PART II.
Who is the honest man?He that does still and strongly good pursue,To God, his neighbour, and himself most true;Whom neither force nor fawning canUnpinne, or wrench from giving all their due.George Herbert.
A great oak in Wyncliffe Chase was doomed to be cut down.
It was a goodly, wide-spreading tree, too wide-spreading indeed, for some of its branches came in the way of a certain forest-king, a huge-limbed mighty giant among trees, within whose stately area of space no neighbour was allowed to trespass. So the younger tree was to come down.
It met its fate on a sparkling autumn day. There was just a touch of sharpness in the air. The woods were mostly green still, though already plenty of red and brown and yellow patches told that autumn was upon us. The horse-chestnuts shiningon the ground near their empty white shells, and the crimson and purple leaves of the bramble-bushes belonged to autumn too.
Now it is the old story. I have forgotten the great things and remembered the small. Nine years or more had passed since Caleb Morton's marriage. We had been growing up all this time, and changing by little and little, outwardly and inwardly. We left school and set about our business in life—Cuthbert became second forester under Clifford, Hildred's brother, and I had lately begun to be old Farmer Foster's bailiff at Furzy Nook.
How all these changes came about by degrees I have well-nigh forgotten. But I remember quite well the pheasants crowing in the wood that day, and the dead gold fern, and the voices that talked and laughed round the falling tree.
And out of the mists of failing memory, where they have been hidden for so long, Cuthbert and Hildred, and I myself, seem to come forth again distinctly on that autumn morning; Cuthbert and I no longer boys, Hildred a girl, not any more a child.
Cuthbert raised his axe, and struck and struck, until he was fain, for want of breath, to draw back,and turn towards us and laugh. Hildred sat on the trunk of a fallen tree, with a great bundle of sticks she had been gathering, tied up in a red handkerchief at her feet, and I stood near her—sometimes speaking to her, oftener full of thoughts that were an idle many-coloured medley, brightly-tinted as the autumn woods themselves.
First of all it was sweet, passing sweet, to stand there beside Hildred. That was an old thought. It remained the same, while the rest shifted, and flitted to and fro, first one way, then another, like leaves that the wind plays with and blows about as it will. The tree—it would not be standing half an hour hence. Where would the rooks that had built in it for three summers past have their nest next spring? Cuthbert's strokes bit deeper into the tough heart-of-oak than any of the others. He was stronger even than Matt Clifford. Poor tree, it was hard for it, Hildred said just now, to leave its fair woodland world. Yes, and it would be hard to leave a great many things if one had to do so, first and foremost—I broke off there, for they had got a rope round the trunk, and Clifford called out to the men to stand clear. The great tree tottered. Hildred shouted with the rest, and clapped her hands.
Well, I must see it down now, though I really ought to be where the ploughs are going over the sunny 'Seven Acres,' on the hill, a mile away from here. Then I looked again at Hildred, perched laughing on her mossy seat, with the golden fern at her feet and the dark woods behind her, and I tried to find a rhyme to the word 'winsome' to end some verses I had been making in my head.
Master Caleb Morton had not given up lending me books, in the years since I had ceased to be a scholar of his, and ploughmen and shepherds, he told me, had been poets before now; so I tried to make verses too. I kept them very secret, never telling anyone about them, not even Hildred—whom indeed they chiefly concerned—or Cuthbert. Many an hour's hard work I beguiled by stringing my rhymes together, always hoping I was making something that would be beautiful.
But I was a poor scholar, for all Cuthbert and Hildred said, I was fonder of hard words than Master Caleb himself. My lines would not often come right. I was not good at putting my thoughts in harness. They were like a team that will not go together. Some got on too fast and covered too much ground, and others stood still, or else wanted to go off at quite a different pace. So I got disheartened.Besides, what was the use of such poor words as I could find? If I called the sunshine 'golden,' was that half bright enough for the life-giving light? And if I said the wind whispered, or the river sang, it was not what I meant.
Sometimes at night I thought I had made something very good, and went to sleep contented, but in the morning, when I said over my verses, all the meaning seemed to have gone out of them. I said to myself at last, 'You are very weak, and Nature is very strong. She can speak to your heart and tell you all things; but it is not given you to repeat what she says to others. From henceforth listen, but in silence.' And so I gave up making verses. I have listened all my life long, and now that I am old, I try once more to say a little of what I have been hearing all these years. And perhaps because I am more humble and expect less, perhaps because my eye and ear are growing duller, I am not so discontented as I once was. I know my words are poor, but I am waiting. Soon I shall learn the new song that they sing up there, beyond the sunlight, and then I shall be satisfied.
However, I had not got to that yet. I went on trying to find my rhyme, and failed, as better people may have done before me.
It was a pity. The word winsome might have been made for Hildred. Mistress Dorothy Morton, years ago, had called her the picture of a child. I am sure she was the picture of a maiden now. It was a very fair flower that had bloomed in our grey old ruin.
Those bygone times, when we used to let Hildred go about with us now and then, as a great treat for her, were very wonderful to look back to. Now I prized every minute that she lighted up with her sunbeam pleasure.
The knowledge of what she was to me, had come so gradually that I cannot remember when I first felt that my life-choice was made, and that the world held for me but one thing worth living for. I had been sure of it for many a long day, before I dreamed of putting the love I bore her into words. Nearly all my life it must have lain deep down in my heart, like a seed that, buried in the ground, waits for the coming of the spring; and now, in the spring and sunshine of my young manhood, it had risen up in blossom and in fruit.
'Willie, here comes your father,' said Hildred presently, jumping up and running off to meet him. They liked each other, those two. My father—it was no wonder certainly—had smiles andeven words for her, such as he was never known to bestow on anyone else. Hildred was not a bit afraid of him, though other people said he became more 'dour' and hard as he got on in life. She came along by his side now, suiting her light footsteps to his heavy tread; he nodded now and then in answer to her merry chatter, and a look of slow contentment stole over his face. She made him stop for a moment to watch the wood-cutters, and as they stood looking on, the tree came crashing down at last.
Our idling time was over as soon as my father came. I turned away, and Hildred raised the bundle of sticks on to her head, and moved towards home.
'I haven't been losing much time,' she said, looking up at him merrily from under its shadow. 'Look, all these for Granny.'
'Good girl,' he answered, and he even stood still to watch her carrying it lightly in and out among the trees, and singing as she went.
Hildred never let the grass grow under her feet. She was always up and about. The bundle of sticks that pleased my father was only of a piece with all her sunny, helpful ways. She had gathered sticks for Granny hundreds of times before, onlyit was fated that this bundle should first put a thought into my father's head that he pondered over in his slow way all through the winter.
He told it to me one evening in the early spring, as we were going home from work together. I saw him looking round at me once or twice, as if there was something he had a mind to say, if he had known how to set about it.
'Grandmother's got to be an old woman,' he began at last, but after I had said 'yes,' he did not appear for some time to have anything to add.
'We need some one younger to keep the house,' he went on presently. 'I say, Will, do you ever think anything about getting married?'
I certainly did think of it very often indeed—a good deal oftener than I cared to tell my father. The question took me so by surprise that I scarcely knew how to answer it. At last I said bashfully, that 'perhaps I might, odd times.'
'Ha! 'cause if so be she's a stirring, thrifty lass, I don't care how soon you do.'
'If I could, I don't know if Hildred would,' I stammered, more astonished than ever, for I had always thought that I should have to make a home of my own, before I could ask Hildred to marry me.
My father nodded gravely once or twice when he heard her name. 'I thought as much,' he muttered, more to himself than to me, 'She'll do.' And as we reached home he stopped to say, 'Then you can bring your wife home here whensoever it suits yourself. I'm agreeable, lad, without any more waste of words.'
Without any more words with him, but a great many with myself. My wife—Hildred! That soft, sparkling little creature, that no trouble ought to come near—such was my thought then—or sorrow touch. Would she let me try to take care of her? Would she come to the grey old gate-house some day in her butterfly brightness and beauty, and fold her wings there, and be my own? Little Hildred, whom my mother used to love and pet in the old days. It seemed strange that we were longing for her now to fill my mother's place. But would she come?
That was the one question. I wearied myself with finding answers to it. Hildred herself, I was sure, little knew all that she was to me. No one had found it out, I believed, except my father, with that odd silent watchfulness of his. Not even Cuthbert—I almost wished he had, that I might have talked to him about it; but he never guessedmy one secret, and somehow I could not make up my mind to tell him.
No, I must ask Hildred herself first; and now there would be many long days to live through before I even saw her again. For on the morrow I had to go away to see my dear old master, Caleb Morton, and it might be a fortnight before I could get back to Wyncliffe. Granny and Cuthbert and Matt Clifford were all standing round when I said good-bye to Hildred. It was a great pity that my father had waited to speak, until my last day at home. I had been reckoning on my journey beforehand, but now I should only count the days until I could come back.
It was two years since I had seen Master Caleb. A very dark day it had been for Wyncliffe when he gave up the school, and went to be master to a much larger one a long way off. But it was such a piece of good fortune as he had long deserved, and his friends could only rejoice for him even while they mourned over losing him.
His new home was in a busy sea-port town, as different as possible from quiet Wyncliffe. Instead of trees, they had the crowded masts of the shipping in the harbour to look at. Huge bales of merchandise piled up along the quays; sailors of allcountries and tongues thronging the streets and waterside; vessels continually gliding into port or gliding out again on their paths over the sea. This, in exchange for the harvest fields and the blue hills at home. The smell of salt and tar on the sea-breeze, instead of the breath of flowering lime-trees. And the queer-sounding languages shouted by foreign voices, were very different from the distant cries of field labourers, and the cawing of the rooks, round Wyncliffe schoolhouse. Only, to make up for all, there was the solemn beauty and wonder of the sea. Words cannot utter it, or, once seen, memory lose hold of its vastness.
It mattered little to Master Caleb and his wife where their lot was cast. They carried their own sunshine with them, and would have been happy anywhere; still, they were faithful in heart to their first home, and had been longing, Mistress Morton told me, for the sight of a Wyncliffe face.
I was to have stayed with them for ten days. I was three months away from home. On what was to have been the last day of my stay, Master Caleb and I were overtaken in a thunder-storm, as we were driving home from a distance along the coast. I never quite knew how it happened. The horse took fright at the lightning. It was a dark evening,and Master Caleb, not much skilled in driving, had the reins. We went over the rocks together, horse and gig and all. Master Caleb escaped, fortunately, with a few bruises, and I broke my leg.
It might have been much worse. I was taken home to Master Caleb's house, and Mrs. Janet nursed me. Those weary weeks that I lay unable to move, would not have seemed so endless if it had not been for my longing to get home to Hildred. But for that, I should have been well content. After the first days of racking pain were over, and I came back to the knowledge of outward things, I used to lie and watch the little scenes of household life that passed like pictures before my eyes, and think how pleasantly true to my remembrance of them my old friends were. Master Caleb, creeping up to my bedside laden with books, in the full security that even at the worst they must be the best cure for pain or fever—Mrs. Janet, ordering him and them scornfully away, coming in with her business step and skilful hand, the very model of a sick-nurse; prompt of action, short, positive, and encouraging of speech. How like their old selves they were! And Mistress Dorothy, just to have her there to look at, did me more good than anything else. None of the power of comfort orhealing had gone from her voice and smile. To her only I could talk of Hildred. Of course I had told her all about that. She only could quiet the restlessness that grew on me as the slow days dragged on.
It seemed so hard to be away just then from Hildred. How was I to keep still, thinking of what might have been by this time, if I had been able to go home. Never before had I been without seeing her for so long. I dreamt of her whenever I fell asleep, always the same dream, that she was in trouble, and I could not move to help her.
Cuthbert, too, that was another trouble; how was he getting on with my father all this time? When I was at home I could generally keep things pretty straight between them, but they did not understand each other. My father never cared for him; the little he said to him was sharp and harsh. And Cuthbert—what wonder?—could not always bear it well. He had a high spirit, and for all his sweet temper, he liked to take his own way, and, once taken, chose to keep it. If I could only hope that he would be patient now, or that my father would not try him with some of those sharp bitter words that stung so deeply!
It was no use Mrs. Janet's telling me that aneasy mind helped to mend broken bones. It might be so, but an easy mind was quite beyond my reach.
Dorothy did better than preach patience, she shared my impatience. As often as I pleased she was ready to count over with me the weary days that they said must pass before I was fit for a journey. Also she charmed long hours away by letting me talk of Hildred.
My release came at last. I could walk pretty stoutly with a stick, by the time that the coach dropped me, just after dusk on an evening in June, at the crossing of the four roads, close to Wyncliffe village.
Before I got into the straggling little street, I heard music in front of me—fifes and drums sounding noisily through the quiet of the summer's evening. It was a recruiting party—no unusual sight in those war days. As I overtook them I was told that I was a fine fellow, and asked if I would not join them and fight for the King.
They were just going into the Castle—the public-house—when I passed, and as I turned my head to look at the light that was streaming from it, I heard my own name called suddenly. The next moment Cuthbert came out and joined me.
'Willie! thank Heaven you are come. Are you better?' he said, seizing my hand and wringing it.
'Yes. What's the matter, Cuthbert? what are you doing here?'
He did not answer, but moved so as to stand in the circle of light from the open door. I looked at him again, and saw the gay ribands that the recruits wear, fluttering from his hat.
'Cuthbert!'
'Yes, you see I have enlisted. Why, Will, I did not think you would mind it so much;' for, thunderstruck I leant against the wall to gather breath. He put his hand on my shoulder.
'It's not worth troubling about.'
'You can be bought off,' I said, recovering myself.
'Not for the world. Why should I? I did it of my own free will, for I can't stay here, and I won't.'
'Why, what has come to you?'
He was very pale, I saw, and his hands shook. He looked as if some great storm of trouble or anger had passed over him. After a minute's pause he said suddenly, 'Did you know that your father kept a store of money, gold guineas,and shillings, and a five-pound note, in an old teapot in the cupboard behind his bed?'
'What are you talking about? No.'
'No more did I,' said Cuthbert. 'Well, he lost it.'
'But what has that to do with you?'
Cuthbert gave an odd short laugh. 'Only that he says I took it.'
'I don't understand.'
'Perhaps you think so too,' he said bitterly. 'No, Will, you know I did not mean that, but they've driven me half out of my senses with all this.'
'Cuthbert, my father never said you had taken his money.'
'Said it, or thought it, it pretty nearly comes to the same thing. I understood well enough what he was after, so I'm off. Never mind that now. We can't talk here, and I've got something to say to you. We don't go until to-morrow morning, so I can walk back with you.'
'You're coming home for to-night, at all events?'
'I can't go there,' said Cuthbert his lip trembling, 'not to your father's house. Clifford will take me in.'
He turned and spoke to some one inside the house. There was a confused noise of singing and loud laughter, and the jingling of glasses from thebar. In a minute Cuthbert came out again, and said it was all right. He need not be there until sunrise the next day.
'Come on,' he said impatiently, and he began to walk up the street with long, quick strides.
'Now tell me,' I said.
Cuthbert's mood had changed. 'There's little enough to tell,' he answered quietly, 'only that I've enlisted. After all, I'm a soldier's son, and I know the life. I've always had a hankering after it, as you know.'
'But my father, what has he done? Try and tell me.'
'It's all along of this money. He's been scraping it and hoarding it together for ever so long. He thought no one knew about it. No more they did. But two days ago he missed it.'
Cuthbert had begun quietly, but now his eyes were lighting again, and his voice quickened. 'And he thinks I took it.Ito take his money! and your father, too.'
'He couldn't think so. You must have made some great mistake.'
'Not I. I saw what he was at well enough. Don't you think I know he's always hated me? You know it too, Will, though you've tried so hardto keep me from finding it out. He was mad when he found his money gone, and he spoke out then pretty plain—as he never did before.'
'He didn't say you took it.'
'Not at first—not straight out, till I asked him what he meant—he did then. I wouldn't stay another day after that. You wouldn't have had me stay, Will?'
'There were others there,' he went on again, 'when he accused me of knowing more of the money than I cared to say. Hildred was there.'
'She didn't believe it of you.'
'God bless her, no.'
I put my hand on his arm. 'Cuthbert, you ought to stay here, don't you see?'
He looked at me.
'You mean they'll say I've gone off with the money. No, they won't say that. I thought I'd told you the money was found again.'
'Found!'
'Yes, but that made no odds. I can't stay where I've been served as your father served me.'
'But who found it?'
'The money? Oh, it was all Granny's doing.' Cuthbert smiled. 'Poor Granny, she had taken the teapot away, not knowing.'
'What did father say?'
'I don't know. I didn't stay to hear. I tell you it was all one, after what he had thought of me. Will, I, that he took in—though that was your doing and your mother's, not his. I, that had grown up in his house and thought I was like his son. I wish he had turned me out of doors when your mother died. Maybe some day I may feel as grateful to him for his charity as I ought to be. I can't now.
'I did not mean to say aught of this to you, old chap,' he went on sadly. 'I ought not, only I can't help it. It wouldn't any of it have happened if you had been at home.'
'Then let me get you off,' I said eagerly. 'Let me do something for you.'
'Yes, that you shall, but not that. What a mercy it is that you have got home in time! It wasn't all this I wanted to tell you about. I was going to write you a letter, but talking is much handier.'
'And you must go?'
'Yes.' He took a shilling out of his pocket and held it up in the dim light with a half-laugh. 'Never mind that; it's done. Will, what I wantedto say to you besides good-bye was this.' His voice had grown grave enough now. 'I have something to leave in your charge.'
I don't know why my heart stopped beating for a second, and then went on again quicker than before.
'Do you know what it is?' Cuthbert continued. 'The greatest treasure I have—the only thing in all the world that really belongs to me.'
'What?' I asked.
And he answered, 'Hildred.'
We had left the village behind by this time. We were on the bit of road before you reach the bridge, and the Castle was in front of us. Often in the evening, when the twilight has gathered, and the air is heavy with dew, and with a faint sweet smell of newly cut hay, I live that moment over again. I see Cuthbert's face turned towards me, pale and eager, in the half-darkness. I see the white road, and the moon just rising solemn and fiery red over the Castle. I feel the silence, except that the familiar rush of falling water, unheard for months, was beginning to sound in my ears again.
I never crossed the bridge afterwards, by nightor day, and came within ear-shot of the waterfall, without hearing Cuthbert's voice say 'Hildred.'
For the next few minutes I don't know what he said. The dusty road—I noticed even then how dusty it was—seemed to rise up before my face. I put out my hand to hold by Cuthbert's arm. He thought that, being still lame, I was tired, and meant to lean on him, and he drew my arm over his shoulder, supporting me as we climbed up the grassy hill that was the short cut to the ruins. Presently I knew that he was saying—'It is hard for her.'
'Does Hildred know you have enlisted?'
'Yes, yes, poor child. I told her, and then, when it was too late, I found out how much I loved her.'
'Does she care for you?'
'Yes,' he answered very softly. 'Yes indeed, thank God.'
'But oh, Willie, you will take care of her for me. Don't let her forget me. I trust her to you entirely. Promise me you will be good to her. Watch over her for me.'
The tears were in his eyes. He was going away. It might be that I should never see him again.This was no time to think of my shattered hopes, my ruined life.
'If I could do any good,' I began to say. He interrupted me. 'You can—you can. It is everything to me. Let me think she has somebody near her who will be kind to her—who will comfort her if she is unhappy—who will never let them make her give me up.'
'She will not do that if she cares.'
'No, but I can't help fearing. Tell her how I love her. Talk to her about me. Promise me.' And he held out his hand.
I took it. I felt what a hard promise it was that he called on me to make—how little he guessed what he was asking of me. I knew how much it would cost me to keep it. A dread came over me like a shadow of the trouble that was to come through this.
But I would not listen. Cuthbert loved her, and she—yes, she loved him. He was going away, and he trusted me.
I only said two words, and then I had pledged myself, and shut the door on the long hope of years.
We were within the walls now. Cuthbert, witha few fervent words of thanks, turned towards Clifford's house, and I went home.
Granny gave a little cry of joy when I opened the kitchen door.
'My dear,' she said, hardly waiting to greet me, 'the very thing I have been wishing for, is for you to come home. We're in sad trouble, Willie. Do you know where Cuthbert is?'
'He came back with me just now.'
'I'm thankful for that. One couldn't tell what the poor boy might do. Willie, my dear, he and father had words,' said Granny, coming close and whispering mysteriously. 'It's about the money in the teapot, and it's all my fault.'
'Where's father?' I asked.
'Hush, he's upstairs now, counting It. He's always counting it, I think. That was where it was, you see. He was called away of a sudden when he was just putting something into the teapot, and he left the cupboard door open; and I came in and saw it. It was my old teapot, Willie, and I was glad to see it again, and so——'
'Granny, I want to go and speak to father.'
'So you shall, my dear; but just you wait and hear me first. And so, my dear—what was I going to say? It was my old teapot, and I used to keepodd halfpence in it, and stand it on the mantel-shelf. He took it away. I thought I'd lost it d'ye see, Willie?'
'Yes, Granny, I see. Will you——'
Granny held my arm tighter, and still whispering went on. 'My dear, I'm right vexed. I shouldn't ha' done it, but I meant no harm. When I saw my teapot, I took it thinking it was nobbut my coppers as made it heavy. Stephen missed it, and Cuthbert was there.'
'What did he say to Cuthbert?'
'My dear, they had words. Clifford, he came in, and Hildred. When I got into the room father sat there mazed-like about his money, and Cuthbert was standing as it might be here. I told them, and I brought back the teapot directly, my dear, but it was too late. Cuthbert flung out of the house and——. Hush, Willie, here's father coming downstairs.'
He came in. He looked surprised, and as it seemed to me only half pleased to see me.
'Father,' said my grandmother, 'Cuthbert's got back.'
My father looked up. 'I thought he'd come. What's he been about?'
'He's enlisted,' I said sadly.
I could not tell whether my father was surprised, or glad, or sorry. He said nothing, but I noticed that he gave me one or two quick looks from under his shaggy eyebrows.
'Father,' I said, 'you will see poor Cuthbert before he goes?'
'Humph! I suppose you know he's been beforehand with you with Hildred. Did he tell you that?'
'Yes, he told me. He meant no harm by me. He doesn't know.'
'I wish the lad had never come nigh the place.'
Just as he said this, the door was opened quickly, and Cuthbert came in. He went straight up to my father, the colour coming all over his face, and held out his hand.
'I'm going away to-morrow,' he said, speaking quickly, 'and as like as not I shall never come back again. I am come just to shake hands and thank you before I go, for all you've done for me; I know how much it's been.'
My father was taken by surprise. He put out his hand slowly to meet Cuthbert's.
'About that money,' he began, 'I made a mistake.'
'Thank you,' Cuthbert answered, colouring again. 'I'd sooner you wouldn't say anything of that.'
Still grasping my father's hand, he went on—
'I know I've often vexed you, but you won't be troubled with me any longer, and we part good friends—don't we?' he ended with his frank, sweet smile.
'I'm sure I wish you good luck, lad.'
Cuthbert turned round to me.
It was the one gleam of comfort on that dark night, that those two were at peace together before Cuthbert went away.
The two troubles coming so quick one upon another seemed to have confused me. I wanted time to understand them. Every thought brought a fresh sting, and they kept thronging into my mind, shifting and changing strangely.
Only one thing was clear: I had lost Cuthbert and Hildred both at once. He had gone back to her now, for more last words. I was used to thinking of them as belonging to me. But they belonged to each other now, and I was nothing to them,—not much at least.
Cuthbert was going away to-morrow. A while ago that would have seemed hard enough, but harder still, the Hildred I loved, and who I had thought loved me, was gone already.
Why do I talk about myself? They two wholoved each other were the ones to be pitied. To-morrow, when Cuthbert was away, there would be time enough to think.
My father sat by the fire, with his hands and chin resting on his stick, but his eyes followed me whenever I moved. I was not used to being watched like that, and presently I went to the door.
'I say, boy,' he called after me.
I looked round.
'Don't you go and vex yourself. He's going away, and girls soon forget, you know.'
'Girls will be girls, Willie,' said Granny, meaning to be comforting.
I went outside and leaned against the wall. The moon was covered with clouds, and in the hushed darkness you could hear if a leaf stirred or a grasshopper chirped in the long grass.
'Girls soon forget.' Ay, but I had just promised not to let Hildred forget. Besides, she wasn't likely to forget Cuthbert. And did I even wish her to forget him? I did not know. What was the use of thinking?
How long Cuthbert stayed! Granny's flitting light went out upstairs. She, and my father too, were most likely quietly asleep, before I heard his step coming quickly through the darkness.
'You waited for me,' he said, coming up. 'Clifford kept me talking. Come in, will you? I must get my things together. I told you how it would be. Clifford wanted her to take her promise back, because I was going away.'
'She did not?'
He shook his head. 'But I have only you to count on that will help her,' he said sighing.
The packing-up was not a long business, but we went through it very slowly, though we talked little. Who ever said the parting words they had meant to speak at the last? Ours were very few.
Once Cuthbert looked up as he was kneeling on the floor beside the old chest that had held all our goods for so long. 'Will, I can't make speeches, but I am thinking very much to-night of the time you brought me home, and took me for your brother. There never was such a brother. I should like just for once to say, thank you.'
I put my hand on his shoulder and pressed it hard. It was lucky he did not want words, for I had none. We lay down near each other for the last time. I don't know whether Cuthbert cried before he went to sleep. I know I did.
It was soon over the next morning. As we went downstairs in the doubtful light, we could hear my father's heavy breathing. But poor Granny was down before us, with some breakfast ready that no one could eat, and a candle flaring with a sickly ray in the broadening daylight.
'I shall never see thee again, my dear,' Granny said, two slow tears rolling down her face; 'but be a good lad, and don't forget to say thy prayers.'
'I won't, Granny;' and as he kissed her she put her trembling old hand on his brown head and blessed him.
Then Cuthbert went out quickly, and I followed. He stood still for a minute and looked round. He could not have seen the old place look more beautiful than in its morning stillness; the birds were waking up here and there, and a glitter of dew and sunshine lay on the grass.
'Come,' he said, 'it is late.'
Hildred met us under the great yew tree. It had always been a trysting-place of ours, and we used to part there when we were children, coming back from school. Their great parting was to be there now.
He went up to her, and took her in his arms as if he could never leave her. Hildred was crying.She did not say much, but she clung to him and held him fast.
'Dear heart!' he said, kissing her hair softly. 'You must not cry so. Hush, Hildred!'
I did not know how much tenderness there could be in his voice till I heard those broken words—'See, here is our brother Willie. He is going to take care of you for me. He will watch over my dear love when I am gone.'
A few minutes more, and Cuthbert said, 'I must go.'
I did not see their parting. He came to me, grasped both my hands. 'God bless you. Take care of her. Don't let her forget me.'
'I am going with you.'
'No, go back to her. Stay and comfort her. Oh, be good to her, Willie!'
The distant sound of the fifes and drums came from the village down below.
'I shall be late.'
Cuthbert was gone. The cliff hid him directly. Those few hours had changed the world for me.
My brother was gone, and I had lost my love.
I went back, as he bade me, to Hildred. She had flung herself down on the ground where he left her, and was crying bitterly. I triedto take her hand and lift her up, but she pushed me away, turning from me and burying her face deeper in her hands.
'Hildred, don't cry like that.'
She shook her head impatiently, and rocked herself backwards and forwards like a child. I did not at all know what to do for her.
'I wish I could comfort you, Hildred.'
'You can't,' she said with a gasping sob.
'No I'm afraid nobody could——'
'Cuthbert could,' she interrupted.
It was the first time I had heard from herself that Cuthbert was more to her than I was, although, of course, I knew it before. The words stung me so much that I felt almost inclined to go away and leave her. But presently she took away her hands and looked up, pushing back the ruffled hair from her forehead. It was such a pitiful little face, her eyes wet and her cheeks crimsoned with tears.
'Oh dear, I am so unhappy,' she said.
I took her hand again.
'Poor little Hildred, I'm very sorry for you.'
'It's all your father's fault,' said Hildred, with a little impatient stamp of her foot upon the ground. 'How could he be so wicked?'
'It was a mistake,' I said, after a moment's pause.
'It was cruel of him. Oh, poor Cuthbert! Why did you let him go?'
'I, Hildred?'
'Yes, how could you? He will just go and be killed in the wars, and then you will be sorry.'
It was weak, almost unmanly, to mind her childish words, but I could not help it. I turned and walked away. The next moment she ran after me.
'Willie, I don't quite mean it; you know I don't.' She looked up with one of her own coaxing smiles. 'Don't be angry; I think being unhappy makes me cross, and I've got such a pain in my throat that I don't know what to do.'
And then she burst out crying again. Poor little Hildred, poor child!
That was a long, strange day. It seemed as if it ought by rights to be mid-day, when the sun had only been up for an hour or two, and it was difficult to understand how other people could be quietly waking up to their every-day business.
My father was having his breakfast. A few labourers were going across the bridge to their work. A flock of sheep with a cloud of dust roundthem, moved slowly along the road on the way to their pasture. Even Granny, with the tears all gone and her face as placid as if it had never been ruffled, was stirring about her morning's work.
'I wonder where poor Cuthbert'ill be now,' she said at dinner time; 'miles away by this time, I reckon. You'll be feeling a bit down-hearted, Willie, sure, without him.'
I felt rather more than a bit down-hearted, but it was no good telling Granny so.
'Well, it does seem strange to think that the lad's really gone,' she said again; 'don't it now, Stephen?' My father gave a sort of grunt that might mean anything. After dinner, as he stood by the chimney-piece, his eyes fell upon a many-clasped knife that belonged to Cuthbert. He looked round to see if any one was watching him; presently his fingers closed quietly over it, and it was dropped into his pocket. I took no heed, it was growing upon him, that habit of secretly hoarding any stray thing that came in his way.
Then began a time about which there is little to tell. Our life, except that Cuthbert was gone, moved on, seemingly unaltered. And yet the old time and the new were as different really, as a place that you have known in the sunshine lookswhen you see it again by moonlight. The place itself is unchanged, the outlines, the shape, the substance are still there, only the colouring is gone. All that gave warmth and brightness has been taken away. Grey and black and white tints alone remain.
Was it really only yesterday that I had come home, I thought—only yesterday that I was watching a sunset of clear gold and red in a blue sky, as I came along the road from Morechester, thinking my sunlit thoughts? In an hour or two I was to see Hildred. Home where she was, lay somewhere in the heart of that bright west.
When I reached the village the sun set for me indeed. The light faded in a minute from my cloudland of dreams.
The time hung all the more heavily on my hands, that I was too lame, for a while after my coming home, to be able to do much. It was a great comfort when I got strong again. Hard work, work that lasted from morning until night, was the best thing then. I did not care to think more than I could help. It only made things worse.
At first I could not make out rightly, how much or how little it was my duty to be with Hildred,remembering that now she was only a charge left to me by Cuthbert. It would have been easier to keep away altogether, but the poor child was unhappy. In the newness and strangeness of her first sorrow, she needed a great deal of comforting. No one had much time or thought to give to the remembrance of Cuthbert, so she came to me, reminding me that I had promised to be good to her.
It has always seemed to me that any trouble is the most easily borne in silence. Many words only make the pain worse, and take away from the patience and strength with which one has to bear it. But it was different for little Hildred. Child-like, or woman-like, it was a comfort to her to say how very sad she was. She came to tell how she missed Cuthbert; how long and dull the days seemed without the hope of seeing him; of how she often thought she heard his voice calling to her, and forgot that it was gone far beyond her hearing.
Anyone that has loved and lost a friend knows well all that she felt. But to her it was just as strange and dreadful as if the world, since it began, had not been full of partings. It was so new to her to wake up in the morning, wondering what the weight upon her heart could be—sosorrowful, when everything was quiet, to cry herself to sleep.
We were not the only people in that part of the country who had cause to rue the visits of recruiting parties. There were the Moores, cousins of her own, whom Martha Clifford was never tired of holding up as an example. How often have I heard her exhort Hildred to patience, by telling her how much less to be pitied she was than the poor old Moores! Hildred did not think so, inasmuch as a new sorrow always seems worse than an old one, and the trouble that had come upon the Moores was of old standing now.
Three or four years ago their only son did, what Cuthbert had just done—enlisted, leaving his father and mother to get on as best they could without him.
It was hard on them certainly, for they were growing old, and had looked to David as the bread-winner for the future. 'If you knew what it was to want bread, Hildred,' said Martha, 'you would not have so much time for fretting about Cuthbert.'
I don't think it had come to the Moores wanting bread, but I remember well the talk of the country side, and how it was said the ferry-house over the Wynn would soon have other tenants, for an oldman like Moore could never manage the ferry-boat by himself.
Certainly the river at the ferry ran very swift and strong, and the old boat was a heavy one. Moore's house, a tumble-down stone building, comfortable enough inside, but a bleak sort of place to look at, stood hanging over the river, at the corner where the road comes out of a winding pass through the hills and ends at the ferry. It was the only way the farmers and people living up in the hills had of getting to Morechester. The boat carried across many a load of cattle for Morechester Market, many a man and horse bound for the Market Cross. Still the place was so wild and unfrequented that passengers were rare things, and the ferryman often worked in his strip of garden, and tended his goats, for days together, without the boat being once called for. There it lay, chained just beneath the house, with its ponderous oars, as big, clumsy, and flat-bottomed a thing as you would wish to see.
Cuthbert and I knew it well in the days of our rambles over the country. We knew old Moore and Moore's wife, and Elfrida their servant-maid, and David the son, who got so tired of the ferry-boat, and the lonely house, and the noise of the river sweeping by, that he went for a soldier, andleft the place more silent and deserted than before.
In time old Moore fell sick. It was then that they began really to miss David; for what was to become of them, now his father could row the ferry-boat no longer? Then Elfrida, their faithful maid, went down and unloosed the boat, and rowed it across herself, with her strong arms. And she told her old master and mistress not to fret, for she would do her best—they should not leave the old ferry as long as she had hands to serve them.
Elfrida—I remember her well—was a tall strong lass, with a grave, faithful-looking, kindly face, and a pair of steady brown eyes. Hers was a true heart and a stout arm. The old people had been good to her, and she was not going to leave them at their need. But it was a rough life for a woman, especially as winter drew on, and the wind blew wildly from the hills, and the river rose.
Farmers coming home late at night from Morechester Market, wanted to be ferried across, and it was bitter work unchaining the boat and pushing out into mid-stream in the darkness. Elfrida grew to dread the shout and whistle from the other side, that summoned the ferry-boat to go across, but she never said anything. It had to be done, andshe was glad to think of the old couple, comfortable under their own roof, often in bed and asleep, not knowing that she was pushing the boat along across the black river, with the rain dashing in her face, and the current striving against the whole strength of her arms, to sweep the boat down-stream.
One night, a very stormy night in November, Elfrida heard the unwelcome call come across the water. The wind and the rush of the stream almost drowned it; still there it was, and often repeated, as if the owner of the voice was getting impatient. So she lighted her lantern and pushed off, guiding the boat as well as she could by the rope that was stretched across the river. Her passenger was a farmer going home from Morechester, and as he led his horse into the boat Elfrida saw that he walked unsteadily. She was used to that sort of thing on market days, but to-night, as they started to cross back again, the man was pulling at his horse, making it move restlessly. Elfrida spoke sharply, bidding him be still and keep the horse quiet. The farmer answered angrily, and moved suddenly from his place—the boat rocked—there was a sudden splash in the water, a loud cry, and he was gone.
Elfrida knew that the current was running swiftly,and that a moment would carry him beyond help. She did not stay to think, but plunged in after him. She was a brave swimmer, and a brave woman, but the stream was hurling along, and the night was dark. What came after the shock of the chill water she could never quite tell. She knew that she clutched the man's hair as he rose, and then all the rest was confusion, until she felt someone dragging them both up the bank, and saw lights flashing in her eyes. Another party of homeward-bound farmers had come up, and pulled them in, but not until she had struggled with her burden close to the shore.
That night's deed made Elfrida famous in the country round. People went all the way from Morechester to look at her; but she remained just as simple as ever, rowing her boat quietly, and speaking little to any one.
It fell out strangely enough, that David Moore belonged to the regiment which our Cuthbert entered. They met in the barracks when Cuthbert first joined, and sailed in the same ship for India. We heard of their being together from David's wife. One evening Elfrida, going across to fetch a passenger who had called for her, found a little woman waiting at the river's edge, with a bundle in her arms, who said that she was David's wife. Hewas gone to India and had sent her home to his father, and here was Baby.
Elfrida thought in her heart that they had hard work enough to keep themselves, and now here was David, instead of coming back to help, sending his wife and child home to be a burden. She rowed the stranger across silently, and when they landed took the bundle in her arms—and it was Baby. Ah, well, perhaps twice in a life-time one may see as beautiful a child as baby was. Loose tumbled curls that looked like gold, shone on Elfrida's eyes out of the bundle—eyes like periwinkles, bright blue stars, she said, looked straight up and smiled at her. A pouting rosebud of a mouth laughed outright, and baby put out a firm round dimpled hand to clap her on the cheek.
All in a moment Elfrida's heart bowed down before its lord and master. 'Here is something to work for, early and late, night and day,' she thought to herself; but she did not say so, only she clasped the bundle that had suddenly grown so precious, tightly in her arms, and carried it into the house.
Henceforward baby reigned like a king at the ferry, by right, I suppose, of his crown of golden locks.
So Elfrida worked on with a will; David's little London-bred wife sat indoors with the old people, and both they and we thought of the soldier laddies who were away at the wars.
Day by day I talked to Hildred about Cuthbert, and told her how proud she would be of him when he came home safe from the wars. And Hildred believed all I said. It was easy to comfort her for the moment, only the next day it was all to do over again. I used to build gorgeous castles in the air for her, feeling all the time that it would half break my heart to see any of them come true. Yet there was a pleasure too in watching Hildred, listening with her eyes bent down, and the long dark lashes that made her face look like a cloudy day sweeping her cheeks despondently. And when at last she raised them it was just as if the sun came out suddenly. She was like a child to talk to. I sometimes thought, what a slight thing she was for two strong men to have set their hearts upon.
And thus a long time slipped away. Cuthbert left us in the summer, and winter was well on before Hildred got her first letter from him. That letter, written at sea and sent home by a vessel which met theirs, how much we all thought of it!
We stood round Hildred, waiting for news, as sheheld the big brown letter in both hands, eager, flushed, and laughing, yet half unwilling to break its great red seal. She unfolded it slowly and read it out, her finger pointing along the lines. It was a beautiful letter—everybody said so—and yet how little it told us about him! It left him well, he wrote, and he liked a soldier's life, but he often remembered home, and thought of his own true love by night and day. And he sent his kind respects to all inquiring friends. That was all.
In time, the letter too became a thing that had come long ago, and the winter dragged on into spring. Hildred grew slowly more accustomed to Cuthbert's absence, and I knew better what a hard task it was that he had left me.
I missed my brother Cuthbert sorely. I had never loved him more than since he took from me unwittingly that which I cared for most in life. With him all the life and cheeriness of our house had gone away—we who remained were so grave and old.
Indeed Granny, the oldest of the three, was the most talkative, perhaps the happiest. The twilight of her life was closing round her, and, looking back over the long way she had come, she could talk cheerfully over what had once troubled her themost, but which now lay dimly remembered in the distance behind her.
Sometimes she reminded me of my mother, by the expressions which she used. And I thought Mistress Dorothy was right when she said that there is a language which the great Master teaches to all his scholars, different as they may be to one another, and that it grows the more easy to them the nearer they are to leaving school and being taken home to their Father's house.
'Stephen will be vexed,' Granny said, 'to think that I should go; but it's quite time, Willie, and I shall be glad;' and she went on, laying her hand on mine, 'To think of me, my dear, poor me, with a golden crown upon my head!'
Dear old Granny, with the white hair under her mob-cap, and her withered, aged face. Ah, well! would not all the lines be smoothed away before the crown of life was laid upon her brow?
It may be that my father saw her failing, and was 'vexed' by it, but he said nothing. Besides, Granny toiled that he should still find a bright fire and tidy room to greet him, and Hildred was always coming in to help her. Granny said the sight of her sweet face made her feel young again. 'Her cheeks are like the red roses that grew overour porch when I was a girl. They used to say I was like one of those roses once, for I was a pretty girl, my dears, though you would not believe it now. I don't think girls are so pretty now-a-days as they used to be when sister Nancy and I were young.'
'I am sure they are not, Granny,' Hildred would say laughing, and putting her red-rose cheek fondly against Granny's wrinkled face. 'Do you want me to do anything more this evening?'
'Bless you, pretty child, no. Run away with Willie. Young folks will ever be courting, and it's right they should—quite right.' And Granny nodded wisely. I felt the blood coming up into my cheeks.
'I think Granny sometimes mixes me up with Cuthbert,' I said.
'Perhaps she does,' Hildred answered. 'Yes, she is growing very old.'
One day my father chanced to be by when Granny was putting away the tea things, a task she never let any one take from her for fear of accidents. 'Young folks are careless at times, poor dears.' But Granny's steadiness of hand was not so great as her good will, or else her eyes failed her, for presently a cup fell down and was smashed to pieces. She looked startled, sorry, and half-frightened,as she found my father close behind her, and she gave up the rest of the cups to him quite meekly.
'Yes, Stephen, I see. You needn't talk about it. I'm not fit to do it any more. The children'll have to do the best they can, and I'll just sit still and wait. Don't you be afraid.'
She went and sat down in the chimney-corner, and twirled her thumbs rapidly one over the other. By-and-by the vexed look went out of her face, and the patience that made it quite beautiful came back.
'Where's Hildred?' my father asked me, after vainly trying to join the pieces of the broken cup together with his big fingers.
I said she had gone home.
'You should ha' married the girl, Will,' he said roughly, 'and have saved all this breaking and wasting. And then there would have been somebody to see to her,' motioning towards his mother.
'You know I couldn't.'
'I don't say as how you could then, but that's not now. Yon lad has forgotten her long since, I'll lay. They soldiers never hold to one thing long together.'
'Cuthbert forgotten Hildred!' I said. 'Not he.'
'Have it your own way,' he answered; 'only we want to get hold of some woman that'll keep things straight, that's clear.'
It was the first time for very long that he had touched on that old string. It was not by very many the last. The notion that I must bring home a wife, to 'keep things straight,' and to take care of Granny, had taken a strong hold upon him. If I was a fool, and would not marry Hildred, I must find just some one else; but he had far rather have her about the place than a stranger: he was used to the lass.
In vain I told him that she cared for Cuthbert, and would not marry me.
'Just you ask her. A bird in hand's worth two in the bush any day. Tell her I'll be a father to her.'
Once it might have been, not now.
I could only try my best to prevent him from missing any of his comforts, and turn my hand to everything. But I was clumsy: the woman's work did not come easily.
And now Cuthbert had been gone for more than two years. A second letter came from him some six months after the first. Since then we had heard nothing.
Of course no one could expect to hear often from those out-of-the-way parts of the world.
There were always plenty of good reasons to give Hildred, when she wondered, as she often did, why she never got a letter. But after months and months had passed away in silence, a thought of fear we did not like to face, which we tried to stifle and forget, began slowly to creep into our minds.
It seemed as if the clouds grew thicker as the third winter of Cuthbert's absence darkened over us.
My words of hope and reassurance lost the ring of truth: they did not comfort Hildred as they used to do.
'It's no good, Willie,' she would say. 'You can't make yourself believe it all.'
No more I could. Even to my own ears my reasoning sounded hollow and unsatisfying.
We knew that David Moore's wife had got a letter more than once since we had heard, but—it seemed strange, her husband never so much as mentioned Cuthbert's name. Whenever I could spare the time, which was not often, for it was a long and rough journey, I went over to the ferry, in the faint hope that they might have tidings forus. There was a sort of tie between us and this household, where also there was watching and waiting.
They did not watch as we did. They had less uncertainty, and perhaps more patience. Moore's quiet little wife never lost her placid look for long together, even though one of the letters she received was written by a comrade of David's, to tell her that he was wounded and could not write himself. He bade his wife not take on, for he was getting better, and she believed, and obeyed him implicitly. As for the old father and mother, their daily comforts were their first thought. The draught that came from the kitchen window, and the fine crop of potatoes in the garden, occupied them full as much as any fears for David. The pity that Martha Clifford still bestowed on the poor Moores was wasted. As long as they had Elfrida to work for them, they wanted nothing else.
What they would have done without her, no one could guess. Elfrida never told them that she might have left them at any moment, had she so willed it, for a comfortable home of her own. But so it was.
I used to watch her with great interest. Theman whom she had saved from drowning did not forget what a debt of gratitude he owed her. He was for ever coming down to the ferry, only, it seemed, for the pleasure of being rowed over the river by Elfrida, and of staring at her all the way across.
Each time he tried to get through a set speech of thanks, that with much trouble he had put together, and each time he forgot it in the middle. It did not signify, for Elfrida took little heed of him. She told him once, that she had done but her duty, and that he had no call to thank her, and after that she wondered why he came so often, and ferried him quietly backwards and forwards all in the way of business.
He was a widower, the tenant of a small but thriving sheep-farm up yonder in the hills, where abode peace and plenty, much live stock, and many children.
Nothing was wanting but a mistress; and after a while he grew to think that Elfrida was one of the right sort, that she would make a kind mother to the children and a comfortable partner for himself.
The good man began to paint glowing pictures of the place he could take her home to, if she had but a mind to come. I don't think Elfrida turned quitea deaf ear. It did sound very pleasant—that well-to-do homestead, with the cows in the shed, and the poultry in the yard, the flocks on the hill-side, the dairy and the pigs. Elfrida felt kindly to the honest farmer in his best red waistcoat, who wanted to make her 'missus' of all these good things. And then how comfortable it would be never to have to cross the ferry on the winter nights that were coming round again, and to be able to put away for ever a certain passing feeling of uneasy wonder that had troubled her once or twice, as to what would become of her when she grew old.
Yes, that was all very well. Still there was Baby. She could never really think of leaving him. What would he do—poor little Davy—if she were gone? What would any of them do indeed? but that first question went nearest to Elfrida's heart.
After she had been listening silently all the way across, to the farmer's description of that place that must surely be very like Paradise, Elfrida lifted up her eyes, and there stood baby on the bank, clapping his hands and shouting at the boat. Baby, with a torn frock and a scratched face, and little bare muddy legs, yet beautiful exceedingly. Elfrida's heart gave a great thump, as it alwaysdid when she saw him. 'No, I never could leave Baby.'
'But I've got a baby too, up there at home,' the farmer pleaded.
She looked at him. 'Ah, but he's never like our Baby.'
The farmer scratched his head, and thought of his poor little chap at home, the thin, white-cheeked boy that never would thrive after his mother died and left him. Then he turned to Davy, and saw how his blue eyes shone, and how proudly he tossed back his yellow curls, and laughed his ringing laugh. And how Elfrida looked at him!
No, little Joe was not like that.
'Still, it seems a pity,' he said, 'don't it now, when things are so comfortable, as I've been telling you?'
Elfrida did not even hear him, for Davy, with the air of a king, was allowing her to carry him up the steep bank home to supper.
One day when I was there, the farmer brought down Joe to the ferry, with a kind of hope that the sight of Davy's little motherless rival might touch Elfrida's heart.
The visit did not turn out well. Davy made a bad beginning by knocking his guest down, withoutthe smallest provocation except that he did not like him. Thereafter Joe's shrill cries of fear and anger could by no manner of means be hushed. He stood clasping his big daddy's leg with gasping sobs, a weak, pale-faced, poor-spirited little mortal. 'So-ho, Joe, quiet,' his father kept on saying, patting and smoothing him down, rather as if he had been a cart-horse.
Elfrida, on her side, was holding back Davy, trying to scold him, and make him beg Joe's pardon; but there he stood, nothing daunted, like a prince, Elfrida said, his head thrown back, his eyes sparkling, and one small fist doubled, ready as soon as he was released for another hit at poor terror-stricken Joe.
It did not do. Joe was taken home to the hills, without having greatly aided his father's cause, and the farmer was fain to fall back again upon patience as his best helper after all.
And indeed so were we. I had to go back to Wyncliffe that evening with the old answer, 'No, Hildred, no news yet.'
'I am so tired, so tired of waiting,' she said wearily.
She was standing on the hearth-stone, in the red light of the fire. The rest of the room was dark,for the early dusk of winter had gathered outside. Only the glow from the burning embers fell on her bent face and clasped hands.
Her words sounded all the more dreary that they were spoken in a lowered tone, for Granny, who of late had ceased to take much notice of anything, sat as usual, half asleep, in the chimney-corner.
But she must have heard in part, for she roused up suddenly, and asked, 'Who is tired? What is she talking of?'
We did not answer for a minute, and then I said, 'Only of Cuthbert, Granny.'
'Ay, Cuthbert. Is the lad here?'
'Oh Granny, no,' said Hildred, 'we wish—we wish he were.'
'He will come,' said Granny, raising herself up and speaking in a strange, clear tone. You will see him, never fear. It may be a long time first—' She looked through the firelight into the darkness beyond, as if her eyes were fixed on something that we could not see; 'a long time, but wait patiently, pretty child; wait, Willie. You will see him again.'
Hildred came close to me, and, half-frightened, laid her hand on my arm. We both stood looking wonderingly at Granny, from whose eyes the unaccustomedlight was already fading away. The voice and look had given me an odd sort of thrill, and Hildred whispered, 'Willie, do you think she saw anything?'
'No—no—I don't think so. Granny.'
I spoke to her, and Hildred bent down and touched her, but she had sunk back again into the half slumber from which she had roused herself for those few minutes.
'Don't let us disturb her now,' Hildred said. 'We must do as she told us—wait. We will ask her again to-morrow.'
But when to-morrow came, our question remained unasked and unremembered. We only thought how her own long waiting was over, her hopeful patience changed into perfect joy. For Granny had gone from us. In the morning we found her lying with the winter light streaming across her face. We thought she was asleep. So she was. She had fallen into the quiet sleep of death.
One could scarcely call this a sudden sorrow, or a bitter sorrow. We had long known that it must come, and to her it was very welcome. Only we missed her. The chimney-corner looked empty, and we went in and out without the kindly, cheerfulword that for so many years had been used to greet us. Granny had been very good to us.
Neither Hildred nor I could forget the words that she had spoken about Cuthbert on the last evening of her life. We looked upon them as a kind of prophecy. Without saying anything to one another, I believe we both began at that time to have a vague feeling that he was near to us—that he was coming home.
I know I never heard the bell ring at the Castle gate, without a quick thought that it might perhaps be him. I have seen Hildred stand by the half-hour together gazing at the bit of road by the bridge, where people coming from the village up to the Castle could first be seen. She got into a way of looking over her shoulder, and from side to side as she walked, as if she half expected that some one would appear from behind an angle of the broken walls, or from under the shadow of a tower. For the first time in her life she did not like to cross the ruins alone after nightfall.
'The girl seems as though she was living in a maze,' Martha Clifford said one day. 'I don't know what she would be at.' And she went behind Hildred unawares, and put her hand on hershoulder. Hildred gave a great start and turned round with the colour rushing into her cheeks.
'Why, child, what ails you?' her sister-in-law asked, not unkindly, 'that you stand there staring at nothing, and shake like a leaf if one does but touch you?'