“Never a blessed one; Lord save you, I’ve a’ been on my poor legs, all the morning! Every maid that could fist a few was ordered in. But the young leddy fisted them four at the bottom.”
Making due allowance for his miscreant coarseness, I slipped away the lowest four, and two others; those two I stuck up on the outer face of Uncle Corny’s red-brick wall; but the other four never were exhibited to the public, nor even to myself, except as a very private view. And every one of them belongs to me at the present moment. The footman thanked me warmly for this lightening of his task, and hurried on towards Rasp the baker, and the linendraper.
So far as my memory serves, Uncle Corny got very little work out of me that day. I was up and down the village, till my conscience told me that my behaviour might appear suspicious; and I even beheld the great lady herself, driving as fast as her fat steeds could travel, to get her placards displayed all around in the villages towards London. Although she was not very popular, and the public seemed well pleased with her distress, I felt more than half inclined to take her dear love back, and release him at his own door after dark. But Tabby Tapscott said, and she had a right to speak,—“Don’t ’e be a vule now, Measter Kit. Carr’ the job droo, wanst ’a be about ’un.” And just before dark I met Mrs. Marker, and somebody with her, who made my heart jump. They had clearly been sent as a forlorn hope, to go the round of the shops where the bills had been posted. I contrived to ask tenderly whether the dog was found.
“Not he, and never will be,” replied the housekeeper. “There are so many people who owe the cur a grudge. Why, he even flies at me, if I dare to look at him. Miss Kitty, tell Mr. Kit what your opinion is.”
“I fear indeed that somebody must have shot him with an air-gun. I am very fond of dogs, when they are at all good dogs; but very few could praise poor Regulus, except—except as we praise mustard. And I heard of a case very like it in London.”
Her voice was so silvery sweet, and she dropped it (as I thought) so sadly at that last word, that I could not help saying, although I was frightened at my own tone while I said it,—
“Surely you are not going back to-morrow? Do say that you are not going to leave us all to-morrow.”
Before she could answer, the housekeeper said sharply—“She was to have gone to-morrow, Mr. Orchardson. But now Miss Coldpepper has made up her mind to send for Captain Fairthorn the first thing to-morrow, unless she recovers the dog meanwhile. Not that he knows anything about dogs, but he is so scientific that he is sure to find out something. Good night, sir! Come, Kitty, how late we are!”