“You would run away from us, eh! We’ll cure you of your tricks, my lady. This is the last time you’ll laugh at us, I guess.”
“Devil—”
“That’s as it may be, my dear. Quick, lad, tie up her feet. I’ll shove this rag in her mouth and tie the cloth over it. That’s the trick. Up with her, Dan, she’s yours now, I reckon.”
Dan took Bess in his arms, hugging her tight to his broad chest, and carried her through the orchard and out into the meadow. Isaac and Solomon followed, keeping a keen watch behind them to see whether they were to be meddled with from the house. On the road over Rodenham heath old Isaac’s wagon was waiting, with three stout horses in the team. One of Solomon’s sons, Enoch, held the ropes. There was a pile of loose straw in the wagon, and Dan, half throwing Bess in over the tail-board, climbed in after her and covered her with the straw. Isaac and Solomon clambered in after him, and, whipping up the horses, they went at a trot for the wooded slopes of Pevensel.
XXIII
Richard Jeffray’s recovery from the small-pox was hailed by the tenants of the Rodenham estate as nothing less than a public blessing. The farmers were astute enough to know when they had a generous “booby” for a landlord, a man who could easily be cheated, and who was ready to listen to their grievances instead of sensibly grinding the gold out of their tough and materialistic hearts. Hence they listened with unction to Dr. Sugg’s thanksgiving sermon, and thanked Providence when they realized that there would be no raising of their rents.
Even the Lady Letitia experienced a comfortable sensation when she read the good news in a letter from Dr. Sugg, or, rather, when Parsons read it to her at a distance of three paces, lest there should be any infection in the sheet. Jeffray was an amiable relative who might oblige her delicately on occasions. As for the Hardacre folk, their sympathies were centred for the moment in their own family, for Jilian was abed with the small-pox, and Sir Peter and Mr. Lot were much agitated in their minds as to how her precious complexion would withstand the ravages of the disease.
There were flowers on the broad window-seat of Jeffray’s bedroom window, flowers that should have testified to some gentle and soft-eyed presence in the house. Who was it that had set those gorgeous king-cups in that bowl of blue, filled those tall vases with wild hyacinths, and ranged the tulips red and white in pots along the window-ledge? No woman’s hand had done the deed. Blunt Dick Wilson was the culprit on this occasion. Wilson, whose creased and cynical face had come back through Rodenham, tanned by the sea-wind and the sun upon the downs. Peter Gladden had shown no reluctance to delegate many of his duties to his master’s friend, and the painter had put aside his brushes and busied himself with phials and feeding-cups, spoons and red flannel, warming-pans and iced-wine.
One May morning Richard sat at his open window, looking over the park towards Rodenham village and the purple slopes of Pevensel. There had been no Maying in the village that month, and the blackthorn and the broom, the palm and wild-cherry, had escaped unbroken, for though the pest appeared to have spent its malice, death had entered many of the cottages. George Gogg, of the Wheat Sheaf, had lost his daughter, a plump, black-haired, bright-eyed wench, whose red cheeks and red ribbons had turned many a young farmer’s head. Old Sturtevant, the cobbler, had gone the way of all flesh, and several more of the villagers, men, women, and children, were lying under the green-sward in Rodenham church-yard. As for Jeffray, he was but in a feeble way himself, and Surgeon Stott had decreed it that he was to be troubled with no news from the outer world as yet.
Richard, muffled up in a dressing-gown, with dusky mottlings covering his thin face, sat before the open window and looked out over the park. The disease had seized him sharply, but not dangerously, and even Richard had vanity enough to feel some satisfaction at Surgeon Stott’s verdict that he would be left with few scars. There is a delicious languor in convalescence when the world seems to spread itself anew before the reawakened eyes, and life is reborn like a dream of renewed youth into the heart. Nature seems to welcome the exile with smiling eyes and soft breathings of her green-clad bosom. So might it have been for Richard that spring day as he saw the great trees standing so calm and still under the blue heavens, and the green billows of the park a-glisten under the sun.