." Thomas was the groom, and, if all Greshamsbury reports
were true, it was probable, that on some happy, future day, Thomas
and Bridget would become one flesh and one bone.

"Please sir," continued Janet, "there'll be bad work here if that
'ere young man doesn't quit this here house this very night, and I'm
sorry to trouble you, doctor; and so I am. But Tom, he be given to
fight a'most for nothin'. He's hout now; but if that there young man
be's here when Tom comes home, Tom will be punching his head; I know
he will."

"He wouldn't stand by and see a poor girl put upon; no more he
wouldn't," said Bridget, through her tears.

After many futile inquiries, the doctor ascertained that Mr Jonah had
expressed some admiration for Bridget's youthful charms, and had, in
the absence of Janet, thrown himself at the lady's feet in a manner
which had not been altogether pleasing to her. She had defended
herself stoutly and loudly, and in the middle of the row Janet had
come down.

"And where is he now?" said the doctor.

"Why, sir," said Janet, "the poor girl was so put about that she did
give him one touch across the face with the rolling-pin, and he be
all bloody now, in the back kitchen." At hearing this achievement of
hers thus spoken of, Bridget sobbed more hysterically than ever; but
the doctor, looking at her arm as she held her apron to her face,
thought in his heart that Joe must have had so much the worst of it,
that there could be no possible need for the interference of Thomas
the groom.

And such turned out to be the case. The bridge of Joe's nose was
broken; and the doctor had to set it for him in a little bedroom at
the village public-house, Bridget having positively refused to go to
bed in the same house with so dreadful a character.

"Quiet now, or I'll be serving thee the same way; thee see I've found
the trick of it." The doctor could not but hear so much as he made
his way into his own house by the back door, after finishing his
surgical operation. Bridget was recounting to her champion the fracas
that had occurred; and he, as was so natural, was expressing his
admiration at her valour.

CHAPTER XXXV

Sir Louis Goes Out to Dinner

The next day Joe did not make his appearance, and Sir Louis, with
many execrations, was driven to the terrible necessity of dressing
himself. Then came an unexpected difficulty: how were they to get up
to the house? Walking out to dinner, though it was merely thro