so you see we may just as well keep our hay in cocks. I say, Cranky,” he addressed the landlord, who was coming in and out, having no maid to attend to us, “What’s-his-name been down this way lately? Fancied we saw something of him yesterday.”
“No, sir, not a sign of him, since you was here last. They don’t seem to hit it off together as they did. Leastways that was what my missus heard.”
“More chance of honest people coming by their due. How much does Sir Cumberleigh owe you, Cranky? Take thy bill, and write down quickly.”
“Lor’, sir, it would take a week to make it out. And what good would come of it when done? Sir Cumberleigh never pays nobody. No more than his father before him.” It were vain on my part to attempt to express the long-suffering of Mr. Cranky’s drawl.
“These are wonderful fellows,” Sam declared aloud to me while the landlord looked at him, as if to say—“And so are you,” and then turned to me to see if I were likewise; “they never seem to expect to get their money from their betters, as they call them. That cock would never fight, in our part of the world. Any lady been down at the Hall, this summer, Cranky? I mean any one, who has never been before? You need not be afraid of telling me, you know. I am an old friend of Sir Cumberleigh.”
This question was put in such a common sort of way, that I dropped my knife and fork, and looked furiously at Sam. For I knew what he meant; and it appeared to me too bad.
“No, sir,” answered Cranky, leaning over him confidentially, as if he were uncertain about speaking before me. “None but the two as come last winter; and not so very much of them. My missus did hear as Sir Cumberleigh were going to pull up, and to enter into holy matrimony with a beautiful young lady from London town, as had sixty thousand pounds of her own, and then we should all be paid on the nail in full. And the Hall was to be made new, and I know not what. But I said it was too good to be true, and so it seemeth.”
“Hope for ever, good Cranky. Hope can do no harm to the Hotchpot Arms. But how goes the time? We are going to call upon this reformed gentleman, as soon as he is up.”