“I don’t know. Why not die before?” said Mrs Avenel between her teeth. “But Mr Morgan is a discreet, friendly man.”
“A true Blue!” muttered poor John, as if his mind wandered; and rising with difficulty, he stared at his wife a moment, shook his head, and was gone.
An hour or two later, a little covered taxed-cart stopped at Mr Avenel’s cottage, out of which stepped a young man with pale face and spare form, dressed in the Sunday suit of a rustic craftsman; then a homely, but pleasant, honest face, bent down to him smilingly; and two arms, emerging from under covert of a red cloak, extended an infant, which the young man took tenderly. The baby was cross and very sickly; it began to cry. The father hushed, and rocked, and tossed it, with the air of one to whom such a charge was familiar.
“He’ll be good when we get in, Mark,” said the young woman, as she extracted from the depths of the cart a large basket containing poultry and home-made bread.
“Don’t forget the flowers that the Squire’s gardener gave us,” said Mark the Poet.
Without aid from her husband, the wife took down basket and nosegay, settled her cloak, smoothed her gown, and said, “Very odd!—they don’t seem to expect us, Mark. How still the house is! Go and knock; they can’t ha’ gone to bed yet.”
Mark knocked at the door—no answer. A light passed rapidly across the windows on the upper floor, but still no one came to his summons. Mark knocked again. A gentleman dressed in clerical costume, now coming from Lansmere Park, on the opposite side of the road, paused at the sound of Mark’s second and more impatient knock, and said civilly—
“Are you not the young folks my friend John Avenel told me this morning he expected to visit him?”
“Yes, please, Mr Dale,” said Mrs Fairfield, dropping her curtsey. “You remember me! and this is my dear good man!”
“What! Mark the poet?” said the curate of Lansmere, with a smile. “Come to write squibs for the election?”