Clement's, a little village on the south coast, where he knew of
rooms in a great old manor-house which had sunk to farmer's use, and
had a master and mistress proof against infection.
When I brought my tired, worn-out, fretting charge in through the
great draughty porch, and was led up the old shallow oak stairs to a
big panelled room, clean and scantily furnished, where the rats ran
about behind the wainscot, and a rain-laden branch of monthly rose
went tap, tap against the window, and a dog howled all night long,
I thought we had come to a miserable place at the end of the earth.
I thought so still the next morning, when the mist lay in white rolls
and curls round the house; and the sea, when we had a peep of it, was
as lead-coloured as the sky, while the kind pity of the good wife for
Dora's weak limbs and disfigured face irritated me so that I could
hardly be civil.
Dora mended from that day, devoted herself to the hideous little
lambs that were brought in to be nursed by the fire; ate and drank
like a little cormorant, and soon began to rush about after Mr. and
Mrs. Long, whether in house or farm-yard, like a thing in its native
element, while they were enchanted with her colonial farm experience,
and could not make enough of "Little Missy."
I had a respite from Mayne Reid, and could wander as far as I pleased
alone on the shingle, or sit and think as I had so often longed to
do; but the thoughts only resulted in a sense of dreariness and of
almost indifference as to my fate, since the one person in all the
world who had needed me was gone, and I had heard nothing whatever of
Dermot Tracy.
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