"It's all very interesting, no doubt; but as the family are strangers to me, and I've no partickler taste for history, I'll not trouble you to tell me any more. And as to people spending themselves out of house and home, and running into debt, I shan't put myself out for them. I shall manage to find a place, I dare say, and we shall neither of us be asked to pay anybody's debts but our own—if we have any. What I want to know is, how to deliver my message, and cetera, to Miss Mountford?"
"That's an easy matter, now you know your way to the back door."
"You don't mean to say that Miss Mountford will come to the back door to answer it, do you?" sneered the groom, who was waxing more and more indignant at Mountain's mode of replying.
"No, I don't. Neither would she answer the Hall door, if you went to that. She keeps servants enough to take the messages which other people's servants bring. One of 'em will take yours, if you give 'em a chance;" and turning on his heel, Mountain marched rapidly towards his own dwelling, without waiting for more words.
"If the indoor servants aren't pleasanter to speak to than the outdoor ones, it will be a pity!" shouted the groom after the retreating figure; adding to himself, "Captain Torrance told me to put what he sent into the hands of the young lady herself; and I mean to do it, specially as he promised me a five-shilling tip if I managed it, and brought an answer. I'm not often beat when I take a thing to do, and the captain said, 'Jem Capes, I can trust you better than most. You have got a head on your shoulders, and not a something which might as well be a turnip, for any sense there is in it.' And sure enough there are a many turnip heads about, particularly in these country places."
As Mr. Jem Capes finished his soliloquy he vigorously used the knocker to the back entrance of Hollingsby Hall.
[CHAPTER VI]
A REJECTED TROPHY
IN a few seconds after Mr. Jem Capes had called attention to his presence by means of the knocker, a neat kitchen-maid opened the door of the servants' entrance to the Hall. The sight of a trim, female figure pleased Captain Torrance's messenger. He was young, and, according to his own notions, good-looking, and with plenty to say for himself, therefore well calculated to make a favourable impression. He glanced admiringly at the girl, and, with a full consciousness of the absurdity of the remark, said—
"You are the lady's-maid here, I believe, miss?"