‘Get tea for me, wench, in half an hour,’ said he, this time quite quietly, though still sternly, and without seeming to observe the quaking boy, who, at first sight, referred these martial preparations to a resolution to do execution upon him forthwith; ’you’ll find me in the garden when it’s ready.’

And he strode out, and pushing open the wicket door in the thick garden hedge, and, with his cane shouldered, walked with a quick, resolute step down towards the pretty walk by the river, with the thick privet hedge and the row of old pear trees by it.  And that was the last that was heard or seen of Mr. Nutter for some time.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

SWANS ON THE WATER.

At about half-past six that evening, Puddock arrived at Captain Cluffe’s lodgings, and for the last time the minstrels rehearsed their lovelorn and passionate ditties.  They were drest ‘all in their best,’ under that outer covering, which partly for mystery and partly for bodily comfort—­the wind, after the heavy rains of the last week, having come round to the east—­these prudent troubadours wore.

Though they hardly glanced at the topic to one another, each had his delightful anticipations of the chances of the meeting.  Puddock did not value Dangerfield a rush, and Cluffe’s mind was pretty easy upon that point from the moment his proposal for Gertrude Chattesworth had taken wind.

Only for that cursed shower the other night, that made it incumbent on Cluffe, who had had two or three sharp little visits of his patrimonial gout, and no notion of dying for love, to get to his quarters as quickly as might be—­he had no doubt that the last stave of their first duet rising from the meadow of Belmont, with that charming roulade—­devised by Puddock, and the pathetic twang-twang of his romantic instrument, would have been answered by the opening of the drawing-room window, and Aunt Becky’s imperious summons to the serenaders to declare themselves, and come in and partake of supper!

The only thing that at all puzzled him, unpleasantly connected with that unsuccessful little freak of musical love-making, was the fellow they saw getting away from under the open window—­the very same at which Lilias Walsingham had unintentionally surprised her friend Gertrude.  He had a surtout on, with the cape cut exactly after the fashion of Dangerfield, and a three-cocked hat with very pinched corners, in the French style, which identical hat Cluffe was ready to swear he saw upon Dangerfield’s head very early one morning, as he accidentally espied him viewing his peas and tulips in the little garden of the Brass Castle by the river side.

’Twas fixed, in fact, in Cluffe’s mind that Dangerfield was the man; and what the plague need had a declared lover of any such clandestine manoeuvres.  Was it possible that the old scoundrel was, after all, directing his night visits differently, and keeping the aunt in play, as a reserve, in the event of the failure of his suit to the niece?  Plans as gross, he knew, had succeeded; old women were so devilish easily won, and loved money too, so well sometimes.