Madge pointed to the marks of her jump, deep in flower-bed earth under an
open window.

Gower measured the height with sensational shanks.

She smote at the door. Carinthia nodded from her window. Close upon
that, Kit Ines came bounding to the parlour window; he spied and stared.
Gower was known to him as the earl's paymaster; so he went to the passage
and flung the door open, blocking the way.

'Any commands, your honour?'

'You bring the countess to my lord immediately,' said Gower.

Kit swallowed his mouthful of surprise in a second look at Madge and the
ploughed garden-bed beneath the chamber window.

'Are the orders written, sir?'

'To me?--for me to deliver to you?--for you to do my lord's bidding?
Where's your head?'

Kit's finger-nails travelled up to it. Madge pushed past him.
She and her mistress, and Kit's mate, and the old woman receiving the
word for a cup of tea, were soon in the passage. Kit's mate had a ready
obedience for his pay, nothing else,--no counsel at all, not a suggestion
to a head knocked to a pudding by Madge's jump and my lord's paymaster
here upon the scene.