In the week following his advent the new servant was the cause of considerable discussion, and, regrettably, of not a little controversy, among the members of the household of Greenwood. The squire maintained that “the fellow is a bad-tempered, lazy, deceitful rogue, in need of much watching.” Mrs. Meredith, on the contrary, invariably praised the man, and promptly suppressed her husband whenever he began to rail against him. To Janice, with the violent prejudices of youth still unmodified by experience and reason, Charles was almost a special deputy of the individual she heard so unmercifully thrashed to tatters each Sunday by the Rev. Mr. McClave. And again, to the contrary, Tabitha insisted with growing fervour that the servant was a gentleman, possessed of all the qualities that word implied, plus the most desirable attribute of all others to eighteenth-century maidens, a romantic possibility.

As a matter of fact, these diverse and contradictory views had a crossing-point, and accepting this as their mean, Charles proved himself to be a knowing man with horses, an entirely ignorant and by no means eager labourer in the little farm work there was to do, a silent though easily angered being with every one save Mrs. Meredith, and so clearly above his station that he was viewed with disfavour, tinctured by not a little fear, by house-servants, by field hands, and even by Mr. Meredith’s overseer.

For the most part, Fownes spoke in the West of England dialect; but whenever he became interested, this instantly slipped from him, as did his still more ineffective attempt to move and act the rustic. Indeed, the ease of his movements and the straightness of his carriage, with a certain indefinable precision of manner, led to a common agreement among his fellow-labourers that he had earlier in life accepted the king’s shilling. Granting him to be but one and twenty years of age, as his covenant stated, and as in fact he looked, his service must have been shorter than the act of Parliament allowed, and this seeming bar to their hypothesis caused many winks and shrugs over the tankards of ale consumed of an evening at the King George tavern in the village of Brunswick. Furthermore, for some months the deserter columns of such stray numbers of the “London Gazette” as occasionally drifted to the ordinary were eagerly scanned by the loungers, on the possibility that they might contain some advertisement of a fellow standing five feet ten, with broad shoulders, light brown hair, straight nose, and gray eyes, whose whereabout was of interest to His Majesty’s War Office, Whitehall. Neither from this source, however, nor from any other, did they gain the slightest clue to the past history of the bond-servant, spy upon the fellow who would.

Nor was talk of the man limited to farm hands and tavern idlers, for dearth of new topics in the little community made him a subject of converse to the two girls during the hours of spinet practice, embroidery, and sewing, which were their daily occupations between breakfast and dinner, and, even extended into the afternoon, if the stint was not completed. Yet all their discussion brought them no nearer to agreement, Janice maintaining that Fownes was a villain in posse, if not in esse, while Tabitha contended that Charles had been disappointed in a love which he still, none the less, cherished, and which to her mind accounted in every particular for his conduct. As such a theory allowed considerable scope to the imagination, she promptly created several romances about him, in all of which he was of noble birth, with such other desirable factors as made him a true hero; and having thus endowed him with a halo of romance, she could not find words strong enough to express her thorough-going contempt for the woman whose disregard and cruelty had driven him across the seas.

“Thee knows, Janice,” she argued, when the latter expressed scepticism, “that the Earl of Anglesey was kidnapped, and sold in Maryland, so it ’s perfectly possible for a nobleman to be a bond-servant.”

“That ’s the one case,” answered Janice, sagely.

“But things like it are very common in novels,” insisted Tabitha. “And what is more likely for a man disappointed in love than, in desperation, to indenture himself?”

“I can easily credit a female of taste—yes, any female— refusing the ill-mannered, bold-staring rogue,” said Janice, giving the coarse osnaburg shirt she was working upon a fretted jerk; “but to suppose him to be capable of a grand, devoted passion is as bad as expecting—expecting faithfulness in a dog like Clarion.”

“Clarion?” questioned Tabitha.

“Yes. Have n’t you seen how—how—that he—the man, has taken possession of him? Thomas says the two sneak off together every chance they get, and sometimes are n’t back till eleven or twelve. I wish dadda would put a stop to it. Like as not, ’t is for pilfering they are bound.” Miss Meredith began anew on the buttonhole, and had she been thrusting her needle into either man or dog, she could not have sewed with a more vicious vigour.

“That must be the way he got those rabbits for thy mother.”

“I should know he had been a poacher,” asserted Janice, as she contemptuously held up and surveyed at arms-length the completed shirt. Then she laid it aside with another, and sighed a weary, “Heigh-ho, those are done. Here I have to work my fingers to the bone making shirts for him, just because mommy says he has n’t enough clothes,”—a sentence which perhaps partly accounted for the maiden’s somewhat jaundiced view of Charles.

“Are those for him?” cried Tabitha. “Why didst thou not tell me? I would have helped thee with them.”

“You ’d have been welcome to the whole job. As it is, I’ve done them so carelessly that I know mommy will scold me. But I wasn’t going to work myself to death for him!”

“I should have loved—I like shirt-making,” fibbed Tabitha.

“And I hate it! Forty-two have I made this year, and mommy has six more cut out.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then Tabitha said, “Janice.” For some reason the name seemed to embarrass her, for the moment it was spoken she coloured.

“What?”

“Dost thee not think—perhaps—if we steal out and take the shirts to the stable, thy mother will never—?”

“Tibbie Drinker! Go out of the house in a sack? I’d as soon go out in my night-rail.”

“Thee breakfasts in a négligée, even when Philemon is here,” retorted Miss Drinker. “Wouldst as lief breakfast in thy shift?”

“No,” said Miss Janice, with a wicked sparkle in her eyes, “because if I did Philemon would come oftener than ever.”

“Fie upon thee, Janice Meredith!” cried her friend, “for a froward, indelicate female.”

“And why more indelicate than the men who’d come?” demanded Janice.

“‘Immodest words admit of no defence,
For want of modesty is want of sense,’”

quoted Miss Drinker.

“Rubbish!” scoffed Janice, but whether she was referring to the stanza of the reigning poet of the eighteenth century, or simply to Miss Tabitha’s application of it, cannot be definitely known. “You know as well as I, Tibbie, that I’d rather have Philemon, or any other man, see me in my shroud than in my rail. Come, we’ll change our frocks and take a walk.”

A half hour later, newly clothed in light dimity gowns, cut short for walking, and which, in combination with slippers, then the invariable footgear of ladies of quality, served to display the “neatly turned ankles” that the beaux of the period so greatly admired, the girls sallied forth. First a visit was paid to the stable, to smuggle the shirts from the criticism of Mrs. Meredith, as well as to entice Clarion’s companionship for the walk. But Thomas, with a grumble, told them that Fownes had stolen away from the job that had been set for him after dinner, and that the hound had gone with him.

Their rambling walk brought the girls presently to the river, but just as they were about to force their way through the fringe of willows and underbrush which hid the water from view, a sudden loud splashing, telling of some one in swimming, gave them pause. Yelps of excitement from Clarion a moment later served to tell the two who it probably was, and the probability was instantly confirmed by the voice of Charles, saying:

“’T is sport, old man, is ’t not? To get the dirt and transpiration off one! ‘S death! What a climate! ’Twixt the sun and osnaburg and fustian my skin feels as if I’d been triced up and had a round hundred.”

Exchanging glances, the girls stole softly away from the bank, neither venturing to speak till out of hearing. As they retired they came upon a heap of coarse garments, and Tabitha, catching the arm of her friend, exclaimed:—

“Oh, Jan, look!”

What had caught her eye was the end of a light gold chain that appeared among the clothes, and both girls halted and gazed at it as if it possessed some quality of fascination. Then Tabitha tip-toed forward, with but too obvious a purpose.

“Tibbie!” rebuked Janice, “you shouldn’t!”

“Oh, but Jan!” protested Eve, junior. “’T is such a chance!”

“Not for me,” asserted Miss Meredith, proudly virtuous, as she walked on.

If Miss Drinker had searched for a twelve-month she could scarce have found a more provoking remark than her spontaneous exclamation, “Oh! how beautiful she is!”

Janice halted, though she had the moral stamina not to turn.

“What? The chain?” she asked.

“No! The miniature,” responded her interlocutor, in a tone expressing the most unbounded admiration and delight. “Such an elegant creature, Jan, and such—”

Her speech ended there, as a crashing in the bushes alarmed her, and she darted past Janice, who, infected by the guilt of her companion, likewise broke into a run, which neither ceased till they had covered a goodly distance. Then Tabitha, for want of breath, came to a stop, and allowed her friend to overtake her.

She held up the chain and miniature in her hand. “What shall I do?” she panted.

“Tibbie, how could you?” ejaculated her horrified friend.

“His coming frighted me so that—oh, I didn’t drop it!”

“You must take it back!”

“I’d never dare!”

“Black shame on—!”

“A nice creature, thou, Jan!” interrupted Miss Drinker, with a sudden carrying of the war into the enemy’s camp. “To tell me to go back when he’s sure to be dressing! No wonder thee makes indelicate speeches.”

Miss Meredith, without deigning to reply to this shameful implication, walked away toward the house.

That Tibbie intended to shirk the consequences of her misdemeanour was only too clearly proved to Janice, when later she went to her room to prink for supper, for lying on her dressing stand was the miniature. Shocked as Miss Meredith was at the sight, she lifted and examined the trinket.

Bred in colonial simplicity, it seemed to the maid that she had never seen anything quite so exquisite. A gold case, richly set with brilliants, encompassed the portrait of a girl of very positive beauty. After a rapt dwelling on the portrait for some minutes, further examination revealed the letters W. H. J. B. interlaced on the back.

Taking the miniature when her toilet had been perfected, Janice descended to the parlour. As she entered, Tabitha, already there, jumped up from a chair, in which, a moment previous she had been carrying on a brown study that apparently was not enjoyable, and tripped nonchalantly across the room to the spinet. Seating herself, she struck the keys, and broke out into a song entitled, “Taste Life’s Glad Moments as They Glide.”

Not in the least deflected from her intention, Miss Meredith marched up to the culprit, the bondsman’s property in her hand, and demanded, “Dost intend to turn thief?”

“Prithee, who ’s curious now?” evaded Tibbie. “I knew thee ’d look at it, for all thy airs.”

“Very well, miss,” threatened Janice, with much dignity. “Then I shall take it to him, and narrate to him all the circumstances.”

“Tattle-tale, tattle-tale!” retorted Tabitha, scornfully.

With even greater scorn her friend turned her back, and leaving the house, walked toward the stable. This took her through the old-fashioned, hedge-begirt kitchen garden, in which flowers were grown as if they were vegetables, and vegetables were grown as if they were flowers. The moment Janice had passed within the tall row of box, her expression of mingled haughtiness and determination ended; she came to a sudden halt, said “Oh!” and then pretended to be greatly interested in a butterfly. The bravest army can be stampeded by a surprise, and after having screwed up her spirit to the point of facing Fownes in his fortress, the stable, Miss Meredith’s courage deserted her on almost stumbling over him a hundred yards nearer than she expected. So taken aback was she that all the glib explanation she had planned was forgotten, and she held out the miniature to him without a single word.

Charles had been walking to the house, and only paused at meeting Miss Meredith. He glanced at the outstretched hand, and then let his eyes come back to the girl’s face, without making the slightest motion to take his property.

Tongue-tied and doubly embarrassed by his calm scrutiny, the young lady stood with flushed cheeks, and with long black lashes dropped to hide a pair of very shamed eyes, the personification, in appearance, of guilt.

Whether the girl would have found her tongue, or would have ended the incident as she was longing to do by taking to her heels, it is impossible to say. Ere she had time to do either, the angry voice of the squire broke in upon them.

“Ho, there ye are! Twice have I looked for ye this afternoon, and I warn ye I’m not the man to take such conduct from any one, least of all from one of my own servants,” he said as he came toward the pair, the emphasis of his walking stick and his heels both telling the story of his anger. “What mean ye, fellow,” he continued, “by neglecting the work I set ye?”

Absolutely unmoved by the reproof, Charles stood as heedless of it as he had been of the outstretched hand of the daughter, a hand which had promptly disappeared in the folds of Miss Meredith’s skirt at the first sound of her father's voice.

“A taste of my walking stick ye should have if ye had your deserts!” went on the squire, now face to face with the servant.

Without taking his eyes from the girl, Charles laughed. “Is it fear of me,” he challenged, “or fear of the law that prevents you?”

“What know ye of the law, sirrah?” demanded Mr. Meredith.

“Nothing, when I was fool enough to indenture myself,” snapped the servant; “but Bagby tells me that ’t is forbidden, under penalty of fine, for a master to strike a servant.”

“Joe Bagby!” roared the squire, more angry than ever. “And how come ye to have anything to do with that scampy lawyer! Hast been up to some mischief already?”

Again the man laughed. “That is for His Majesty’s Justices of the Peace to discover. Till they do, I shall maintain that I consulted him concerning the laws governing bond-servants.”

“A pretty state the country ’s come to!” raged the squire. “No wonder there is no governing the land, when even servants think to have the law against their masters. But, harkee, my fine fellow. If I may not punish ye myself, the Justices may order ye whipped, and unless ye change your manners I will have ye up before their next sitting. Meantime, saddle Joggles as soon as supper is done, and take this paper over to Brunswick, and post it on the proclamation board of the Town Hall. And no tarrying, and consulting of tricky lawyers, understand. If ye are not back by nine, ye shall hear from me.”

Striking a sunflower with his cane as a slight vent to his anger, the master strode away to the house.

His back turned. Janice once again held out the miniature. “Won’t you please take it?” she begged.

“Art tired of it already?” jeered the man.

“I did not take it, Charles,” she stammered, “but I knew of its taking and so brought it back to you.”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “’T is not mine, nor is it aught to me,” he said, and passing the girl, walked to the house.