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Updated: June 6, 2025
Meanwhile the dreaded hour drew nearer and nearer, the bell was ringing for evening service, and Mr Vallance came out of his study and put on his wide-awake. "Would you rather not go to church this evening, Mary?" said Mrs Vallance. "My head aches," answered Mary. "If they will only go without me," she said to herself, "I can do it."
She edged past him on hands and knees towards the vallance draperies. "You 'eard what she said? Well, keep quiet 'ere an' don't be frightened. If Sam comes, tell 'im I'll be back in five minutes." She dived out beneath the vallance, caught a glimpse of Miss Sally and Sir Elphinstone making their way at a brisk pace through the crowd, and hurried up the slope in pursuit.
I am of a very English temper to-day; I would play the part of a true-hearted Englishman to the life, and, therefore, my tipple is true-hearted English ale." Master Vallance motioned to his guest to enter the house, but Halfman denied him. "Out in the open," he carolled. "Out in the open, friend."
"Well, I can't say no," said Mrs Vallance, smiling at Jackie's heated face; "but I'm not very fond of Maskells, there are so many dangerous places in it." "Oh, you mean the forbidden rooms," said Jackie; "we don't go into those now. There are three of them, where the floor's given way, you know, with great holes in them.
"I hope they will be in the way," replied Mrs Vallance, "and prevent you heedless children climbing about in unsafe places and breaking your limbs." "Then Mary may go? And we start punctually at nine, so she mustn't be late." Consent once given, Jackie took his departure, and his stout knickerbockered legs were soon out of sight.
"Emerge from the lubberland of dreams, and be swift in attendance upon a wight whose wandering star has led him to your hospitable gate." As the stranger uttered these last words his hand had drawn the bemused innkeeper towards him: with their utterance he suddenly released his grip, thereby causing Master Vallance to lurch heavily backward and bump his shoulders sorely against the inn wall.
Master Vallance was a patriot after his fashion; he wished his country well, but he wished himself better, and the brawling of certain persons of importance might, apart from its direct influence upon the fortunes of the kingdom, indirectly result in Master Vallance's downfall.
He rattled off some lines of blank verse in praise of the liberal air that set Master Vallance staring before he resumed plain speech. "When a man has lived in such hissing hot places that he is fain to spend his life under cover, he is glad to keep abroad in this green English sweetness."
Then, as Master Vallance was slowly making sure that he had to deal with a dangerous lunatic, the stranger drew himself up and swayed to and fro in a fit of inextinguishable laughter. "Lordamercy upon me," he said, when he had done laughing, in a perfectly natural voice. "I have seen some frightened fools before, but never a fool so frightened.
Could it possibly be true that she, Mary Vallance, was the child of such people? What a dreadful thing! She did not feel so frightened this morning, and, her natural spirit partly returning after her night's rest, she was more inclined to believe that Seraminta had spoken falsely. "If I told father all about it," she said to herself, "I don't believe she'd dare to take me away."
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