“Is there anybody looking after you?”
“No—no—thieves! all thieves!—don’t want ’em.”
Then he made as if he would shut the door.
“I came up to see you on business,” I said; “about selling the house.”
“No business to-day,” he croaked. “Too ill. Come to-morrow—any time. Come to-morrow.” And with that he shut the door in my face.
I heard him shuffling away across the hall, kicking the fallen bell with a tinkle along the floor, and then, as I turned to go, I heard him fall and groan. I ran in hastily, and with great difficulty managed to get him on his feet again. He stood there for some few minutes, clutching me and rattling his throat; then, hanging on my arm, dragging me along with him, he paddled off down a short dark passage towards a half-open door, pushed it wide, and pulled me after him into the great empty drawing-room.
The blinds were down, and the fading February sun gleamed in on the bare worn carpet. In front of the fine fireplace, with a little dying wood-fire in it, stood an arm-chair, with a small table beside it. A candle and snuffers were on it, and a plate of stale bread-and-butter. On the high mantel-piece was a medicine bottle, full and corked.
He sank back into his chair, and lay there, breathing heavily, with his eyes closed.
“But is there nobody looking after you?” I asked, and he made some twitching movement with his fingers.
Just at that moment in flounced the gardener’s wife, drying her hands on her apron. She was a big, handsome, shameless-looking creature, with a naming eye and a hard, high color on her stiff cheeks.