"And Aggie is his granddaughter! Well, well, you have astonished me. But why did you not tell me before?"
"There were a good many reasons, ma'am. I thought, in the first place, you might refuse me, if you knew, for it might do you harm. The squire is a vindictive man, and he is landlord of your house; and if he came to know that you had knowingly taken in his granddaughter, there was no saying how he might have viewed it. Then, if you had known it, you might have thought you ought to keep her in, and not let her run about the country with your son; and altogether, it would not have been so comfortable for you or her. I chose to put her at Sidmouth because I wanted to come here often, to hear how the squire was going on; for if he had been taken ill I should have told him sooner than I intended."
"But why did you not tell him before?" Mrs. Walsham asked.
"Just selfishness, ma'am. I could not bring myself to run the risk of having to give her up. She was mine as much as his, and was a hundred times more to me than she could be to him. I took her a baby from her dead mother's arms. I fed her and nursed her, taught her her first words and her first prayer. Why should I offer to give her up to him who, likely enough, would not accept the offer when it was made to him? But I always intended to make it some day. It was my duty to give her the chance at least; but I kept on putting off the day, till that Saturday when she was so nearly drowned; then I saw my duty before me."
"I had, from the first, put aside a hundred pounds, to give her more of an education than I could do; but if it hadn't been for that fall into the sea, it might have been years before I carried out my plan. Then I saw it could not go on any longer. She was getting too old and too bold to sit quiet while I was showing my box. She had had a narrow escape, and who could say what might happen the next time she got into mischief? Then I bethought me that the squire was growing old, and that it was better not to put it off too long. So, ma'am, I came to you and made up my mind to put her with you."
"And you had your way," Mrs. Walsham said, smiling, "though it was with some difficulty."
"I expected it would be difficult, ma'am; but I made up my mind to that, and had you kept on refusing I should, as a last chance, have told you whose child she was."
"But why me?" Mrs. Walsham asked. "Why were you so particularly anxious that she should come to me, of all people?"
The sergeant smiled.
"It's difficult to tell you, ma'am, but I had a reason."
"But what was it?" Mrs. Walsham persisted.
The sergeant hesitated.
"You may think me an old fool, ma'am, but I will tell you what fancy came into my mind. Your son saved Aggie's life. He was twelve years old, she was five, seven years' difference."
"Why, what nonsense, sergeant!" Mrs. Walsham broke in with a laugh. "You don't mean to say that fancy entered your head!"
"It did, ma'am," Sergeant Wilks said gravely. "I liked the look of the boy much. He was brave and modest, and a gentleman. I spoke about him to the fishermen that night, and everyone had a good word for him; so I said to myself, 'I can't reward him for what he has done directly, but it may be that I can indirectly.'
"Aggie is only a child, but she has a loving, faithful little heart, and I said to myself, 'If I throw her with this boy, who, she knows, has saved her life, for two years, she is sure to have a strong affection for him.'
"Many things may happen afterwards. If the squire takes her they will be separated. He may get to care for someone, and so may she, but it's just giving him a chance.
"Then, too, I thought a little about myself. I liked to fancy that, even though she would have to go from me to the squire, my little plan may yet turn out, and it would be I, not he, who had arranged for the future happiness of my little darling. I shouldn't have told you all this, ma'am; but you would have it."
"I am glad you brought her to me, Sergeant Wilks, anyhow," Mrs. Walsham said, "for I love her dearly, and she has been a great pleasure to me; but what you are talking about is simply nonsense. My son is a good boy, and will, I hope, grow up an honourable gentleman like his father; but he cannot look so high as the granddaughter of Squire Linthorne."
"More unequal marriages have been made than that, ma'am," the sergeant said sturdily; "but we won't say more about it. I have thought it over and over, many a hundred times, as I wheeled my box across the hills, and it don't seem to me impossible. I will agree that the squire would never say yes; but the squire may be in his grave years before Aggie comes to think about marriage. Besides, it is more than likely that he will have nothing to say to my pet. If his pride made him cast his son off, rather than acknowledge my daughter as his, it will keep him from acknowledging her daughter as his grandchild. I hope it will, with all my heart; I hope so."
"In that case, Sergeant Wilks," Mrs. Walsham said, "let this be her home for the time. Before you told me your story, I had made up my mind to ask you to let her remain with me. You need feel under no obligation, for the money you have paid me is amply sufficient to pay for the expenses of what she eats for years. It will be a real pleasure for me to keep her, for she has become a part of the house, and we should miss her sorely, indeed. She is quick and intelligent, and I will teach her all I know, and can train her up to take a situation as a governess in a gentleman's family, or perhaps–" and she laughed, "your little romance might come true some day, and she can in that case stop in this home until James makes her another."
"You are very kind, ma'am," the sergeant said. "Truly kind indeed; and I humbly accept your offer, except that so long as I live she shall be no expense to you. I earn more than enough for my wants, and can, at any rate, do something towards preventing her from being altogether a burden on your hands. And now, ma'am, how would you recommend me to go to work with the vindictive old man up at the Hall?"
"I shouldn't have thought he was vindictive. That is not at all the character he bears."
"No," the sergeant said, "I hear him spoken well of; but I have seen, in other cases, men, who have had the name of being pleasant and generous, were yet tyrants and brutes in their own family. I judge him as I found him–a hard hearted, tyrannical, vindictive father. I think I had better not see him myself. We have never met. I have never set eyes on him save here in church; but he regarded me as responsible for the folly of his son. He wrote me a violent letter, and said I had inveigled the lad into the marriage; and although I might have told him it was false, I did not answer his letter, for the mischief was done then, and I hoped he would cool down in time.
"However, that is all past now; but I don't wish to see him. I was thinking of letting the child go to the Hall by herself, and drop in suddenly upon him. She is very like her father, and may possibly take his heart by storm."
"Yes," Mrs. Walsham assented. "Now I know who she is, I can see the likeness strongly. Yes; I should think that that would be the best way. People often yield to a sudden impulse, who will resist if approached formally or from a distance. But have you any reason to suppose that he will not receive her? Did he refuse at first to undertake the charge of the child? Does he even know that she is alive? It may be that, all these years, he has been anxious to have her with him, and that you have been doing him injustice altogether."
"I never thought of it in that light," the sergeant said, after a pause. "He never came near his son when he lay dying, never wrote a line in answer to his letters. If a man could not forgive his son when he lay dying, how could he care for a grandchild he had never seen?"
"That may be so, Sergeant Wilks; but his son's death certainly broke him down terribly, and it may be that he will gladly receive his granddaughter.
"But there are the young ones back again. I will think over what you have been telling me, and we can discuss it again tomorrow."
Chapter