Part 28 (1/2)

”Why, Skettle, this is worse than ''Twas seven long years ago!'”

exclaimed Jack.

”On that day, Master Jack, I swore that if ever a time came when I'd a chance of serving you, I'd do it. It did not seem very likely then, for we all thought you'd be the next squire; but now, Master Jack, I should be grateful if you'd borrow ten pounds of me.”

”Nonsense,” cried Jack. ”Don't be an idiot, Skettle. _You_ a lawyer!

why, you're too soft for anything but a washerwoman. There, good-bye; remember me to little Ned when you write, and tell him I hope he'll grow up a little harder than his father. Good-bye,” and he shook the thin, skinny claw heartily.

Old Skettle stood and looked after him, his right hand fumbling in his waistcoat pocket; and when Jack had got quite out of sight he pulled the hand out, and with it a small sc.r.a.p of paper with a few words written on it, and a seal. It was just such a sc.r.a.p of paper which might have been torn from a letter, and the seal was the Davenant seal, with its griffin and spear plainly stamped.

Old Skettle looked at it a moment curiously, then shook his head.

”No, I was right after all in not giving it to him; it may be nothing--nothing at all. And yet--it's the squire's handwriting, for it's his seal, and what was it lying outside the terrace for? Where's the other part of it, and what was the other part like? I'll keep it. I don't say that there's any good in it, but I'll keep it. Not a mourning-ring or a walking-stick! All--house, lands, money--to Mr.

Stephen, with the sneaking face and the silky tongue. Poor Master Jack!

I--I wish he'd taken that ten-pound note; it burns a hole in my pocket.

Not--a--mourning-ring,” he muttered. ”It's not like the squire, for he was fond of Master Jack, and if I'm not half the idiot he called me, the old man hated Mr. Stephen. I seem to feel that there's something wrong.

I'll keep this bit of paper;” and he restored the sc.r.a.p to its place and returned to the ”Bush” with as much expression on his face as one might expect to see on a blank skin of parchment.

Jack was more moved than he would have liked to admit by old Skettle's sympathy and offer of a.s.sistance, and in a softened mood, produced by the little incident, sat and smoked his pipe with a lighter spirit.

After all he was young, and--and--well, things might turn up; at any rate, if the worst came to the worst, he could earn his living at driving a coach-and-four, or, say, as a navvy.

”I shouldn't make a bad light porter,” he mused, ”only there are no light porters now. I wonder what will become of me. Anyhow, I'd rather live on an Abernethy biscuit a day than take a penny from Stephen or borrow ten pounds from Skettle. Stephen. Squire of Hurst Leigh! He'll make a funny squire. I don't believe he knows a pheasant from a barn-door fowl, or a Berks.h.i.+re pig from a pump-handle. I should have made a better squire than he. Never mind; it's no use crying over spilt milk!”

Jack was certainly not the man to cry over milk spilt or strewn, and long before the train had reached Arkdale he had forgotten his ill-luck and the mystery attending the will, and all his thoughts were fixed on the beautiful girl who dwelt in a woodman's hut in the midst of Warden Forest.

Forbidden fruit is always the sweetest, and Jack felt that the fruit was forbidden here. What on earth business had he, a ruined man, to be lounging about Warden, or any other forest, in the hope of getting a sight of, or a few words with, a girl, whom, be she as lovely as a peri, could be nothing to him? What good could he do? On the contrary, perhaps, a great deal of harm; for ten to one the woodman would cut up rough, and there would be a row.

But he felt, somehow, that he had made a promise, and promises were sacred things to Jack--excepting always promises to pay--and a row had rather a charm for him.

Nevertheless, when the train drew up at Arkdale Station, he had quite resolved to wait until the London train came up, and as such resolutions generally end, it ended in giving up the idea and starting for Warden.

Jack was not sentimental. Men with good appet.i.tes and digestions seldom are; but his heart beat as he entered the charmed center of the great elms and oaks which fringed the forest, and the whole atmosphere seemed full of a strange fascination.

”I wonder what she will say, how she will look?” he kept asking himself.

”I'd walk a thousand miles to hear her voice, to look into her eyes. Oh, I'm a worse idiot than old Skettle! What can her eyes and her voice be to me? By Jove, though, I might turn woodman and--and----” marry her, he was going to say, but the thought seemed so bold, so--well, so coa.r.s.e in connection with such a beautiful person, that Jack actually blushed and frowned at his effrontery.

He found no difficulty in recognizing the way, and strode along at a good pace, which, however, grew slower as he neared the clearing in which stood Gideon Rolfe's cottage, and just before he emerged from the wood into it he stopped, and felt with a faint wonder that his heart was beating fast.

It was a new sensation for Master Jack, and it upset him.

”This won't do,” he said; ”I must keep cool. A child would get the better of me while I am like this; and I mustn't forget I've got to face that wooden-faced woodman. Courage, my boy, courage!”

And with a resolute front he stepped into the clearing.

Yes, there was the cottage, but why on earth were the shutters up.

With a strange misgiving he walked up to the door and knocked.