She gave a little salute which included all three of her rustic visitors, and moved away. Passing under the heavily-carved arched beams of oak which divided the hall from the rest of the house, she turned her head backward over her shoulder with a smile.
"Good-night, Ambassador Josey!"
Josey waved his old hat energetically.
"Good-night, my beauty! Good-night to Squire's gel! Good-night--"
But before he could pile on any more epithets, she was gone, and the butler Primmins stood in her place.
"I'll help give you a lift down to the gates," he said, surveying Josey with considerable interest; "You're a game old chap for your age!"
Josey was still waving his hat to the dark embrasure through which Maryllia's white figure had vanished.
"Ain't she a beauty? Ain't she jest a real Vancourt pride?" he demanded excitedly; "Lord! We won't know ourselves in a month or two! You marrk my wurrds, boys! See if what I say don't come true! Leach may cheat the gallus, but he won't cheat them blue eyes, let him try ever so! They'll be the Lord's arrows in his skin! You see if they ain't!"
Bainton here gave a signal to Spruce, and they hoisted up the improvised carrying-chair between them, Primmins steadying it behind.
"There ain't goin' to be no layin' low of the Five Sisters!" Josey continued with increasing shrillness and excitement as he was borne out into the moonlit courtyard; "And there ain't goin' to be no devil's work round the old Manor no more! Welcome 'ome to Squire's gel! Welcome 'ome!"
"Shut up, Josey!" said Bainton, though kindly enough--"You'll soon part with all the breath you've got in yer body if ye makes a screech owl of yerself like that in the night air! You's done enough for once in a way,--keep easy an' quiet while we carries ye back to the village--ye weighs a hundred pound 'eavier if ye're noisy,--ye do reely now!"
Thus adjured, Josey subsided into silence, and what with the joy he felt at the success of his embassy, the warm still air, and the soothing influence of the moonlight, he soon fell fast asleep, and did not wake till he arrived at his own home in safety. Having deposited him there, and seen to his comfort, Spruce and Bainton left him to his night's rest, and held a brief colloquy outside his cottage door.
"I'm awful 'feard goin' to-morrow marnin' up to the Five Sisters with ne'er a tool and ne'er a man,--Leach 'ull be that wild!" said Spruce, his rubicund face paling at the very thought--"If I could but 'ave 'ad written instructions, like!"