"And yet," he said, "I only ask myself if all this lifts me high enough to say what I want to say. You know me for a modest man, Mrs.

Northover."

"None more so, Job."

"And therefore I've thought a good deal about it and come to it by the way of reason as well as inclination. In fact I began to think about what I'm going to say now, many years ago after your husband died. And I just let the idea go on till the appointed time, if ever it should come; and when my uncle died and left a bit over four thousand pounds to me, I felt the hour had struck!"

Nelly's heart sank.

"You're going?" she said. "All this means that you are going into business on your own, Legg."

"Let me finish. But be sure of one thing; I'm not going if I can stay with peace and honour. If I can't, then, of course, I must go. To go would be a terrible sad thing for me, for I've grown into this place and feel as much a part of it as the beer engine, or the herbaceous border.

But I had to weigh the chances, and I may say my cautious bent of mind showed very clearly what they were. And, so, first, I'll tell what a flight I've took and what a thought I've dared, and then I'll ask you, being a woman with a quick mind and tongue, to answer nothing for the moment, and say no word that you may wish to recall after."

"All very wise and proper, I'm sure."

"If it ain't, G.o.d forgive me, seeing I've been working it out in my mind for very near twenty years. And I say this, that being now a man of capital, and a healthy and respectable man, and well thought of, I believe, and nothing against me to my knowledge, I offer to marry you, Nelly Northover. The idea, of course, comes upon you like a bolt from the blue, as I can see by your face; but before you answer 'No,' I must say I've loved you in a respectful manner for many years, and though I knew my place too well to say so, I let it appear by faithful service and very sharp eyes always on your interests--day and night you may say."

"That is true," she said. "I didn't know my luck."

"I don't say that. Any honourable man would have done so much, very likely; but perhaps--however, I'm not here to praise myself but to praise you; and I may add I never in a large experience saw the woman--maid, wife or widow--to hold a candle to you for brains and energy and far-reaching fine qualities in general. And therefore I never could be worthy of you, and I don't pretend to it, and the man who did would be a very vain and windy fool; but such is my high opinion and great desire to be your husband that I risk, you may say, everything by offering myself."

"This is a very great surprise, Job."

"So great that you must do me one good turn and not answer without letting it sink in, if you please. I have a right to beg that. Of course I know on the spur of the moment the really nice-minded woman always turns down the adventurous male. 'Tis their delicate instinct so to do.

But you won't do that--for fairness to me. And there's more to it yet, because we've got to think of fairness to you also. I wouldn't have you buy a pig in a poke and take a man of means without knowing where you stood. So I may say that if you presently felt the same as I do about it, I should spend a bit of my capital on 'The Seven Stars,' which, in my judgment, is now crying for capital expenditure."

"It is," admitted Mrs. Northover, "I grant you that."

"Very well, then. It would be my pride--"

He was interrupted, for the bell of the inn rang and a moment later Raymond Ironsyde appeared in the hall. He had come for supper and bed.

"Good evening, Mrs. Northover," he said. "I'm belated and starving into the bargain. Have you got a room?"

"For that matter, yes," she answered not very enthusiastically. "But surely 'The Tiger's' your house, sir?"

"I'm not bound to 'The Tiger,' and very likely shall never go there again. Gurd is getting too big for his shoes and seems to think he's called upon to preach sermons to his customers, besides doing his duty as a publican. If I want sermons I can go to church for them, not to an inn. Give me some supper and a bottle of your best claret. I'm tired and bothered."

A customer was a customer and Mrs. Northover had far too much experience to take up the cudgels for her friend over the way. She guessed pretty accurately at the subject of Richard Gurd's discourse, yet wondered that he should have spoken. For her own part, while quite as indignant as others and more sorry than many that this cloud should have darkened a famous local name, she held it no personal business of hers.

"I'll see what cold meat we've got. Would you like a chicken, sir?"

"No--beef, and plenty of it. And let me have a room."

Job Legg, concealing the mighty matters in his own bosom, soon waited upon Raymond and found him in a sulky humour. The claret was not to his liking and he ordered spirits. He began to smoke and drink, and from an unamiable mood soon thawed and became talkative. He bade Job stay and listen to him.

"I've got a h.e.l.l of a lot on my mind," he said, "and it's a relief to talk to a sensible man. There aren't many knocking about so far as I can see."

He rambled on touching indirectly, as he imagined, at his own affairs, but making it clear to the listener that a very considerable tumult raged in Raymond's own mind. Then came Mrs. Northover, told the guest that it was nearer two o'clock than one, and hoped he was soon going to bed.

He promised to do so and she departed; but the faithful Job, himself not sleepy, kept Raymond company. Unavailingly he urged the desirability of sleep, but young Ironsyde sat on until he was very drunk. Then Mr. Legg helped him upstairs and a.s.sisted him to his bed.

It was after three o'clock before he retired himself and found his mind at liberty to speculate upon the issue of his own great adventure.

CHAPTER XX

A CONFERENCE

Jenny Ironsyde came to see Ernest Churchouse upon the matter of the marriage. She found him pensive and a little weary. According to his custom he indulged in ideas before approaching the subject just then uppermost in all minds in Bridetown.

"I have been suffering from rather a severe dose of the actual," he said; "at present, in the minds of those about me, there is no room for any abstraction. We are confronted with facts--painful facts--a most depressing condition for such a mind as mine. There are three orders of intelligence, Jenny. The lowest never reaches higher than the discussion of persons; the second talks about places, which is certainly better; the third soars into the region of ideas; and when one finds a person indulge in ideas, then court their friendship, for ideas are the only sound basis of intellectual interchanges. It is so strange to see an educated person, who might be discussing the deepest mysteries and n.o.blest problems of life, preferring to relate the errors of a domestic servant, or deplore the price of sprats."

"All very well for you," declared Miss Ironsyde; "from your isolated situation, above material cares and anxieties, you can affect this superiority; but what about Mrs. Dinnett? You would very soon be grumbling if Mrs. Dinnett put the deepest mysteries and n.o.blest problems of life before the price of sprats. It is true that man cannot live by bread alone; and it is equally true that he cannot live without it. The highest flights are impossible without cooking, and cooking would be impossible if all aspired to the highest flights."

"As a matter of fact, Mrs. Dinnett is my present source of depression,"

he said. "All is going as it should go, I suppose. The young people are reconciled, and I have arranged that Sabina should be married from here a fortnight hence. Thus, as it were, I shield and protect her and support her against back-biting and evil tongues."

"It is splendid of you."

"Far from it. I am only doing the obvious. I care much for the girl. But Mary Dinnett, despite the need to be sanguine and expeditious, permits herself an amount of obstinate melancholy which is most ill-judged and quite unjustified by the situation. Nothing will satisfy her. She scorns hope. She declines to take a cheerful view. She even confesses to a premonition they are not going to be married after all. She says that her grandmother had second sight and believes that the doubtful gift has been handed down to her."

"This is very bad for Sabina."

"Of course it is. I impress that upon her mother. The girl has been through a great deal. She is highly strung at all times, and these affairs have wrought havoc with her intelligence for the moment. Her one thought and feverish longing is to be married, and her mother's fatuous prophecies that she never will be are causing serious nervous trouble to Sabina. I feel sure of it. They may even be doing permanent harm."

"You should suppress Mary."

"I endeavour to do so. I put much serving upon her; but her frame of mind is such that her energy is equal to anything. You had better see her and caution her. From another woman, words of wisdom would carry more weight than mine. As to Sabina, I have warned her against her mother--a strong thing to do, but I felt it to be my duty."

They saw Mary Dinnett then, and Miss Ironsyde quickly realised that there were subtle tribulations and shades of doubt in the mother's mind beyond Mr. Churchouse's power to appreciate. Indeed, Mrs. Dinnett, encouraged so to do by the sympathetic presence of Jenny Ironsyde, strove to give reasons for her continued gloom.

"You must be more hopeful and put a brighter face on it, Mary, if only for the sake of the young people," declared the visitor. "You're not approaching the marriage from the right point of view. We must forget the past and keep our minds on the future and proceed with this affair just as though it were an ordinary marriage without any disquieting features. We have to remember that they love each other and really are well suited. The future is chequered by certain differences between my nephews, which have not yet been smoothed out; but I am sure that they will be; and meantime you need feel no fear of any inconvenience for Sabina. I am responsible."

"I know all that," said Mrs. Dinnett, "and your name is in my prayers when I rise up and when I go to bed. But while there's a lot other people can do for 'em, there's also a deal they can only do for themselves; and, in my opinion, they are not doing it. It's no good us playacting and forgetting the past and pretending everything is just as it should be, if they won't."

"But they have."

"Sabina has. I doubt if he has. I don't know how you find him, but when I see him he's not in a nice temper and not taking the situation in the spirit of a happy bridegroom--very far from it. And my second-sight, which I get from my grandmother, points to one thing: that there won't be no wedding."

"This is preposterous," declared Miss Ironsyde. "The day is fixed and every preparation far advanced."

"That's nought to a wayward mind like his. He's got in a state now when I wouldn't trust him a yard. And I hope to G.o.d you'll hold the reins tight, miss, and not slacken till they're man and wife. Once let him see his way clear to bolt, and bolt he will."

Mr. Churchouse protested, while Jenny only sighed. Sabina's mother was echoing her own secret uneasiness, but she lamented that others had marked it as well as herself.