CHAPTERCLIX.SCENE AT STOKE FERRY—LAURA STANBRIDGE LED INTO AN AMBUSCADE—A LOVE STORY TO UNWILLING EARS.It was the nineteenth of November, and it had been a cold, gloomy day, and the night descended black and noiseless as a funeral pall upon a corpse.The railway station was built of red bricks, which the storms of winter had almost turned brown. One gas-light flickered feebly within its case of glass. Two travellers were waiting for the train—one of them reading the advertisements on the walls, the other walking quickly, to keep himself warm.A bell was rung—two red stars appeared in the distance—there was a low hum, which became a roar, and the train stopped by the trembling platform.There had been only one passenger. It was a lady neatly dressed, without luggage or attendants.She was not young, but her features were very handsome, albeit her grey eyes, which had a cold and cunning look, and her low, receding forehead, together with the thinness of her lips, robbed her of half her beauty.A red-haired man, with a whip in his hand and a copper badge upon his breast, came up and spoke to her, touching his hat. As he spoke he pointed to a large close carriage in the road outside the station, to which were harnessed a pair of strong brown horses.“I wish to go to Broxbridge Hall,” said she. “Do you know the place?”“Yes, ma’am—the seat of Earl Ethelwood. I know it well enough. I knew it when the old Earl was alive. Ah! me—things are changed since then, surely.”As she stepped into the carriage, she glanced anxiously towards the western sky, where a few rays of light showed that the sun had lately set.These rays resembled streaks of blood, and cast a lurid glow upon the purple and copper-hued clouds around them.She drew down the blinds, and, throwing herself back at full length in the vehicle, gave herself up to the meditation of her schemes.She was roused by the stopping of the carriage. She draw up the blinds and opened the windows. It was now nearly dark, and distant flashes of lightning betokened a storm. The wind also had risen, and moaned among the distant trees.They were upon the banks of a broad river, which was covered with small but white-crested waves.The driver gave a peculiar kind of shout, which was answered from the other side by another shout and the ringing of a bell.The lady began to understand.They were about to cross a ferry.She looked back on the road they had come, and which merely consisted of two huge ruts.She could faintly distinguish the road on the other side, and it appeared to improve but little.“Is this the only road to Broxbridge?” said she, in a tone of anxiety.“Well, ma’am, it be,” returned the red-haired man, “unless we’ed gone by the pike, which is five miles round. Cattle and men are both used to these roads hereabouts.”“But I thought the station was close to Broxbridge.”“There is a station close by it, but not the one I’ve brought you from.”“Then they have deceived me, and I booked for the wrong station.”“It can’t be altered now, ma’am. We must make the best of a bad job, but you’ll be all right enough.”She walked to the brink of the river, and eyed the dark sullen torrent as it ran swiftly past.She heard the rattling of chains, and, looking up, saw a man crossing the river in a large punt.In the dusk of the evening the mass glided towards her like some monster ghost, and the noise of the chains added strongly to this impression.The boat was moored to a post in the bank, the horses were led carefully in, the driver assisted the lady with rough courtesy into the boat, then the ferryman, having unloosed the chain, drove his long iron-pointed pole into the gravelly bottom of the river.The boat moved slowly and silently through the water, which it cleaved into ripples with its broad bow. The sky was covered with clouds, some long, some narrow and streaky, floated irregularly over the general mass.They are called mare’s tails, and generally forebode rain. The lightning flashes still continued, and once they heard a peal of thunder, faint and dull as an echo.“The storm is coming up,” said the driver, and he patted his horses, which were sniffing the air nervously, and soothed them with those signs and words which form a language between men and the lower animals.The ferryman appeared to be old and feeble. He bent his face over his pole as he drove it into the ground at the bow of the boat, and followed it into the stern.“Aye,” said he, “the storm is coming up quickly and from what I can see of it at present we shall have it pretty sharp and no mistake.”When the boat grounded upon the sandy shelving bank on the other side, the ferryman stepped out and fastened the chain, averting his face from the boat.The driver led the horses out of the craft and up the bank, the carriage jolting and rumbling as he did so. As the lady passed out her dress touched the hand of the ferryman.At this touch he started suddenly and trembled all over, and his eyes followed her savagely.As soon as she was reseated in the carriage, and had pulled the blinds down, the driver looked back at him significantly.He nodded and climbed into the rumble, where he sat with his arms crossed, and his head upon his breast.Laura Stanbridge—crouched within the vehicle, which she had made dark as if her thoughts were too evil to bear the light—did not hear the wind which now howled fiercely above her head, nor the thunder peals, which every moment grew more long and loud.“Ah!” said she, “I will see this proud earl, and let him know who and what his father is. He little thinks what an amusing tale I have to tell about Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Gatliffe. I will bring him to my feet, and he will be but too glad to purchase my silence at a princely sum. So, Mr. Gatliffe, you spurn me now like the rest—do you? Are meditating mischief, I’ll dare be sworn. Well, we shall see. Fool that you were to entrust me with your secrets!”She uttered a cry of impatience as she saw, from the slow pace of the horses, and the manner in which the carriage hung back, that they were ascending a steep hill.At the same moment a vivid flash of lightning darted past her eyes, and a peal of thunder, which made the windows rattle, followed it immediately—a sign that the storm was near.The horses had stopped, and on peering through the front window she saw that the driver was no longer on the box.She opened the door, and, alighting, found that a tree had fallen across the road. Upon this tree were seated two figures.“Goodness me, how unfortunate!” exclaimed Laura. What must be done?”The driver scratched his head, and seemed sorely puzzled.“I don’t know how we are to get to the hall now, ma’am,” said he.“But we must get there by some means or another,” cried Laura, in a petulant tone. “How very unfortunate we’ve been to be sure! Everything seems to go wrong. What do you propose, driver? Just think—there’s a good fellow.”“I am thinking, but can’t tell what to do for all that.”One of the figures rose and approached them. It was a woman, in the uncouth dress of a female peasant.“If the leddy wants to see the Earl, a maun see ’im to-night—he’s off to Lunnon early the morrow.”“I do want to see him most particularly,” said Miss Stanbridge. “My business is immediate. Can you tell me, my good woman, how I can get to Broxbridge Hall? You know the neighbourhood, I dare say.”“I do, indeed,” was the ready response.“And can tell me what to do?”“Well, marm, my zon and oi be goin’ that way, and we can show ’ee if a doan’t moind goin’ by a rough road through the woods.”“How far is it?”“Oh, only a little bit of a step.”“Very well; then I will go, and trust to you to guide me,” said Miss Stanbridge. “I do not see any other course left open.”Having paid the man for the distance he had brought her, she prepared to accompany them.The woman climbed the bank at the side of the road and passed through an open gate into the footpath which led across a field.The person whom the woman had mentioned as her son followed behind. Laura Stanbridge turned round in the field to look at him, but the night was so dark that she could only make out a shadowy form, which appeared to be enveloped in a large cloak with a high collar, which completely hid his features. Neither his dress, nor his gait were those of a labouring man, and she began to think that she had acted imprudently in trusting herself so implicitly to two strangers.“However,” she thought, “if they belong to any London gangs, I have only to speak to them in the thieves’ patter, and they will not dare to touch me. If, on the contrary, they are yokels, they will be content with robbing me, and I have not much to lose.”They passed from the field into a small gorse common, across another high road, past a couple of lights which, shining in the windows of the cottages, showed that their inmates were already retiring to bed, and over a stile into a shaw or small copse, which skirted the side of the road.Laura Stanbridge had addressed several questions to her conductress without receiving a reply. She had spoken once to the young man who followed like a phantom on her steps, and he had not chosen to make any answer.Laura, who possessed the courage of a man or rather of a demon, began to be afraid. The night was miserably dark and cheerless, the way was lonely, the rain descended with much violence and the thunder seemed to shake the earth as it rolled from horizon to horizon.Sometimes the lightning flashed through the trees and showed her three outstretched branches and their ghastly trunks.But they could not show her the features of that grey-haired woman, who strode so swiftly before her, nor the face of that young man, who followed with equal speed, and who watched all her movements with glistening eyes.She was trying to shake off her fears, which appeared to her idle and reasonless, when the woman stopped and pointed to the trunk of a tree, which had been stripped of its bark, and which lay like a naked giant across her path.“Sit down there, madam,” said she, in a voice which she seemed to remember, “sit down, you must be tired.”Laura hesitated. “Tut,” said she, “after all, what can be more natural? One meets every day with people who will not answer questions, and who will yet show every consideration for your comfort.”So she did as she was requested. As soon as she was seated a rope was flung over her head, and her arms were closely pinioned to her side. She struggled violently to free herself, but in vain. She therefore became calm, and said some words in the secret language of thieves.“You are mistaken,” answered the woman, in the same tongue, as she seated herself on the trunk. “I do not wish to rob you. I wish to tell you a story—that is all.”Laura Stanbridge trembled. She began to suspect that she had fallen into the hands of a mad woman. But by a miraculous effort she recovered her self-possession and said quietly, “Very well, I shall be glad to hear what you have to say, but you need not have tied me. Unloose me first.”“No, madam, I must not unloose you, for when you have heard my story you will try to run away.”“I swear I will not attempt to do anything of the sort. I pledge my word as to this.”“I do not choose to take your word.”“Why not?”“For many reasons. I do not intend to let you escape.”Laura was bewildered.The tones of this woman’s voice were firm and menacing, and she fancied they were not unfamiliar to her.She remembered also the rustic accent with which she had at first cloaked her words, and which must have been used for the purpose of deceiving her.All this began to resemble a preconcerted scheme.She waited anxiously, with dilating eyes, and ears bent forward, like the stag which hears the first bay of the distant hound.“Besides,” observed the woman, quietly, “if you tried to run away you might meet with an accident.” She produced a dark lantern from underneath her shawl, and flashed the light in front of them.By the yellow stream of light she distinguished a black opening in the ground, at the distance of scarcely three feet from where they were seated.She shrank back, shuddering. The woman smiled grimly.“I do not understand your meaning, or what your purpose is,” cried the miserable Laura.“You will understand all presently, I dare say.”“Gracious heaven! you are——”“Mrs. Grover, your old friend,” replied the woman. “A light suddenly dawns upon you.”“You do not mean to harm me?” cried Laura.No answer.The question was repeated.“I have a story to tell,” said Mrs. Grover.“Bah, silly woman! I have no desire to listen to your tales. I believe you are half crazed.”“No I am not; listen. Once I was a young girl, as innocent and happy as a spring bird, but a gentleman saw my pretty face. He fell in love with me—he wrote me letters. I could show you them if I wished, for I have borne them on my heart ever since. We used to meet on this very spot—it was here that I first felt his warm lips and the pressure of his hand, so soft and small—it was here that I first learned what it was to love—to have a beating heart when he came near me—to tremble with delight when I heard him speak.“He did not treat me at first as gentlemen treat poor girls. One day he told me to meet him at Broxbridge. I made an excuse for leaving home that day and night, and met him at the corner of a dark street as he had appointed.“I asked him no questions, I felt no fears. I loved him too well for that.“He took my hand in his, and asked me if I would go with him. I kissed that hand, and said I would go wih him to the end of the world.”“Goodness me, what have I to do with your early days? What care I for your romantic love story?” ejaculated Laura Stanbridge. “Have you brought me hither for no better purpose than this?”“You will know all in good time. When it was quite dark he took me to a little church which stands about half a mile from the town. In this church there was only one person—it was a young gentleman, in a white robe, who stood at the communion table between two wax tapers, with a book in his hand.”“The woman’s as mad as a March hare,” murmured Laura.“My sweetheart drew me towards him, and again took my hand and made me kneel with him. Then I knew that he was going to marry me, and I almost swooned with astonishment and joy.“The young clergyman read the service in a low and solemn voice. I could hardly speak the answers, my lips were trembling so. A ring was placed upon my finger—a hand pressed mine, and something like a soft flower fell upon my forehead—it was my husband’s fond kiss.”“Undoubtedly mad, but I must humour her,” thought Miss Stanbridge.“Ah, how happy were we the first few months! We seldom saw each other, but that only made us love each other more.“We used to meet on this very spot, and often on that soft bank he would crown me with a garland of fair wood flowers, and kiss me, and enfold me in his arms, and tell me again and again that he loved me as his life.“And then,” she said, plaintively, “he deserted me, and died at sea.”“Ah, it’s a sorrowful tale—very sorrowful,” said Miss Stanbridge, still, however, thinking that the narrator was most decidedly off her head.“I had a child,” said the woman, continuing her singular narrative. “The neighbours scoffed at me, and called me a wanton and my child base-born. I did not tell them; so I kept my secret as my husband had ordered me.”“Oh! he wished you to do so, then?”“Yes; made me promise not to divulge it upon any condition whatsoever. After this I was ill awhile, and too weak to work out in the fields. No one would take me into their house because I had a base-born child. This made me mad. I cursed the poor infant for bringing its mother into shame. I tried to destroy it, but my heart failed me, and one night I abandoned it to its fate. Ah! there’s nothing like misfortune to harden the heart; it will make a mother murder her own child, and there is no worse crime in the world than that.”
It was the nineteenth of November, and it had been a cold, gloomy day, and the night descended black and noiseless as a funeral pall upon a corpse.
The railway station was built of red bricks, which the storms of winter had almost turned brown. One gas-light flickered feebly within its case of glass. Two travellers were waiting for the train—one of them reading the advertisements on the walls, the other walking quickly, to keep himself warm.
A bell was rung—two red stars appeared in the distance—there was a low hum, which became a roar, and the train stopped by the trembling platform.
There had been only one passenger. It was a lady neatly dressed, without luggage or attendants.
She was not young, but her features were very handsome, albeit her grey eyes, which had a cold and cunning look, and her low, receding forehead, together with the thinness of her lips, robbed her of half her beauty.
A red-haired man, with a whip in his hand and a copper badge upon his breast, came up and spoke to her, touching his hat. As he spoke he pointed to a large close carriage in the road outside the station, to which were harnessed a pair of strong brown horses.
“I wish to go to Broxbridge Hall,” said she. “Do you know the place?”
“Yes, ma’am—the seat of Earl Ethelwood. I know it well enough. I knew it when the old Earl was alive. Ah! me—things are changed since then, surely.”
As she stepped into the carriage, she glanced anxiously towards the western sky, where a few rays of light showed that the sun had lately set.
These rays resembled streaks of blood, and cast a lurid glow upon the purple and copper-hued clouds around them.
She drew down the blinds, and, throwing herself back at full length in the vehicle, gave herself up to the meditation of her schemes.
She was roused by the stopping of the carriage. She draw up the blinds and opened the windows. It was now nearly dark, and distant flashes of lightning betokened a storm. The wind also had risen, and moaned among the distant trees.
They were upon the banks of a broad river, which was covered with small but white-crested waves.
The driver gave a peculiar kind of shout, which was answered from the other side by another shout and the ringing of a bell.
The lady began to understand.
They were about to cross a ferry.
She looked back on the road they had come, and which merely consisted of two huge ruts.
She could faintly distinguish the road on the other side, and it appeared to improve but little.
“Is this the only road to Broxbridge?” said she, in a tone of anxiety.
“Well, ma’am, it be,” returned the red-haired man, “unless we’ed gone by the pike, which is five miles round. Cattle and men are both used to these roads hereabouts.”
“But I thought the station was close to Broxbridge.”
“There is a station close by it, but not the one I’ve brought you from.”
“Then they have deceived me, and I booked for the wrong station.”
“It can’t be altered now, ma’am. We must make the best of a bad job, but you’ll be all right enough.”
She walked to the brink of the river, and eyed the dark sullen torrent as it ran swiftly past.
She heard the rattling of chains, and, looking up, saw a man crossing the river in a large punt.
In the dusk of the evening the mass glided towards her like some monster ghost, and the noise of the chains added strongly to this impression.
The boat was moored to a post in the bank, the horses were led carefully in, the driver assisted the lady with rough courtesy into the boat, then the ferryman, having unloosed the chain, drove his long iron-pointed pole into the gravelly bottom of the river.
The boat moved slowly and silently through the water, which it cleaved into ripples with its broad bow. The sky was covered with clouds, some long, some narrow and streaky, floated irregularly over the general mass.
They are called mare’s tails, and generally forebode rain. The lightning flashes still continued, and once they heard a peal of thunder, faint and dull as an echo.
“The storm is coming up,” said the driver, and he patted his horses, which were sniffing the air nervously, and soothed them with those signs and words which form a language between men and the lower animals.
The ferryman appeared to be old and feeble. He bent his face over his pole as he drove it into the ground at the bow of the boat, and followed it into the stern.
“Aye,” said he, “the storm is coming up quickly and from what I can see of it at present we shall have it pretty sharp and no mistake.”
When the boat grounded upon the sandy shelving bank on the other side, the ferryman stepped out and fastened the chain, averting his face from the boat.
The driver led the horses out of the craft and up the bank, the carriage jolting and rumbling as he did so. As the lady passed out her dress touched the hand of the ferryman.
At this touch he started suddenly and trembled all over, and his eyes followed her savagely.
As soon as she was reseated in the carriage, and had pulled the blinds down, the driver looked back at him significantly.
He nodded and climbed into the rumble, where he sat with his arms crossed, and his head upon his breast.
Laura Stanbridge—crouched within the vehicle, which she had made dark as if her thoughts were too evil to bear the light—did not hear the wind which now howled fiercely above her head, nor the thunder peals, which every moment grew more long and loud.
“Ah!” said she, “I will see this proud earl, and let him know who and what his father is. He little thinks what an amusing tale I have to tell about Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Gatliffe. I will bring him to my feet, and he will be but too glad to purchase my silence at a princely sum. So, Mr. Gatliffe, you spurn me now like the rest—do you? Are meditating mischief, I’ll dare be sworn. Well, we shall see. Fool that you were to entrust me with your secrets!”
She uttered a cry of impatience as she saw, from the slow pace of the horses, and the manner in which the carriage hung back, that they were ascending a steep hill.
At the same moment a vivid flash of lightning darted past her eyes, and a peal of thunder, which made the windows rattle, followed it immediately—a sign that the storm was near.
The horses had stopped, and on peering through the front window she saw that the driver was no longer on the box.
She opened the door, and, alighting, found that a tree had fallen across the road. Upon this tree were seated two figures.
“Goodness me, how unfortunate!” exclaimed Laura. What must be done?”
The driver scratched his head, and seemed sorely puzzled.
“I don’t know how we are to get to the hall now, ma’am,” said he.
“But we must get there by some means or another,” cried Laura, in a petulant tone. “How very unfortunate we’ve been to be sure! Everything seems to go wrong. What do you propose, driver? Just think—there’s a good fellow.”
“I am thinking, but can’t tell what to do for all that.”
One of the figures rose and approached them. It was a woman, in the uncouth dress of a female peasant.
“If the leddy wants to see the Earl, a maun see ’im to-night—he’s off to Lunnon early the morrow.”
“I do want to see him most particularly,” said Miss Stanbridge. “My business is immediate. Can you tell me, my good woman, how I can get to Broxbridge Hall? You know the neighbourhood, I dare say.”
“I do, indeed,” was the ready response.
“And can tell me what to do?”
“Well, marm, my zon and oi be goin’ that way, and we can show ’ee if a doan’t moind goin’ by a rough road through the woods.”
“How far is it?”
“Oh, only a little bit of a step.”
“Very well; then I will go, and trust to you to guide me,” said Miss Stanbridge. “I do not see any other course left open.”
Having paid the man for the distance he had brought her, she prepared to accompany them.
The woman climbed the bank at the side of the road and passed through an open gate into the footpath which led across a field.
The person whom the woman had mentioned as her son followed behind. Laura Stanbridge turned round in the field to look at him, but the night was so dark that she could only make out a shadowy form, which appeared to be enveloped in a large cloak with a high collar, which completely hid his features. Neither his dress, nor his gait were those of a labouring man, and she began to think that she had acted imprudently in trusting herself so implicitly to two strangers.
“However,” she thought, “if they belong to any London gangs, I have only to speak to them in the thieves’ patter, and they will not dare to touch me. If, on the contrary, they are yokels, they will be content with robbing me, and I have not much to lose.”
They passed from the field into a small gorse common, across another high road, past a couple of lights which, shining in the windows of the cottages, showed that their inmates were already retiring to bed, and over a stile into a shaw or small copse, which skirted the side of the road.
Laura Stanbridge had addressed several questions to her conductress without receiving a reply. She had spoken once to the young man who followed like a phantom on her steps, and he had not chosen to make any answer.
Laura, who possessed the courage of a man or rather of a demon, began to be afraid. The night was miserably dark and cheerless, the way was lonely, the rain descended with much violence and the thunder seemed to shake the earth as it rolled from horizon to horizon.
Sometimes the lightning flashed through the trees and showed her three outstretched branches and their ghastly trunks.
But they could not show her the features of that grey-haired woman, who strode so swiftly before her, nor the face of that young man, who followed with equal speed, and who watched all her movements with glistening eyes.
She was trying to shake off her fears, which appeared to her idle and reasonless, when the woman stopped and pointed to the trunk of a tree, which had been stripped of its bark, and which lay like a naked giant across her path.
“Sit down there, madam,” said she, in a voice which she seemed to remember, “sit down, you must be tired.”
Laura hesitated. “Tut,” said she, “after all, what can be more natural? One meets every day with people who will not answer questions, and who will yet show every consideration for your comfort.”
So she did as she was requested. As soon as she was seated a rope was flung over her head, and her arms were closely pinioned to her side. She struggled violently to free herself, but in vain. She therefore became calm, and said some words in the secret language of thieves.
“You are mistaken,” answered the woman, in the same tongue, as she seated herself on the trunk. “I do not wish to rob you. I wish to tell you a story—that is all.”
Laura Stanbridge trembled. She began to suspect that she had fallen into the hands of a mad woman. But by a miraculous effort she recovered her self-possession and said quietly, “Very well, I shall be glad to hear what you have to say, but you need not have tied me. Unloose me first.”
“No, madam, I must not unloose you, for when you have heard my story you will try to run away.”
“I swear I will not attempt to do anything of the sort. I pledge my word as to this.”
“I do not choose to take your word.”
“Why not?”
“For many reasons. I do not intend to let you escape.”
Laura was bewildered.
The tones of this woman’s voice were firm and menacing, and she fancied they were not unfamiliar to her.
She remembered also the rustic accent with which she had at first cloaked her words, and which must have been used for the purpose of deceiving her.
All this began to resemble a preconcerted scheme.
She waited anxiously, with dilating eyes, and ears bent forward, like the stag which hears the first bay of the distant hound.
“Besides,” observed the woman, quietly, “if you tried to run away you might meet with an accident.” She produced a dark lantern from underneath her shawl, and flashed the light in front of them.
By the yellow stream of light she distinguished a black opening in the ground, at the distance of scarcely three feet from where they were seated.
She shrank back, shuddering. The woman smiled grimly.
“I do not understand your meaning, or what your purpose is,” cried the miserable Laura.
“You will understand all presently, I dare say.”
“Gracious heaven! you are——”
“Mrs. Grover, your old friend,” replied the woman. “A light suddenly dawns upon you.”
“You do not mean to harm me?” cried Laura.
No answer.
The question was repeated.
“I have a story to tell,” said Mrs. Grover.
“Bah, silly woman! I have no desire to listen to your tales. I believe you are half crazed.”
“No I am not; listen. Once I was a young girl, as innocent and happy as a spring bird, but a gentleman saw my pretty face. He fell in love with me—he wrote me letters. I could show you them if I wished, for I have borne them on my heart ever since. We used to meet on this very spot—it was here that I first felt his warm lips and the pressure of his hand, so soft and small—it was here that I first learned what it was to love—to have a beating heart when he came near me—to tremble with delight when I heard him speak.
“He did not treat me at first as gentlemen treat poor girls. One day he told me to meet him at Broxbridge. I made an excuse for leaving home that day and night, and met him at the corner of a dark street as he had appointed.
“I asked him no questions, I felt no fears. I loved him too well for that.
“He took my hand in his, and asked me if I would go with him. I kissed that hand, and said I would go wih him to the end of the world.”
“Goodness me, what have I to do with your early days? What care I for your romantic love story?” ejaculated Laura Stanbridge. “Have you brought me hither for no better purpose than this?”
“You will know all in good time. When it was quite dark he took me to a little church which stands about half a mile from the town. In this church there was only one person—it was a young gentleman, in a white robe, who stood at the communion table between two wax tapers, with a book in his hand.”
“The woman’s as mad as a March hare,” murmured Laura.
“My sweetheart drew me towards him, and again took my hand and made me kneel with him. Then I knew that he was going to marry me, and I almost swooned with astonishment and joy.
“The young clergyman read the service in a low and solemn voice. I could hardly speak the answers, my lips were trembling so. A ring was placed upon my finger—a hand pressed mine, and something like a soft flower fell upon my forehead—it was my husband’s fond kiss.”
“Undoubtedly mad, but I must humour her,” thought Miss Stanbridge.
“Ah, how happy were we the first few months! We seldom saw each other, but that only made us love each other more.
“We used to meet on this very spot, and often on that soft bank he would crown me with a garland of fair wood flowers, and kiss me, and enfold me in his arms, and tell me again and again that he loved me as his life.
“And then,” she said, plaintively, “he deserted me, and died at sea.”
“Ah, it’s a sorrowful tale—very sorrowful,” said Miss Stanbridge, still, however, thinking that the narrator was most decidedly off her head.
“I had a child,” said the woman, continuing her singular narrative. “The neighbours scoffed at me, and called me a wanton and my child base-born. I did not tell them; so I kept my secret as my husband had ordered me.”
“Oh! he wished you to do so, then?”
“Yes; made me promise not to divulge it upon any condition whatsoever. After this I was ill awhile, and too weak to work out in the fields. No one would take me into their house because I had a base-born child. This made me mad. I cursed the poor infant for bringing its mother into shame. I tried to destroy it, but my heart failed me, and one night I abandoned it to its fate. Ah! there’s nothing like misfortune to harden the heart; it will make a mother murder her own child, and there is no worse crime in the world than that.”