"Stupid of George to be late," observed Jack in the road outside. He was clearing his throat a good deal, and looking up the road with a great show of concern.
"It was odd that we should all catch the same train," she said, stamping her feet, and coughing with unnecessary violence; "I suppose you have not been down before?"
"No; they only knew of my arrival in time to cable to me that my father was dying," he said, with a queer mixture of humor and bitterness; "life is very rum sometimes, isn't it?"
"Always," she said fervently, and shivered among her furs. They both looked up the road then, and prayed for the advent of George and the cart. Digby's irritated tones could be heard from within, concerning his missing ticket.
"I say, won't you let fly for the fire in the booking-office till George comes? I reckon you're cold some," began Jack again, awkwardly.
"Oh, no, please don't trouble about me," she replied politely, as though she had just been introduced to him for the first time.
"He's always late," he began, in a high-pitched tone, also looking up the road with a great show of interest.
"He is a countryman, you see," said Lady Joan, with gravity.
"And the mother has been at him for six years," added Jack.
They discussed the handy man, without a suspicion of a smile, for some minutes longer, and they continued to look up the road, and back at the clock in the station, and anywhere except at each other, until the welcome sound of wheels at last drew near, when they all flung themselves upon the handy man, without mercy, and robbed him of his few wits at once.
"Yes, how is Sir Marcus, George?" added Joan, anxiously.
"Aye, how be the Squire, for sure, poor gentleman?" chimed in the solitary porter from behind.
"And what on earth possessed you to bring the luggage cart, George?" added Digby, wrathfully.
The handy man slowly dismounted from his seat, and made a desperate effort to say what was required of him.
"He be proper bad, he be; leastways so the cook told me when I come by the larder window with the sprouts, or I should say the celery for dinner it was, an' Lady Raleigh, she would have it as it were too slippy to bring the dog-cart, notwithstandin' as it bain't the cart what falls down, but the animal for sure, an' he won't last till mornin', poor gentleman, though the best London doctor come down by the five-forty o' purpose to have a last look of him, what went far towards killin' of 'im off in my thinkin'. An' the luggage is to be sent on afterwards, if ye please, Mr. Jack; an' Tom Clarke he says as how he means to put off his visit to his sister, what's married into the grocery business at Reading, till he be sure how things means to turn out, cos he says he bain't a-goin' of to miss a choreal funeral, what hasn't been for nigh upon thirty--"