Uncle Silas Part 79

No answer.

'Miss Maud wants to go into the town,' she insisted.

'We wants many a thing we can't get,' he growled, stepping into his habitation.

'Please open the gate,' I said, advancing.

He half turned on his threshold, and made a dumb show of touching his hat, although he had none on.

'Can't, ma'am; without an order from master, no one goes out here.'

'You won't allow me and my maid to pa.s.s the gate?' I said.

''Tisn't _me_, ma'am,' said he; 'but I can't break orders, and no one goes out without the master allows.'

And without awaiting further parley, he entered, shutting his hatch behind him.

So Mary and I stood, looking very foolish at one another. This was the first restraint I had experienced since Milly and I had been refused a pa.s.sage through the Windmill paling. The rule, however, on which Crowle insisted I felt confident could not have been intended to apply to me. A word to Uncle Silas would set all right; and in the meantime I proposed to Mary that we should take a walk--my favourite ramble--into the Windmill Wood.

I looked toward d.i.c.kon's farmstead as we pa.s.sed, thinking that Beauty might have been there. I did see the girl, who was plainly watching us. She stood in the doorway of the cottage, withdrawn into the shade, and, I fancied, anxious to escape observation. When we had pa.s.sed on a little, I was confirmed in that belief by seeing her run down the footpath which led from the rear of the farm-yard in the direction contrary to that in which we were moving.

'So,' I thought, 'poor Meg falls from me!'

Mary Quince and I rambled on through the wood, till we reached the windmill itself, and seeing its low arched door open, we entered the chiaro-oscuro of its circular bas.e.m.e.nt. As we did so I heard a rush and the creak of a plank, and looking up, I saw just a foot--no more--disappearing through the trap-door.

In the case of one we love or fear intensely, what feats of comparative anatomy will not the mind unconsciously perform? Constructing the whole living animal from the turn of an elbow, the curl of a whisker, a segment of a hand. How instantaneous and unerring is the instinct!

'Oh, Mary, what have I seen!' I whispered, recovering from the fascination that held my gaze fast to the topmost rounds of the ladder, that disappeared in the darkness above the open door in the loft. 'Come, Mary--come away.'

At the same instant appeared the swarthy, sullen face of d.i.c.kon Hawkes in the shadow of the aperture. Having but one serviceable leg, his descent was slow and awkward, and having got his head to the level of the loft he stopped to touch his hat to me, and to hasp and lock the trap-door.

When this was done, the man again touched his hat, and looked steadily and searchingly at me for a second or so, while he got the key into his pocket.

'These fellahs stores their flour too long 'ere, ma'am. There's a deal o'

trouble a-looking arter it. I'll talk wi' Silas, and settle that.'

By this time he had got upon the worn-tiled floor, and touching his hat again, he said--

'I'm a-goin' to lock the door, ma'am!'

So with a start, and again whispering--

'Come, Mary--come away'--

With my arm fast in hers, we made a swift departure.

'I feel very faint, Mary,' said I. 'Come quickly. There's n.o.body following us?'

'No, Miss, dear. That man with the wooden leg is putting a padlock on the door.'

'Come _very_ fast,' I said; and when we had got a little farther, I said, 'Look again, and see whether anyone is following.'

'No one, Miss,' answered Mary, plainly surprised. 'He's putting the key in his pocket, and standin' there a-lookin' after us.'

'Oh, Mary, did not you see it?'

'What, Miss?' asked Mary, almost stopping.

'Come on, Mary. Don't pause. They will observe us,' I whispered, hurrying her forward.

'What did you see, Miss?' repeated Mary.

'_Mr. Dudley_,' I whispered, with a terrified emphasis, not daring to turn my head as I spoke.

'Lawk, Miss!' remonstrated honest Quince, with a protracted intonation of wonder and incredulity, which plainly implied a suspicion that I was dreaming.

'Yes, Mary. When we went into that dreadful room--that dark, round place--I saw his foot on the ladder. _His_ foot, Mary I can't be mistaken. _I won't be questioned_. You'll _find_ I'm right. He's _here_. He never went in that s.h.i.+p at all. A fraud has been practised on me--it is infamous--it is terrible. I'm frightened out of my life. For heaven's sake, look back again, and tell me what you see.'

'_Nothing_, Miss,' answered Mary, in contagious whispers, 'but that wooden-legged chap, standin' hard by the door.'

'And no one with him?'

'No one, Miss.'

We got without pursuit through the gate in the paling. I drew breath so soon as we had reached the cover of the thicket near the chestnut hollow, and I began to reflect that whoever the owner of the foot might be--and I was still instinctively certain that it was no other than Dudley--concealment was plainly his object. I need not, then, be at all uneasy lest he should pursue us.

As we walked slowly and in silence along the gra.s.sy footpath, I heard a voice calling my name from behind. Mary Quince had not heard it at all, but I was quite certain.

It was repeated twice or thrice, and, looking in considerable doubt and trepidation under the hanging boughs, I saw Beauty, not ten yards away, standing among the underwood.

I remember how white the eyes and teeth of the swarthy girl looked, as with hand uplifted toward her ear, she watched us while, as it seemed, listening for more distant sounds.

Beauty beckoned eagerly to me, advancing, with looks of great fear and anxiety, two or three short steps toward me.

'_She_ baint to come,' said Beauty, under her breath, so soon as I had nearly reached her, pointing without raising her hand at Mary Quince.

'Tell her to sit on the ash-tree stump down yonder, and call ye as loud as she can if she sees any fellah a-comin' this way, an' rin ye back to me;'

and she impatiently beckoned me away on her errand.

When I returned, having made this dispositions, I perceived how pale the girl was.

'Are you ill, Meg?' I asked.

'Never ye mind. Well enough. Listen, Miss; I must tell it all in a crack, an' if she calls, rin awa' to her, and le' me to myself, for if fayther or t'other un wor to kotch me here, I think they'd kill me a'most. His.h.!.+'

She paused a second, looking askance, in the direction where she fancied Mary Quince was. Then she resumed in a whisper--

'Now, la.s.s, mind ye, ye'll keep what I say to yourself. You're not to tell that un nor any other for your life, mind, a word o' what I'm goin' to tell ye.'