Then they returned to the priest, who might be supposed to be cognizant of the guiles of the world and competent to give advice on such an occasion as this. 'If she was one of our people,' said Father Barham, 'we should have her back quick enough.'
'Would ye now?' said Ruggles, wishing at the moment that he and all his family had been brought up as Roman Catholics.
'I don't see how you would have more chance of catching her than we have,' said Carbury.
'She'd catch herself. Wherever she might be she'd go to the priest, and he wouldn't leave her till he'd seen her put on the way back to her friends.'
'With a flea in her lug,' suggested the farmer.
'Your people never go to a clergyman in their distress. It's the last thing they'd think of. Any one might more probably be regarded as a friend than the parson. But with us the poor know where to look for sympathy.'
'She ain't that poor, neither,' said the grandfather.
'She had money with her?'
'I don't know just what she had; but she ain't been brought up poor. And I don't think as our Ruby'd go of herself to any clergyman. It never was her way.'
'It never is the way with a Protestant,' said the priest.
'We'll say no more about that for the present,' said Roger, who was waxing wroth with the priest. That a man should be fond of his own religion is right; but Roger Carbury was beginning to think that Father Barham was too fond of his religion. 'What had we better do? I suppose we shall hear something of her at the railway. There are not so many people leaving Beccles but that she may be remembered.' So the waggonette was ordered, and they all prepared to go off to the station together.
But before they started John Crumb rode up to the door. He had gone at once to the farm on hearing of Ruby's departure, and had followed the farmer from thence to Carbury. Now he found the squire and the priest and the old man standing around as the horses were being put to the carriage. 'Ye ain't a' found her, Mr Ruggles, ha' ye?' he asked as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
'Noa;--we ain't a' found no one yet.'
'If it was as she was to come to harm, Mr Carbury, I'd never forgive myself,--never,' said Crumb.
'As far as I can understand it is no doing of yours, my friend,' said the squire.