"Hoity-toity! you'd threaten me, would you?" the other cried viciously. "Here, Tom, Bill! Ha' you no stones. Here's a besom ill-speaking your mother. Ah, I thought you'd be going, ma'am," she continued, leaning over the gate, with a grin of satisfaction. "It'll be in the stocks you'll sit before the day is out, I'm thinking."
But Sophia was out of hearing; rage and indignation gave her strength. But not for long. The reception with which she had met, in a place where, of all places, peace and charity and a seat for the wretched should have been found, broke down the last remains of endurance. As soon as the turn in the road hid her from the other woman's eyes, she sank on a bank, unable to go farther. She must eat and drink and rest, or she must die.
Fortunately, the poor vicar, worthy of a better mate, had not quite abandoned her cause. After standing a moment divided between indignation and fear, he allowed the more generous impulse to have way; he followed and found her. Shocked to read exhaustion plainly written on her face, horrified by the thought that she might die at his door, that door which day and night should have been open to the distressed, he half led and half carried her to the little garden house to which his wife had exiled him; and which by good fortune stood in an orchard, beyond, but close to the curtilage of the house. Here he left her a moment, and procuring the drudge of a servant to hand him a little bread and milk over the fence, he fed her with his own hands, and waited patiently beside her until the colour returned to her face.
Relieved by the sight, and satisfied that she was no longer in danger, he began to be troubled; glancing furtively at her and away again, and often moving to the door of the shed, which looked out on a pleasant plot of grass dappled with sunlight, and overhung by drooping boughs on which the late blossom lingered. Finally, seeing her remain languid and spiritless, he blurted out what was in his mind. "I daren't keep you here," he muttered, with a flush of shame. "If my wife discovers you, she may do you a mischief. And the fear of the smallpox is such, they'd stone you out of the parish if they knew you had been at Beamond's--God forgive them!"
Sophia looked at him in astonishment. "But I have told you who I am," she said. "I am Lady Coke. Surely you believe me."
"Child!" he said in a tone of gentle reproof. "Let be. You don't know what you say. There's not an acre in this parish is not Sir Hervey's, nor a house, nor a barn. Is it likely his honour's lady would be wandering shoeless in the road?"
She laughed hysterically. Tragedy and comedy were strangely mingled this morning. "Yet it is so," she said. "It is so."
He shook his head in reproof, but did not answer.
"You don't believe me?" she cried. "How far is it to Coke Hall?"
"About three miles," he answered unwillingly.