Mr. Miles was a family man settled in the country, and was called on to sustain the trouble and expense of a journey to London in order to discharge the last duties to Mr. Jerry, and possibly to be rewarded by entering on his inheritance. Those who had known Mr. Jerry said “possibly” advisedly, while they were aware that Mr. Miles was the nearest surviving relation; and the cautious wording of the phrase was vindicated by the sequel. Mr. Jerry had left a will, and bequeathed his gains in two parts—to a more distant relation than Mr. Miles, and who was comparatively rich and in no want of money, and to a charitable institution.
It was just after Mr. Miles had been made acquainted with the disposal of the funds that he, still acting in the character of the representative of the dead man, seeing that the favoured kinsman had not put himself about to attend the funeral, looked into the yard and remarked Prince.
The dog, faithful to the single principle of duty that was left in him, threatened the intruder as furiously as if Prince himself were not an arrant rogue, or as if he were acting out the adage, “Set a thief to catch a thief.”
The dog looked such a miserable object, there was so little to steal, the idea of his revenging himself for being deprived of the succession by pilfering these mouldy coals—if coals can ever be called mouldy—tickled the stranger’s fancy, though this was no laughing occasion, neither was he in any laughing mood.
Mr. Miles, while he had stood in the relation of nephew to Mr. Jerry, was nearly as old a man as his uncle, and, as he lounged there in his rusty black, he bore a certain resemblance to his late father’s brother. He appeared crusty, if not grim, but he possessed what Mr. Jerry had certainly been devoid of—an imagination to take in the ludicrousness of the situation; and he was not altogether selfish and inhuman, for even, while smarting under the injury which had been inflicted on him, and as Prince was flying at him as far as his chain would permit, Mr. Miles said to himself, “I must see that beast put out of pain before I go.”
Then the humour of the man, which had been stirred in him, took a new direction. “I should not care, just for the fun of the thing, to take him down with me to Westbarns and show him to Nanse as our share of Uncle Jerry’s goods. I heard the landlord of the Hare and Hounds say he wanted a serviceable dog to replace his young Newfoundland which he had been induced to sell. I’ll go bail that Uncle Jerry’s dog is serviceable.”
The whim found favour with a whimsical poor man, and so Prince, not without difficulty and danger, was removed to the railway station and consigned to a dog-box. There he was so dazed and confounded by the darkness and the rapid motion—which he had only once experienced before, and that was on that far-away trip to Brighton, when he had been smuggled in Jack’s arms among a hilarious company into an open van—that he came out, in the course of an hour and a half, comparatively subdued, and condescended, without extreme pressure, to accompany Mr. Miles Noakes to his cottage.
It was evening when the two arrived, jaded by travel, excitement, and disappointment. A much younger looking woman than Mr. Miles was a man, was gazing eagerly along the road in expectation of their arrival. She stood at the gate of a well-kept little garden, sweet with spring flowers—blue hyacinths, primroses, polyanthuses. She had lively hazel eyes and smooth dark hair, and wore a neat cap and clean apron. She might have been a capable, prized maid-servant in her day; she was still an active, tidy matron in her early prime.
“You are come at last, Miles; you must be clean done up, but the children are a-bed, and your supper is ready,” she said hurriedly, while she kissed her husband, as if feeling it a relief to welcome him first before she asked the question with which her heart was beating, her breath coming fast and her lips quivering, while she had no attention to spare for his four-footed attendant.
“All right, Nanse,” said Mr. Miles, entering the cottage before he vouchsafed any explanation.