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Ralph felt unease. This change was not for the better. Rotha had been sitting at the window to catch the last glimmer of daylight as she spun. It was dusk, but not yet too dark for Ralph to see the tears standing in her eyes. Presently she rose and went out of the room. "Never fear that I shall be clemm'd," said Sim. "No, no," he said, with a grin of satisfied assurance.
"I say, Pop," broke in Sim Gage to the postmaster, with singular irrelevance at this time, "haven't you got a litter of pups around here somewheres, and a couple hens I can buy? I'm lookin' fer a dog, and things." "Yard's full of pups, man. If you want one help yourself. But hens, now " "Sell me two or three hens and a rooster or so. I promised I'd take 'em home, and I plumb forgot."
See that your wife's a dancer, whoever she may be, Sim; let her dance and sing and play the harpsichord or the clarsach they are charms that will last longer than her good looks, and will not weary you so soon as that intellect that's so much in fashion nowadays, when every woman listens to every clever thing you say, that she may say something cleverer, or perhaps retail it later as her own."
But one evening, during a temporary lull in the conversation at Sim Ripson's, old Uncle Ben, ex-deacon of a New Hampshire church, lifted up his voice, and remarked: "'Pears to me Blizzer's beginnin' to look scrumptious. He used to be the shabbiest man in camp."
Private Sim did not answer, but stood on the alert, while Gray ran back in the direction of the fort. Before he was half-way there, though, he heard the challenge of a sentry on his right, followed by a faint cry and a heavy fall.
"I don't make many mistakes," he observed, slowly; "but I guess I've made one. You're a whole lot deeper'n I thought you was." So much for the proletariat. I heard from the plutocrats next day. Sim Eldredge dropped in on me. After much wriggling about the bush he intimated that he knew of Captain Jedediah's call and what had taken place. "You done just right, Ros," he whispered.
Argyll, obviously, did not share much of his Chamberlain's excitement. "There was no more than one there?" he asked, sprinkling sand upon his finished letter. "No! Then there seems no great excuse for your extreme perturbation, my good Sim. I'm lord of Argyll, but I'm not lord of the king's highway, and if an honest stranger cares to take a freeman's privilege and stand between the wind and Simon MacTaggart's dignity Simon MacTaggart's very touchy dignity, it would appear who am I that I should blame the liberty? You did not ride ventre
This was such a vast speculation that he fell into a doze again, and slept until the fire was quite burnt out. At last he roused himself; and having double-locked the street-door according to custom, and put the key in his pocket, went off to bed. He had not left the room in darkness many minutes, when the head again appeared, and Sim Tappertit entered, bearing in his hand a little lamp.
"Smell it, Ros, do ye?" whispered Sim, grinning triumphantly between the points of a "stand-up" collar. "I give you my word when that slick-talkin' drummer sold me all that perfumery, I thought I was stuck sure and sartin. But then I had an idee.
She was too simple and too unknowing to speculate on the loss of her beauty, which would have brought her competency once if sold in the right market. As she lay in her little attic bed, she was still sullenly thinking, wearily thinking of her life. She thought of a poor old horse which Sim had bought once, years before, and put to the plough when it was too old and weak to work.
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