For a moment or two Aline did not speak and a strange feeling of shame seemed to pervade the place.
“Elspeth,” said Aline, while the flicker of a smile betrayed her, “if you run about so, you’ll wear out your shoon; you should sit on the table and swing your feet like Joseph there.”
“Now, hinnie, why for are you making fun of an old body?”
“I would not make fun of you for anything,” said Aline; “but look at his shoon; are they not fine,--and his beautiful lily-white hands?”
“Look as if you never did a day’s work, Joe,” said Silas, the reeve.
“Oh, no, he works with his brain, he’s thinking,” said Aline, putting her hand to her brow with mock gravity. “He’s reckoning up his fortune. How much is it, Joseph?”
“Methinks his fortune will all be reckonings,” said Silas, “for he’ll never get any other kind.”
“Well, we’ll change the subject; there’s going to be a funeral here to-night,” Aline observed.
“No, really?” exclaimed half a dozen voices.
“Yes, it’s a terrible story and it really ought not to be known; but you’ll keep it secret I know,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper.
As they crowded round her she went on in mysterious tones, “You know John Darley and Philip Emberlin.”
“Yes,” said Joe, rousing himself to take in the situation, “they are coming here to-night.”
“They’ve a long way to come and they are not strong,” said Aline, “and they will arrive hungry and just have to be buried, because there was nothing to eat. Yes, it’s a sad story; I’m not surprised to see the tears in your eyes, Joseph, and, in fact, in a manner of speaking you might say that you will have killed them, you and your accomplices,” she added, looking round.
A good tempered laugh greeted this last sally.
“Marry, we have much to get through. How can I help? It would be a sorry thing that Holwick should be disgraced before its guests. Give me something to do.”
There was nothing in the words, but the tone was one of dignity combined with gentleness and sympathy.
The effect was peculiar;--no one felt reproved, but felt rather as though there was full sympathy with his own point of view; yet at the same time he was conscious that he would lose his own dignity if he became querulous and allowed the honour of the house to suffer.