But Mr Ablethorpe had his own time of doing things, and with such a girl as Elsie in front of him, he was not in a hurry.
"Lives with a poor woman, does she? – Nancy – Nancy – what name did you say?" he went on in the tone in which people ask for additional information.
But I was not going to stand this – from Miss Orrin or any one, about my Elsie.
"This is Miss Elsie Stennis," I said, with what of dignity I could compass with my inches, "the only grand daughter of Mr Stennis, the owner of this property."
"But how?" said the young man, looking, as I thought, a little reproachfully at Miss Orrin; "I was not seriously aware that Mr. Stennis had any relatives alive."
"This girl has been represented as the child of his daughter Isabella," said Miss Orrin, "but Mr. Stennis, doubtless for excellent reasons, has never acknowledged her as such!"
"But the church records and the registrar have, though," said I. "You can speak to old Mr. Askew, if you like – he knows!"
"You can go now," said Miss Orrin, with dignity, cutting me short, "and remember that you are not to return till you have received an invitation. Mr. Stennis will overlook your conduct on this occasion, in consideration of your youth and ignorance. But you will know better the next time, and no such excuse will be accepted."
As Mr. Ablethorpe passed me he nodded his blonde curly head at me, twinkled his eye, and said: "Tell your father that I am going to look him up one of these days. I want a subscription for our Organ Fund, but I won't say anything about where I found you – I promise you that."
He looked at Elsie, too, as if he had meant to say something jokingly to her also, but thought better of it. Then he lifted his hat and passed away across the green lawn side by side with Miss Orrin. They wove their way among the clumps of lilies till they were lost to view, and I could see that they were talking earnestly together.
And from the barn, very lonesome across the black water of the moat, came the indignant hooting of the mad sisters still shut up behind the barred door, with the black altar and the little coffins.
CHAPTER IX
ELSIE'S VISITOR
It was a night or two after our first and (for the time being) last visit to Deep Moat Grange. Elsie and I had arrived back at Nance's, our hands and even our arms laden with flowers. For Nance had been at home all day, and so Elsie and I had been taking a holiday – I from lessons, and Elsie from looking after the house. We had gone wandering over the long whinny knowes which stretch away to the south, till, from the top of Brom Beacon, one can see the ships crowding into the docks of East Dene and Thorsby, collier and tug and tall sea-going brig, every ship after her kind.
It was a day to be remembered, and as a matter of fact neither of us has forgotten it. We crossed Brom Water where it was as broad as a lake. Our conveyance was a penny flatboat, running on a chain, which chain hauled itself up wet and dripping from the bed of the river. A little farther on we stretched ourselves out on the greensward upon a green knoll above a railway cutting. We talked. We were silent, and listened to the the wind among the leaves and the hum of insects among the lime trees and meadow plants. Mr. Mustard was not at all in our thoughts. Nor yet my father in mine. Only one thing troubled me – the knowledge that in the autumn I must leave Breckonside and go to college. College itself I did not mind about. There was a certain amount of fun in being a student – or so I had always been told. What I really did mind about was leaving Elsie.
It would be – I knew it by instinct – like cutting off a part of my own body to go walking lonely on Saturdays when we had so often loitered in company, thinking that the good days would never cease, wanting nothing better, nothing other than just what we had. Ah! I had a prevision that day that Elsie and I had better make the most of our time during this summer. For the winter would try our friendship.
What I did not foresee was how suddenly Elsie would grow up. Yet she had always done things suddenly – from boxing my ears to deciding to continue her studies at home. She did the latter that very day, and in the evening she announced to Nance that she was not going back to school.
"Very well," said Nance, not in the least surprised. Indeed, with her own limited education, she had often wondered why Elsie had prolonged hers so unnecessarily.
It was pleasant in Nance's cottage by the Bridge End of Breckonside. The house was, as perhaps I have already explained, overwhelmed in a perfect show of creeping flowers, not all of them yet in their full bloom of colour, but always spreading up to the chimneys and throwing abroad reckless tendrils that brushed the face as one entered the little wooden porch.
Nance was busy with the supper dishes, and Elsie had come down after "giving her hair a tidy," as she had been commanded by Nance to do.
"Who do you think has been here the day?" said Nance suddenly.
And I knew in a minute, but Elsie guessed her grandfather.
"The young English minister from Over Breckonton."
"Yes," Nance went on to give details, finding that nobody exclaimed at her news; "as fine an Englisher as ever was, with a bit cambric handkerchief that wad hae been little use to a man wi' a cauld in his heid, and a black cane wi' real silver bands. Extraordinary civil he was, and bode near an hour talkin' to puir auld Nance, and speirin' where ye were, Elsie, and what time ye wad be hame!"
I looked at Elsie. She was busily engaged in tying up some sprays of early heath, which we had gathered on the steep sides of Brom Beacon. She did not seem to be listening. But she heard well enough, as her words proved.
"Oh, yes, Mr. Ralph Ablethorpe! Joe and I met him by chance on the way to my grandfather's the other day."
Now the vixen knew very well that there would be no more question of the "coming of the Englishy minister" after an announcement like that. Nance was all agog to hear of the wonders of Deep Moat Grange, which she had never seen except from the outside, and news of the mad people my lassie's granddad had gathered about him. Small wonder, either! For, indeed, no one had crossed the Moat for years except the High-Church curate, who (as they said) went periodically to "confess" Miss Orrin.
Even such things as coals and provisions were brought by the bailiff to the end of the drawbridge in sacks, and from thence carried across on the back of the powerful Jeremy, the same Jeremy whom we had seen that day weeping like a child.
But it was then that I began first to understand what absence at college might cost me. I looked at Elsie. She was still tying up the little pink bundles of "bell heather," but her face was held down, and there was a little conscious flush upon her cheek. I had never thought it before, and it came on me like a judgment. Elsie was pretty.
I did not exactly wish she hadn't been, but oh, I did wish that nobody had been able to see it but myself!
That English curate, with his curly poll and clear blue eyes, rode me like a nightmare. I resolved to break his head, handsome as it looked – aye, if he were the best man that ever stepped in shoe leather, and had climbed all the mountains in Switzerland and given all that he got for doing it to the poor, as they said he had done. I did not care how good he was. I was desperate at the thought of losing Elsie. Not for love – oh no, thank you. I had more sense than that. But just to go about with, and be my little 'panion, as she had always said she would be, and as I expected her to remain.
But the curate did not let grass grow under his footsteps. It was only two days before he was back again at the little cottage at the Bridge End. Nance had work that day, and if I had not had the sense to play truant he would have found Elsie by herself, as no doubt he expected to do. But I was there seated on the table, swinging my legs.
He began at once saying how sorry he was that Nance was out, and that he had so much enjoyed the talk with her the other day. But under my breath I kept saying, "Liar! Liar!" Because I knew quite well that he was coming of purpose to see Elsie, and the thought gave me catchings of the breath when I thought of going to college. I wasn't jealous a bit, of course, only I couldn't bear to think of any other fellow being friends with