“No need for that: he’s turned respectable, and is about to set up as a farmer. Mrs. Staple and I are coming to dance at your wedding.”
“Oh, Rose, I am so glad!” Nell said. “But is that man indeed from Bow Street, John? What were you doing in his company, and why are you limping? Good God, can it be—John, what does it mean?”
“Nothing disagreeable,” he assured her. “It’s too long a story to tell you now, but you have no longer anything to dread, my brave girl! I’ll tell you later, but I think I had better first get rid of this waspish fellow who wants my blood, don’t you?”
An involuntary chuckle escaped her. “Poor Mr. Babbacombe tried his best to fob him off, and I did, too, but there was no getting him to listen to a word we said. And then Tisbury came, with his cow, and they quarrelled over him! Mr. Babbacombe told Willitoft that if he knew so much about tolls he might mind the pike himself, and welcome! I thought Willitoft was going into convulsions, he was so angry!”
Mr. Willitoft appeared still to be in this condition. As John limped back to him, he stabbed an accusing finger at him, and said: “You have no right here! You are an improper person to be in charge of the gate! You have no authority! You are an interloper, and an impostor, and I shall have you arrested!”
“Well, I have no authority,” admitted John, “but I don’t think I deserve to be arrested! I haven’t robbed the trustees, you know! In fact, if you like to take the strong-box I’ll fetch it out to you.”
“Look ’ee here, Mr. Willipop!” said Stogumber severely. “I wouldn’t advise you to say no more about improper persons being in charge of this here gate, because your trustees took and authorized a cove as was very highly improper indeed to mind it for ’em. He’s snuffed it now, but p’raps you’d like to know as he was hand-in-glove with them as committed a daring robbery in these parts not so long ago—which I shall set down in my report!”
Mr. Willitoft looked quite dumbfounded by this intelligence, but having stared first at the Runner, then at John, and lastly, and with loathing, at Babbacombe, he said that he should require proof of the accusation. “And I fail to understand what that may have to do with my finding that dandy here! I won’t permit him to remain, I say!”
“Well, I don’t want to remain,” said Mr. Babbacombe. “And if you call me a dandy again, you antiquated old fidget, I’ll dashed well take off my coat, and show you how much of a dandy I am!”
“Officer!” cried Mr. Willitoft. “I call on you to witness that this fellow has offered me violence!”
“Well, you hadn’t better,” responded Stogumber. “I never heard him offer you no violence! Nice thing if a cove can’t take his coat off without a silly nodcock calling on us Runners to stop him!”
“That’s the barber!” said Chirk approvingly. “Dang me if you ain’t a great gun, Redbreast!”
“Insolence!” fumed Mr. Willitoft.
Stogumber jerked his chin at John, who went to him, a good deal of amusement in his face.
“We don’t want no trouble with this Willipop,” said Stogumber, in an undervoice. “You leave me take him up to the Blue Boar, Capting! I’ll have to tell him what made you stop on here like you have done, but you won’t care for that, I daresay.”
“Not a bit! I shall be much obliged to you if you take him away. He’s a tiresome fellow!”
Mr. Stogumber nodded, and addressed himself to Mr. Willitoft. “It’s me as is answerable for the Capting here staying to mind the pike, and very helpful he’s been. If you was to come along o’ me to my temp’ry headquarters, which is the inn up the road, I’ll tell you what’ll make you take a very different view of this business, Mr. Willipop.”
“My name,” said the incensed Mr. Willitoft, “is not Willipop but Willitoft! And I will not under any circumstances permit this person to remain in charge of the gate!”
“If you mean me,” said the Captain, “I can’t remain in charge of it. I’m leaving it today—immediately, in fact!”
This unexpected announcement threw Mr. Willitoft off his balance. “You cannot walk off and leave the gate unattended!” he said indignantly.
“Not only can, but will,” said John cheerfully.
“But this goes beyond everything! Upon my soul, such effrontery I never thought to meet with! You will stay until the trustees appoint a man in Brean’s place!”
“Oh, no, I won’t! I’m tired of gatekeeping!” John replied. “Besides, I don’t like you, and I don’t feel at all inclined to oblige you.”
“Oblige—Well—But someone must stay here!”
“That’s all right, old bubble!” said Chirk. “I’ll mind it for you! But don’t you waste no time sending a new man, because it wouldn’t suit me to stop here for long. Gatekeeping is low, and I’m a man o’ substance!”
“Now I am going to suffer a Spasm!” uttered Rose.
Mr. Willitoft did not look to be any too well satisfied with this solution to his problem, but since nothing better offered he was obliged, however ungraciously, to acquiesce. He then mounted into the gig, and was driven back to Crowford. Stogumber, pausing only to tell John that he would be returning later, followed him; and Mr. Babbacombe was at last free to deliver himself of his free and unflattering estimate of his best friend’s character.
“Well, of all the infamous things!” protested John. “I never asked you to look after the gate today! Why the devil didn’t you leave it to the boy? Where is Ben?”
“You may well ask!” said Mr. Babbacombe. “All I know is that he was here when I arrived, over an hour ago! I went in to wait for you, and he must have gone off then, for I hadn’t been in the dashed place above fifteen minutes when some fellow out here started shouting gate! By the time he’d shouted it a dozen times, I could have strangled him! Told him so. In fact, we had a bit of a turn-up.”
“Do you mean to tell me you’ve been fighting everyone who wanted to pass through the gate?” demanded John.
“No, not everyone. I planted that fellow a facer, but that’s all.”
“Except for telling the doctor’s man that you had something better to do than to keep on opening the gate,” interpolated Nell, with a mischievous look. “And I made that right! I’m afraid Ben seized the opportunity to play truant, John.”
“Young varmint! He probably slipped off to help the ostler groom your horses, Bab. That’s what he wanted to do, when I made him stay here.”
“What?” ejaculated Mr. Babbacombe, in lively dismay.
“Oh, don’t be afraid! He’s very good with horses. With all animals, Huggate tells me. I shall have to try if I can induce one of my tenant-farmers to take charge of him until he’s old enough to work under Cocking,” John said, wrinkling his brow. “I wonder—”
“If it’s all the same to you, Soldier,” interrupted Chirk, “seeing as his dad’s hopped the twig, and his brother ain’t likely to want him, even if he was to come home, which I daresay he won’t, I’ll take young Ben, and bring him up decent. He’s a likely lad, and if it hadn’t been for him opening the door to me the very first night I see you, Soldier, I never would have seen you, and, consequent, I wouldn’t be setting up for myself respectable, nor marrying Rose neither. So, if Rose ain’t got no objection, we’ll take Benny along with us.”
“Certainly we will!” Rose said, a martial light in her eye. “Many’s the time, since his mother died, I’ve wanted to give him a good wash, poor little fellow, and mend his clothes, and teach him his manners!”
“Well, he may not relish that overmuch,” said John, grinning, “but there’s no doubt he’d far rather be with Jerry than with me.”
“John,” said Nell, who had been frowning at the horses, “why have you brought those two horses here? That brown belongs to my cousin, and the bay is Coate’s!”
“Well, yes, dearest! The thing is—but let us go into the house! At least, I must stable Beau first!”