'This man again!' cried Dolly, shuddering.
'Hugh!' said Joe. 'What errand are you upon?'
'I come to ride back with you,' he answered, glancing covertly at the
locksmith's daughter. 'HE sent me.
'My father!' said poor Joe; adding under his breath, with a very
unfilial apostrophe, 'Will he never think me man enough to take care of
myself!'
'Aye!' returned Hugh to the first part of the inquiry. 'The roads are
not safe just now, he says, and you'd better have a companion.'
'Ride on then,' said Joe. 'I'm not going to turn yet.'
Hugh complied, and they went on again. It was his whim or humour to
ride immediately before the chaise, and from this position he constantly
turned his head, and looked back. Dolly felt that he looked at her, but
she averted her eyes and feared to raise them once, so great was the
dread with which he had inspired her.
This interruption, and the consequent wakefulness of Mrs Varden, who had
been nodding in her sleep up to this point, except for a minute or
two at a time, when she roused herself to scold the locksmith for
audaciously taking hold of her to prevent her nodding herself out of
the chaise, put a restraint upon the whispered conversation, and made
it difficult of resumption.
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