Giles Saltren caught an express andwhirled down into the west. He had nottaken a ticket for Orleigh Road Station, ashe did not choose to get out there, but at thenearest town, and there he hired a light trapin which he was driven to within half a mileof Chillacot, where he dismissed the vehicleand walked on.
He had resolved what to do. He wouldpay a hasty visit to his mother and then goon to the village, and perhaps call at theRectory. He must show himself as much aspossible.
He had hardly left the trap, when, on turninga corner, he came on Samuel Ceely and2Joan Melhuish walking together, arm in arm.The sight brought the blood into his paleface. He was behind the pair, and he was ableto notice the shabbiness of the old man andthe ungainliness of his walk. This man washis father. To him, the meanest in theparish—not to his lordship, the highest—musthe look as the author of his being.
Joan Melhuish knew nothing of Samuel’slove affair with Marianne Welsh. Shelooked up to and admired the cripple, seeinghim in the light of her girlish fancy, as thehandsome, reckless gamekeeper.
Giles’s foot lagged, but he kept his eyessteadily on the man slouching along beforehim. A new duty had fallen on him. Hemust provide for the cripple, without allowingthe secret of his relationship to becomeknown, both for the sake of his mother andfor that of the trusting Joan.
Samuel Ceely heard his step and turnedhis head, disengaged his arm from thewoman, and extended the mutilated hand towardsthe young man.
“I say—I say!” began he, with his water-blue3eyes fixed eagerly on Jingles. “I waspromised a place; Miss Arminell herself saidI should have work, two shillings a day,sweeping, and now they say she has goneaway and left no directions about me. Ifyou can put in a word with my lady, or withmy lord, mind that I was promised it.”
“How can you, Samuel, speak of my lord,when you know he is dead?”
“My lord is not dead,” answered the oldman sharply. “Master Giles is now my lord.I know what I am about.”
“And Samuel would do the work wonderfullywell,” threw in Joan; “of all the beautifulestthings that ever I see, is Samuel’ssweeping. If they were to give prizes forthat as they do for ploughing, Samuel wouldbe rich.”
“I should like,” said Giles, “to have someparticulars about my lord’s death.”
“’Tis a terrible job, sure enough,” answeredthe woman. “And folks tell strangetales about it, not half of ’em is true. They’vesat on him this afternoon.”
“The inquest already?”
...