Ambrotox and Limping Dick Part 27

Melchard took another step towards the couple.

"Better let well alone, Mr. Melchard," said Dixon Mallaby sternly. "Your servant has already made trouble enough."

Throughout these few strained moments d.i.c.k had borne himself as a man concerned only with his daughter. But at this moment Dixon Mallaby caught a gleam from his eyes which a.s.sured him that the least familiarity or impertinence of Melchard's would be resented in a manner likely to divert the crowd's lingering anger from Mut-mut to his master.

Much as he disliked Melchard and his indefinitely unpleasant reputation, he was not going to have his match spoiled by the beating and kicking to a jelly of a scented and dandified Millsborough dentist.

So, ignoring Melchard, he went up to Sam Bunce.

"I am afraid your daughter is hardly as strong as you thought, Mr.

Bunce," he said.

Melchard, with a finicking air of nonchalance, stood where he was left, lighting a cigarette.

"'Tis nowt but she's frit with that flay-boggart of a Chinaman," said d.i.c.k, "wi'out it be she trembles lest 'er daddy gets fightin' agen.

There, then, little la.s.s," he said, stooping to her ear, and coaxing back courage, thought the parson, with a voice extraordinarily tender.

"Way out o' t' crowd her vitals'll settle back to rights and she'll foot it another six mile singing."

"Then you won't see our match, Mr. Bunce?"

"'T' la.s.s knows nowt o' cricket," replied d.i.c.k. "'Mornin' seemed like she relished going to t' fun and press o't. But now she's feared o'

seein' that blasted ogre again. So, thankin' you, sir, for your lift and your good heart to us, we'll just foot it along o'er t' moor."

Dixon Mallaby shook hands with him; the girl, as she drew away from Sam Bunce's arm, bobbed the parson a curtsey. But she never turned her face to him, and Mallaby, thoughtfully watching the pair down the road to the south-west, observed that she never once looked back; for even when, being almost indistinguishable among the moving crowd at the corner of the green, they were hailed by the ostler, toddling quickly from the yard, waving a handkerchief and crying: "Hey, Mr. Bunce, Mr. Sam'l Bunce!" it was only the man who turned his head, waving his hand as if in reply to a belated farewell.

The parson swung round in time to see Melchard s.n.a.t.c.h the handkerchief from the ostler's hand.

Feeling the clergyman's eyes upon him, he muttered: "Looks like one of mine," and ran the hem quickly through his fingers, prying into the corners.

At the third, he found a mark, and dropped the handkerchief on the stones.

"Of course not," he said, and laughed. "Stupid of me, when I hadn't been in the stables."

Dixon Mallaby picked it up.

"Tis t'yoong wumman's," objected Bandy-legs. "Dropped un inside, stablin' t' 'osses."

But the parson put the handkerchief in his pocket.

"I am acquainted with Miss Bunce," he said. "Perhaps I shall see them again."

With a feeling which he found unreasonable, that he had protected a good woman from a bad man, Mr. Dixon Mallaby went to the dressing-room in "The Royal George."

Out of Melchard's sight, he examined the handkerchief--a lady's, marked with the embroidered initials A.C., and it struck him, once more with a sense of unreason, not only that the beastly dentist had discovered that these letters did not stand for Araminta Bunce, but that he knew the names which they were here intended to represent.

CHAPTER XIX.

SAPPHIRE AND EMERALD.

"What is it?" asked Amaryllis, as d.i.c.k turned to a shout, waving his hand.

"I don't want to know what he wants, so I take his antics for good byes.

Come on--let's get into the thick of this lot."

"Was he suspicious?" she asked, when a bend in the road had hidden "The Royal George" and even the village green.

"Melchard? Yes--on general principles. No more than that--unless----"

"There's that cut on your cheek, d.i.c.k," said Amaryllis.

"And there's the colour of your hair, la-a.s.s," he answered, laughing.

"He never saw under the bonnet," and she whisked the pig-tail forward over her shoulder. "Look at that," she said.

"How did you make it that common brown?" he asked, astonished.

"Mother Brundage," said Amaryllis, "greased her hands from the frying-pan and rubbed it down hand over hand as if she were hoisting a sail. The Marquis of Ontario," she said, "would _know_ I wasn't his daughter, with that-coloured hair."

"Then why did you go all to pieces," asked d.i.c.k, "at the sound of Melchard's voice?"

"It was that frightful man made me feel queer. Just as I was getting better, I heard Melchard, and I thought the best place for my aristocratic nose was on my daddy's shoulder. d.i.c.k!" she cried, looking up at his solemn face, "I really couldn't help feeling bad."

"Most girls 'd've fainted. You're clever as paint," he said, "you turn your two-spots into aces, and leave him in baulk every time. Poor, shaking kid! And I'd brandy in my pocket, and couldn't give it to you!"

He pulled out his flask. "Have some--you'd better."

Amaryllis with a little tender wrinkle somewhere in her beauty, laughed in his face.

"Do I look," she asked, "as if I needed Dutch courage?"

Colour of skin and splendour of eye answered their own question.

"You _look_ top-hole," he said. "But you've had a heavy call on your strength."

"What about you, then?" and she touched her left cheek, meaning his.

"One like that," she said, "and I should have been in bed for a month--or dead."

"Pepe said I was to keep on feeding you," he continued, pa.s.sing over, as he always did, she observed, her reference to himself, "and there's been no chance but that beer and cheese. I meant to stuff you again at 'The George.'"

On their left, in the very outskirts of Ecclesthorpe, was a little stone house, roofed with stone slabs, and surrounded with gardens, bee-hives and flowers. Upon a wooden arch connecting its stone gate-posts was written "Cyclists' Rest. Tea, Minerals."

"Um!" said d.i.c.k. "'Minerals' always makes me think of museums, but it only means ginger-pop and wuss. Tea's the thing, if brandy isn't."

He pushed the gate open; the hinges screamed, and a young woman came to the door of the cottage. As they went towards her through hives and wallflowers,

"How the bees do b.u.mble!" said Amaryllis.