Free Lord Tony's Wife by Emmuska Orczy Page A

placidity.
    ‘To-morrow morning!’ exclaimed Martin-Roget in a passion of fury. ‘And what the d–l am I going to do in the meanwhile?’
    The woman reiterated her offers of a seat by the fire in the coffee-room.
    ‘The men won’t mind ye, zir,’ she said, ‘heaps of ‘em are Frenchies like yourself, and I’ll tell ‘em you ain’t a spying on ‘em.’
    ‘It’s no more than five mile to chelwood,’ said the man blandly, ‘and maybe you get a better shakedown there.’
    ‘A five-mile tramp,’ growled Martin-Roget, whose wrath seemed to have spent itself before the hopelessness of his situation, ‘in the fog and gloom, and knee-deep in mud…There’ll be a sovereign for you, woman,’ he added curtly, ‘if you can give me a clean bed for the night.’
    The woman hesitated for a second or two.
    ‘You shall ‘ave my son’s bed. I know ‘e’d rather ‘ave the zovereign if ‘e was ever zo tired. This way, zir,’ she added, as she once more turned toward the house, ‘mind them ‘urdles there.’
    ‘And where am I goin’ to zleep?’ called the man from Chelwood after the two retreating figures.
    ‘I’ll look after the man for you, zir,’ said the woman; ‘for a matter of a shillin’ ‘e can sleep in the coffee-room, and I’ll give ‘im ‘is breakfast too.’
    ‘Not one farthing will I pay for the idiot,’ retorted Martin-Roget savagely. ‘Let him look after himself.’
    He had once more reached the porch. Without another word, and not heeding the protests and curses of the unfortunate man whom he had left standing shelterless in the middle of the yard, he pushed open the front door of the house and once more found himself in the passage outside the coffee-room.
    But the woman had turned back a little before she followed her guest into the house, and she called out to the man in the darkness:
    ‘You may zleep in any of them outhouses and welcome, and zure there’ll be a bit o’ porridge for ye in the mornin’!’
    ‘Think ye I’ll stop,’ came in a furious growl out of the gloom, ‘and conduct that d–d frogeater back to Chelwood? No fear. Five miles ain’t nothin’ to me, and ‘e can keep the miserable shillin’ ‘e’d ‘ave give me for my pains. Let ‘im get ‘is ‘orzes back ‘izelf and get to Chelwood as best ‘e can. I’m off, and you can tell ‘im zo from me. It’ll make ‘im sleep all the better, I reckon.’
    The woman was obviously not of a disposition that would ever argue a matter of this sort out. She had done her best, she reckoned, both for master and man, and if they chose to quarrel between themselves that was their business and not hers.
    So she quietly went into the house again; barred and bolted the door, and finding the stranger still waiting for her in the passage she conducted him to a tiny room on the floor above.
    ‘My son’s room, Mounzeer,’ she said; ‘I ‘ope as ‘ow ye’ll be comfortable.’
    ‘It will do all right,’ assented Martin-Roget. ‘Is “the Captain” sleeping in the house to-night?’ he added as with an afterthought.
    ‘Only in the coffee-room, Mounzeer. I couldn’t give ‘im a bed. “The Captain” will be leaving with the pack ‘orzes a couple of hours before dawn. Shall I tell ‘im you be ‘ere.’
    ‘No, no,’ he replied promptly. ‘Don’t tell him anything. I don’t want to see him again: and he’ll be gone before I’m awake, I reckon.’
    ‘That ‘e will, zir, most like. Good-night, zir.’
    ‘Good-night. And–mind—that lout gets the two horses back again for my use in the morning. I shall have to make my way to Chelwood as early as may be.’
    ‘Aye, aye, zir,’ assented the woman placidly. It were no use, she thought, to upset the Mounzeer’s temper once more by telling him that his guide had decamped. Time enough in the morning, when she would be less busy.
    ‘And my John can see ‘im as far as Chelwood,’ she thought to herself, as she finally closed the door on the stranger and