Arminell, Vol. 3

Sabine Baring-Gould

Sabine Baring-Gould

Arminell, Vol. 3 / A Social Romance

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

Giles Saltren caught an express and whirled down into the west. He had not taken a ticket for Orleigh Road Station, as he did not choose to get out there, but at the nearest town, and there he hired a light trap in which he was driven to within half a mile of Chillacot, where he dismissed the vehicle and walked on.

He had resolved what to do. He would pay a hasty visit to his mother and then go on to the village, and perhaps call at the Rectory. He must show himself as much as possible.

He had hardly left the trap, when, on turning a corner, he came on Samuel Ceely and Joan Melhuish walking together, arm in arm. The sight brought the blood into his pale face. He was behind the pair, and he was able to notice the shabbiness of the old man and the ungainliness of his walk. This man was his father. To him, the meanest in the parish – not to his lordship, the highest – must he look as the author of his being.

Joan Melhuish knew nothing of Samuel’s love affair with Marianne Welsh. She looked up to and admired the cripple, seeing him in the light of her girlish fancy, as the handsome, reckless gamekeeper.

Giles’s foot lagged, but he kept his eyes steadily on the man slouching along before him. A new duty had fallen on him. He must provide for the cripple, without allowing the secret of his relationship to become known, both for the sake of his mother and for that of the trusting Joan.

Samuel Ceely heard his step and turned his head, disengaged his arm from the woman, and extended the mutilated hand towards the young man.

“I say – I say!” began he, with his water-blue eyes fixed eagerly on Jingles. “I was promised a place; Miss Arminell herself said I should have work, two shillings a day, sweeping, and now they say she has gone away and left no directions about me. If you can put in a word with my lady, or with my lord, mind that I was promised it.”

“How can you, Samuel, speak of my lord, when you know he is dead?”

“My lord is not dead,” answered the old man sharply. “Master Giles is now my lord. I know what I am about.”

“And Samuel would do the work wonderfully well,” threw in Joan; “of all the beautifulest things that ever I see, is Samuel’s sweeping. If they were to give prizes for that as they do for ploughing, Samuel would be rich.”

“I should like,” said Giles, “to have some particulars about my lord’s death.”

“’Tis a terrible job, sure enough,” answered the woman. “And folks tell strange tales about it, not half of ’em is true. They’ve sat on him this afternoon.”

“The inquest already?”

“Yes, to be sure. You see he died o’ Saturday, so he was crowned to-day. Couldn’t do it yesterday.”

“And what was the verdict? I have been to Huxham to-day” – this was the nearest town.

“Samuel can tell you better than I, sir, I don’t understand these things. But it do seem a funny thing to crown a man when he is dead.”

“What was the verdict?” asked Giles of Samuel.

“Well,” said the old man, shaking his head. “It puzzled the jury a bit. Some said it was an accident, and some that it was murder; but the worst of it all is, that it will drive my sweeping at two shillings out of the heads of my lady and Miss Arminell. They’ll be so took up wi’ ordering of mourning that they’ll not think of me – which is a crying shame. If his lordship could but have lived another week till I was settled into my sweeping and victuals, he might have died and welcome, but to go interfering like between me and two shillings, is that provoking I could swear. Not that I say it was his lordship’s fault, and I lay no blame on him, but folks do say, that – ”

“There now, Samuel,” interrupted Joan. “This is young Mr. Saltren you are speaking to and you are forgetting.”

“I’m not forgetting,” grumbled the old man; “don’t you be al