‘Not a word!’
‘What, didn’t I tell ’ee? Ah, no; I meant to, but I forgot it.’
‘And here’s a sort of dint in yer forehead too; what do that mean, my dear boy?’ said the miller, putting his finger in a chasm in Bob’s skull.
‘That was done in the Indies. Yes, that was rather a troublesome chop—a cutlass did it. I should have told ’ee, but I found ’twould make my letter so long that I put it off, and put it off; and at last thought it wasn’t worth while.’
John soon rose to take his departure.
‘It’s all up with me and her, you see,’ said Bob to him outside the door. ‘She’s not even going to see me.’
‘Wait a little,’ said the trumpet-major. It was easy enough on the night of the arrival, in the midst of excitement, when blood was warm, for Anne to be resolute in her avoidance of Bob Loveday. But in the morning determination is apt to grow invertebrate; rules of pugnacity are less easily acted up to, and a feeling of live and let live takes possession of the gentle soul. Anne had not meant even to sit down to the same breakfast-table with Bob; but when the rest were assembled, and had got some way through the substantial repast which was served at this hour in the miller’s house, Anne entered. She came silently as a phantom, her eyes cast down, her cheeks pale. It was a good long walk from the door to the table, and Bob made a full inspection of her as she came up to a chair at the remotest corner, in the direct rays of the morning light, where she dumbly sat herself down.
It was altogether different from how she had expected. Here was she, who had done nothing, feeling all the embarrassment; and Bob, who had done the wrong, feeling apparently quite at ease.
‘You’ll speak to Bob, won’t you, honey?’ said the miller after a silence. To meet Bob like this after an absence seemed irregular in his eyes.
‘If he wish me to,’ she replied, so addressing the miller that no part, scrap, or outlying beam whatever of her glance passed near the subject of her remark.