“Well, then, be so good as to go and look for him, and say I want him directly to go for the letters.”
“’Ere I am, sir,” said Hobbs, coming suddenly round the corner of the house, with an appearance of extreme haste.
Hobbs had, in fact, been within hearing of his master, having been, during the last half-hour, seated in McAllister’s kitchen, where the uproarious merriment had drowned all other sounds. Hobbs had become a great favourite with the Highland family, owing to his hearty good humour and ready power of repartee. The sharp Cockney, with the easy-going effrontery peculiar to his race, attempted to amuse the household—namely, Mrs McAllister, Dan, Hugh, and two good-looking and sturdy-limbed servant-girls—by measuring wits with the “canny Scot,” as he called the farmer. He soon found, however, that he had caught a Tartar. The good-natured Highlander met his raillery with what we may call a smile of grave simplicity, and led him slyly into committing himself in such a way that even the untutored servants could see how far the man was behind their master in general knowledge; but Hobbs took refuge in smart reply, confident assertion, extreme volubility, and the use of hard words, so that it sometimes seemed to the domestics as if he really had some considerable power in argument. Worthy Mrs McAllister never joined in the debate, except by a single remark now and then. She knew her son thoroughly, and before the Sudberrys had been a week at the White House she understood Hobbs through and through.
She was wont to sit at her spinning-wheel regarding this intellectual sparring with grave interest, as a peculiar phase of the human mind. A very sharp encounter had created more laughter than usual at the time when Mr Sudberry halloed for his man-servant.
“You must be getting deaf; Hobbs, I fear,” said the master, at once pacified by the man’s arrival; “go down and fetch—”
“Pray do not send him away just now,” cried Mrs Sudberry: “I have something particular for him to do. Can you go down yourself, dear?”
The good man sighed. “Well, I will go,” and accordingly away he went.
“Stay, my dear.”
“Well.”
“I expect one or two small parcels by the coach this morning; mind you ask for ’em and bring ’em up.”