CHAPTERVI.
Thecountry was in its full spring-tide beauty. The hedges were gay with shepherds’ purse and pimpernel, and merry with the song of birds rejoicing over their young. The green meadows were dotted over with the late lambs, skipping like the high hills of Scripture; and as Nell followed on Hugh Owen’s track, she trod the sweet woodruffe under her feet. A balmy, south-west wind blew on her heated face, as she ran over the grassy hill, up which he was slowly wending his way, with his eyes bent on his book. She had captured him at last. A long stretch of grass land lay between them yet, but there was no friendly copse or orchard on the way in which he could take shelter from her. Not that Hugheven knew of her approach. He had seen her coming up the gravelled walk that led to the Dale Farm, and slipped out as usual by the back-door, in order to avoid her. After her last words to him, he thought his presence must be as objectionable to Nell as hers was distressing to him. That she should take the trouble to follow him never entered his head; so he went on slowly, poring over his book, and was more startled than she could imagine when he heard a voice calling gaspingly after him,—‘Hugh! Hugh!’ He turned round then, to meet Nell’s beautiful face, flushed with exertion, as she panted to come up with him.
‘Stop, Hugh! Stop a minute! I want to speak to you,’ she said breathlessly.
He halted at her appeal, but he did not smile as she reached his side.
‘Oh, Hugh, I have wanted to speak to you for so long,’ said Nell, as they stood opposite each other. ‘What is the matter with you? Why do you never come to Panty-cuckoo now?’
He looked at her with grave surprise.
‘Why do I never go to Panty-cuckoo now?’ he repeated after her. ‘I should have thought you were the last person to ask me that question, Nell. Have you forgotten the words with which you sent me from you?’
‘Yes. What did I say? Anything very dreadful? How little you must know of women, to fancy they mean everything they say. You made me angry, I suppose, and then I resented it. But that is four months ago. It’s ridiculous to keep up a grudge all that time.’
‘I don’t think you were angry,’ replied Hugh, in his low, sweet voice. ‘I think you were in earnest, Nell, when you told me to leave Panty-cuckoo Farm, and never come back again; and that, after what had passed between us, my presence would be an extra pain to you. Was it likely, after that, that I could intrude my company on you? You must know that I didn’t keep away from choice.’
‘No, I didn’t. I thought, perhaps, youconsidered me altogether too bad to associate with—that I should contaminate you and make you unfit for the ministry, and so it was your duty not to come near me any more. That is what I thought.’
‘How very little you know me,’ said the young man with a sigh.
‘But mother and father are always asking after you,’ continued Nell, hurriedly, ‘and wondering why you never come near us; and it makes it rather awkward for me, you know, Hugh. I have told them all kinds of stories to excuse your absence; but it would be much better if you could come and see the old people now and then. I would keep out of the way, if you prefer it, whilst you are there.’
He did not contradict her, only saying,—
‘I should be sorry to vex Mr and Mrs Llewellyn, who have always been very good to me. I hope they thought it was my duties that kept me away. I shouldnot like them to know that you and I have quarrelled.’
‘Buthavewe quarrelled?’ said Nell, wistfully. ‘Cannot we be friends still, Hugh, as we werebefore—beforeyour last visit, you know? We are rather sad up at Panty-cuckoo just now. Father seems quite down-hearted about his farm. Sir Archibald has decided to raise the rent again, and father says he won’t be able to make the place pay if he does. Sometimes he talks of emigrating. Fancy his doing that at his age! and, oftener, the poor old man says he has lived too long, and it will be a good day when he is carried to Usk churchyard. And, what with that, and—and—other things, I think sometimes, Hugh, that life is altogether too hard to bear; and it is a pity mine wasn’t ended when I tried to end it!’
‘Poor Nell,’ said Hugh. ‘No, don’t say that. If your life had not held better things in store for you, surely the Lord would not have given it back to you twice running. But I must comeover and talk to your father, and see if I cannot cheer him up. If the worst comes to the worst, Nell, I don’t see why he should not try his fortune in another country. He is not so very old—sixty or thereabouts, Ithink—andhe will take his experience with him, and sell it, maybe, to other men. There are countries, as I daresay you have heard—like Canada, forinstance—whereGovernment gives the land away to men who can cultivate it; and your father must have a good sum of money sunk in his stock and implements. With a little money in hand, a man with knowledge may do wonders in Canada or New Zealand, and live out there as long again as he would have done in England.’
‘Oh, Hugh, you are talking nonsense. How would father and mother feel, uprooted from the old place where they have spent almost all their lives, and set down in a strange country, without a friend or acquaintance near them? Theywould die. They couldn’t stand it. It would be too great a wrench.’
‘Would notyougo with them?’ asked Hugh dubiously.
‘I?Oh, yes, of course I should. But what good should I be to them? Only an extra burden. If father had a son it would be different. But he would require some strong young head and hand to lift the greater part of the burden off his shoulders.’
‘I agree with you. But don’t stand talking here. You don’t look fit for that yet, Nell. Surely you should be looking more like your old self after all these months. Sit down on this turf, it is quite dry, and let us talk over what you have told me, together.’
He held out his hand to her as he spoke, and Nell availed herself of his assistance to take a seat on the bank by the side of the field.
‘Oh, Nell!’ he exclaimed as he released it, ‘how hot your hand is, and how thin! Do you feel weak?’
‘Not over strong,’ replied Nell, laughing as they sat down, side by side. It was true that she had hardly gained any strength worth speaking of since her illness. The wild longings she indulged in—the regrets for her lost position, and the remorse with which she was occasionally attacked—were all working a great and abiding change in her constitution. The old people saw her going about as usual, and never heard her complain; so they thought she was all right, and attributed any little languor or daintiness on her part to her London schooling. But Hugh, with a lover’s eye, perceived the change in her vividly, and noted with grief the hollowness of her eyes and the attenuation of her hand.
‘My poor girl,’ he said tenderly, as he gazed at her thin face, ‘what have you been doing to yourself? You’ve been fretting sorely, I’m afraid, Nell, since I saw you last.’
This direct appeal broke Nell down. No one had given her such sympathy as this before.
‘Oh, yes, Hugh, yes, I have,’ she cried. ‘I try so hard to forget, but it seems impossible. I longed so much to come back to Panty-cuckoo. I thought the beautiful, quiet, peaceful country would heal my sore wound, and help me to forget. But it seems worse than the town. There, the rattle and the noise might have shut out other sounds. But here, in the peaceful silence, I hear voices and see faces that I want to shut out from my mind for ever. Oh, it is very hard that, when one tries and wishes to be good and do no wrong, God should let the devil have such dominion over us. Why is it, Hugh? Why doesn’t He hear our prayers and let us forget? Sometimes I feel as if I should go mad in Panty-cuckoo, when I remember the time when I was a little girl and went black-berrying or nutting with you and the other children, and remember those happy, innocent days can never,nevercome over again. Oh, Hugh, I feel as if I had been in possession of untold wealth, and I had deliberately thrown it away. Will it alwaysbe so? Shall I never be any better? Am I to go on suffering like this to my life’s end?’
‘I hope not, Nell,’ replied the young man. ‘You are not strong enough for dairy and farm work, and it leaves your brain too little to do, so it broods incessantly upon the past. The work you want, Nell, is headwork—somethingby which you will feel you are benefiting others. That is the employment to bring peace and forgetfulness in its train. You should be a missionary, as I am.’
‘A missionary—I? Ah, now, Hugh, you are laughing at me. A preacher should have no sins to look back upon.’
‘Then there would be no preachers in the world, Nell. I say, on the contrary, that no one can teach others till he himself has been taught of God. He cannot relieve suffering, unless he, too, has suffered. He cannot know the enormity of sin, nor the trouble it brings in its train, till he himself has sinned as we all have, and if any man says he has not, he lies before the God who made him.’
‘But not like I have,’ said poor Nell, with her face hidden in her hands.
‘Don’t you think, Nell,’ said Hugh, ‘when you remember all the suffering and shame and remorse that your sin has brought you, that you could speak very forcibly to any girl whom you saw in danger of running the same risk? Would not you, out of the kindness of your woman’s heart, warn her not to do as you have done, and point out to her the pain that must succeed it?’
‘Oh, yes, of course I could and would, Hugh. It would be very cruel not to do so.’
‘Then, you see, youarefit for a missionary. You said just now that, if your father had a son to accompany him to a new country, emigration would be a different thing for him. Well, if he elects to go,Iam willing to accompany him, and to be, as far as in me lies, as a son tohim—aidinghim all I can with my strong young arm andhead—onone condition.’
‘What is the condition, Hugh?’ asked Nell.
‘That you will come, too, as my wife and helper. If you consent, I will show you a way to heal your sore hurt, that shall bring you the utmost peace at last. I don’t promise you happiness, though I would try hard to secure you that also; but peace I know you will have, for God will send it. Come with me, and be my helper and companion. We will go to some country, so widely different from England that nothing in it shall ever have the power to remind you of the terrible experience you have passed through here; and in a warmer climate you will, I hope, regain the health and strength which you have lost. Do you remember how you told me long ago that I was cut out for a missionary, and you were right. The very thought warms my blood. We will go to South Africa, or anywhere that is considered best for us all, and I will devote my life to securing the happiness of yours. Will you come?’
Nell turned round and looked at him with astonishment.
‘Will I go to South Africa with you as your wife? Hugh, do you know what you are asking me?’
‘Exactly. I am asking you the same thing I asked you four months ago, and you refused.’
‘But you thought I was a different girl then from what you know now. I have told you all. I—I—am—’
And here she faltered, and looked down at the blades of grass she was twisting about in her hands.
‘Let there be no misunderstanding between us, Nell. Let me finish the sentence for you, and don’t be offended at what I say, for I speak plainly, so that you may be sure that I do not deceive myself any more than you. I know now that you have parted with the greatest glory of your unmarried womanhood; that you have, what the world calls, fallen; that you lived in a state of sin for three long years, knowing it to be sin, and wished forno better lot; and that even at this moment you would go back to that condition if you could. Do I speak too plainly, my dear? Do I hurt you?’
Nell shook her head, but did not answer him in words.
‘Well, then, you see there is no need for you to tell me anything; and if there were the remotest chance of your being tempted to go back to that life, or if the man you cared for were in a position to marry you, I would not dare ask you to share my lot. But there is no chance of either of these things occurring to you. The only future I can see before you is, to live in this simple place where you will have no distraction from your sad thoughts, and where maybe you will eventually die, from fretting after the impossible, or from remorse for that which can never be undone again. If you can make up your mind to leave England with me, I think I can save you much of this. I think I can lead your thoughts to dwell on something better than your past life, and renovateyour health by diverting them. I think that, with the help of God and time, I may be able to show you a way out of all this terrible trouble that bids fair to blight your youth, and live, perhaps, to hear you acknowledge that it was permitted in mercy to make you better able to sympathise with the sin and sufferings of your fellow-creatures. This is what I hope for, Nell; but I may be presumptuous in hoping it after all.’
‘And you would makemeyour wife, Hugh; knowing all and hating all, as you do. Oh, it is impossible. You are too good for me. I am not worthy to marry you. I told you so from the first.’
‘We need not talk of worthiness or unworthiness to one another,’ answered Hugh. ‘We are man and woman, and I love you. That is quite enough. The matter lies between ourselves alone. No one else will ever hear of it.’
‘Ah Hugh, forgive me, but Idon’tlove you. Therein lies all the difference. I will not deceive you in the slightestparticular. My heart still clings to, and is wrapped up in this—this—man. I cannot forget him. I cannot un-love him. For three long happy years he taught me to regard him as my husband, and the fact that he never married me in church makes no difference to my affection. I amsorry—Igrieve deeply night and day that he has left me in so cruel a manner, but still I love him. I am more like a widow than a wicked girl. I suppose it is part of my wickedness—the greatest partperhaps—thatIcannotfeel how wicked I have been. I only know that my husband has left me for another woman, and that he cannot have realised what my love for him was, or he never would have done it. Is that very wicked?’ said Nell, as she looked up into the young man’s face.
The answer he made her was very different from what she expected of him.
‘No, Nell, it is not wicked. If I had not known thatthatwas the way in which you regarded the past I would not haveasked you to be my wife. But the heart that can be so faithful to one man—the man who has betrayedit—willbe as faithful to another when once its tears are dried for the first. I, too, look on you as a widow, as something far more to be pitied than a widow. But it is all over now, my poor girl. You know that without my telling you; so, whether you can forget it or not, let me try to make the remainder of your life useful and happy. Will you, Nell?’
‘Oh, Hugh, you are too good. I never knew anyone so good and kind in all my life before. If—if—we went far away from England and all its dreadful associations, where we should hardly ever hear its name again, I think I could be happy, or at least contented with you as my friend. And if, Hugh, it was some little time before I could think of you in any other light than that of a friend you would not be angry, would you? You would be a little patient with me, and remember how much I have suffered—howhardly I have beenused—untilI feel as if I could never trust to a man’s promises again.’
‘If you will come with me to South Africa and help me in my missionary work, Nell,’ said Hugh, as he took the listless hand hanging down by her side and pressed it softly, ‘I will never ask you for the affection nor the duty of a wife till you can tell me that you are ready and willing to give it me. Will you trust me sofar—thatif the love I long for should never spring up in your heart for me I will never demand it, nor worry you because it is not there, but still do my utmost to teach you how to lighten your heavy burden by working for God and God’s creatures? Do you believe me? Will you trust me?’
‘Yes, Hugh, yes. I will trust you through everything. And if father and mother should elect to emigrate and leave the dear old farm for good and all, why, I will go with them andyou—asyour wife.’
And she held out her hand to him as she concluded. Hugh seized it, and carried it to his lips.
‘You have made me so happy!’ he exclaimed. ‘Oh, Nell, whether as friends, or as husband and wife, you aremyNell now for evermore, and I will never let you go again.’