She wore a smart pair of poor Claytonʼs vamplets, and a dark morning–frock drawn tightly in, with a little of the skirt tucked up, and a black felt hat with an ostrich feather, and her masses of hair rolled closely. As the bright colour shone in her cheeks, and the heartlight outsparkled the sun in her eyes, John Rosedew thought that he had never seen such a wildly beautiful, and yet perfectly innocent, creature.
“Well, I donʼt know,” he answered, very gravely, “about your gaiters proving a Palladium against calumny. But one thing is certain, Eoa, your face will, to all who look at you. But why donʼt you ride, my dear child, if you must have such rapid exercise?”
“Because they wonʼt let me get up the proper way on a horse. Me to sit cramped up between two horns, as if a horse was a cow! Me, who can stand on the back of a horse going at full gallop! But it doesnʼt matter now much. Nobody seems to like me for it.”
She spoke in so wistful and sad a tone, and cast down her eyes so bashfully, that the old man, who loved her heartily, longed to know what the matter was.
“Nobody likes you, Eoa! Why, everybody likes you. You are stealing everybodyʼs heart. My Amy would be quite jealous, only she likes you so much herself.”
“I am sure, I have more cause to be jealous of her. Some people like me, I know, very much; but not the people I want to do it.”
“Oh, then you donʼt want us to do it. What harm have we done, Eoa?”
“You donʼt understand me at all, Uncle John. And perhaps you donʼt want to do it. And yet I did think that you ought to know, as the clergyman of the parish. But I never seem to have right ideas of anything in this country!”
“Tell me, my dear,” said Mr. Rosedew, taking her hand, and speaking softly, for he saw two great tears stealing out from the dark shadow of her lashes, and rolling down the cheeks that had been so bright but a minute ago; “tell me, as if you were my own daughter, what vexes your pure heart so. Very likely I can help you, and I will promise to tell no one.”
“Oh no, Uncle John, you never can help me. Nobody in the world can help me. But do you think that you ought to know?”
“That depends upon the subject, my dear. Not if it is a family–secret, or otherwise out of my province. But if it is anything with which I have to deal, or which I understand – ”
“Oh yes, oh yes! Because you manage, you manage all – all the banns of matrimony.”
This last word was whispered with such a sob of despairing tantalization, that John, although he was very sorry, could scarcely keep from laughing.
“You need not laugh, Uncle John. You wouldnʼt if you were in my place, or could at all understand the facts of it. And as for its being a family–secret, ever so many people know it, and I donʼt care two pice who knows it now.”
“Then let me know it, my child. Perhaps an old man can advise you.”
The child of the East looked up at him, with a mist of softness moving through the brilliance of her eyes, and spake these unromantic words: —
“It is that I do like Bob so; and he doesnʼt care one bit for me.”
She looked at the parson, as much as to say, “What do you think of that, now? I am not at all ashamed of it.” And then she stooped for a primrose bud, and put it into his button–hole, and then she burst out crying.
“Upon my word,” said John, “upon my word, this is too bad of you, Eoa.”
“Oh yes, I know all that; and I say it to myself ever so many times. But it seems to make no difference. You canʼt understand, of course, Uncle John, any more than you could jump the river. But I do assure you that sometimes it makes me feel quite desperate. And yet all the time I know how excessively foolish I am. And then I try to argue, but it seems to hurt me here. And then I try not to think of it, but it will come back again, and I am even glad to have it. And then I begin to pity myself, and to be angry with every one else; and after that I get better and whistle a tune, and go jumping. Only I take care not to see him.”
“There you are quite right, my dear: and I would strongly recommend you not to see him for a month.”
“As if that could make any difference! And he would go and have somebody else. And then I should kill them both.”
“Well done, Oriental! Now, will you be guided by me, my dear? I have seen a great deal of the world.”
“Yes, no doubt you have, Uncle John. And you are welcome to say just what you like; only donʼt advise me what I donʼt like; but tell the truth exactly.”
“Then what I say is this, Eoa: keep away from him altogether – donʼt allow him to see you, even when he wishes it, for a month at least. Hold yourself far above him. He will begin to think of you more and more. Why, you are ten times too good for him. There is not a man in England who might not be proud of you, Eoa, when you have learned a little dignity.”
Somehow or other none of the Rosedews appreciated the Garnets.
“Yes, I dare say; but donʼt you see, I donʼt want him to be proud of me. I only want him to like me. And I do hate being dignified.”
“If you want him to like you, do just what I have advised.”
“So I will, Uncle John. Kiss me now, to make it up. Oh, you are such a dear! – donʼt you think a week would do, now?”
CHAPTER V
At high noon of a bright cold day in the early part of March, a labourer who had been “frithing,” that is to say, cutting underwood in one of the forest copses, came out into the green track, which could scarce be called a “lane,” to eat his well–earned dinner.
As it happened to be a Monday, the poor man had a better dinner than he would see or smell again until the following Sunday. For there, as throughout rural England, a working man, receiving his wages on the Saturday evening, lives upon a sliding scale throughout the dreary week. He has his bit of hot on Sunday, smacking his lips at every morsel; and who shall scold him for staying at home to see it duly boiled, and feeling his heart move with the steaming and savoury pot–lid more kindly than with the dry parson?
And he wants his old woman ‘long of him; he see her so little all the week, and she be always best–tempered on Sundays. Let the young uns go to school to get larning – though he donʼt much see the use of it, and his father lived happy without it – ‘bating that matter, which is beyond him, let them go, and then hear parson, and bring home the news to the old folk. Only let ‘em come home good time for dinner, or they had best look out. “Now, Molly, lift the pot–lid again. Oh, it do smell so good! Got ever another onion?”
Having held high feast on Sunday, and thanked the Lord, without knowing it (by inhaling happiness, and being good to the children – our Lordʼs especial favourites), off he sets on the Monday morning, to earn another eighteenpence – twopence apiece for the young uns. And he means to be jolly that day, for he has got his pinch of tobacco and two lucifers in his waistcoat pocket, and in his frail a most glorious dinner hanging from a hedge–stake.
All the dogs he meets jump up on his back; but he really cannot encourage them, with his own dog so fond of bones, and having the first right to them. Of course, his own dog is not far behind; for it is a law of nature, admitting no exception, that the poorer a man is, the more certain he is to have a dog, and the more certain that dog is to admire him.
Pretermitting the dog, important as he is, let us ask of the masterʼs dinner. He has a great hunk of cold bacon, from the cabbage–soup of yesterday, with three short bones to keep it together, and a cross junk from the clod of beef (out of the same great pot) which he will put up a tree for Tuesday; because, if it had been left at home, mother couldnʼt keep it from the children; who do scarce a stroke of work yet, and only get strong victuals to console them for school upon Sundays. Then upon Wednesday our noble peasant of this merry England will have come down to the scraping of bones; on Thursday he may get bread and dripping