“No new-comers here,” Mr. Stixon replied; “we all works our way up regular, the same as my lad is beginning for to do. New-fangled ways is not accepted here. We puts the reforming spirits scrubbing of the steps till their knuckles is cracked and their knees like a bean. The old lord was the man for discipline--your grandfather, if you please, miss. He catched me when I were about that high--”
“Excuse me, Mr. Stixon; but would he have encouraged you to talk as you so very kindly talk to me, instead of answering a question?”
I thought that poor Stixon would have been upset by this, and was angry with myself for saying it; but instead of being hurt, he only smiled and touched his forehead.
“Well, now, you did remind me uncommon of him then, miss. I could have heard the old lord speak almost, though he were always harsh and distant. And as I was going for to say, he catched me fifty years agone next Lammas-tide; a pear-tree of an early sort it was; you may see the very tree if you please to stand here, miss, though the pears is quite altered now, and scarcely fit to eat. Well, I was running off with my cap chock-full, miss--”
“Please to keep that story for another time,” I said; “I shall be most happy to hear it then. But I have a particular wish, if you please, to see Mrs. Price before dark, unless there is any good reason why I should not.”
“Oh no, Miss Erma, no reason at all. Only please to bear in mind, miss, that she is a coorous woman. She is that jealous, and I might say forward--”
“Then she is capable of speaking for herself.”
“You are right, miss, there, and no mistake. She can speak for herself and for fifty others--words enough, I mean, for all of them. But I would not have her know for all the world that I said it.”
“Then if you do not send her to me at once, the first thing I shall do will be to tell her.”
“Oh no, miss, none of your family would do that; that never has been done anonymous.”
I assured him that my threat was not in earnest, but of pure impatience. And having no motive but downright jealousy for keeping Mrs. Price from me, he made up his mind at last to let her come. But he told me to be careful what I said; I must not expect it to be at all like talking to himself, for instance.