"Eh!"
"That's where it be! I'm getting what you gave thirty years agone! And you soaking in money, Master, and getting bigger rents and bigger profits. Ain't I to have my share of it?"
"Share of it!" the old man ejaculated, thunderstruck by an argument as new as the man's insolence. "Share of it!"
"Why not?" Thomas knew his case desperate, and was bent on having something to repeat to the awe-struck circle at the Griffin Arms. "Why not?"
"Why, begad?" the Squire exclaimed, staring at him. "You're the most impudent fellow I ever set eyes on!"
"You'll see more like me before you die!" Thomas answered darkly. "In hard times didn't we share 'em and fair clem? And now profits are up, the world's full of money, as I hear in Aldersbury, and be you to take all and us none?"
It was a revelation to the Squire. Share? Share with his men? Could there be a fool so foolish as to look at the matter thus? Laborers were laborers, and he'd always seen that they had enough in the worst times to keep soul and body together. The duty of seeing that they had as much as would do that was his; and he had always owned it and discharged it. If man, woman or child had starved in Garthmyle he would have blamed himself severely. But the notion that they should have more because times were good, the notion that aught besides the county rate of wages, softened by feudal charity, entered into the question, was a heresy as new to him as it was preposterous. "You don't know what you are talking about," he said, surprise diminishing his anger.
"Don't I?" the man answered, his little eyes sparkling with spite.
"Well there's some things I know as you don't. You'd ought to go to the summer-house a bit more, Master, and you'd learn. You'd ought to walk in the garden. There's goings-on and meetings and partings as you don't know, I'll go bail! But t'aint my business and I say nought. I do my work."
"I'll find another to do it this day month," said the Squire. "And you'll take that for notice, my man. You'll do your duty while you're here, and if I find one of the horses sick or sorry, you'll sleep in jail. That's enough. I want no more of your talk!"
He went into the house. Things had come to a pretty pass, when one of his men could face him out like that. The sooner he made a change and saw the rogue out of Garthmyle the better! He flung his stick into a corner and his hat on the table and damned the times. He would put the matter out of his mind.
But it would not go. The taunt the man had flung at him at the last haunted him. What did the rogue mean? And at whom was he hinting? Was Arthur working against him in his own house as well as opposing him out of doors? If so, by heaven, he would soon put an end to it! And by and by, unable to resist the temptation--but not until he had sent Thomas away on an errand--he went heavily out and into the terraced garden. He climbed to the raised walk and looked abroad, his brow gloomy.
The day had mended and the sun was trying to break through the clouds.
The sheep were feeding along the brook-side, the lambs were running races under the hedgerows, or curling themselves up on sheltered banks. But the scene, which usually gratified him, failed to please to-day, for presently he espied a figure moving near the mill and made out that the figure was Josina's. From time to time the girl stooped.
She appeared to be picking primroses.
It was the idle hour of the day, and there was no reason why she should not be taking her pleasure. But the Squire's brow grew darker as he marked her lingering steps and uncertain movements. More than once he fancied that she looked behind her, and by and by with an oath he turned, clumped down the steps, and left the garden.
He had not quite reached the mill when she saw him descending to meet her. He fancied that he read guilt in her face, and his old heart sank at the sight.
"What are you doing?" he asked, confronting her and striking the ground with his cane. "Eh? What are you doing here, girl? Out with it!
You've a tongue, I suppose?"
She looked as if she could sink into the ground, but she found her voice. "I've been gathering--these, sir," she faltered, holding out her basket.
"Ay, at the rate of one a minute! I watched you. Now, listen to me.
You listen to me, young woman. And take warning. If you're hanging about to meet that young fool, I'll not have it. Do you hear? I'll not have it!"
She looked at him piteously, the color gone from her face. "I--I don't think--I understand, sir," she quavered.
"Oh, you understand well enough!" he retorted, his suspicions turned to certainty. "And none of your woman's tricks with me! I've done with Master Arthur, and you've done with him too. If he comes about the place he's to be sent to the right-about. That's my order, and that's all about it. Do you hear?"
She affected to be surprised, and a little color trickled into her cheeks. But he took this for one of her woman's wiles--they were deceivers, all of them.
"Do you mean, sir," she stammered, "that I am not to see Arthur?"
"You're neither to see him nor speak to him nor listen to him! There's to be an end of it. Now, are you going to obey me, girl?"
She looked as if butter would not melt in her mouth. "Yes, sir," she answered meekly. "I shall obey you if those are your orders."
He was surprised by the readiness of her assent, and he looked at her suspiciously. "Umph!" he grunted. "That sounds well, and it will be well for you, girl, if you keep to it. For I mean it. Let there be no mistake about that."
"I shall do as you wish, of course, sir."
"He's behaved badly, d--d badly! But if you are sensible I'll say no more. Only understand me, you've got to give him up."
"Yes, sir."
"From this day? Now, do you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
After that he had no more to say. He required obedience, and he should have been glad to receive it. But, to tell the truth, he was a little at a loss. Girls were silly--such was his creed--and it behoved them to be guided by their elders. If they did not suffer themselves to be guided, they must be brought into line sharply. But somewhere, far down in the old man's heart, and unacknowledged even by himself, lay an odd feeling--a feeling of something like disappointment. In his young days girls had not been so ready, so very ready, to surrender their lovers. He had even known them to fight for them. He was perplexed.
CHAPTER X
They were standing on the narrow strip of sward between the wood and the stream, which the gun accident had for ever made memorable to them. The stile rose between them, but seeing that his hands rested on hers, and his eyes dwelt unrebuked on her conscious face, the barrier was but as the equator, which divides but does not separate; the sacrifice to propriety was less than it seemed. Spring had come with a rush, the hedges were everywhere bursting into leaf. In the Thirty Acres which climbed the hill above them, the thrushes were singing their May-day song, and beside them the brook rippled and sparkled in the sunshine. All Nature rejoiced, and the pulse of youth leapt to the universal rhythm. The maiden's eyes repeated what the man's lips uttered, and for the time to love and to be loved was all in all.
"To think," he murmured, "that if I had not been so awkward we should not have known one another!" And, silly man, he thought this the height of wisdom.
"And the snowdrops!" She, alas, was on the same plane of sapience.
"But when--when did you first, Clem?"
"From the first moment we met! From the very first, Jos!"
"When I saw you standing here? And looking----"
"Oh, from long before that!" he declared. And his eyes challenged denial. "From the hour when I saw you at the Race Ball in the Assembly Room--ages, ages ago!"
She savored the thought and found it delicious, and she longed to hear it repeated. "But you did not know me then. How could you--love me?"
"How could I not? How could I see you and not love you?" he babbled.
"How was it possible I should not? Were we not made for one another?
You don't doubt that? And you," jealously, "when, sweet, did you first--think of me?"
Alas, she could only go back to the moment when she had tripped heart-whole round the corner of the wood, and seen him standing, solitary, wrapped in thought, a romantic figure. But though, to her shame, she could only go back to that, it thrilled her, it made her immensely happy, to think that he had loved her first, that his heart had gone out to her before she knew him, that he had chosen her even before he had spoken to her. Ay, chosen her, little regarded as she was, and shabby, and insignificant amid the gay throng of the ballroom! She had been Cinderella then, but she had found her glass slipper now--and her Fairy Prince. And so on, and so on, with sweet and foolish repetitions.
For this was the latest of a dozen meetings, and Love had long ago challenged Love. Many an afternoon had Clement waited under the wood, and with wonder and reverence seen the maid come tripping along the green towards him. Many a time had he thought a seven-mile ride a small price to pay for the chance, the mere chance, of a meeting, for the distant glimpse of a bonnet, even for the privilege of touching the pebble set for a token on the stile. So that it is to be feared that, if market days had found him more often at his desk, there had been other days, golden days and not a few, when the bank had not held him, when he had stolen away to play truant in this enchanted country.
But then, how great had been the temptation, how compelling the lure, how fair the maid!
No, he had not played quite fairly with his father. But the thought of that weighed lightly on him. For this that had come to him, this love that glorified all things, even as Spring the face of Nature, that filled his mind with a thousand images, each more enchanting than the last, and inspired his imagination with a magic not its own,--this visited a man but once; whereas he would have long years in which he might redeem the time, long years in which he might warm his father's heart by an attendance at the desk that should shame Rodd himself! Ay, and he would! He would! Even the sacrifice of his own tastes, his own wishes seemed in his present mood a small surrender, and one he owed and fain would pay.
For he was in love with goodness, he longed to put himself right with all. He longed to do his duty to all, he who walked with a firmer step, who trod the soil with a conquering foot, who found new beauties in star and flower, he, so happy, so proud, so blessed!