“THE GOOD WOMAN.”
Tom returned slowly. My Aunt’s heart sank.
“Well?”
“Only two rooms, ma’am, and lofts above, and the house full o’ tipsy colliers, dancing. But there’s an inn, called “The Good Woman,” only half a mile on, and lots o’ room.”
My Aunt breathed a sigh of relief, and was silently thankful. Then she repeated the news to Winnie, who joined in the jubilation.
About ten minutes more brought them, after a slight ascent, on a sudden, to a hollow, expanding to an amphitheatrical plain, encompassed by wooded, rising grounds, and near the centre of which rose two abrupt and oddly-shaped hillocks, like islands from a lake, and a very large pond from under a thick screen of trees, and the clustered gables and chimneys of “The Good Woman” shone mistily in the moonlight They drew up before the door of the inn. Old-fashioned and weather-stained it looked in the faint beams. The door was closed — it was past ten o’clock — but a glimmer of candle or fire-light shone through the shutter chink at the right My Aunt did not wait. There was no need to hold the reins of the timid horse, who coughed, snorted, and shook himself, with his nose near the ground.
My Aunt Margaret ran up the three broad steps, the dingy “Good Woman,” without a head, sarcastically swinging between the sign-posts at her left With the carpet-bag in one hand, she hammered lustily at the knocker with the other. Tom, a little in the rear, with one foot on the steps, rested the trunk on his knee; and Winnie, with the basket of “prog” on her arm, stood dejectedly beside him.
There was some delay about opening the door, and when it was done, it was with a chain across, and a woman, with a coarse voice, and strong Irish accent, asked, not pleasantly, who was there.
“Travellers,” said my Aunt, “who have been led astray by the driver.”
“Where are yez from?”
“From Dramworth to Winderbrooke.”
“From Dhramworth to Windherbrooke! an’ he dhruv yez here! How many iv yez is in it?”
“Two ladies, a horse, a vehicle, and the driver.” Tom, the culprit, was degraded, and my Aunt placed him after the vehicle.
The maid of the inn, with high-cheek bones, and a determined countenance, was looking over the chain.
“Did yez come through the village, or over the moor?”
“Over the moor, I suppose; from that direction,” answered my Aunt “And why didn’t yez stop at “The Cat and Fiddle?”
“You mean the small ale-house near this. It was full of inebriated men,” answered Aunt Margaret, with dignity.
Well, you may come in, ma’am, and the leedy that’s widge ye; but we can’t Accommodate yer man, and he must only take the horse an’ carriage back to ‘The Cat an’ Fiddle,’ an’ if that’ll answer, yez may come in; if not, yez must all go on, for we won’t let a man in after ten o’clock.”
My Aunt expostulated, but the portress was inexorable.
“We won’t let a man in after ten o’clock for Saint Payther, and that’s the holy all iv it,” she answered, firmly.
So, my Aunt submitted, and softening at the parting, gave Tom some shillings on account, and wished him good-night; and when he had got upon the box, and started afresh for “The Cat and Fiddle,” and had made some way in his return, the door was shut in the faces of the spinsters, who stood, with their modest luggage, upon the steps, in the moonlight. The chain was withdrawn, and the hall of “The Good Woman” stood open to receive them.
I don’t know whether my Aunt had read “Ferdinand Count Fathom,” or ever seen the “Bleeding Nun” performed on any stage; bat if she had I venture to say she was reminded of both before morning.
The woman with high-cheek bones, and somewhat forbidding face, stood before them on their entrance, with a brass candlestick raised in her hand, so that the light fell from above her head on the faces of the guests. She had allowed them without a helping hand to pull in their luggage, and was now maxing a steady and somewhat scowling scrutiny of my Aunt and Winnie.
“And yez come from Windberbrooke?” she said, after an interval, with a jealous glance still upon them.
My Aunt nodded.
“Yer mighty tall, the two o’ yez, I’m thinkin (another pause.) “Will I help yez off widge yer cloaks?”
My Aunt would nave probably been tart enough upon this uncivil damsel, had it not been that her attention was a little called of! by the sound of female lamentation indistinctly audible from a chamber near the hall.
She proceeded to remove their mantles., eyeing them, at the same time, with a surly sort of curiosity.
“We are cold, my good woman; we can sit for a while by the kitchen fire,” said my Aunt, recollecting herself.
“The kitchen’s all through other wid the sutt that’s tumbled down the chimbley; bud I’ll light yez a bit o’ fire in a brace o’ shakes in your bedroom. Is it dinner yez’ill be wanting?”
“Tea, please,” said my Aunt, “and Lend a hand i’ ye plase, Missess, wid them things,” said she to Winnie, whom, with the quick instinct of her kind, she discovered to be the subordinate.