The woman held my attention rather than the man. She had been a fine handsome woman in her day; she bore herself still stiffly erect, though she was very old. A black silken gown hung loosely about her shrunken body; keys in a little basket on her arm rattled like fetters. She had a high, white mob-cap on her thick, iron-grey hair; the skin was drawn and withered about the bones of her face; her mouth was firm yet, and her eyes clear and black,—of all the rogues who served my grandfather, I came to like none so ill as the Barwise woman. Her husband was a fat, bald, old rogue, clad in shabby black, his paunch protruding; rolls of fat beneath his chin; his hands were fat and oily. His sunburn was ripened to the rich glow of wine; his little eyes were bloodshot. The woman made a curtsy; the clash of her keys startled me with a notion that all her bones were rattling. Barwise bowed.
My grandfather addressed the woman with the strong and measured utterance he had employed to Mr. Bradbury. “I’ve sent for you, Barwise, and your man there,” he said, “as I’d have you know that this young gentleman, my grandson, is to be obeyed.”
She curtsied once more; for an instant her eyes rested balefully on me.
“I’d have you so instruct your folk,” my grandfather proceeded. “While he’s in my house, you’ll all treat him as your master—d’ye understand me?”
She nodded, staring at him curiously as if remarking a strength become strange to her.
“He’s likely to be master after me, d’ye hear?” my grandfather added. “You take your orders now from me; whatever orders he chooses to give, you take them as from me.”
The woman croaked, “It’s well for you, Mr. Craike, to have the young gentleman by you. I mark a change in you already.”
Her bold eyes warred with his; as understanding her meaning that she knew him near to decay and that this assumed strength was no more than the flash of a dying fire, he roared out, “I want no words from you, mistress! You’re old; you’re presuming on your service. Mark me, I’ll be obeyed!” and started to his feet, and rapped his cane upon the floor with such bullying wrath and strength that she quailed before him and shrank back, her husband staring at him and quivering like a jelly.
She muttered, “I meant nothing!”
“Ay, meant nothing! Time was—” but he broke off, hesitated, at last cried out, “Ay, and the time is yet. I’ll be obeyed. You’ve thought me old, Barwise—you and the lazy crew I support here of my bounty. Take care I don’t make a sweep of ye all—of ye all—d’ye mark me?” Mastering himself then and dropping heavily back in his chair, “That’s all, Barwise. You’ll obey Mr. John Craike—all of ye!”