"And I, Sir," returned the object of all this withering derision, with the most exasperating politeness, "I shall say, for having your contempt, what I could by no means have said for having your respect, which is, briefly—thank you. I, the small foreigner, take the contempt of you, the big Englishman, as the greatest compliment that can be paid from a man of your composition to a man of mine." With that, Uncle Joseph made a last fantastic bow, took his niece's arm, and followed Betsey along the passages that led to the south door, leaving Mr. Munder to compose a fit retort at his leisure.
Ten minutes later the housekeeper returned breathless to her room, and found the steward walking backward and forward in a high state of irritation.
"Pray make your mind easy, Mr. Munder," she said. "They are both clear of the house at last, and Jacob has got them well in view on the path over the moor."
CHAPTER V.
MOZART PLAYS FAREWELL.
Excepting that he took leave of Betsey, the servant-maid, with great cordiality, Uncle Joseph spoke not another word, after his parting reply to Mr. Munder, until he and his niece were alone again under the east wall of Porthgenna Tower. There he paused, looked up at the house, then at his companion, then back at the house once more, and at last opened his lips to speak.
"I am sorry, my child," he said—"I am sorry from my heart. This has been what you call in England a bad job."
Thinking that he referred to the scene which had just passed in the housekeeper's room, Sarah asked his pardon for having been the innocent means of bringing him into angry collision with such a person as Mr. Munder.
"No! no! no!" he cried. "I was not thinking of the man of the big body and the big words. He made me angry, it is not to be denied; but that is all over and gone now. I put him and his big words away from me, as I kick this stone, here, from the pathway into the road. It is not of your Munders, or your housekeepers, or your Betzees, that I now speak—it is of something that is nearer to you and nearer to me also, because I make of your interest my own interest too. I shall tell you what it is while we walk on—for I see in your face, Sarah, that you are restless and in fear so long as we stop in the neighborhood of this dungeon-house. Come! I am ready for the march. There is the path. Let us go back by it, and pick up our little baggages at the inn where we left them, on the other side of this windy wilderness of a place."
"Yes, yes, uncle! Let us lose no time; let us walk fast. Don't be afraid of tiring me; I am much stronger now."