“There, little one,” she said to a creamer she took from a shelf, stuffing a piece of paper into it, “that will be grand to keep your heart from crackin’ while you’re away from home.” Then, looking aimlessly about the room, she put thepitcher back again upon the shelf and went over to the latticed light where stood a pot of tall fuchsias. With her finger she counted the blossoms: “Twenty blossoms an’ fifty buds; that’s less than this time last year. You must grow, little hearts,” she said. “Ow! he’ll be comin’ back an’ not a thing done,” she continued, hastening to a pile of plates that had stood in the same place for almost a week. “My! but the lads wore the bench slidin’ in an’ out, an’ here’s a rough place; I’ll call Eilio to make it smooth. Eilio!” she called, then brushed her hand uncertainly over her forehead. “He’s not here,” she said. “Ow! there’s the candlesticks. I’d most forgotten ye, ten—a dozen bright eyes; that’s a many for old Maggie,—I’m old now, yes, I am,—a dozen bright eyes for one old woman; aye, an’ for Gabriel, too, the lad’d not do without ye. In ye go!” And she took them all and threw them clattering into an empty box. “Hwi, hwi, now go to sleep while mam sings a lullabye—a sweet lullabye—a little lullabye—shoo! Here, Gwennie bach, here, darlin’—it’s—it’s just a bit of tea-cake mam made for ye—it’s rich, most too rich for a little one an’, dear little heart, it’s plums in it an’—an’——” And with a moan Maggie slipped to the slate flaggings, the empty plate breaking upon the stones.
So Gabriel found her lying huddled upon the hearth, her cap awry, her eyes closed, her mouth open and her breath coming harshly. Out in the barn he had heard the call for Eilio and stopped to wonder what it meant. Then followed a great clatter, and shortly a crash as of breaking china.
“Mam,” he said, gathering her head awkwardly into his arms, “mam, are ye hurt?”
There was no answer.
“Mam,” he whispered, staring at her, “what is it?” Still the eyelids, puffed and blue, lay unstirred. “Och!” he cried, “mam, mam, can’t ye speak?”
Tremblingly Gabriel picked her up and carried her over to the couch. He fetched water and wrung out his handkerchief in it and bathed Maggie’s head. He dropped on his knees beside her and clumsily loosened her cap and blouse. He thought he had killed Maggie, and he saw now that he had done so without making even an effort to keep what might have saved her life. The sense of righteousness had gone completely out of him, and his satisfied and valiant soul was crumpled into a wretched little wad, the very thought of which sickened him. Year after year she had taken the brunt of all the trouble of their home, and there was no sorrow that had not rested its head on her bosom, and, soothed by her hand, found its peace there. Gabriel bathed herface with the cool water; still no sign of consciousness stirred the bland look of the mouth. She had worn herself out in his service, and now at the last he had been willing, without an effort to see her point of view, to sacrifice her on the altar of his self-righteousness. He was a man; steward or no steward, he could have fought for her rights. Even if he had not won, if the landlord had proved as obdurate as the steward was corrupt, why the fight might have heartened Maggie for what must come. He not only had not fought for her, but he had been cruel to her, leaving her wholly alone at a time when she most needed support and sympathy.
“Poor little mam!” he whispered, helpless with the thought that he might be helpless to do anything for her any more.
With a sigh Maggie opened her eyes and smiled at him.
“Lad, are ye here?”
“Aye, mam.”
“Did it break?”
“No, dearie,” he replied, looking from the strewn floor with such reassurance for her that the deacons, if they could have seen his face, would have been confounded.
“An’ the creamer I stuffed so full of paper? I thought I heard it crack.”
“No, mam, not a crack.”
“What’m I lyin’ here for, lad? Dreamin’?”
“Aye, restin’ ye a little.”
“Aren’t we goin’ somewhere? I’m a bit tired, dad; I’d rather stay here,” she concluded, looking up at him trustfully.
“We’re goin’ nowhere whatever, mam; an’ ye shall stay here,” Gabriel answered.
“Is that the children playin’?”
“Aye, dearie, playin’ in the garden.”
“Dear, dear!” Maggie exclaimed, “I hear their little clogs clattering like ponies. I’ll just peek at the lambs.”
She lifted herself up and dropped back.
“I’m tired!” she exclaimed apologetically.
“Aye, dearie,” Gabriel said; then asked, “Will ye be still here a half hour while I write a bit of a letter an’ take it out?”
“Yes,” she said, “very still, lad; I’ll just sleep awhile”; and smiling at him, she closed her eyes.
“Poor old man!” Sir Evan muttered, his austere young face angry and pained. He turned to the letter again.
“Sir,” it read, “Mr. Thatcher said we must leave Isgubor Newydd in two weeks. It broke Maggie’s heart. A few minutes ago I found her lying on the floor touched. It will kill her if we must go. Sir, if your honoured lady mother were living, would you have the heart to send heraway from her home? Sir, for God’s sake let me hear from you. Your humble servant,
Gabriel Williams.”
The stewards of the estate had been brought up upon it for generations in an unbroken line of eldest sons from one family of the tenantry. So rigid had the family’s adherence to this custom been, that sometimes their world had had a good steward, sometimes a bad, just as all the Empire had had sometimes an excellent monarch, sometimes a wicked or incompetent ruler. It was a condition of affairs Sir Evan had taken for granted, without question of the right and wrong to himself or to others. He had wasted neither liking nor affection upon Thatcher, but it had not occurred to him that he could employ some one in whom he had confidence. Now Evan saw the possibilities of the past few years, the injustices and neglect and trouble which the steward might have inflicted in the landlord’s name. How could he know that repairs, for which he paid, had been carried out? How could he know that all the houses had been kept in good condition? How could he tell whether the tenants were receiving an equal amount of attention, that the fields were being improved and the stock increased? He was convinced that there had been injustice of some kind to Gabrieland Maggie; he knew the old man well enough to know that he would have trouble with any steward not so uncompromisingly honest as himself. Evan realised now, with the letter before him, what sort of a master he had been to these people who called him “Master,” and in every one of whose homes there hung a picture of himself. He did not know now, he had never known, whether they had been dealt with justly or unjustly.
As he rode on towards Isgubor Newydd his mind was full of anxieties. For the first time in the few years of his majority possessions had become a burden. The real obligation to administer, he saw, could not be given to a deputy as he had been giving it to Thatcher. And all the while he had known the steward was not the man morally or otherwise that he should be. Evan saw a new meaning in the fields and hills of his estate and a new accountability for himself—one in which he would himself be directly responsible. Already, however, it might be too late to undo some of the harm he had wrought. He asked immediately for Maggie when Gabriel opened the door.
“She’s the same, sir,” replied Gabriel, admitting him.
“O Gabriel, I’m so sorry,” Evan said.
“Aye, sir,” Gabriel replied, with some stiffness, “it’s natural your wantin’ church tenants.”
“But did you think I would let Thatcher send you away from the home you have had so long?” asked Evan, sick with the thought that this after all was what his tenants thought he would do.
“Indeed, sir, we didn’t know.”
“Ah well, it’s my fault,” Evan answered humbly. “For what reasons were you asked to leave?”
“Och, sir, you would not like the truth.”
“Aye, Gabriel, but tell it since I ask for it.”
“Well, sir, first because we wouldn’t be churched.”
Evan’s eyes winced. “And then?”
“Well, sir, because we wouldn’t trade at Mr. Thatcher’s shop.”
“Trade at Thatcher’s shop?” Evan repeated incredulously, anger and humiliation in his tone.
“Aye, sir.” Then seeing the mortification upon Sir Evan’s face, Gabriel added hastily: “But it’s my fault Maggie’s out’n her head. I was cruel to her, an’ between that an’ havin’ to leave home it broke her heart.”
“No, Gabriel, it’s more my fault than yours,” said Evan. “May I see her?”
“Aye, sir,” assented Gabriel, taking him into the kitchen.
Maggie raised her head, a bright look of love and welcome upon her face.
“Lad, I heard ye, I thought ye’d come, an’ ye’ve come so far.”
“Och, pardon her, sir,” said Gabriel, “she thinks it’s Eilio. Mam, it’s the master, not Eilio.”
Evan rested his hand on Maggie’s hot forehead. “So,” he asked, “you are not well to-day?”
“Aye, tired—but it’s nothin’ at all, nothin’ at all, whatever, except a sorrow here, dearie,” and Maggie pointed to her bosom.
“A sorrow, Maggie?”
“Aye, but it’s no matter at all now,” she answered. “I’ll put it by in the creamer with the paper, stuff it in tight like cheese in a sack.” And she laughed merrily.
“That’s right,” he replied.
“My, ye’ve grown to a sweet-lookin’ lad,” she said, patting his hand. “Could ye—could ye keep a home for mam now? I’ll give ye,” she whispered, looking at Gabriel furtively, “everythin’ I have—that’s three pounds. But ye mustn’t tell him.”
Evan glanced at Gabriel, but the old man did not see him, for he was staring at the floor.
“Lad, could ye?” Maggie demanded again.
“Yes, Maggie,” Evan answered, “we will keep a home for you as long as you live. You shall have Isgubor Newydd—see, I will give it to you. You shall have a deed of it.”
“There,” said Maggie, “of course, tell father now, an’—an’ I hope he’ll want to stay.”
Keturah, leaning towards the open grate of coals in the cheerful kitchen of the Reverend Samson Jones, rubbed up and down, up and down her old shin; so rhythmical was the motion that she might have been sousing or rubbing clothes, except for a polyphonic “Ow! Ow!” to set off the rubbing. Keturah knew better than to quarrel with fate. But when the latch lifted she looked up eagerly, with that instinctive hunger for sympathy upon which most of the satisfaction of joy or the pleasure of pain depends. It was Deb, the widow Morgan’s servant, and Keturah groaned afresh with the joyous sense of having from all the world just the audience she would have chosen for her misery.
“Ow, ow!”
“Well, indeed, what is it?” asked Deb, subduing her voice, but unable to dim the two ripe, red cherries in her old red cheeks, or the snap in her old eyes.
“Ow, ’tis a pain—ow! a pain in me leg.”
“Och, well, ’t is too bad, but ’tis nothin’, ’tis nothin’ but the effect of old age,” said Deb comfortingly, “an’ old age is never comin’ alone.”
“Not comin’ alone?”
“Nay, nay, no more nor youth comes without love, nor middle age without comfort, nor——”
“Tut,” interrupted Keturah sharply, “indeed ye are makin’ a mistake; the pain has nothin’ to do with growin’ old. The other leg is quite as old whatever, but that one is well, aye, quite well.”
After an awkward silence Deb said lightly, “Is it? well, indeed!” then passed with feminine skill to another subject. “Have ye heard the news about Tudur Williams? No? Well, he went quite nasty with Cardo Parry for playin’ false with poor little Sally Edwards.”
“Did he so! Tudur is always fightin’, his pale face looks so fierce.”
“Aye, bleached. ’Tis hard rememberin’ he an’ the schoolmistress are brother and sister.”
“Aye, hard, but what did Cardo Parry do?”
The two women lowered their voices, and with that naïve liking old age often has for repulsive tales, they rolled this particular story as a sweet morsel under their tongues. Keturah forgot to rub her old shin, and the two womenconfronted each other in the candle-lighted room with bright eyes in which every skip of the flame from the coals over the shining brasses was reflected.
“Tudur Williams was right!” exclaimed Keturah.
“Aye, Tudur Williams is always right; but do you believe in it?”
“Aye, aye, I do indeed.”
“Tut, Keturah, believe that? I cannot. Ye’re that trustin’, ye’d believe the whale swallowed Jonah, indeed.”
“Aye, so I do,” fervently affirmed Keturah; “that blessed story I heard from the master’s father first, and I’ve heard it often from the master himself. ’Tis true as the Lord’s Prayer.”
“Pooh!” sniffed Deb, with the superiority of one indulging in the higher criticism; “if the Bible said Jonah swallowed the whale ye’d believe that, too!”
“Aye, aye, indeed, iss, iss, if the Bible said so,” admitted Keturah simply; “but the Bible don’t.”
“Well,” Deb hastened to add, with a sense of having been on tottering exegetical foundations, “I dunno. But if I was to say the pastor would marry my mistress, would ye believe that, now would ye?”
Keturah considered; she had a helpless sense of tossing Jonah and the whale to and fro in an effort to understand the connection of Deb’s last remark. To this sober, long-nosed old woman, the pastor’s devoted servant, the mental processes of the widow’s cherry-cheeked Deb were often hard to understand. Keturah thought her distinctly light-minded, but without Deb the old woman would have been lost. In the last ten years, in which the Reverend Samson Jones had been, according to more lenient Wesleyan dispensation and the power of his own eloquence, returned twice to Gelligaer, Keturah had conceived a real love for and dependence on Deb.
“Marry the widow Jenkin Morgan?” she repeated.
“Aye, the mistress.”
“Are her parents ailin’?”
“Nay,” admitted Deb, crestfallen.
“Then what made ye say it?”
“I dunno,” replied Deb, “but I’ve a feelin’ here”—she patted her corsage with bright assurance—”that somethin’ is comin’, aye, somethin’ is comin’, now isn’t it?”
“How can I tell? I’m thinkin’ it will not be the widow whatever.”
“Tut, he loves her, now doesn’t he?”
“Aye, he does,” replied Keturah, taking againto rubbing her shin. “Aye, so he does, an’ it’s like to have ruined his life. A woman’s no right to hold out to stay with her parents, be they as old as Methuselah, when a man needs her to wife. Aye, he’s grown old with it all, an’ he the first man in Gelligaer! But I’m thinkin’ he’ll not marry her.”
“Not marry her!” exclaimed Deb, in real alarm. “Not marry her in the end?”
“Not marry her,” solemnly repeated Keturah. “Since he went to see his lady mother last he’s acted brisker, aye, he’s stepped firmer and swifter, an’—an’——”
“An’ what?” asked Deb breathlessly.
“An’ he’s been to see the schoolmistress three times since Sabbath once before last.”
Deb gasped, her eyes helplessly fixed on the erect Keturah. “The schoolmistress!” she exclaimed. “Tudur Williams’s sister?”
“Aye, the schoolmistress.”
“But she’s poor.”
“Aye, so she is, an’ your mistress is rich, but a minister cannot stay unmarried all his life, now can he, with all the women in the parish pursuin’ him. Jane Elin’s a handsome, capable young woman.”
“But does he love her?” persisted Deb.
“Love her? I dunno.”
“Aye, does he as he does the widow?”
“Well, indeed, I dunno. Nay,” admitted Keturah reflectively, “not as he loves the widow, I’m thinkin’.”
In his study the Reverend Samson Jones was conscientiously at work on his sermon; the will is a good horse, and if ever a man strove to ride it well it was Samson Jones, as he ran his fingers through his hair, looking now this way and now that, tipping back in his chair and muttering disconnectedly “planet shining in the night,” “morning star of a revival,” “brook in the desert,” “arid waste,” “Dan to Beersheba,” “the understanding and the conscience,” “the affections and the will.” The last word smote him and he pushed away the neatly written sheets of his sermon. Nothing any longer that he said or wrote seemed coherent or to have meaning. In years past when the Almighty had called on Samson Jones, Samson Jones had answered, with the result that Gelligaer had been listening to an eloquence unparalleled in the history of the village,—an eloquence that had brought men, women, and children from the outlying farms and hills into the Chapel, that had touched every nonconformist tradesman in the town, that had won the respect of the stricter Calvinists, and the friendly co-operation of the Church. But fortwo weeks no eloquent word had come to his lips; his speech had been like a spring checked at its source. To-morrow was the day he had set on which to display finally the power of his will, and to-morrow would be here in twelve hours; after that he might allow a few hours, until the proper interval came in Jane Elin’s school work, and then——!
Samson Jones covered his eyes and moaned aloud, with pagan reliance upon the helpfulness of an old saying, “Gwell pwyll nog aur [prudence is better than gold]; ond tan enw pwyll y daw twyll [but under the name of prudence deceit will come].” His head felt hot and as if every thought were a string stretched to the snapping-point; and his heart beat uncomfortably. He unlocked the drawer of his writing-table and took out a picture; it was the photograph of a charming face, of a woman evidently about thirty, but whose features were round and childlike, the deep fringed lashes, the coronal of hair and contour of chin giving the countenance the circular aspect and soft depth and delicate tinting of a pansy. Before it Samson Jones, who was of the same flesh and blood as other mortals, sat, tears filling his eyes, spilling over and rolling down his face, and the hand that held the picture shaking as it had not shaken since it held itsfirst public sermon. Ah, he loved her so, and had loved her even before her marriage! After her husband had died unexpectedly, Samson Jones got himself recalled to Gelligaer, a feat that only he could have accomplished, and then had come this second trial.
With the unaccountable determination soft, gentle things sometimes display, Dolly Morgan had decided not to marry again so long as her old father and mother lived. She had admitted her love for Samson Jones, but assured him at the same time that he must wait. He had loved her now with the exclusive passion of a warm, dependent nature through six long years. The parents might live, however, for twenty years more. He had battled in vain against the resolution of Dolly, who, having experienced matrimony once, had no longer a maiden’s eagerness to rush into matrimony again, however desirable. He had urged upon her the especial responsibility of a minister’s life, the need he had for a wife to help him, the years that her parents were likely to live, the wish of his congregation that he should marry, and finally, again and again, his great love for her. But Dolly could be convinced of no immediate duty beyond that due to her parents. But there was no shadow of a doubt in her mind that the day would come inevitablywhen she would be Mrs. Samson Jones “the minister,” just as she had certainly been two years ago Mrs. Jenkin Morgan “the shop.” Her mind was full of untroubledaxiomata media, and these two facts were of them, the one proved, the other unproved but not disproved.
In the meantime the pastor’s work suffered; he was pursued by marriageable women young and old; he had advice from experienced matrons forced upon him; from every conceivable point of view, utilitarian to ideal, his brothers of the cloth had taken up the subject of matrimony for a young minister; and at last had come his own conviction that he had not given himself over wholly to the good of his ministry. Finally, there had been a conversation with his wise old mother. Samson Jones saw afresh that Jane Elin had made herself indispensable to him in his work. She was useful in every organisation connected with the Chapel: the societies, the sessions, the prayer-meetings, the Cymanfas; and she was a leader in the Sunday school, which young and old attended. She was always effective, always busy, and always polite. Her equilibrium could no more have been disturbed than a buoy’s on the ocean, for whatever came, she was still in her element.
Jane Elin had learned her most importantlessons under that best of teachers—adversity; from this unexceptionable preceptress she had grown wise in reflection, and from teacher and teaching she had won the sharp weapon of an excellent education. Consciously or unconsciously there were two decisive factors in the minister’s feeling that it was advisable to marry the schoolmistress now, since he could not have the widow. First, she worshipped him, as every one in Gelligaer knew; that was as near as Jane Elin had come thus far to an insurmountable difficulty. And, secondly, Samson Jones leaned on her; for if the world is divided into those who lift and those who lean, Samson Jones had learned to lean on Jane Elin.
The will is a good horse, but the Reverend Samson Jones sat his horse with difficulty, and only by steadying himself with the thought of his mother. He took the picture of Dolly, which he felt that he no longer had any right to keep, and tore it slowly in two, then once more in two, then in two again, then he dropped his head on the table with a sob. By the morrow he would have committed himself, and even his thoughts after that must be honourable to the schoolmistress.
It is easy to sleep in a perfect skin; when a man feels as Samson Jones did, the very thoughtof sleep is misery. But the cottage was quiet, Keturah had gone to her loft, and, habit being strong, he took his candle and stumbled upstairs to bed, wiping his eyes with his coat-sleeve. He took off his clothes with a sense that each garment stripped him of one more hope and joy. And as he slipped on to his knees by his bedside, there seemed nothing left for which to live. He had merely a dull sense of a nightly duty still to be performed. Before he knew what he was saying, he had repeated a childish rhyme not thought of since he was a boy. Horrified that it had come to him at such a moment, he rushed fervently into the petitions and acknowledgments of a conventional prayer. He sought to spread himself meekly before an inevitable will in this choice of a wife, then he paused a minute, groaned and ended with, “Lord, Lord, I long exceedingly for Dolly.”
Little Dilys sat with her doll in front of the schoolhouse by the stream. As the happy children had tumbled out of school, the bell rang its quick strokes from the bell-cot. That it would soon ring them in again did not much matter to Dilys, for despite the fact that she loved Lul, the doll, with a love warmer than platonic, there was another she loved still better. Both had pink cheeks, but Lul’s helplessnesswore on Dilys and the schoolmistress was never helpless. The child liked the proprietary feeling she had in the helpful hands and nice warm arms of her schoolmistress foster-mother. At the moment she was provoked with Lul for looking so stuffed, just as if she had eaten too much, and she shook her till her eyes clappered in her head and her Welsh beaver tumbled off her fuzzy hair. Overcome by remorse at Lul’s dilapidated aspect, she called her all the endearing names she could muster: “white sugar,” “sugar and honey,” “hundred and a thousand,” “the world’s value,” “white love,” “the apple of her eye,” and “tidy baby” which she obviously was not. But not one of these superlative terms of endearment took away the pained, stuffed expression of Lul’s countenance.
The doll’s history had not been a happy one. Ever since she had been born in Gelligaer, the summer before, she had presented many grave questions, that had incessantly to be referred from Dilys to the schoolmistress, from the schoolmistress to the Reverend Samson Jones, and finally to the medical man. There was the question in the first place of how she got here—Dilys always sought for the sources of truth, as her sweet name might indicate; then, once admitting that Lul was here,—which she seemedto be,—why did she come without being properly provided with a fashionable bonnet? Dilys found herself obliged to take a great deal on faith.
When she saw the minister entering the school close, she dropped Lul and rushed upon Samson Jones. But the minister, putting her away gently, asked for the schoolmistress. Dilys led him in, never once aware that his thoughts clappered worse than Lul’s eyes had, and that he saw neither stick nor stone of the school close as he marched forward blindly to the completion of a last duty. Dilys found all grown-ups, except Jane Elin, unaccountable at seasons: sometimes they would talk too much, for example when Lul was saying her prayers or going to sleep; and sometimes, when any sensible mortal would be glad of conversation, they wouldn’t talk at all.
Half an hour later, when the minister came out, Dilys, who based a reasonable faith on the substance of things hoped for, ran trustingly to him again. And this time he did talk, and looked so brisk, and inquired about Lul and gave her,—oh, wonderful new joy!—a whole shilling with which to buy a stylish bonnet for Lul.
Dilys ran skipping and jumping in to her guardian, but Jane Elin, wiping her eyes and smiling at the same time, put Dilys away witha “Well, indeed, dear, ’tis grand, but ’tis very late now. Run tell Glyn to ring the bell.” While she wiped away the last tears, Glyn did ring the bell till it danced like mad in the bell-cot and the old people thought with a smile how boys must be boys with bell-ropes. To Jane Elin it seemed, as all the little valleys and hilltops tossed its clangour to and fro, the sweetest sound in all the world; for the joy of all joys, the great unaccountable joy, had come to her, after it had been resigned a score of times to another. Further than this thought the schoolmistress allowed herself no hysterical pause. Her character, like a firm sock, had been knit a stitch at a time, and stood the strain of the last half-hour with no sign of wear and tear.
Dilys tucked Lul under her bench, Lul was so dull, and looked lovingly at the shine on Jane Elin’s bright face and at her pretty bright hair. Dilys was certain there was no one in all Gelligaer or beyond its mountains like her own dear Jane Elin, and as the baton beat time for them to sing their closing song, Dilys opened her little mouth, red as a holly-berry, very wide indeed, and sang with all the lustiness of happy childhood:—
“My Cambria! thy valleys how dearly I love,And thy mountains that darken the blue sky above.”
“My Cambria! thy valleys how dearly I love,And thy mountains that darken the blue sky above.”
“My Cambria! thy valleys how dearly I love,
And thy mountains that darken the blue sky above.”
Again Deb and Keturah confronted each other in the kitchen.
“Och, och, to think it!” sighed Deb.
“Well, ’tis natural, now isn’t it? They were old people.”
“Aye, but she’s that lonely; ’tis pitiful to see her distress.”
“But they died peaceful; neither one wanted other more than three hours; I’m thinkin’ the old man barely set foot in heaven before the old woman was travellin’ after him. If the Lord had ’a’ planned that,—and perhaps He did,—He couldn’t have done better, now could He? If Peter has the keys, as master says he has, he must have smiled to see those two old people hurryin’ so to get in together, the old woman with that hasty step of hers a-skippin’ after him.”
“Aye, aye, they went together,” sighed Deb, wiping away tears; “but, och! the mistress is like a distracted creature, pacin’ up and down, up and down the house, wringin’ her hands, her soft, pretty eyes all cried out, an’ goin’ every day to the grave where those poor souls lie.”
“Poor souls,” sniffed Keturah, “nothin’ could satisfy ye, Deborah. They’re lyin’ side by side in the same grave on earth, an’ singin’ an’ rejoicin’hand-in-hand in heaven. Ye think too little an’ talk too much,” concluded Keturah, who thus far had done most of the talking herself.
The old woman had no patience with sentimentality about death, for she had served forty years in a minister’s family, where life in its birth, its growth, its death, had come and gone about her with epical fullness. There was little human history that Keturah’s old eyes had not as calmly surveyed as they looked now upon the tearful face of Deb.
“But she weeps so, poor dear, an’ the only time she seemed more cheerful was when the pastor came to bury the old people. When they came back from the grave she begged him to stay awhile, but he couldn’t, an’ then she cried an’ cried again, poor child.”
“Well, well,” said Keturah, with a shrewd, troubled look, “’tis a pity.”
“But he loves her, now doesn’t he?”
“Aye, he does whatever.”
“T’was only a week ago,” said Deb, patting herself on her corsage again, “I was sayin’ somethin’ was comin’; an’ I thought then, when we were talkin’ ’twould be their gettin’ married, aye, I did indeed.”
“Indeed, so ye did,” Keturah repeated. “Tut,there’s the knocker clappin’. Now who would be comin’ this late, and the master so tired?”
Keturah hobbled swiftly through the kitchen and narrow hallway to the door.
“Well, Mrs. Morgan!”
“Yes, Keturah, is your master in?”
“Aye, in his study; will ye go in there?”
To the Reverend Samson Jones, since the death of the widow Morgan’s parents, life had seemed nothing more dignified than a low gambling game. He had done what he believed a man should do; after protracted delay and a final self-conquest greater than any one knew, he had done the thing duty told him to do. Had he delayed twenty-four hours longer to do this duty, that for which he had waited and longed through six years would have been his. Now, horse and rider had stumbled together, and all the principles which have been as a guide-post to his fervid spirit lay prostrate with him.
When the door opened and the widow Morgan came in, Samson Jones was sitting idly in his study-chair, nerveless and confused, one moment saying to himself that he would send for Jane Elin and tell her all, the next minute terrified at the very thought, and the third moment condemning himself for lack of courage to accept what had come upon him through no fault ofhis own. The aspect of his thin, long face had become so ghastly, and the confusion of his words so unusual, that not only had Keturah and Jane Elin watched him with alarm, but the deacons and good-wives of Gelligaer began to question, to talk of the oncoming of the spring and its bad effect on the system, to suggest a holiday for their beloved pastor; and one good-wife had gone so far as to consult Keturah and to write to Mrs. Jones, his mother. His thoughts and feelings were like filings with no centrifugal force to gather them in. As he jumped to his feet with the exclamation, “Dolly!” these thoughts and feelings flocked swiftly about the love he had for her.
The widow’s eyes looked red and her voice quavered as she said, “I am so lonely, Samson, och, so lonely!”
“Aye,” said Samson, trying to shift his glance from her appealing face.
Dolly dropped into a chair and slipped back her scarf. Her chin trembled pitifully. “I am so lonely, Samson; I thought perhaps you had forgotten me?”
“No, I’ve not indeed.”
“Well, and don’t you love me any more? I thought you’d never forget.”
“Aye, I love you but—but——”
At this Dolly rushed upon him like an impulsive, gladdened child. “Och, then, nothing else matters, nothing at all whatever!” She clung to him eagerly, and with her arms about him the last vestige of Samson Jones’s resolution was quenched.
After that, through the blissful evening he knew nothing but blind snatching at ecstasy. He tried to forget everything. That night, when he saw Dolly home, she was an appeased, contented child whose only thought of the morrow is the untroubled one that it will come again and again with the same delicious happiness.
But never had Samson Jones known anything like the week that followed, with its dissimulations petty and large, its pained irresolution, its alternations between ecstasy and despair. The surface of his mild zealous eyes had come to have the feverish look of a man living in a delirium. With Jane Elin he was gallant, attentive, punctilious, a finished lover. With Dolly he gave himself up so to the luxury of their love, that the widow Morgan wondered why she had not seen before the extravagant passionateness of his nature.
For her part, Jane Elin rang again and again on the surface of this emotion called love and listened with troubled ears to the hollow soundswithin. Jane Elin had had just twenty-four hours in which to rejoice undisturbed in her new happiness. She was no idle sentimentalist, afraid to face the truth, or with rose-coloured glasses through which to look at the truth. Up to this point she had seen clearly the course of events and the ninepins fate had played with a question she believed finally settled. At last the widow was free, and Jane Elin was sober-thoughted at the new aspect that that fact put upon her relations to the minister. With both, despite the fact that Samson Jones was exceeding in devotion to each the highest expectation either could have held, intuition of something wrong about their lover made them keenly anxious.
On the Sunday after this week that Gelligaer will never forget, the minister, without a note of any kind on the desk or in his hand, preached a sermon of extraordinary power. And the old white-haired deacons sitting in a row around the pulpit nodded their heads approvingly, for it seemed to them that the good old times of fifty years ago were coming back, when all preaching in Wales was extemporaneous. Keturah alone looked with troubled face upon the minister, certain that a catastrophe was overtaking him, at the nature of which she had shrewdly guessed.And it was the Monday following this Sunday that the Reverend Samson Jones made a convulsive resolution to see Jane Elin and tell her all. He would send for her to come to his pastoral study; it would be easier to talk with her there. His action in sending for Jane Elin was like the action of the man who instinctively puts out his hand to shield his head from a blow, for Samson Jones saw the calamity coming upon him.
He stood with down-dropped eyes as she came into the study, fingering the objects on his writing-table.
Jane Elin went up to him swiftly. “What is it, Samson? Has anything happened? Do you need me?”
“Aye, I have been meaning this last week—it seemed only right—I don’t see how it is possible—I——”
“Och, tell me, Samson, tell me quickly, what is it?”
“Well, that day two weeks ago——”
“Dear, dear!” Jane Elin interjected, turning pale.
Samson Jones was thinking of an escape, any escape—this was too horrible, he could not continue with it—when his eye fell on a letter just received from his mother in answer to the onesent by the deacon’s wife, and the word “mother” flashed over his whole being like a great light revealing a path in the darkness. The joy in the freedom that came to him with this thought was almost too great for him to bear. His mother would help him.
“My mother,” he stammered, “my mother, och, it is too horrible!”
“Dear anwyl!” said Jane pitifully, thinking of sickness or of death. “Is it that bad?”
“Aye,” he muttered, looking around wildly, and then at his watch; “there’s just time to catch the narrow-gauge to Qwyllyn. Och, goodbye!” And he was gone.
With a sense of real relief, Jane Elin stood still a moment. It was that, after all, which had been worrying him. Why had he not told her before that his mother was ill?
She walked thoughtfully toward the kitchen. “Keturah, is she very ill?”
“Who?”
“The master’s mother; he told me to tell you he’d gone to catch the narrow-gauge. Is she?”
Keturah’s eyes widened and contracted as she said, “Aye, very.”
“Och, ’tis too bad! I must go to him.”
“Nay, nay, there’s no need, Miss Williams, he’ll manage somehow.”
“Aye, but I can nurse her; yes, I must go; I can get the next train.”
“Well, ye know best,” replied Keturah.
Keturah continued to sit by the fire, muttering to herself: “Well, well indeed, ’tis as I thought; dear, the poor lass, the poor lad! Trouble, trouble, trouble!” She leaned forward to stir the pot. “He’ll not be wantin’ it, not at all.” Keturah dwelt moodily on her thoughts, with no change in attitude except when she took the oat-cake from the skillet and reached forward to stir the pot. “’Tis certain disgrace whatever; och, och, the poor lad!”
Suddenly there was the rush of hurrying feet and Deb came in breathless and excited. “Well, well, he’s gone, and I didn’t know that his mother——” she gasped.
“Aye, he went over an hour ago,” interrupted Keturah.
“He was passin’ the window, an’ my mistress saw him an’ called to him; but he wouldn’t stay, he said he couldn’t, he was runnin’ to catch the train.”
“Aye, so he was indeed,” agreed Keturah.
“An’ she ordered me to pack up an’ call the coach, an’ so I did; she thought she’d get there all the quicker to help him than by takin’ the train an’ makin’ so many changes.”
“Jane Elin’s gone, too; she left Gelligaer over half an hour past,” said Keturah slowly.
“The schoolmistress gone?” questioned Deb.
“What for, indeed?”
“To be with him.”
“To be with him!”
“Aye, ye’re blind, blind as a bat, Deborah, an’ that trustin’ ye see nothin’ and believe anythin’. Believin’ the whale swallowed Jonah is nothin’ to what ye’re capable of takin’ on faith,” ended Keturah, with infinite sarcasm.
“Dear, dear, dear, Keturah, I cannot believe this whatever! What shall we do? Och, the disgrace it’ll be!”
There was an imperative rap on the door: “Keturah, where is my sister?”
“Gone, Mr. Tudur, to be with the minister.”
“She left word his mother was ill. I do not believe it. Is she?”
“Nay, to my knowledge, the old lady Jones is not ill.”
“Och, the scoundrel! I thought it of him. There, you Deb, where’s your mistress?”
“She’s—she’s gone, too,” Deb answered, shaking from her ankles up.
“Gone where?”
“To Qwyllyn.”
“I’ll go after,” he shouted, slamming the door.
Keturah sank back by the fire. “Well, indeed, well, indeed!” she said, with the peaceful accent of one who has accomplished an end, “they’re all off now. Ye’ve no need to cry, for what will be, will be,” she continued dryly to Deb, who was sobbing. “The old lady Jones will manage.”
“Och, but ’tis shockin’, shockin’; an’ they’ll never have him in Gelligaer again.”
“So ’tis. Well, they’re all on the road now. The master’s about at Dinas; Jane Elin, if her train’s on time, is at Llanengan; the widow Morgan, if her coach is makin’ good speed, is about at Abersoch; and Tudur’s just leavin’ Gelligaer. The old lady Jones will have her hands full, but she’s a wise old lady, a very wise old lady. ’Twill all get settled when she takes it up, aye, so ’twill.”
“Barbara, the flummery’s sour!”
Samuel pushed back his dish and dropped his spoon.
“Aye, dad, a bit sour; I’m sorry.”
“A bit sour!” exclaimed the husband, “a bit sour! tut,more’na bit sour, whatever!”
Barbara looked at him, the corners of her sweet old mouth trembling, “Father, I’m sorry; I thought it was better nor usual.”
“Better nor usual! Ye’re full of fancies, Barbara, a-runnin’ round nursin’ other folks, an takin’ other folks’ troubles, all except your own. Yesterday ye made broth for the servant-men, an’ it was every bit meat; broth like that’ll ruin my pocket, an’ anyhow we arn’t providin’ for gentlemen’s families.”
“Aye, father dear, but for a long while they’ve had nothin’ but barefoot porridge, an’ there was a little extra meat in the house, an’ I thought——”
“An’ ye thought! Ye needn’t think, mother. Such thinkin’ as ye do is ruinin’ my prospects.”
“Dad dear, I’ll not do it again if ye say no.”
“I did not say ’no,’ I said yesterday ye gave the men an all-meat broth an’ it was no holiday.”
The old man’s voice grew petulantly angry, the childlike appeal of his wife’s eyes, the trembling lips, her gentle sweetness, irritated him.
“Very well, dear.”
“Mother, they’ve milk on the farm, which is more’n they’d have in their own homes; if they lived at home they’d be scramblin’ with their children to suck herrin’-bones. Stirabout with plenty of milk is good for any man, an’ it’s especially good for a workin’ man; they have all the stirabout they can eat here, an’ some kind of meat-broth an’ tart every day.”
“Very well, dear, I’ll see that it doesn’t happen again.”
“Aye, an’ mother, I found one of the tubs of butter in the dairy touched; there was most a half a pound of butter taken out. Do ye know who took it?”
“Dad, I took it for Mrs. Powell the carpenter, who’s ill.”
“For Mrs. Powell the carpenter! An’ then how are we goin’ to pay the landlord, think ye, if ye go takin’ the butter to sick people?”
“She’s very sick, father, an’ they’re very poor,an’ I thought it would be such a nice to her just now, and she did relish it so.”
“Relish it! Aye, soon ye’ll be distributin’ the sheep to the neighbours. An’, mother, I found some broken crockery in the garden out by the corner of the hedge. It looked most as if it had been hidden there; do ye know anythin’ about it?”
“Aye, I know somethin’ about it.”
“An’ what do ye know?”
“Father, that I shall not be tellin’ ye, whatever.”
“Not be tellin’ me! not be tellin’me?” he exclaimed hotly. “Tut, Barbara, what’s come over ye?”
“No, father, not be tellin’ ye,” answered Barbara, with gentle deliberateness.
“Indeed, we’ll see. Maggie, Maggie,” shouted Samuel, “Maggie, come here!”
Maggie came hurrying to the door, anxiety in every feature of her face.
“Maggie Morgan, what do ye——” began Samuel.
“Father, that will do,” interrupted Barbara; “Maggie, ye may go.”
The girl turned and went; speechless, Samuel regarded his wife.
“Father,” she continued gently, “I broke itan’ I hid it. I was—mixin’ oat-cake in the bowl an’ the bowl was on my knee, an’ suddenly it slipped an’ fell on to the flaggin’s an’ broke. Then I hid it ’cause,”—the quiet voice faltered,—”’cause—why ’cause, of course, father, I thought ye’d be troubled over it if ye saw it, an’ ye’d not miss it if ye didn’t.”
“Alack, mother!” There was genuine astonishment in the husband’s exclamation. “Barbara! to think we’d be livin’ together forty-five years an’ ye deceivin’ me at the last like this. I’ve just one thing the more to say to ye. There’s no cause for makin’ a duck-pond out’n the kitchen floor an’ if——”
“But, father,” interrupted Barbara, wiping her eyes with her apron, “fatherdear, the lads was just foolin’ a little an’ they spilt a bit of water on the flaggin’s, an’ before Maggie could mop it up ye came in.”
“Tell them an’ such as them to go live with the pigs!” And Samuel, pushing back his chair, rose hastily to his feet, and left the room.
“Father, fatherdear!” called Barbara.
There was no answer, and she was alone.
“Oh, father, if ye but loved me as ye used to! There were never any words then. Oh, lad, lad!”
There was no reproach, no bitterness in hervoice, only longing; she loved him so, and their time at best was short, and she couldn’t manage to please him in anything. And perhaps this was their one chance—a few years at best, perhaps a few weeks, and it might be only days. She cried patiently as if she had lost something irrecoverable, an ideal, a hope, a child. Their past, the past of their youth, lay before her now, in its human romance and young love, like something perished; and, wistful, she dwelt in its memories, on its common human beauty. Suddenly she ceased crying.
“Aye, but I lied to him an’ I never did before, indeed. I was afraid Maggie’d lose her place if he knew she broke it; an’ to think that I hid the pieces from him! Oh, Sammie, Sammie! I’m deservin’ what’s come to-day, deservin’ it,” she concluded with satisfaction, “for sinnin’ so against conscience.”
She sat up straight in her chair as if to receive punishment.
“An’ I’m more blessed than most. Samuel’s a good man an’ well respected—no man better respected. He’s honest in his dealin’s, he’s more generous than some to his men. There was Eilir’s little lad he paid the doctor’s bill for, an’ Morgan’s old mother he buried an’——” Barbara was sitting very straight in her chairnow, with one wrinkled hand spread before her, telling off on its fingers Samuel’s good deeds; her eyes shone joyously, there were so many, and in their numbering she forgot a sore heart, a cap askew, a kerchief wet over the bosom, and a wrinkled apron. “An’ there was old Silvan he’d partly fed an’ clothed these ten years, an’ an old crot no one would do anything for, an’ Sammie helped her, too. An’ there was the dress he brought me from the fair, an’ the gold-rimmed spectacles from Liverpool, an’ the beautiful linen for caps, better nor any one else in the valley has. An’ he’s done everythin’ for the children, an’ one of them’s fine a scholar as any in Wales, which is sayin’ much. Aye, he’s a good man, an’ I’m a wicked woman to be dreamin’ so; but oh, lad, laddear,” she ended lamely, “if ye’d only love me as ye used to!”
Samuel went out on to the farm with irritable thoughts, indignant against extravagances which he laid to Barbara, and which meant a slender purse even in their old age. He was willing to admit that she was a good woman, aye, a more than ordinarily good woman, but where she fell short, he thought, was in managing. Yes, he had prospered a little; for an instant he had an uncomfortable sense of owing this prosperityin part to the efforts of some one besides himself. But there was this constant leakage, and again his mind flamed up over the broth and the broken pottery. It was the woman’s business to see to it that no ha’penny was wasted; he failed to recall a certain rusted spade, some moulded straps, and a snapped fill in the year’s calendar. And then, at last, manlike, in the midst of the work out on the farm, he not only washed his lungs with the keen mountain air, but he washed his mind of the whole difficulty, straightway forgetting it.
When once more he entered the house for his tea, he found Barbara in the kitchen knitting before the fire—knitting socks for him. There was no trace of what had passed, no trace of her care, her grief. Her cap was fresh and tied with new ribbons, her kerchief was folded neatly over her shoulders, her apron clear white and starched, and out from beneath the short skirt peeped two brass-toed shoes bright-eyed as mice. Samuel did not know how quaint and sweet she looked. But then, why should he? she had been always just so. He took her, all of her, for granted,—the bit of red in her old cheeks, red that matched the bright cap-ribbons; the soft white hair, the tender eyes, the kind tired mouth, the little figure dainty as the sweet alyssum intheir garden—in short, there was nothing to be remarked upon; he simply took her for granted as he had done always, or as, for example, one takes the fresh air till one is in prison, or the sky till one goes blind, or love till it is gone.
The tea and bread and butter were on the table. Barbara poured out his cup, put in the sugar, the top of the cream, and passed the cup to him as he sat toasting his feet before the fire. Then she handed him the bread.
“Well, father,” she said, patting him on the shoulder, “did ye have a successful afternoon?”
“Aye, Barbara,” he answered, “fine.”
Without touching the tea, she took up her knitting.
“Are the lambs comin’, dear?”
“Aye, mother, they’re most as big as yearlin’s now. Are ye not goin’ to take tea?”
“No, I’ve a bit distress, no more’n I have often.”
“Have ye tried the peppermint?”
“Aye, but it’s no good. Did Eilir say what the shearin’ ’d be?”
“He did; it’ll be heavier nor usual. It’ll make a big shipment this year.”
“Good, father, we’ll be takin’ a trip to the lad’s college yet, what with the lambs comin’ fine, the wool heavy, the calves double thenumber they were last year. Father, do ye think the boy’d be ashamed of his old mam?”
“Ashamed? He’s no lad of mine if he is. Well, mother, if it’s all really comin’ as well as it seems to be, we’ll be takin’ that trip to see the boy.”
“Oh, father dear, ’twould be grand, what I’ve dreamed of these many, many years!” Barbara dropped her knitting and clasped her hands in childlike abandonment of pleasure.
“Tut, mam,” added Samuel, his face lengthening, “it’s not absolutely certain, what with waste in the kitchen, the breakin’ of crockery, an’ the men eatin’ themselves out’n house an’ home, it’s no tellin’. It might be an extravagance, but we’ll see.”
“But, father!” exclaimed Barbara impulsively, and stopped.
“Well, mam, maybe it’ll be; maybe we’ll see the boy an’ see him a great man in his college, aye, a most successful man, as good’s the best.”
“Oh, dearie, to think we’ll be seein’ him—perhaps. But, dad, do ye think he’ll forget he’s my boy?”
“Why should he? Mother, if we’re goin’ it’ll be in six weeks.”
“Aye, but father,”—Barbara paused, her headreflectively to one side,—”there’s the shoes. I’ll have to be havin’ shoes; these clogs’ll not do for the lad’s college.”
“No matter, mother,” replied Samuel, thrusting his hands into his pockets with boyish energy, “we’ll have proper shoes for ye an’ we’ll go first to Liverpool for a travellin’ suit for ye an’ a proper bonnet for me an’——”
“Listen to what ye are sayin’—a bonnet forye!” And Barbara laughed merrily.
“Dear me!” laughed Samuel, slapping his knee, “I mean a proper bonnet foryean’ formea proper suit of clothes. Aye, we’ll afford it all if the lambs keep comin’.”
“Dearie, it’ll be most too much happiness, the boy, the trip, an all the clothes. I’ll be takin’ him some socks an’——” Barbara gasped and touched her side with her hand.
“What ails ye, mother?”
“It’s just a stitch in my side.” Samuel did not notice that Barbara had turned white up to the very edges of her cap. “An’ what’ll ye be takin’ him, dearie?”
“Dear, dear, I’ll bring him a—a—well, mother, what’ll I take him? He’s such a great man ’twouldn’t do to fetch him a cheese or eggs or a fowl, now would it?”
“That’s so, father,” replied Barbara reflectively.“Aye, he’s a great man an’ ’twouldn’t do, whatever. I have it, dad, we’ll be buyin’ him books in Liverpool.”
“Good, so we will, mam, as many books as we can afford.” And Samuel thrust his hands still further into his pockets, pursed out his lips, spread his legs apart, and contemplated the fire earnestly. “Aye, mother, books is the very thing; the lad’ll be more’n pleased to have them an’ to think I thought of them.”
“Aye, that’s so, dearie.”
“Well, I’ll be goin’ now; we’ll have to be makin’ haste to have all done in six weeks, an’ we’ll go, mother, we’ll go if we can afford it.”
Samuel strode out of the room; he was over seventy, but he walked with youthful elation; indeed, in some marked fashion, despite white hair, wrinkled skin, and limbs that were beginning to bend with years, he was still a boy.
Barbara looked after him, sighing wistfully as he left the room. “It seems a bit like bein’ young once more, a bit like old times.” She caught her side again. “This stitch is worse than common. Aye, dearie, I was unjust to ye the mornin’, an’ I’m a bad old woman.”
When Samuel came in for supper, he found Barbara lying down. Nothing was the matter, she assured him, “just a stitch worse thancommon, aye, an’ they’d be goin’ to Liverpool the same.” But as the night wore on it grew worse still, and by morning she was a very sick woman, suffering what even his man’s eyes could see was intense pain. The old cheeks had shrunk in the night, the face blanched to an ashen gray; only the eyes remained unchanged and shone sweetly and serenely upon him.
The physician was sent for, and while one of the men was fetching him, Samuel told Barbara at least fifty times that she would “be better the morrow,” and each time Barbara, too weak for speech, nodded as much as to say that she certainly would be. When the doctor came he saw her extremity and sent Samuel and Maggie from the room. A quick examination followed.
“Samuel,” said the doctor, stepping into the kitchen, “Barbara is a very sick woman.”
“Aye, sir, but she’ll be better the morrow.”
“No, Samuel, not to-morrow.”
“Not to-morrow, sir? Then next day?”
“No, man, nor the next day.”
“But, sir, Barbara’s never ill.”
“She can never get well here.”
“Not the week, sir?”
“Samuel, ye do not understand.Barbara will never be well here.“
“Och!”
“She’s dying, man; there’s nothing to do for her that could be done out of Liverpool.”
“Liverpool,” said Samuel.
His thoughts seemed to be somewhere in the back of his mind, inaccessible, walled up from contact with the reality of what he heard and saw. He appeared unable to grasp what had happened, what was coming. Surely he was walking in a dream, and every minute there was the chance, so he thought, that he might awake from it. What was this that had come upon him in a night? Certainly not the reality, for with that he had been living for years—that was life. Barbara was dying; the words rang oddly in his ears without reaching his mind. Some stranger was speaking with him; he did not understand. Barbara was dying; no, not Barbara, somebody else; other peoplediddie. Barbara, was dying; not his Barbara, not the mother of his children, the wife of his fireside, his companion during a lifetime. Somebodywasdying; no, not his Barbara but somebody else; just give him time to think. Barbara was dying—could it be his Barbara?
“Dyin’?” asked Samuel aloud, “Barbaradyin’?” He repeated the words as if questioning and testing them.
“Aye, man,” replied the doctor sharply, “she’s dying; she’s caught herself lifting something. With an operation there might be some chance; but there’s none here in this place, only in Liverpool.”
“Aye, Liverpool,” answered Samuel, “we’re goin’ to Liverpool soon.”
The doctor glanced at him keenly; before this he had seen childishness with some shock of grief take a sudden, unrelinquishing hold on old age.
“Well,” continued Samuel, still as if talking to himself or to some one outside the room, “we’ll go now; aye, we’ll take the chance.”
“But, man,” replied the doctor, “it’ll cost more money than ye spend in two years.”
“No matter, sir, we’ll sell the sheep, if need be. Aye, dearie,” he added gently, “we’ll take the chance.”
“There’s no time to spare, then,” said the doctor looking at his watch.
“Aye,” replied Samuel, “we’ll be ready.”
“Then be sharp about it,” said the doctor, alert for the one chance of life.
“Aye, sir”; and Samuel went into the room where Barbara lay.
He looked down upon her lying in bed; he could see that her strength was slipping,slipping away. He dropped on his knees beside her. He patted her hand, he smoothed her forehead.
“Mother!” he called.
Her eyes smiled confidingly, reassuringly up at him.
“Och, mother, I never thought of this!”
There came a feeble answering pat from her hand.
“Mother, we’re goin’ to Liverpool; aye, dear, they’re goin’ to make ye well.”
Barbara moaned, and her eyes brimmed with tears.
“Fatherdear,” she whispered, “let me—oh! Sammie—let me die—here.”
“Tut, mam, ye’re not goin’ to die—aye, they’ll be makin’ ye well in Liverpool.”
“Daddear,” she plead, “let me—die—here.”
“But, mam,” argued Samuel, “the lad’ll be there waitin’ for us—an’—an’ to see ye,” he ended weakly.
“Sammie, Sammie,” she begged, “let me die here—not—away—from—home; the lad—will—understand.”
“Barbara, there’s a chance for ye to get well; will ye not take it for me, dearie—aye, will ye not do it for me, Barbara, for my sake?”
The big eyes that had looked into his withoutanger, without selfishness, through all the circumstances of life, smiled now with sudden sweetness. The hand lying in his hand tightened, her lips trembled.
“Aye, Sammie, lad, I will.”
“Dearie, Barbara, my Barbara!” he exclaimed, struggling to control himself. “Oh, mam, I do love ye so, an’ I’ve not been good to ye!”
“Sammie, not been good to me? but ye have been, lad, an’ I’m a bad old woman an’ before I leave the house——”
“Mamdear, ye’re not to say such things. I’ve found fault with ye an’ neglected ye, but ye do know I love ye?”
“Aye, laddear, I know—ye—love me but I’m a bad—old—woman, an’ I must tell ye before—I—leave the house——”
“Tut, mother, mother, ye’re not to say such things. I’ll do for ye now, oh! I will. Mam, I’d never thought of this.”
“But lad,” she persisted, “I’m a bad old woman an’——”
“Tut, dearie, no, no,” he silenced her. “We’ve just a little while an’ I must see about some things. I’ll call Maggie an’ she’ll have ye all ready, dear.”
Preparations were soon made, and whenMaggie had her mistress wrapped up for the journey, Samuel and the doctor hastened into the room. It was evident that Barbara’s strength was ebbing more and more rapidly away.
After she was lying on the stretcher she reached out a hand to Maggie. “Goodbye, my dear,” she faltered; “be—a—good—girl.”
“Och, mistress, please let me tell——”
“No, Maggie, no, not—a—word,” she answered. Then suddenly Barbara cried out, “Sammie!” the first terror of death in her voice.
“There, there, mamdear; aye, dearie, I’m here.”
“Oh, Sammie, to die—away—from home,—aye, once—over—the threshold,” she murmured.
For an instant her eyes tried to smile into his, then consciousness slipped away, and a wing swept over them,—they fluttered and they closed. The doctor’s stern “No matter, she will recover in the air,” checked the sobs of Maggie; and so they bore her, still and white, over the threshold of her home, past the farm-servants, to the carriage.
Fields, hills, buildings flashed by, seeming with their shadows and forms to flick the windows of the railway coach. The doctor and Samuel sat side by side, and opposite on the longseat lay Barbara, quiet and semi-conscious. The half-day’s journey to Liverpool stretched out interminably, even now the most of it had been covered. Samuel was thinking, thinking, thinking, as he had never thought before, and the discipline of these thoughts was biting into him like acid. There were lines graven on his face which years alone could never write there. Aye, to learn a lesson like this in a few hours which should be learned through a lifetime,—to learn it thus in one last brief discipline! Oh, Barbara, Barbara, what had he done for her, what had he been to her? And nowif—the thought strangled him—where, where was she going?