'Please yourself my good fellow,' returned Mr Chester rising, slowly pulling off the loose robe he wore, and sitting down before the dressing-glass. 'Please yourself by all means.'
Having said this in the politest and blandest tone possible, he went on dressing, and took no further notice of his guest, who stood in the same spot as uncertain what to do next, eyeing him sulkily from time to time.
'Are you going to speak to me, master?' he said, after a long silence.
'My worthy creature,' returned Mr Chester, 'you are a little ruffled and out of humour. I'll wait till you're quite yourself again. I am in no hurry.'
This behaviour had its intended effect. It humbled and abashed the man, and made him still more irresolute and uncertain. Hard words he could have returned, violence he would have repaid with interest; but this cool, complacent, contemptuous, self-possessed reception, caused him to feel his inferiority more completely than the most elaborate arguments. Everything contributed to this effect. His own rough speech, contrasted with the soft persuasive accents of the other; his rude bearing, and Mr Chester's polished manner; the disorder and negligence of his ragged dress, and the elegant attire he saw before him; with all the unaccustomed luxuries and comforts of the room, and the silence that gave him leisure to observe these things, and feel how ill at ease they made him; all these influences, which have too often some effect on tutored minds and become of almost resistless power when brought to bear on such a mind as his, quelled Hugh completely. He moved by little and little nearer to Mr Chester's chair, and glancing over his shoulder at the reflection of his face in the glass, as if seeking for some encouragement in its expression, said at length, with a rough attempt at conciliation, 'ARE you going to speak to me, master, or am I to go away?'
'Speak you,' said Mr Chester, 'speak you, good fellow. I have spoken, have I not? I am waiting for you.'
'Why, look'ee, sir,' returned Hugh with increased embarrassment, 'am I the man that you privately left your whip with before you rode away from the Maypole, and told to bring it back whenever he might want to see you on a certain subject?'
'No doubt the same, or you have a twin brother,' said Mr Chester, glancing at the reflection of his anxious face; 'which is not probable, I should say.'
'Then I have come, sir,' said Hugh, 'and I have brought it back, and something else along with it. A letter, sir, it is, that I
took from the person who had charge of it.' As he spoke, he laid upon the dressing-table, Dolly's lost epistle. The very letter that had cost her so much trouble.
'Did you obtain this by force, my good fellow?' said Mr Chester, casting his eye upon it without the least perceptible surprise or pleasure.
'Not quite,' said Hugh. 'Partly.'
'Who was the messenger from whom you took it?'
'A woman. One Varden's daughter.'
'Oh indeed!' said Mr Chester gaily. 'What else did you take from her?'
'What else?'
'Yes,' said the other, in a drawling manner, for he was fixing a very small patch of sticking plaster on a very small pimple near the corner of his mouth. 'What else?'
'Well a kiss,' replied Hugh, after some hesitation.
'And what else?'
'Nothing.'
'I think,' said Mr Chester, in the same easy tone, and smiling twice or thrice to try if the patch adhered--'I think there was something else. I have heard a trifle of jewellery spoken of--a mere trifle--a thing of such little value, indeed, that you may have forgotten it. Do you remember anything of the kind--such as a bracelet now, for instance?'
Hugh with a muttered oath thrust his hand into his breast, and drawing the bracelet forth, wrapped in a scrap of hay, was about to lay it on the table likewise, when his patron stopped his hand and bade him put it up again.
'You took that for yourself my excellent friend,' he said, 'and may keep it. I am neither a thief nor a receiver. Don't show it to me. You had better hide it again, and lose no time. Don't let me see where you put it either,' he added, turning away his head.
'You're not a receiver!' said Hugh bluntly, despite the increasing awe in which he held him. 'What do you call THAT, master?'
striking the letter with his heavy hand.
'I call that quite another thing,' said Mr Chester coolly. 'I
shall prove it presently, as you will see. You are thirsty, I
suppose?'
Hugh drew his sleeve across his lips, and gruffly answered yes.
'Step to that closet and bring me a bottle you will see there, and a glass.'
He obeyed. His patron followed him with his eyes, and when his back was turned, smiled as he had never done when he stood beside the mirror. On his return he filled the glass, and bade him drink.
That dram despatched, he poured him out another, and another.
'How many can you bear?' he said, filling the glass again.
'As many as you like to give me. Pour on. Fill high. A bumper with a bead in the middle! Give me enough of this,' he added, as he tossed it down his hairy throat, 'and I'll do murder if you ask me!'
'As I don't mean to ask you, and you might possibly do it without being invited if you went on much further,' said Mr Chester with great composure, we will stop, if agreeable to you, my good friend, at the next glass. You were drinking before you came here.'
'I always am when I can get it,' cried Hugh boisterously, waving the empty glass above his head, and throwing himself into a rude dancing attitude. 'I always am. Why not? Ha ha ha! What's so good to me as this? What ever has been? What else has kept away the cold on bitter nights, and driven hunger off in starving times?
What else has given me the strength and courage of a man, when men would have left me to die, a puny child? I should never have had a man's heart but for this. I should have died in a ditch. Where's he who when I was a weak and sickly wretch, with trembling legs and fading sight, bade me cheer up, as this did? I never knew him; not I. I drink to the drink, master. Ha ha ha!'
