_The Gamester_, and Mrs Clowes was studying therein the role of
Dulcibel. Not a role for which Mrs Clowes was physically fitted; but her
prolific daughter, Hephzibah, to whom it appertained by prescription,
could not possibly play it any longer, and would, indeed, be
incapacitated from any role whatever for at least a month. And the
season was not yet over; for folk were hardier in those days.

The reins stretched out from the careless hand of Mrs Clowes and
vanished through a slit between the double doors, which had been fixed
slightly open. Mrs Clowes's gaze, penetrating now and then the slit,
could see the gleam of her lamp's ray on a horse's flank. The only
sounds were the hoof-falls of the horse, the crunching of the wheels on
the wet road, the occasional rattle of a vessel in the racks when the
van happened to descend violently into a rut, and the steady murmur of
Mrs Clowes's voice rehearsing the grandiloquence of the part of
Dulcibel.

And then there was another sound, which Mrs Clowes did not notice until
it had been repeated several times; the cry of a human voice out on the
road:

"Missis!"

She opened wide the doors of the van and looked prudently forth.
Naturally, inevitably, Jock-at-a-Venture was trudging alongside, level
with the horse's tail! He stepped nimbly--he was a fine walker--but none
the less his breath came short and quick, for he had been making haste
up a steepish hill in order to overtake the van. And he carried a bundle
and a stick in his hands, and on his head a superb but heavy beaver hat.

"I'm going your way, missis," said Jock.

"Seemingly," agreed Mrs Clowes, with due caution.

"Canst gi' us a lift?" he asked.

"And welcome," she said, her face changing like a flash to suit the
words.

"Nay, ye needna' stop!" shouted Jock.

In an instant he had leapt easily up into the van, and was seated by her
side therein on the children's stool.

"That's a hat--to travel in!" observed Mrs Clowes.

Jock removed the hat, examined it lovingly and replaced it.

"I couldn't ha' left it behind," said he, with a sigh, and continued
rapidly in another voice: "Missis, we'n seen a pretty good lot o' each
other this wik, and yet ye slips off o'this'n, without saying good-bye,
nor a word about yer soul!"

Mrs Clowes heaved her enormous breast and shook the reins.

"I've had my share of trouble," she remarked mysteriously.

"Tell me about it, missis!"

And lo! in a moment, lured on by hi