Sarah--my
housekeeper, thou know'st--'
'Not dead?'
'No. Her inna' dead; but her sister's dead, and I've give her a
week's play [holiday], and come away. Rat Edge'll see nowt o' me
this side Easter.'
Rat Edge was the name of the village, five miles off, which Dan
had honoured in his declining years.
'And where are you going to now?' asked Harold.
'I'm going to owd Sam Shawn's, by th' owd church, to beg a bed.'
'But you'll stop with us, of course?' said Harold.
'Nay, lad,' said Dan.
'Oh yes, uncle,' Maud insisted.
'Nay, lass,' said Dan.
'Indeed, you will, uncle,' said Maud positively. 'If you don't,
I'll never speak to you again.'
She had a charming fire in her eyes, had Maud.
Daniel, the old bachelor, yielded at once, but in his own style.
'I'll try it for a night, lass,' said he.
Thus it occurred that the carpet-bag was carried into Bleakridge
House, and that after some delay Harold and Maud carried off Uncle
Dan with them in the car. He sat in the luxurious tonneau behind,
and Maud had quitted her husband in order to join him. Possibly
she liked the humorous wrinkles round his grey eyes. Or it may
have been the eyes themselves. And yet Dan was nearer seventy than
sixty.
The car passed everything on the road; it seemed to be overtaking
electric trams all the time.
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