"A poor little wizened thing. She had beautiful golden hair, though."
"Nay, sir. I asked him after her one day when he came home for good. He never answered me, and he turned away as if I had stung him. She has followed her mother, no doubt. And so now she is gone he's well-to-do; and that is the way of it, sir. God sends mouths where there is no meat, and meat where there's no mouths. But He knows best, and sees both worlds at once. We can only see this one--that's full of trouble."
Monckton now began to yawn, for he wanted to be alone and think over the schemes that floated before him now.
"You are sleepy, sir," said Mrs. Dawson. "I'll go and see your bed is all right."
He thanked her and filled her glass. She tossed it off like a man this time, and left him to doze in his chair.
Doze, indeed! Never did a man's eyes move to and fro more restlessly. Every faculty was strung to the utmost.
At first as all the _dramatis personae_ he was in search of came out one after another from that gossip's tongue, he was amazed and delighted to find that instead of having to search for one of them in one part of England, and another in another, he had got them all ready to his hand. But soon he began to see that they were too near each other, and some of them interwoven, and all the more dangerous to attack.
He saw one thing at a glance. That it would be quite a mistake to settle a plan of action. That is sometimes a great advantage in dealing with the unguarded. But it creates a stiffness. Here all must be supple and fitted with watchful tact to the situation as it rose. Everything would have to be shot flying.
Then as to the immediate situation, Reader, did ever you see a careful setter run suddenly into the middle of a covey who were not on their feet nor close together, but a little dispersed and reposing in high cover in the middle of the day? No human face is ever so intense or human form more rigid. He knows that one bird is three yards from his nose, another the same distance from either ear, and, in short, that they are all about him, and to frighten one is to frighten all.
His tail quivers, and then turns to steel, like his limbs. His eyes glare; his tongue fears to pant; it slips out at one side of his teeth and they close on it. Then slowly, slowly, he goes down, noiseless as a cat, and crouches on the long covert, whether turnips, rape, or clover.