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Mr. Casely
by
“What for didn’t Bob see you home?”
“Oh, I cannot be fashed with him. When he’s dressed to come out, he looks just like as if he’d got mixed suits of other folks’ clothes on.”
“You’ll not have to be proud, my woman. He’s just as good, and better, than the most of the lads round here. I never knew no good come of pride.”
“I never knew what pride meant; but if I walk with a lad I like him to be bonny, and I want to see him not look like a countryman altogether. Bob isn’t bonny.”
“Ay, well, hinny, if you want fine clothes, I doubt you’ll get nobody but the young squire.” This Mr. Casely said with a slow smile, and Mary thought suddenly, “Next Thursday afternoon.”
The reader will see that these rustics had not attained that quaint sententious wisdom proper to the rustics of fiction. In their ungrammatical way they talked much like human beings.
II.
When Mr. Ellington turned once more to the sea, after Mary Casely had passed out of sight, the look of things had somehow altered in his eyes. He went to the edge of the rocks, and looked down on the short ripples that broke into whiteness below him. He was taken with the beauty of the clear green water that moved over the shallows, and he found himself watching the swift changes of shade caused by the passage of the light breeze with something like active interest. The ragworts and the wild geraniums made a yellow and purple fretwork all around him, and the colour gave him a sense of keen gladness. He faced round and entered the quivering gloom of the woods again, but his step on the gravel was sharp and firm. Every faculty of him seemed to have waked. A blackbird bugled cheerily in the underwood, and Ellington felt a strange thrill. He reached the Hall, and sat down to wait for the dressing-bell, but the hour before dinner, usually so heavy to him, went by briskly. During dinner he made no attempt at sustained conversation, yet he answered his grandfather’s few short questions with a ready cheerfulness and fluency which made the old man regard him with narrowed eyes.
When the night came fairly on, he sat looking out of his window into the scented darkness. Had you asked him what he was thinking of, he could not have told you, yet I suppose something unusual must have been passing through his mind, for, when he had finally risen with a sigh of content to close the window, he stepped up to the looking-glass and regarded himself with curiosity. Once he smiled, as if by way of practice, and then a sudden sense of shame seemed to come over him, for he reddened and turned away. Most people will be able to guess what ailed him, but he himself did not know at the time.
The week went away but slowly. On the Wednesday evening the old Squire said: “You’ll go over to Branspath to-morrow morning early. Richards will drive you in, and you must call on Chernside and tell him I wish to see him in the afternoon about Gibson’s lease. He’ll know what you mean.” The young man shifted uneasily. “Couldn’t you send a note by Richards?” He felt his face hot as he asked the question.
“Well, yes, I could, if I chose, but I want Richards to order a few things in the High Street. He’ll pick you up when you’ve done with Chernside.” At two o’clock next day young Mr. Ellington was back again at the Hall. As he stepped down from the dog-cart, Richards pointed to the horse. “I doubt we’ve done him some harm, Sir. Forty-five minutes from the High Moor–the black mare couldn’t do it no quicker. Matchem here hasn’t been driven for three weeks now.” The horse was drooping his head, the lather slid down his flanks,–so I fancy there had been hard going.