“Yes,” she answered. “I am rather tired. If you please I would prefer not to talk.”
He was a little huffed then, and let her be; nor did he guess, though he was full of conjectures about her, how she hated her seeming ingratitude. But there was nought else for it; better seem thankless now than be worse hereafter. For she was growing frightened. She was beginning to have more than an inkling of the road by which young things were led to be foolish. Her ear retained the sound of his voice though he was silent. The fashion in which he had stooped to her—though he was looking another way now—clung to her memory. His laugh, though he was grave now, rang for her, full of glee and good-fellowship. She could have burst into tears.
They stayed at Marshfield to take on the last team. And she tried to divert her mind by watching a woman in a veil who walked up and down beside the coach, and seemed to return her curiosity. But she tried to little purpose, for she felt strained and weary, and more than ever inclined to cry. Doubtless the peril through which she had passed had shaken her.
So that she was thankful when, after descending perilous Tog Hill, they saw from Kingswood heights the lights of Bristol shining through the dusk; and she knew that she was at her journey’s end. To arrive in a strange place on the edge of night is trying to anyone. But to alight friendless and alone, amid the bustle of a city, and to know that new relations must be created and a new life built up—this may well raise in the most humble and contented bosom a feeling of loneliness and depression. And doubtless that was why Mary Smith, after evading Vaughan with a success beyond her hopes, felt as she followed her modest trunk through the streets that—but she bent her head to hide the unaccustomed tears.
VI
THE PATRON OF CHIPPINGE
Much about the time that the “Spectator” was painting in Sir Roger the most lovable picture of an old English squire which our gallery contains, Cornelius Vermuyden, of a younger branch of the Vermuydens who drained the fens, was making a fortune in the Jamaica trade. Having made it in a dark office at Bristol, and being, like all Dutchmen, of a sedentary turn, he proceeded to found a family, purchase a borough, and, by steady support of Whig principles and the Protestant succession, to earn a baronetcy in the neighbouring county of Wilts.
Doubtless the first Vermuyden had things to contend with, and at assize ball and sessions got but two fingers from the De Coverleys and their long-descended dames. But he went his way stolidly, married his son into a family of like origin—the Beckfords—and, having seen little George II. firmly on the throne, made way for his son.
This second Sir Cornelius rebuilt Stapylton, the house which his father had bought from the decayed family of that name, and after living for some ten years into the reign of Farmer George, vanished in his turn, leaving Cornelius Robert to succeed him, Cornelius George, the elder son, having died in his father’s lifetime.
Sir Cornelius Robert was something after the pattern of the famous Mr. Onslow—
What can Tommy Onslow do?
He can drive a chaise and two.
What can Tommy Onslow more?
He can drive a chaise and four.