Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 1.djvu/225

 you will run off with my cow; and if you like to stay at the bailiff's cottage for a week or two with your grandchild, you shall be left in peace, and asked no questions. I will own to you a weakness of mine: I value myself on being seldom or never taken in. I don't think I could forgive the man who did take me in. But taken in I certainly shall be, if, despite all your mystery, you are not as honest a fellow as ever stood upon shoe-leather! So come to the cottage."

Waife was very much affected by this confiding kindness; but he shook his head despondently, and that same abject, almost cringing humility of mien and manner which had pained at times Lionel and Vance crept over the whole man, so that he seemed to cower and shrink as a Pariah before a Brahmin. "No, sir; thank you most humbly. No, sir; that must not be. I must work for my daily bread; if what a poor vagabond like me may do can be called work. I have made it a rule for years not to force myself to the hearth and home of any kind man, who, not knowing my past, has a right to suspect me. Where I lodge, I pay as a lodger; or whatever favour shown me spares my purse, I try to return in some useful humble way. Why, sir, how could I make free and easy with another man's board and roof-tree for days or weeks together, when I would not even come to your hearthstone for a cup of tea?" The Mayor remembered, and was startled. Waife hurried on. "But for my poor child I have no such scruples,—no shame, no false pride. I take what you offer her gratefully,—gratefully. Ah, sir, she is not in her right place with me; but there's no use kicking against the pricks. Where was I? Oh! well, I tell you what we will do, sir. I will take her to the cottage in a day or two,—as soon as she is well enough to go,—and spend the day with her, and deceive her, sir! yes, deceive, cheat her, sir! I am a cheat, a player, and she'll think I'm going to stay with her; and at night, when she's asleep, I'll creep off, I and the other dog. But I'll leave a letter for her: it will soothe her, and she'll be patient and wait. I will come back again to see her in a week, and once every week, till she's well again."

"And what will you do?"

"I don't know; but," said the actor, forcing a laugh, "I 'm not a man likely to starve. Oh, never fear, sir."

So the Mayor went away, and strolled across the fields to his bailiff's cottage, to prepare for the guest it would receive. "It is all very well that the poor man should be away for some days," thought Mr. Hartopp. "Before he comes again, I shall