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 Jerrolds had left the big red house. Hugh had told him that they had moved to the cottage the afternoon before. Phœbe had seen Mr. Jerrold striding across the fields carrying a silver candelabrum in his arms. And Grace had been seen, with her one servant, hanging curtains at the windows of the cottage. "Mark my words!" Phœbe had cried. "We shall have Hobbs as our next neighbour in the great house. It makes me all of a boilin' stew to think of. The world's gone crazy, and no mistake. Hobbs weren't satisfied with being a gentleman agent—that's what he calls himself if you'll believe me—but he aims to be a gentleman as ever was. The very idear! With that burr to his tongue! They say he's raised his eyes to Miss Jerrold. I'd be glad to hear as one of his own prize cocks had pecked 'em out. If there's one thing I hate, it's folk gettin' out of their proper station. It puts me all in a boilin' stew it does."

She followed Derek up and down, and in and out, talking with heat. She made him a thimbleberry roly-poly for dinner. He wished he might have been allowed to forget the thimbleberries tie pictured himself as eating his way through the whole patch. She made him a custard to pour over the pudding. In short, she treated him as a prisoner who had been granted a few hours of freedom.

At four o'clock he heard a clatter of hoofs on the bridge, and, looking out the stable window—he was always tinkering at the harness—he saw Edmund and Hugh crossing it in the trap, the latter leading by a halter Grace's horse, Darby, who showed his disapproval of the proceeding by petulant jumpings and cavortings from side to side.

Derek went out to meet them. "I'm glad you were able to get him," he said, laying a soothing hand on the chestnut's quivering side. "Did he come high?"

"High eneuch," answered Hugh, smiling. "Captain Vale