Part 2 (1/2)
Jabez looked dubiously first at the sky and then at Kitty.
”I can drive; you know I can,” she said eagerly. ”Now don't be nasty, Jabez; we have got trouble enough as it is.”
”'Tis my belief there's a nasty storm brewing--”
”I love a storm, especially when I am driving through it.”
”I was putting in the old mare on purpose, 'cause she stands thunder and lightning better than what Billy does, but--”
”Jabez, you may say what you like, but I am going, unless father stops me; so don't bother to say any more about it. I know the way, and father trusts me to drive.”
”I wasn't going against 'ee, Miss Kitty. If you'm set on it you'm set on it, and 'tisn't no manner of use for me to talk.”
Dan and the others came sauntering down from the garden again.
”Jabez, you might give me the nail out of that bit of wood,” said Dan; ”every half-ounce counts, and I want to get enough iron to sell.”
Jabez shook his head knowingly. He would rather not have had any further reference made to the affair, for he was really devoted to them all, and was ashamed of his part in it. He always made a point, though, of seeming to distrust them; he thought it safer.
”Ah, I ain't so sure,” he began, ”that it'd be wise of me to let 'ee 'ave it. I dunno what more 'arm you mightn't be doing with it.”
”We couldn't do more harm than you have done already,” snapped Dan.
”You've nailed Aunt Pike fast to the house with it, and it will take more than we can do to get her away again.”
”What be saying of, sir?” asked Jabez, bewildered, and suddenly realizing that their sombre faces and manner meant something more than usual. ”Mrs. Pike--”
”Father is going to send and ask Aunt Pike to live here, and it's your fault,” said Betty concisely. ”It was your complaining about Dan that did it.”
Jabez gasped. He knew the lady well, and preserved a vivid recollection of her former visit. ”She hain't a-coming visiting here again, is she, sur?” he groaned.
”Visiting! It's much worse than that, a thousand times worse. She is coming here for good, to manage all of us--and you too!” they gasped.
Jabez dropped helpless on to an upturned bucket, the picture of hopeless dejection. ”There won't be no peace in life no more,” he said, ”and I shan't be allowed to show my nose in the kitchen. I'd have had my old 'ead scat abroad every day of my life and never have told rather than I'd have helped to do this. Was it really me telling on 'ee, sur, that made the master settle it so?”
”Yes,” nodded Dan, ”that finished it.”
Jabez groaned again in sheer misery. ”I dunno, I'm sure, whatever made me take and do it. I've stood so much more from all of 'ee and never so much as opened my lips. I reckon 'twas the weather made me a bit peppery like--”
”It was fate,” interposed Kitty gravely. ”It must have been something, for sure,” breathed Jabez, with a dreary shake of his head.
”Make haste and get Prue harnessed,” said Kitty, ”or the storm will begin before we start, and then father won't let me go;” and Jabez, with another gloomy shake of his head, rose from the upturned bucket and proceeded with his task.
CHAPTER III.
A DRIVE AND A SLICE OF CAKE.
With one thing and another Jabez was so agitated as to be quite incapable of hurrying, and Kitty, who could harness or unharness a horse as well as any one, had to help him. She fastened the trace on one side, buckled up the girths, and finally clambered up into the carriage while Jabez was still fumbling with the bit and the reins. She caught the braid of her frock in the step as she mounted, and ripped down many inches of it, but that did not trouble her at all.
”Have you got a knife in your pocket, Dan?” she asked calmly; and Dan not only produced a knife, but hacked off the hanging braid for her and threw it away.
”I do wish I could go too,” said Betty wistfully. ”I'd love to drive all over the downs at night, particularly if there was a storm coming.