"I wish you a good appetite to it, Sergeant," I said. "My appetite is
gone. I'll wait and see you served, and then I'll ask you to excuse me,
if I go away, and try to get the better of this by myself."
I saw him served with the best of everything--and I shouldn't have been
sorry if the best of everything had choked him. The head gardener (Mr.
Begbie) came in at the same time, with his weekly account. The Sergeant
got on the subject of roses and the merits of grass walks and gravel
walks immediately. I left the two together, and went out with a heavy
heart. This was the first trouble I remember for many a long year which
wasn't to be blown off by a whiff of tobacco, and which was even beyond
the reach of ROBINSON CRUSOE.
Being restless and miserable, and having no particular room to go to, I
took a turn on the terrace, and thought it over in peace and quietness
by myself. It doesn't much matter what my thoughts were. I felt
wretchedly old, and worn out, and unfit for my place--and began to
wonder, for the first time in my life, when it would please God to take
me. With all this, I held firm, notwithstanding, to my belief in Miss
Rachel. If Sergeant Cuff had been Solomon in all his glory, and had told
me that my young lady had mixed herself up in a mean and guilty plot, I
should have had but one answer for Solomon, wise as he was, "You don't
know her; and I do."
My meditations were interrupted by Samuel. He brought me a written
message from my mistress.
Going into the house to get a light to read it by, Samuel remarked
that there seemed a change coming in the weather. My troubled mind had
prevented me from noticing it before. But, now my attention was roused,
I heard the dogs uneasy, and the wind moaning low. Looking up at the
sky, I saw the rack of clouds getting blacker and blacker, and hurrying
faster and faster over a watery moon. Wild weather coming--Samuel was
right, wild weather coming.
The message from my lady informed me, that the magistrate at Frizinghall
had written to remind her about the three Indians. Early in the coming
week, the rogues must needs be released, and left free to follow their
own devices. If we had any more questions to ask them, there was no
time to lose. Having forgotten to mention this, when she had last seen
Sergeant Cuff, my mistress now desired me to supply the omission. The
Indians had gone clean out of my head (as they have, no doubt, gone
clean out of yours). I didn't see much use in stirring that subject
again. However, I obeyed my orders on the spot, as a matter of course.