The Collector frowned. “Mr. Josselin,”
he answered, “I am offering you to take your
granddaughter away and have her educated. What
that will make of her I neither can tell you nor have
I means of guessing; but this I will undertake, and
give you my word of honour for it: in three years’
time she shall come back to you in all honesty, unharmed
by me or by any one. By that time she will be
a woman grown, able to decide as a woman; but she
shall come to you, nevertheless.”
The old man fumbled with a finger, scraping together
the flakes of touchwood in a tinder-box.
“D’ye hear, M’ria? His Honour
wants our Ruth to go along with him.”
The Collector glanced at the girl’s face.
Years after, and a hundred times, he recalled the
look with which she turned towards her mother.
At the same instant her mother faced about with a vacuous
silly smile.
“To larn to be a lady,” Old Josselin explained,
raising his voice as though she were deaf.
“That would be a fine thing,” she answered
mincingly, and returned her gaze to the window and
the line of shore.
Manasseh had wrapped Master Dicky up warm in a couple
of rugs, and spread a third about his feet.
In the ample state seat of the coach the child reclined
as easily as in a bed. He began to doze while
the vehicle yet jolted over the road crossing the
headland; and when it gained the track, and the wheels
rolled smoothly on the hard sand, the motion slid
him deep into slumber.
He came out of it with a start and a catch of the
breath, and for a full half-minute lay with all his
senses numbed, not so much scared as bewildered.
In his dreams he had been at home in Boston, and he
searched his little brain, wondering why he was awake,
and if he should call for Miss Quiney (who slept always
within hail, in a small bedroom); and why, when the
night-nursery window lay to the left of his bed, strange
lights should be flashing on his right, where the picture
of King William landing at Torbay hung over his washstand.
The lights moved to and fro, then they were quenched,
and all was dark about him. But he heard Manasseh’s
voice, some way off, in the darkness, and the sound
of it brought him to his bearings. He was in
the coach, he remembered; and realising this, he was
instantly glad—for he was a plucky child—that
he had not called out to summon Miss Quiney.
Had there been an accident? At any rate he was
not hurt. His father had ridden on ahead, and
would reach home many hours in advance. The boy
had learnt this from Manasseh. He reasoned that,
if an accident had happened, his father would not
hear of it—would be riding forward, further
and further into the night. He wondered how Manasseh
and the grooms would manage without his father, who
always gave the orders and was never at a loss.
