Darton paused to shape his sentence, and asked, ‘I—I suppose there’s nobody else more favoured?’
‘I can’t say that there is, or that there isn’t,’ answered Mrs. Hall. ‘She’s private in some things. I’m on your side, however, Mr. Darton, and I’ll talk to her.’
‘Thank ‘ee, thank ‘ee!’ said the farmer in a gayer accent; and with this assurance the not very satisfactory visit came to an end. Darton descended the roots of the sycamore, the light was withdrawn, and the door closed. At the bottom of the slope he nearly ran against a man about to ascend.
‘Can a jack-o’-lent believe his few senses on such a dark night, or can’t he?’ exclaimed one whose utterance Darton recognized in a moment, despite its unexpectedness. ‘I dare not swear he can, though I fain would!’ The speaker was Johns.
Darton said he was glad of this opportunity, bad as it was, of putting an end to the silence of years, and asked the dairyman what he was travelling that way for.
Japheth showed the old jovial confidence in a moment. ‘I’m going to see your—relations—as they always seem to me,’ he said—‘Mrs. Hall and Sally. Well, Charles, the fact is I find the natural barbarousness of man is much increased by a bachelor life, and, as your leavings were always good enough for me, I’m trying civilization here.’ He nodded towards the house.
‘Not with Sally—to marry her?’ said Darton, feeling something like a rill of ice water between his shoulders.
‘Yes, by the help of Providence and my personal charms. And I think I shall get her. I am this road every week—my present dairy is only four miles off, you know, and I see her through the window. ’Tis rather odd that I was going to speak practical to-night to her for the first time. You’ve just called?’
‘Yes, for a short while. But she didn’t say a word about you.’
‘A good sign, a good sign. Now that decides me. I’ll swing the mallet and get her answer this very night as I planned.’