"Very good, then. A twelvemonth it must be, I suppose. Shan't tell my father yet, Kitty. Don't you tell un neyther, there's a good girl. Gad! there will be a pretty storm with my lady when she hears it! Ho! ho!"
Then he went off chuckling and shaking himself. How could a courtly gentleman like Sir Robert and a gentlewoman like her ladyship have a son who was so great a clown in his manner and his talk? But the sons do not always take after their parents. A stable and a kennel, when they take the place of a nursery and a school, are apt to breed such bumpkins even out of gentle blood.
In the morning at five I was to start in the cart which would take us across the country to the stage-coach.
Nancy got up with me, and we had a fine farewell kissing. The boys were up too; Harry out of compliment to me, dressed in a nightcap and a flowered morning-gown; and Will out of compliment to his kennel, for whose sake he always rose at daybreak. He was dressed in his old scarlet coat, he carried a whip in one hand, and half-a-dozen dogs followed at his heels.
"Remember, sweet Kitty," whispered Harry, with a ceremonious bow, "it is but for a twelvemonth."
"Only a year," said Will. "Heart up, my pretty!"
They heard what each had said, and they were looking at each other puzzled when I drove away.
"What did you mean, Will?" asked Harry, when the cart was out of sight, "by saying only a year?"
"I meant what I meant," he replied doggedly. "Perhaps you know, and perhaps you don't."
"Of course I know," said Harry. "The question is, how do you know?"
"Well," replied Will, "that is a pretty odd question, to be sure. How could I help knowing?"
"I think," said Harry, red in the face, "that some one has been injudicious in telling any one."
"She ought not to have told, that's a fact. But we will keep it secret, Harry; don't tell her ladyship."
So that each thought that the other knew of his engagement with Kitty.
Little heed gave I to them and their promises. It was pleasant, perhaps, though I soon forgot to think about it at all, to remember that Harry and Will after a twelvemonth would come to carry me home again, and that I should never leave the old place again. But just then I was too sad to remember this. I was going away, Heaven knew where, amongst strangers, to people who knew me not; and I mounted the cart in which we were to begin our journey crying as sadly as if it had been the dreadful cart which goes to Tyburn Tree. The best thing to cure a crying fit is a good jolting. It is impossible to weep comfortably when you are shaken and rolled about in a country cart among the deep, hard ruts of last winter. So I presently put up my handkerchief, dried my eyes, and thought of nothing but of clinging to Mrs. Gambit when the wheels sank deeper than usual. The way lay along the lanes which I knew so well, arched over with trees and lofty hedges, then in their beautiful spring dressing. It led past the churchyard, where the sun was striking full upon my father's new-made grave. I tried to think of him, but the cart jolted so terribly that I was fain to remember only how I carried his last admonitions in my bosom, and the money in two bags sewn to my petticoats.