“Well, Mary,” said he, “what news in the country? You, who are always on the move, should know.”
“No very good news for you, Sir Robert,” she replied.
“Why, sir, Willy Reilly--the famous Willy Reilly--has got a footing in the house of old Squire Folliard.”
“And how can that be bad news to me, Mary?”
“Well, I don't know,” said she, with a cunning leer; “but this I know, that they had a love scene together this very morning, and that he kissed her very sweetly near the chimney-piece.”
Sir Robert Whitecraft did not get into a rage; he neither cursed nor swore, nor even looked angrily, but he gave a peculiar smile, which should be seen in order to be understood. “Where is your--ahem--your friend now?” he asked; and as he did so he began to whistle.
“Have you another job for him?” she inquired, in her turn, with a peculiar meaning. “Whenever I fail by fair play, he tries it by foul.”
“Well, and have not I often saved his neck, as well by my influence as by allowing him to take shelter under my roof whenever he was hard pressed?”
“I know that, your honor; and hasn't he and I often sarved you, on the other hand?”
“I grant it, Molly; but that is a matter known only to ourselves. You know I have the reputation of being very correct and virtuous.”
“I know you have,” said Molly, “with most people, but not with all.”
“Well, Molly, you know, as far as we are concerned, one good turn deserves another. Where is your friend now, I ask again?”
“Why, then, to tell you the truth, it's more than I know at the present speaking.”
“Follow me, then,” replied the wily baronet; “I wish you to see him; he is now concealed in my house; but first, mark me, I don't believe a word of what you have just repeated.”
“It's as true as Gospel for all that,” she replied; “and if you wish to hear how I found it out I'll tell you.”
“Well,” said the baronet calmly, “let us hear it.”
“You must know,” she proceeded, “that I have a cousin, one Betty Beatty, who is a housemaid in the squire's. Now, this same Betty Beatty was in the front parlor--for the squire always dines in the back--and, from a kind of natural curiosity she's afflicted with, she puts her ear to the keyhole, and afterwards her eye. I happened to be at the squire's at the time, and, as blood is thicker that wather, and as she knew I was a friend of yourrs, she tould me what she had both heard and seen, what they said, and how he kissed her.”