CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

ANN STRAGGALLS TURNS MESSENGER.

It was soon school-time, and leaving her brother, who needed no instructions to send for her should any one call, Hazel Thorne hurried to her duties, read prayers with wandering mind, and then, fully resolved upon what course to pursue, she started the children at their various lessons, and at last, in the midst of the noisy buzz, went to her desk and, quite in a fit of desperation, wrote to Mr William Forth Burge, simply saying that she was in great trouble, and would he as a friend come and give her his help and counsel?

As soon as she had finished and folded the letter she began to hesitate, asking herself whether she ought not first to have written to Miss Burge; but she came to the conclusion that she had done right and picking out the most trustworthy girl she could think of at the time, she bade her take the letter up to Mr Burge's house.

Hazel Thorne was excited enough during all these proceedings but her excitement would have increased had she been aware of the fact that one of the part.i.tion shutters was slightly lowered, and from this point of vantage Mr Samuel Chute was from time to time inspecting her every act.

For Mr Chute was a good deal exercised in his spirit.

"If it isn't to be friends it shall be enemies," he said; and he not only set himself to watch, but told his mother--to use his own words--to have an eye on the next-door people, a commission which Mrs Chute seized upon with avidity, it being one greatly to her taste.

Samuel Chute, then, knew of Percy Thorne's coming before Hazel, and also who the tall, overgrown lad was. He knew of the arrival of the business letters that morning, and after due debate in his own mind, he came to the conclusion that there was something wrong.

"They won't get over me in a hurry," he muttered; and taking it that there was a conspiracy of some kind afloat, he went quite early into the school and lowered the shutter, ready to keep a watch upon Hazel's movements, and to be ready--he only knew why--with movements of his own.

So it was there that he saw Hazel looked agitated and ill at ease, and also saw her write a letter and call up one of the girls, fat Ann Straggalls--the slow, innocent and sure--being selected for the task.

Mr Chute thrust his hands through his hair and made it stick up fiercely as he left his desk, frowned all round the room, said "Sh! sh!"

in several cla.s.ses, and then walked quickly to the door, turned and gave a glance round to find every eye in the school directed at him, and then stepped out into the front just in time to find Ann Straggalls engaged in a struggle with Hazel's missive, which refused to be tucked down into the bosom of the stout young maiden's dress, consequent upon the tightness of certain strings.

"Here! Hi! Straggalls!" cried Chute, and the girl crawled shrinkingly to him in the same way as the boys would have turned, a sharp, quick call from Mr Chute always suggesting impending punishment to the youthful mind.

"How is it you are not in school, Ann Straggalls?" said the schoolmaster importantly.

"Plee, sir, teacher, sir, sent me with this letter, sir. I've got to take it, sir."

"What letter, Straggalls?"

"This letter, sir," said the girl, holding out the crumpled missive.

"Letter? Ah, a letter for you to take, eh?" he said, after a glance at the direction; and his teeth gritted together as he thought that Hazel had never written to him.

He would have detained the missive, but he dared not, and half turning upon his heel, he saw that the vicar's sisters were coming down the street, an observation which impelled him to make a quick retreat.

"There, go on," he said; "and mind and make haste back."

"Yes, sir, plee, sir, that's what teacher told me to do."

"Writing to Burge, eh?" said Mr Chute as he re-entered his school.

"That's to tell him that I spoke out to her yesterday. Ah! just let him take her part and I'll soon give him a bit of my mind. She's carrying on with him, is she? I know it as well as if I'd been told; but perhaps I shall be one too many with all of them yet."

The next minute he was bitterly regretting that he had not detained and read the letter, though he knew all the time that he dared not, and he finished up for the present by having another peep at Hazel through the slit above the shutter, expecting, as his brain suggested, that she would be writing another letter, but only finding her busy with one of the cla.s.ses.

Meanwhile, with her cheeks flushed and eyes brightened at the escape she had just had, Ann Straggalls stumped eagerly along to perform her commission, but only to encounter the Lambent sisters, before whom she stopped short compelling them also to stop or else turn off to right or left, unless they were willing to fall over her. For, according to traditional instruction at Plumton Schools, it was the proper thing for every schoolgirl who met the vicar's sisters to make a bob to each, and these two bobs Ann Straggalls diligently performed.

"Not in school, Straggalls?" said Rebecca, in a stern, inquisitorial tone of voice.

"No, 'm, please, 'm. Teacher's sent me with a letter, 'm."

"Indeed!" cried Beatrice, thrown by excitement off her guard. "To Mr Canninge?"

"No, 'm, please 'm; to Mr William Forth Burge, 'm."

"To Mr William Forth Burge!" cried Rebecca, excited in her turn. "What is Miss Thorne writing to him for?"

"Please 'm, I don't know, 'm. Teacher said I was to take this letter, 'm, and I don't know any more."

"It is very strange, Beatrice," said Rebecca querulously.

"Strange indeed," replied her sister, who felt better on finding that her suspicions were incorrect, and worse at having betrayed the bent of her own thoughts, and not troubling herself about her sister's feelings in the least.

"Ought we to do anything, Beatrice?" said Rebecca, whose fingers itched to get hold of the letter.

"Do anything?" said Beatrice.

"Yes," said Rebecca in a low tone, unheard by Ann Straggalls, whose large moist lips were some distance apart to match her eyelids, as she stared at the vicar's sisters; "ought we to let that note go?"

"Oh, I could not think of interfering," said Beatrice, shaking her head.

"Besides, it would be impossible. Henry gives the new mistress great lat.i.tude, and possibly he might approve of her corresponding with Mr Burge."

"I--I don't like letting her go," said Rebecca, hesitating, a fact of which her sister was well aware. "I don't think it is proper, and it seems to me to be our duty to take some steps in such matters as these."

"I shall not interfere with Miss Thorne in any way," replied Beatrice.

"Henry is, I dare say, quite correct in his views respecting the mistress's behaviour, and I certainly shall not expose myself to the risk of being taken to task again by my brother for interfering, as he called it at the schools. You had better make haste, Straggalls, and deliver your message."

"Please, 'm, it's a letter, 'm," said Ann Straggalls in open eyed delight at catching the speaker tripping.

"Make haste on and deliver your letter, child," said the lady with dignity; and the girl made two more bobs and hurried away.

"It was quite impossible, Rebecca," said Beatrice reprovingly. "The letter is no business of ours."

"Are we going down to the school to-day?" asked Rebecca.

"Not now," replied her sister; "but we might call upon Mrs Thorne. I wonder what Mr Chute has had to do with that letter to Mr Burge."

"Yes, I was wondering too. He was certainly talking to the girl Straggalls as we came into sight."

And then, itching with curiosity, the sisters walked on.

Ann Straggalls held her head a little higher as she went on up the street through the market-place. She felt that she was an amba.s.sadress of no little importance, as she had been stopped twice on her way.

As luck had it, she came upon the Reverend Henry Lambent as he was leaving the Vicarage gates, looking very quiet and thoughtful, and he would have pa.s.sed Straggalls unnoticed, had not that young lady been ready to recognise him, which, nerved as she was by her pleasant feeling of self-satisfied importance, she did by first nearly causing him to tumble over her, as she made the customary bob by way of incense, and then saying aloud--

"Plee, sir, I've got a letter."

"A letter, child! Let me see--oh, it is Straggalls."