"
"Have you seen 'em again, Sir--this mornin'?"
"Yes, but they're well broke to cars. I couldn't get any of them within
twenty yards of it."
He looked at me carefully as a scout considers a stranger--not as a menial
should lift his eyes to his divinely appointed superior.
"I wonder why," he said just above the breath that he drew.
We waited on. A light wind from the sea wandered up and down the long
lines of the woods, and the wayside grasses, whitened already with summer
dust, rose and bowed in sallow waves.
A woman, wiping the suds off her arms, came out of the cottage next the
sweetmeat shop.
"I've be'n listenin' in de back-yard," she said cheerily. "He says
Arthur's unaccountable bad. Did ye hear him shruck just now? Unaccountable
bad. I reckon t'will come Jenny's turn to walk in de wood nex' week along,
Mr. Madden."
"Excuse me, Sir, but your lap-robe is slipping," said Madden
deferentially. The woman started, dropped a curtsey, and hurried away.
"What does she mean by 'walking in the wood'?" I asked.
"It must be some saying they use hereabouts. I'm from Norfolk myself,"
said Madden. "They're an independent lot in this county. She took you for
a chauffeur, Sir."
I saw the Doctor come out of the cottage followed by a draggle-tailed
wench who clung to his arm as though he could make treaty for her with
Death. "Dat sort," she wailed--"dey're just as much to us dat has 'em as
if dey was lawful born.
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