“I’m scared stiff,” said Tembarom, not in the least uncourageously; “but I want to go into a cottage and hear some of it. Which one shall we go into?”
There were several whitewashed cottages in the lane, each in its own bit of garden and behind its own hawthorn hedge, now bare and wholly unsuggestive of white blossoms and almond scent to the uninitiated. Miss Alicia hesitated a moment.
“We will go into this one, where the Hibblethwaites live,” she decided. “They are quite clean, civil people. They have a naughty, queer, little crippled boy, but I suppose they can’t keep him in order because he is an invalid. He’s rather rude, I’m sorry to say, but he’s rather sharp and clever, too. He seems to lie on his sofa and collect all the gossip of the village.”
They went together up the bricked path, and Miss Alicia knocked at the low door with her knuckles. A stout, apple-faced woman opened it, looking a shade nervous.
“Good morning, Mrs. Hibblethwaite,” said Miss Alicia in a kind but remote manner. “The new Mr. Temple Barholm has been kind enough to come to see you. It’s very good of him to come so soon, isn’t it?”
“It is that,” Mrs. Hibblethwaite answered rapidly, looking him over. “Wilt tha coom in, sir?”
Tembarom accepted the invitation, feeling extremely awkward because Miss Alicia’s initiatory comment upon his goodness in showing himself had “rattled” him. It had made him feel that he must appear condescending, and he had never condescended to any one in the whole course of his existence. He had, indeed, not even been condescended to. He had met with slanging and bullying, indifference and brutality of manner, but he had not met with condescension.
“I hope you’re well, Mrs. Hibblethwaite,” he answered. “You look it.”
“I deceive ma looks a good bit, sir,” she answered. “Mony a day ma legs is nigh as bad as Susan’s.”