Page:The Small House at Allington Vol 2.djvu/261

Rh heard him, said not a word to call for any explanation. "But," continued Hopkins, "that's all as it may be, Miss Lily, and you be in the hands of Providence,—as is others."

"Exactly so, Hopkins."

"But why should your mamma be all for going away? She ain't going to marry no one. Here's the house, and there's she, and there's t' squire; and why should she be for going away? So much going away all at once can't be for any good. It's just a breaking up of everything, as though nothing wasn't good enough for nobody. I never went away, and I can't abide it."

"Well, Hopkins; it's settled now," said Mrs. Dale, "and I'm afraid it can't be unsettled."

"Settled;—well. Tell me this: do you expect, Mrs. Dale, that he's to live there all alone by hisself without any one to say a cross word to,—unless it be me or Dingles; for Jolliffe's worse than nobody, he's so mortial cross hisself. Of course he can't stand it. If you goes away, Mrs. Dale, Mister Bernard, he'll be squire in less than twelve months. He'll come back from the Hinges, then, I suppose?"

"I don't think my brother-in-law will take it in that way, Hopkins."

"Ah, ma'am, you don't know him,—not as I knows him;—all the ins and outs and crinks and crannies of him. I knows him as I does the old apple-trees that I've been a-handling for forty year. There's a deal of bad wood about them old cankered trees, and some folk say they ain't worth the ground they stand on; but I know where the sap runs, and when the fruit-blossom shows itself I know where the fruit will be the sweetest. It don't take much to kill one of them old trees,—but there's life in 'm yet if they be well handled."

"I'm sure I hope my brother's life may be long spared to him," said Mrs. Dale.

"Then don't be taking yourself away, ma'am, into them gashly lodgings at Guestwick. I says they are gashly for the likes of a Dale. It is not for me to speak, ma'am, of course. And I only came up now just to know what things you'd like with you out of the greenhouse."

"Oh, nothing, Hopkins, thank you," said Mrs. Dale.

"He told me to put up for you the best I could pick, and I means to do it;" and Hopkins, as he spoke, indicated by a motion of his head that he was making reference to the squire.