“Do you think she slept either?” the chaplain asked, something bitterly; and his eyes glowed in his pale face. “Do you consider how young she is and gently bred, ma’am? And where they’ve sent her, and to what?”
“Umph!” the landlady replied, and she rubbed her ponderous cheek with the bowl of a punch-ladle, and looked, frowning, at the letter. The operation, it was plain, clarified her thoughts; and Mr. Sutton’s instinct told him to be mute. For a long minute the distant clatter of Modest Ann’s tongue, and the clink of pattens in the yard, were the only sounds that broke the lemon-laden silence of the room. Perhaps it was the glint of the fire on the rows of polished glass, perhaps the sight of her own well-cushioned chair, perhaps only a memory of Henrietta’s fair young face and piled-up hair that wrought upon the landlady. But whatever the cause she groaned. And then, “He ought to see this!” she said. “He surely ought! And dang me, he shall, if he leaves the house to-night! After all, two wrongs don’t make a right. He’s to Keswick this morning, but an hour after noon he’ll be back to learn if there’s news. It’s only here he can get news, and if he has not found the lad he’ll be back! And I’ll put it on his plate——”
“God bless you!” cried Mr. Sutton.
“Ay, but I’m not saying he’ll do anything,” the landlady answered tartly. “If all’s true the young madam has not behaved so well that she’ll be the worse for smarting a bit!”
“She’ll be much obliged to you,” said the chaplain humbly.
“No, she’ll not!” Mrs. Gilson retorted. “Nor to you, don’t you think it! She’s a Tartar or I’m mistaken. You’ll be obliged, you mean!” And she looked at the parson over her glasses as if she were appraising him in a new character.
“I’ve been to Mr. Hornyold,” he said, “but he was out and will not be back until to-morrow.”
“Ay, he’s more in his boots than on his knees most days,” the landlady answered. “But what I’ve said, I’ll do, that’s flat. And here’s the coach, so it’s twelve noon.”
She tugged at the cord of the yard bell, and its loud jangle in a twinkling roused the house to activity and the stables to frenzy. The fresh team were led jingling and prancing out of the yard, the ostlers running beside them. Modest Ann and her underling hastened to show themselves on the steps of the inn, and Mrs. Gilson herself passed into the passage ready to welcome any visitor of consequence.
Mr. Bishop and two Lancashire officers who had been pushing the quest in the Furness district descended from the outside of the coach. But they brought no news; and Sutton, as soon as he learned this, did not linger with them. The landlady’s offer could not have any immediate result, since Clyne was not expected to return before two; and the chaplain, to kill time, went out at the back, and climbed the hill. He walked until he was tired, and then he turned, and at two made his way back to the inn, only to learn that Clyne had not yet arrived. None the less, the short day already showed signs of drawing in. There was snow in the sky. It hung heavy above Langdale Pikes and over the long ragged screes of Bow Fell. White cushions of cloud were piled one on the other to the northward, and earth and sky were alike depressing. Weary and despondent, Sutton wandered into the house, and sitting down before the first fire he found, he fell fast asleep.