"I will not have such language to my tutor, Cousin Ralph," said she,
"and I will have you to understand it. He is a gentleman as well as
yourself, and you owe him an apology." So saying, she stamped her
foot and looked at Ralph Drake, her eyes flashing in the moonlight.
But Ralph Drake, whose face I could see was flushed, even in that
whiteness of light, flung away with an oath muttered under his
breath, and struck out across the lawn, his black shadow stalking
before him.
Then Mistress Mary turned and bade me goodnight in the sweetest and
most curious fashion, as if nothing unusual had happened, and yet
with a softness in voice as if she would fain make amends for her
cousin's rough speech, and fluttered in through the open door like a
white moth, and left me alone with Sir Humphrey Hyde.
Sir Humphrey was but a lad to me, scarcely older than Mistress Mary,
for all his great stature. He stood before me scraping the shell
walk with the end of his riding whip. Both men had ridden hither,
and I at that moment heard Ralph Drake's horse's hard trot.
"If you come courting Mistress Mary Cavendish, 'tis for her
guardians, her grandmother, and elder sister to deal with you
concerning the time and place you choose," said I, "but if it be on
any other errand--"
"Good God, Harry," broke in Sir Humphrey, "do you think I am come
love-making in such fashion, and with Ralph Drake in his cups,
though I swear he fastened himself to me against my will?"
I waited a moment. Sir Humphrey had been much about the place since
he was a mere lad, and had had, I believe, a sort of boyish
good-will toward me. Not much love had he for books, but I was
accounted a fair shot, and had some knowledge of sports of hunting
and fishing, and had given him some lessons, and he had followed me
about some few years before, somewhat to the uneasiness of his
mother, who could not forget that I was a convict.
I cast about in my mind what to say, being resolved not to betray
Mary Cavendish, even did this man know what I could betray, and yet
being resolved to have some understanding of what was afoot.
"A man of honour includes not maidens in plots, Sir Humphrey," said
I finally.
Sir Humphrey stammered and looked at me, and looked away again. Then
suddenly spake Mistress Mary from her window overhead, set in a
climbing trumpet-vine, and so loudly and recklessly that had not her
grandmother and sister been on the farther side of the house they
must have heard her. "'Tis not Sir Humphrey included the maid in the
plot, but the maid who included Sir Humphrey," said she. Then she
laughed, and at the same moment a mock-bird trilled in a tree.