“In some small house or cottage suitable to our humble circumstances, sure.” “And how are we to find such place? And how if no such place is to be had, child?” “Fie, aunt! Remember thou’rt a duchess and can do anything! You have hosts of servants, mostly idle.’ There is old Hammond, your head courier, reliable and trustworthy; let this be his duty.... A cottage in or near Alfriston.... ’Faith, shalt write to him at once!” So, after due consideration, the Duchess sat down to write forthwith, while my lady hurried away, busied with a thousand concerns; and presently to the Duchess came Mrs. Betty in exclamatory excitement: “O mam, your Grace, and is’t true indeed that we be a-leaving town, my lady?” “Yes, Betty. I am taking your lady away to get her married.” “Married, mem? Lord save us all alive ... my lady—married? O my lady—who to?” “To the one man I have seen who may govern her.” “Oh, gracious goodness me, my lady! And who can ever that be, your ladyship, pray?” “One who, I think, may teach her happiness.” “Yes, your Grace, but O my lady—who?” “A man, Betty.” “Yes, my lady, I guessed as much, mem, but——” “A man she is head over ears in love with already, poor child!” “My lady—in love, mem! And never told me! O mem! Oh, goodness gracious alive!... O your Grace—who?” “Don’t be inquisitive, Mrs. Betty. There, run away, child.” CHAPTER XXIII HOW GEORGE POTTER CIRCUMVENTED THE PREVENTIVES Since that dim, far-distant day when pious hands first raised Alfriston Cross, it has endured much by stress of weather and the passing of so very many years. In its shadow may have stood Godwyn the great Jarl, and his feoffman Aelfric; about it lusty Saxon ceorls bartered and trafficked; past it may have reeled some of the bloody wrack of Harold’s army, desperate men weary from the fatal strife at Senlac. Here has it stood through the centuries, lashed by rain and wind, or drowsing in the sun, while England waxed great and powerful. And as it doubtless was once the place where Aelfric’s ceorls and villeins bartered and chatted, so has it been a familiar spot for lounging confabulation ever since, and has propped the backs of “all sorts and conditions of men” through countless generations. And of all this untold host surely never was there a back so suggestive of conscious innocence, of gently-assertive rectitude and of guileful guilelessness as the broad back of Mr. George Potter as he leaned there this summer’s eve in murmurous, monosyllabic converse with Master Tom Pursglove, the Tanner. “Couldn’t nowise be no better, Jarge!” remarked Mr. Pursglove. “Nohow!” responded Mr. Potter, his limpid gaze upon a gathering bank of clouds to windward. “Black daark ’twill be, Jarge, an’ a risin’ wind t’ kiver the tramp o’ the ponies ’ooves.” “Aye!” “Yonder comes Godby at last, an’ along wi’ Joe Muddle, Jarge.” “I sees ’em.” “They’ll ’ave been round givin’ ‘the word,’ I reckon?” “They ’ave, Tom.”