“Osy,” said Mrs. Osborne, “you mustn’t let cousin Gervase get hold of you like that again.”

“He’s a dood horse,” said the little boy, “when I sit tight. I have to sit vewey tight; but next time I’ll get on him’s both shoulders, and hold him like a real horse. He’s dot a too narrow back, and too far up from the ground.”

“But listen to me, Osy. It makes me too frightened. You mustn’t ride him again.”

“I’ll not wide him if I can help it,” said Osy, reddening with mingled daring and terror, “but he takes me up before I can det far enough off, and I tan’t run away, mamma.”

“But you must run away, Osy, when I tell you.”

The child looked up at her doubtfully. “It was you that told me gemplemens don’t run away.”

“Not before an enemy, or that,” said Margaret, taking refuge in the vague, “but when it’s only for fun, Osy.”

“Fun isn’t never serous, is it, mamma?”

“It would be very serious if you fell from that fo——, from Cousin Gervase’s shoulder, Osy. Go out for a walk this afternoon, dear, with nurse.”

“I don’t like nurse. I like Uncle Giles best. And I’m the outwider, telling all the people he’s toming.”

“You see Uncle Giles has got something else to do.”

Gervase was still in the foreground of the picture, carrying out his consigne. The servant had brought out upon the terrace at the other side of the house a box containing a game of which, in former days, Sir Giles had been fond. It was Gervase who had proposed this diversion to-day. “I’ll play father a game at that spinner thing,” he had said, after the large heavy luncheon, which was Sir Giles’ dinner. “I’d like that, lad,” the old man cried with delight. It was a beautiful afternoon, and nothing could be more charming than the shady terrace on the east side of the house which in these hot July days was always cool. The sunshine played on the roof of the tall house, and fell full on the turf and the shrubs, and the flower garden at the south corner, but on the terrace all was grateful shade. The game was brought out, and many experiments were made to see at what angle Sir Giles could best throw the ball with which it was played—an experiment in which Dunning took more or less interest, seeing it saved him another weary promenade through the grounds, pushing his master’s chair. The carriage was waiting round the corner, and Lady Piercey came sailing downstairs with Parsons behind her carrying a large cloak. “Meg! do you know I’m ready to go out?” cried Lady Piercey, in the tone of that king who had once almost been made to wait. “May I bring Osy, aunt?” cried Margaret. “No,” was the peremptory answer. “I’ll go without you if you don’t be quick.”

“And I don’t want to go, mover,” said Osy. “I’m doing to play with Uncle Giles.”

“Come along, little duffer,” cried Gervase; “I’ll give you another ride when we’ve done playing.”

“Meg, come this moment!” cried Lady Piercey; and Margaret, with agonised visions, was compelled to go. Bitter is the bread of those who have to run up and down another man’s stairs, and be as the dogs under his table. “Oh!” Margaret Osborne said to herself, “if I had but the smallest cottage of my own! If I could but take in needlework or clear starching, and work for my boy!” Perhaps the time might come when that prayer should be fulfilled, and when it would not seem so sweet as she thought.

Lady Piercey took her usual drive in a long round through the familiar roads which she had traversed almost every day for the last thirty years. She knew not only every village, but every cottage in every village, and every tree, and every clump of wild honeysuckle or clematis flaunting high upon the tops of the hedges. By dint of long use, she had come to make that frequent, almost daily, progress without seeing anything, refreshed, it is to be supposed, by the sweep of the wide atmosphere and all the little breezes that woke and breathed about her as she went over long miles and miles of green country, all monotonously familiar and awakening no sensation in her accustomed breast. She thought of her own affairs as she made these daily rounds, which many a poorer woman envied the old lady, thinking how pleasant it would be to change with her, and see the world from the luxurious point of vantage of a landau with a pair of good horses, and a fat coachman and agile footman on the box. But Lady Piercey thought of none of these advantages, nor of the beautiful country, nor the good air, but only of her own cares, which filled up all the foreground of her life, as they do with most of us. After a while, being forced by the concatenation of circumstances, she began to discuss these cares with Margaret, which was her custom when Parsons, who knew them all as well as her ladyship, was out of the way. Mrs. Osborne was made fully aware that it was because there was no one else near, that she was made the confidant of her aunt’s troubles; but she listened, nevertheless, very dutifully, though to-day with a somewhat distracted mind, thinking of her child, and seeing an awful vision before her of Osy tossed from Gervase’s shoulder and lying stunned on the ground, with nobody but Dunning and Sir Giles to look after him. This made her perhaps less attentive than usual to all Lady Piercey’s theories as to what would be the making of Gervase, and save him from all difficulties and dangers. The old lady was not deceived in respect to her son; she was very clear-sighted, although in a moment of excitement, as on that morning, she might be ready to credit him with ideal virtues; on ordinary occasions nothing could be more clear than her estimate, or more gloomy than her forecast, of what his future might be.

“I am resolved on one thing,” said Lady Piercey, “that we must marry him by hook or crook. I hate the French: they’re a set of fools, good for nothing but dancing and singing and making a row in the world; but I approve their way in marrying. They would just look out a suitable person, money enough, and all that, and he’d have to marry her whether he liked it or not. Are you listening, Meg? If your uncle had done that with you, now, what a much better thing for you than pleasing your fancy as you did and grieving your heart!”

“I’m not worth discussing, aunt, and all that’s over and gone long ago.”

“That’s true enough; but you’re an example, and if I think proper, I’ll use it. I dare say Captain Osborne thought you had a nice bit of money when he first began to think of you, and was a disappointed man when he knew——”

“Aunt, I cannot have my affairs discussed.”

“You shall have just what I please and nothing else,” said the grim old lady. “I have had enough of trouble about you to have a right to say what I please. And so I shall do, whatever you may say. A deal better it would have been for you if we had just married you, as I always wished, to a sensible man with a decent income, who never would have left you to come back upon your family, as you have had to do. That’s a heavy price to pay, my dear, for the cut of a man’s moustache. And I’d just like to manage the same for my own boy, who is naturally much more to me than you. But then there’s the girl to take into account; girls are so much indulged nowadays, they take all kinds of whimseys into their heads. Now I should say, from my point of view, that Gervase would make an excellent husband; if she was sensible, and knew how to manage, she might turn him round her little finger. What do you say? Oh, I know you are never likely to think of anything to the advantage of my boy.”

“I think my cousin Gervase has a great many good qualities, aunt; whether you would be doing right in making him marry, is another matter.”

“Oh, you think so! it would be better to leave him unmarried, and then when we die Osy would have the chance? For all so clever as you are, Meg, I can see through you there. But Osy has no chance, as you ought to know. There’s the General, and his son, Gerald—a new name in the family, as if the Gileses and the Gervases were not good enough for a younger branch! If it was Osy, bless the child, I don’t know that I should mind so much,” the old lady said in a softened tone, with a tear suddenly starting in the corner of her eye.

“Thank you for thinking that,” said Margaret, subdued. “I know very well it could never be Osy.”

“But there might be another Osy,” said Lady Piercey, putting away that tear with a surreptitious finger. “There never was a brighter man than your uncle, and I’m no fool; and yet you see Gervase—— What’s to hinder Gervase from having a boy like his father if the mother of it was good for anything? A girl, if she had any sense, might see that. What’s one person in a family? The family goes on and swamps the individual. You may be surprised at me using such words; but I’ve thought a deal about it—a great deal about it, Meg. A good girl of a good race, that is what he wants; and, goodness gracious, if she only knew how to set about it, what an easy time she might have!”

To this, Margaret, being probably of another opinion, made no reply; and Lady Piercey, after an expectant and indignant pause, burst forth—“You don’t think so, I suppose? You think the only thing he’s likely to get, or that is fit for him, is this minx at the Seven Thorns?”

“I never thought so,” cried Margaret, “nor believed in that at all—never for a moment.”

“That shows how much you know,” said the old lady, with a snort of anger. “I believe in it, if you don’t. Who is he staying at home to-day and trying to please, the booby! that hadn’t sense enough to keep that quiet? Don’t you see he’s under orders from her? Ah, she knows what’s what, you may be sure. She sees all the ways of it, and just how to manage him. The like of you will not take the trouble to find out, but that sort of minx knows by nature. Oh, she has formed all her plans, you may be sure! She knows exactly how she is going to do it and baffle all of us; but I shall put a spoke in my lady’s wheel. My lady!” cried Lady Piercey, with the irritation of one who feels her own dearest rights menaced; “she is calculating already how soon she’ll get my name and make me the dowager! I know it as well as if I saw into her; but she is going a bit too fast, and you’ll see that I’ll put a spoke in her wheel! John! you can turn back now, and drive to the place I told you of. I want to ask about some poultry at that little inn. You know the name of it.”

“The Seven Thorns, my lady?” said John, turning round on the box, with his hand at his hat, and his face red with suppressed laughter, made terrible by fear of his mistress—as if he and the coachman had not been perfectly well aware, when the order was given, what kind of wildfowl was that pretended poultry which took Lady Piercey to the Seven Thorns!

“So it is; that was the name,” said the old lady. “You can take the first turning, and get there as quick as possible. You’ll just see how I shall settle her,” she added, nodding her head as soon as the man’s back was turned.

“Do you mean to see the girl, aunt?” cried Margaret, in surprise and alarm.

“What’s so wonderful in that? Of course I mean to see her. I shall let her know that I understand all her little plans, and mean to put a stop to them. She is not to have everything her own way.”

“But, aunt, do you think a girl of that kind will pay any attention?—don’t you think that perhaps it will do more harm than——”

“I know that you have always a fine opinion of your own people, Meg Piercey! and of me especially, that am only your aunt by marriage. You think there’s nothing I can do that isn’t absurd—but I think differently myself, and you shall just see. Attention? Of course she will pay attention. I know these sort of people; they believe what you tell them in a way you wouldn’t do: they know no better. They’re far cleverer than you in some things, but in others they’ll believe just what you please to tell them,” said Lady Piercey, with a fierce toss of her head, “if you speak strong enough; and I promise you I sha’n’t fail in that!”

The carriage swept along with an added impulse of curiosity and expectation which seemed to thrill through from the men on the box, who formed an impatient and excited gallery, eager to see what was going to happen, to the calm, respectable horses, indifferent to such mere human commotions, who probably were not aware why they were themselves made to step out so much more briskly. The carriage reached the Seven Thorns at an hour in the afternoon which was unusually quiet, and which had been selected by Patty on that account for an expedition which she had to make. She was coming out of her own door, when the two cobs drew up with that little flourish which is essential to every arrival, even at a humble house like that of the Seven Thorns, and stood there for a moment transfixed, with a sudden leap of excitement in all her pulses at the sight of the heavy old landau, which she, of course, knew as well as she knew any cart in the village. Was it possible that it was going to stop? It was going to stop! She stood on her own threshold almost paralysed, stupefied—though at the same time tingling with excitement and energy and wonder. My lady in her carriage, the great lady of the district! the potentate whom Patty of the Seven Thorns, audacious, meant to succeed, if not to supersede! The effect upon her for the first moment was to make her knees tremble, and her strength fail; for the next, to brace her up to a boldness unknown to her, though she had never before been timid at any time.

“If you please, my lady,” said John, obsequious, yet with his eyes dancing with excitement and curiosity, at the carriage door, “that is Miss Hewitt of the Seven Thorns on the doorstep, if it is her your ladyship wants. Shall I say your ladyship wishes to——”

“Look here! you’ve got to go off to the post-office at once to get me some stamps. I’ll manage the rest for myself,” said Lady Piercey, thrusting two half-crowns into the man’s hand. Poor John! with the drama thus cut short at its most exciting moment! She waited till he had turned his back, and then she waved her hand to Patty, still standing thunderstricken on the threshold. “Hi!—here!” cried Lady Piercey, who did not err in her communications with the country people round her on the civil side.

If it had not been for overpowering excitement, curiosity, and the desire for warfare, which is native to the human breast, Patty would have stood upon her dignity, disregarded this peremptory call, and marched away. She almost tried to do so, feeling more or less what an immense advantage it would have given her, but her instinct was too strong—a double and complicated instinct which moved her as if she had not been at all a free agent: first, the impulse to obey my lady, which was a thing that might have been overcome, but second, the impulse to fight my lady, which was much less easy to master, and, last of all, an overpowering, dizzying, uncontrollable curiosity to know what she could have to say. She stepped down from her own door deliberately, however, and with all the elegance and eloquence she could put into her movements, and went slowly forward to the carriage door. She was in her best dress, which was not, perhaps, so becoming to Patty as the homelier attire, which was more perfect of its kind than the second-rate young ladyhood of her Sunday frock. Her hat was very smart with flowers and bows of velvet, which happened to be the fashion of the time, and she carried a parasol covered with lace, and wore a pair of light gloves, which were not in harmony with the colour of her dress—neither, indeed, were Lady Piercey’s own gloves in harmony with her apparel, but that was a different matter. The old lady’s keen glance took in every article of Patty’s cheap wardrobe, with a comment on the way these creatures dress! as she came forward with foolish deliberation, as if to allow herself time to be examined from head to foot.

“You are Patty, that used to come out so well in the examinations,” Lady Piercey said, with a breathlessness which showed what excitement existed on her side.

“I am Patience Hewitt, my lady, if that is what you’re pleased to ask.”

Margaret sat looking on trembling at these two belligerents: her aunt, who overbore her, Margaret, without any trouble silenced all her arguments and shut her mouth; and this girl of the village and public-house, the Sunday-school child whom she remembered, the pet of the rector, the clever little monitor and ringleader—Patty, of the Seven Thorns, something between a housemaid and a barmaid, and Lady Piercey of Greyshott! The looker-on, acknowledging herself inferior to both of them, felt that they were not badly matched.

“Ah!” said Lady Piercey, “yes, that’s what I asked. You’re Robert Hewitt’s daughter, I suppose, who keeps the public-house on our property?”

“Begging your pardon, my lady, the old inn of the Seven Thorns is my father’s property, and has been his and his family’s for I don’t know how many hundred years.”

“Oh!” cried Lady Piercey with a stare, “you speak up very bold, young woman; yet you’ve been bred up decently, I suppose, and taught how you ought to conduct yourself in that condition in which God has placed you.”

“If you wish to know about my character, my lady, the rector will give it you; though I don’t know why you should trouble about it, seeing as I am not likely to wish a place under your ladyship, or under anybody, for that matter.”

“No,” cried Lady Piercey, exasperated into active hostilities; “you would like to climb up over our heads, that’s what you would like to do.”

Patty replied to the excited stare with a look of candid surprise. “How could I climb over anybody’s head, I wonder? me that manages everything for father, and keeps house at the Seven Thorns?”

“You look very mild and very fine,” said Lady Piercey, leaning over the side of the carriage, and emphasising her words with look and gesture, “but I’ve come here expressly to let you understand that I know everything, and that what you’re aiming at sha’n’t be! Don’t look at me as if you couldn’t divine what I was speaking of! I know every one of your plots and plans—every one! and if you think that you, a bit of a girl in a public-house, can get the better of Sir Giles and me, the chief people in the county, I can tell you you’re very far mistaken.” Lady Piercey leant over the side of the carriage and spoke in a low voice, which was much more impressive than if she had raised it. She had the fear of the coachman before her eyes, who was holding his very breath to listen, growing redder and redder in the effort, but in vain. Lady Piercey projected her head over the carriage door till it almost touched the young head which Patty held high, with all the flowers and feathers on her fine hat thrilling. “Look you here!” she said, with that low, rolling contralto which sounded like bass in the girl’s very ears, “we’ve ways and means you know nothing about. We’re the great people of this county, and you’re no better than the dust under our feet: do you hear? do you hear?”

“Oh yes, I hear very well, my lady,” said Patty, loud out, which was a delight to the coachman, “but perhaps I am not of that opinion.” There was, however, a little quaver of panic in her voice. Lady Piercey was right so far that a person of the people, when uneducated, finds it difficult to free him-, and especially herself, from a superstition as to what the little great, the dominant class can do.

“Opinion or no opinion,” said the old lady, “just you understand this, Miss Polly, or whatever your name is: You don’t know what people like us can do—and will do if we’re put to it. We can put a man away within stone walls that is going to disgrace himself: we can do that as easy as look at him; and we can ruin a designing family. That we can! ruin it root and branch, so that everything will have to be sold up, and those that offend us swept out of the country. Do you hear? Everything I say I can make good. We’ll ruin you all if you don’t mind. We’ll sweep you away—your name and everything, and will shut him up that you are trying to work upon, so that you shall never hear of him again. Do you understand all that? Now, if you like to think you can fight me and Sir Giles, a little thing like you, a little nobody, you can just try it! And whatever happens will be on your own head. Oh, are you back already, John? What haste you have made! Good-bye, Patty; I hope you understand all I’ve said to you. Those chickens, I can tell you, will never be hatched. John—home!”

Patty stood looking after the carriage with her breast heaving and her nostrils dilating. The old lady had judged truly. She was frightened. Panic had seized her. She believed in these unknown miraculous powers. What could the Seven Thorns do against the Manor House? Patty Hewitt against Sir Giles and Lady Piercey? It was a question to freeze the very blood in the veins of a poor little country girl.