At length the Garlands found that it was the hour for them to leave, and John Loveday at the same time wished his father and Bob good-night, and went as far as Mrs. Garland’s door with her.
He had said not a word to show that he was free to remain out of camp, for the reason that there was painful work to be done, which it would be best to do in secret and alone. He lingered near the house till its reflected window-lights ceased to glimmer upon the mill-pond, and all within the dwelling was dark and still. Then he entered the garden and waited there till the back door opened, and a woman’s figure timorously came forward. John Loveday at once went up to her, and they began to talk in low yet dissentient tones.
They had conversed about ten minutes, and were parting as if they had come to some painful arrangement, Miss Johnson sobbing bitterly, when a head stealthily arose above the dense hedgerow, and in a moment a shout burst from its owner.
‘Thieves! thieves!—my tin box!—thieves! thieves!’
Matilda vanished into the house, and John Loveday hastened to the hedge. ‘For heaven’s sake, hold your tongue, Mr. Derriman!’ he exclaimed.
‘My tin box!’ said Uncle Benjy. ‘O, only the trumpet-major!’
‘Your box is safe enough, I assure you. It was only’—here the trumpet-major gave vent to an artificial laugh—‘only a sly bit of courting, you know.’
‘Ha, ha, I see!’ said the relieved old squireen. ‘Courting Miss Anne! Then you’ve ousted my nephew, trumpet-major! Well, so much the better. As for myself, the truth on’t is that I haven’t been able to go to bed easy, for thinking that possibly your father might not take care of what I put under his charge; and at last I thought I would just step over and see if all was safe here before I turned in. And when I saw your two shapes my poor nerves magnified ye to housebreakers, and Boneys, and I don’t know what all.’
‘You have alarmed the house,’ said the trumpet-major, hearing the clicking of flint and steel in his father’s bedroom, followed in a moment by the rise of a light in the window of the same apartment. ‘You have got me into difficulty,’ he added gloomily, as his father opened the casement.
‘I am sorry for that,’ said Uncle Benjy. ‘But step back; I’ll put it all right again.’