“Never mind, Ma’am—never mind,” retorted Tokely, viciously. “At the present moment, Ma’am, I will go to bed. The Law, Ma’am, can wait. Prepare yourself, Ma’am, for the dock—for the dock, I say!”
With these words, and utterly scornful of Betty Siggs’s peals of laughter, the Inspector made his way upstairs to his chamber—leaving a trail of muddy water to mark his passage.
“That chap’s done me good!” exclaimed Betty, wiping her eyes, and turning to Toby, who was staring in ludicrous amazement after Tokely. “I just wanted summink to stir me up—I did—an’ that chap’s done it!”
“You take care, ole gal, that ’e don’t stir you up,” retorted Toby, shaking his head. “The Law ’as got a ’eap be’ind it—an’ you ain’t got the figger to be redooced by skilly, nor the fingers for oakum-pickin’. An’, mark my words, that’s what you’ll come to, ole gal, if you mocks at the Law!”
Betty Siggs, however, was in too good a humour to heed any such warning; she gaily locked up the house, extinguished the lights and pushed Toby upstairs to bed. “Blow the Law!” she exclaimed, kissing him—“You an’ me won’t sleep the less sound, because the Law ’as got its face scratched, and lost its ’at—will we, Toby?”
Nevertheless, Betty’s prediction proved to be, so far as she was concerned, a false one; sleep refused to come to her, no matter how she wooed it. Living, as she always had done, a good brisk hard-working blameless life, with a conscience as clear as her own healthy skin, Betty had known nothing of the terrors of insomnia; yet to-night, she lay blinking at the stars peeping in through the uncurtained window, thinking of many things—thinking most of all, perhaps, of the unhappy man flying for his life, hiding in ditches and under hedges, and trembling at every sound. Betty’s tender heart melted a little when she thought of him, and she sadly cried herself into a state of quiet exhaustion, and so fell into a troubled sleep.
And in that sleep she dreamed a dream. She was back again, in the old days, in Australia, at Tallapoona Farm—the farm which had never paid, and from which that bright-faced boy Philip had wandered out one morning, never to return. Yet the curious part of Betty’s dream was this; that, although the sights and sounds beyond the windows were as she had known them over a quarter of a century ago, the house bore a curious resemblance to the Chater Arms; indeed, faces familiar to her later days in Bamberton passed to and fro before the windows, and the slow Bamberton drawl was in her ears.
But, in her dream, night came swiftly on, and the place was in darkness. She thought she stood again in the little parlour alone; and, drawing back the curtain from before the window, looked out upon the sandy bridle-tracks, and wild vegetation which fringed the denser growth beyond. Suddenly, out of this, and coming straight to the window, she saw the child, just as she had known him eighteen long years before. So vivid was the dream, and so clearly did she see his face, and recognise it, that—waking with a cry upon her lips—she found herself out of bed, and standing on the floor, in the faint light of the stars.
Betty Siggs was more troubled than ever. She looked round the room, as though half expecting to see her dream realised; rubbed her eyes, and began to tremble a little. Toby’s regular breathing reassured her somewhat; but still she felt uneasy. The window at which she had seen the face of the man that night, in reality, and the dream-face of the child, haunted her; she felt that she must go to it—must assure herself that there was nothing on the other side of it.
She threw a long cloak round her, noiselessly lit a candle, and crept out of the room. There was no sound anywhere, save the quick patter of her own feet on the stairs, and the rapid scurry of a mouse flying from the light. Betty reached the parlour, set down her candle, and faced the window, over which the curtain had been drawn again.