So murmuring, the old man and young child went on together, and the group of villagers dispersed. Roger Buggins, however, paused a moment before turning up the lane which led to the 'Mother Huff.'
"You tell Passon," he said addressing Bainton, "You tell him as 'ow the Five Sisters be chalked for layin' low on Wednesday marnin'!"
"Never fear!" responded Bainton; "I'll tell 'im. If 'tworn't Sunday, I'd tell 'im now, but it's onny fair he should 'ave a bit o' peace on the seventh day like the rest of us. He'll be fair mazed like when he knows it,--ay! and I shouldn't wonder if he gave Oliver Leach a bit of 'is mind. For all that he's so quiet, there's a real devil in 'im wot the sperrit o' God keeps down,--but it's there, lurkin' low in 'is mind, an' when 'is eyes flashes blue like lightnin' afore a storm, the devil looks straight out of 'im, it do reely now!"
"Well, well!" said Buggins, tolerantly, with the dignified air of one closing the discussion; "Devil or no devil, you tell 'im as 'ow the Five Sisters be chalked for layin' low on Wednesday marnin'. Good day t'ye!"
"Good day!" responded Bainton, and the two worthies panted, each to go on their several ways, Buggins to the 'Mother Huff' from whose opened latticed windows the smell of roast beef and onions, which generally composed the Buggins' Sunday meal, came in odorous whiffs down the little lane, almost smothering the delicate perfume of the sprouting sweet-briar hedges on either side, and the nodding cowslips in the grass below; Bainton to his own cottage on the border of his master's grounds, a pretty little dwelling with a thatched roof almost overgrown with wistaria just breaking into flower.
Far away from St. Rest, the greater world swung on its way; the whirl of society, politics, fashion and frivolity revolved like the wheel in a squirrel's cage, round which the poor little imprisoned animal leaps and turns incessantly in a miserable make-believe of forest freedom,--but to the old gardener who lifted the latch of his gate and went in to the Sunday dinner prepared for him by his stout and energetic helpmate, who was one of the best dairy-women in the whole countryside, there was only one grave piece of news in the universe worth considering or discussing, and that was the 'layin' low of the Five Sisters.'
"Never!" said Mrs. Bainton, as she set a steaming beef-steak pudding in its basin on the table and briskly untied the ends of the cloth in which it had been boiling. "Never, Tom! You don't tell me! The Five Sisters comin' down! Why, what is Oliver Leach thinking about?"