I do not see them here; but after death
God knows I know the faces I shall see,
Each one a murdered self, with low last breath,
I am thyself, what hast thou done to me?
And I--and I--thyself (Lo! each one saith),
And thou thyself to all eternity.
--_Rossetti._
As for Meg, she turned her face towards the farm again, and of that
journey back she never liked to think so long as she lived.
There are griefs we outlive, whose dead faces we can bear to look on,
recognising that they are dead; but there are some hours of pain we can
never look at overmuch, even through the merciful veil of many years, as
there are some joys which we know will be ours always, so long as we are
ourselves, those sharpest pains and joys which touch the eternal in us,
and make us realise what is meant by the "doing away of time".
That her father _would_ not see her, even if she entreated him, had been
the one thing that had not seemed possible to the daughter who loved
him.
During the long drive back to N----town, his message kept running in her
head: "As we sow, so we must reap;--both she and I; both father and
child".
It was burnt into her brain and into her heart. She saw it when she shut
her eyes; she heard it when she stopped her ears.
"It is the hopeless law of all one's life," she thought. "And there is
no going against it. Father does not even try to. He might have tried!
No, no; it was not his fault. He was right."
And as she had attempted a hundred times before in her girlhood to
justify him to herself when he might have stood up for his daughter and
did not, so her tired brain tried to justify him now.
She would rather believe that she was too bad for forgiveness, than that
he had not depth of affection enough to be forgiving.
She was terribly anxious about him too. Mrs. Russelthorpe had said that
he was better; but then she had also declared that it might be his
"death warrant" if he were suddenly awaked. Surely _that_ did not sound
as if he were out of danger. She went over the whole interview again,
and had just got to the climax for the twentieth time, when the stopping
of the carriage brought her with a jerk from the garden at Lupcombe to
the busy street of N----town, and the entrance of the "Pig and
Whistle".
"Have we arrived?" said Meg, getting out as if she were in a dream. "I
thought we had just started!"
The landlord, who had bustled to the door at the sound of wheels, looked
at her inquisitively. The preacher's wife, about whom there was a very
romantic story, had always interested him. He had thought her a very
gentle-mannered and sweet-voiced woman, and, for his part, rather
admired her funny accent and "foreign" ways. He was full of wonder just
now. It was only the gentry who ordered carriages in that way. The idea
of Barnabas Thorpe's wife posting to Lupcombe! A fifteen-shilling drive!
But he had seen the gold in her purse; she had evidently enough money to
pay.
How very sad she looked! The distressed expression in her eyes touched
him. "Come in, ma'am, and have a sup o' some'ut," he said
good-naturedly. "The 'eat's been too much for you! I wouldn't ask a lady
into the bar; an' I know as Barnabas Thorpe's wife won't touch good
liquor; but, if you'll honour me by coming into the parlour, I'll bring
you a cup of tea in a trice. You look fit to drop; and, if I might make
so bold, just one atom of brandy in it would be neither here nor there,
and would do you no harm at all. Now I won't take 'No,' ma'am, though
your husband do try to damage my trade. Just you come in and sit a bit,
while the horse is changed."
"Thank you," said Meg. "The sun is too hot I suppose, and the bustle
makes one feel giddy."
The clock in the market-place struck seven while she was speaking; the
sun's rays were certainly not overpowering now, whatever they had been;
and a great bank of thunder-clouds was steadily rising in the east.
The landlord glanced from her to the sky, and mopped his forehead with
his handkerchief.
"You're like my wife, ma'am," he said. "She'd feel for you, only she's
been in the cellar this last half-hour,--on account of the storm, I
mean," he added hastily. "Thunder always upsets her. Come along this
way, ma'am. You do look poorly!"
His visitor followed, still rather as if she were not quite certain
where she was. Meg, indeed, never knew exactly how she got into that
little back parlour; but the tea, which was guilty of more than a drop
of brandy, revived her. Her father's message left off sounding in her
ears, the garden at Lupcombe became less painfully distinct, and she
suddenly remembered that she had fasted since she had started in the
morning; and this, possibly, was why she felt faint.
Her host nodded approvingly when she ordered something to eat. Meg's
head ached so that she could not calculate how much money she ought to
have left; but she knew that there should be more than enough to pay for
a meal.
She dived to the bottom of her pocket: her purse must be there; it had
her husband's savings in it, as well as the price of her diamonds. She
could not have done anything so dreadful as to lose his hard-won
earnings! Besides, she had not paid her bill. She pulled out her
handkerchief, and then the pocket itself, inside out. She was staring
blankly at it when the landlord bustled back.
He guessed at once what had happened. The empty pocket suggested it. He
was good-natured and consolatory, but overflowing with curiosity when he
heard that she had had it last at the pawnbroker's.
Mrs. Thorpe at the Jew's over the way! What would the Thorpes have said,
had they known? He wondered whether the poor young thing had got herself
into some scrape, and heartily pitied her, if she had; but _his_ money
was safe anyhow; he knew the family well enough to be very sure of that.
He could afford to take it easily.
"Come, come," he said, on her refusing to eat because she "hadn't a
penny left to pay with," "I'm not so poor, thank goodness, that I can't
afford to wait till next time Tom Thorpe drives his foals to market;
and, if they'd wish you to starve, it's a crying shame, ma'am, and I'd
not have thought it of them. I've never heard that the Thorpes weren't
open-handed."
"They are all most generous," said Meg quickly, and she ate the slice of
beef. Certainly, whatever her fears were, she did not imagine that any
of her relatives-in-law would have grudged it to her. She could not let
that imputation rest on them.
The food brought a tinge of colour to her face, and she regained her
usual gentle dignity of manner. She would not allow this good gossip,
who asked a great many questions, to fancy that she was terrified at
going back. It would not be fair to Barnabas!
How miserable she really was it would be hard to say. The more she
thought of it, the more her shrinking from what was before her grew.
She pictured Tom's repressed contempt, and Barnabas passionately angry,
as when he had thrashed Timothy. She dreaded the way they would all ask
about her father--whether she had found him, and why not; and then, with
a horror of loneliness, she remembered that she could never even try to
see him again now. "As she had sowed, so she must reap!" Ah, it was
beginning again! Meg rose hastily.
"I promised that I would go back to-night," she said, "and I must go. I
meant to drive; I had enough money of my own to pay for that--but I have
lost it, and my husband's too, which is worse. He will have to pay a
very long bill for me as it is." And Meg blushed painfully. "I don't
want to run up any more debts. What would be the cheapest possible way
of getting home--if I don't walk?"
"Walk!" said the landlord, "you don't look fit to walk a quarter of a
mile, let alone fifteen! I'd provide you a trap very reasonable, ma'am,
though it's late to be going all that way now--or--oh! here's Johnny
Dale back; I sent him about the purse--well, have they got it?"
"Dun knaw nothin' 'bout it, theer," he answered, with a slow stare at
Meg, who, on her part, was filled with a vague recollection of having
seen this boy at the farm. "Granny's got round again. Will 'ee tell the
preacher so?" he said suddenly, breaking into a broad grin. "And will
'ee tell Maister Tummas that I'm doin' well, and gettin' five shillings
a quarter besides my keep, and granny's uncommon obligated to him for
gettin' me th' place, and she's over here to-day marketing?"
"Ay, so she be; and that's how you can get back, ma'am," cried the
landlord. "Why, Granny Dale 'ull have to pass within a mile of
Caulderwell. She could put you down at the cross path, if you could run
that bit in the dark. I'll be bound she'll do that much for your
husband's sake, though that donkey of hers is precious slow; you won't
be there afore eleven. Here, Johnny, where is that granny o' yours? In
the bar, eh? She doan't hold with the preacher's principles 'cept when
she's by way o' dying, the old sinner! But the donkey'll take you back
safe. Shall I go and find her? Though I don't know," he added
doubtfully; "Granny Dale's a queer sort of company for a lady like you."
And he went on his mission, the preacher's wife thanking him with the
pretty gratitude that won his liking. He little guessed that, at the
bottom of her heart, Mrs. Thorpe would have rejoiced to know that she,
personally, would never get home again.
It was very late when the donkey cart at last started. Granny Dale was a
most erratic old dame. She would not be hurried--"Not for twenty Mrs.
Thorpes".
Her voice sounded suspiciously thick, and she smoked a short clay pipe.
She was horribly dirty, and smelt of gin. Meg hardly noticed her, though
at any other time she would have been disgusted.
The reins hung loose in the woman's gnarled hands, that were brown and
knotted like the branches of one of the stunted trees of that country.
The donkey trotted on steadily with a responsible air. On he went
through the street, where the passersby remarked on granny's companion,
and where granny herself took the pipe from her lips to shout facetious
observations in the broadest of dialect to her acquaintances. On into
the open country again, where the view of the sky broadened, and one
could see how the thunder-clouds were piled up, solid and threatening,
like the battlements of a city--great purple masses, divided only in one
place by a narrow red rift.
Granny pointed towards them with her whip. "Theer be a starm coomin'
oop," she said. "Are yo' fleyed o' the thunder?"
Meg made no reply; she was thinking of many things past and to come. She
_was_ "fleyed"--but not of the thunder.
"An' if yo' wur th' queen hersel', yo' moight fash yersel' to answer
when yo're spoke to!" cried granny with a sudden burst of fury. "Eh, I
know what they all says, that ye be quality born, an' ran awa' wi'
Barnabas Thorpe!--an gradely fule he wur that day!--and that yo've pined
ever since. An', if yo' wur all th' quality o' th' land, theer's no call
to be so high as not to hear a body as talks to 'ee--wastin' my good
words, treatin' me loike th' dirt under yo' feet, who am nothin' o' th'
soart! 'specially"--indignantly--"when yo're ridin' i' my donkey cart!"
"I am very sorry," said Meg, effectually roused this time. "I didn't
know you were speaking to me; I was thinking of something else.
Indeed,"--seeing that the excuse was likely to provoke a fresh
storm,--"I didn't mean to be 'high' in the least; but,"--seizing on the
point in her misfortunes most likely to appeal to granny's
sympathies--"I lost my purse in the town, and it had money of my
husband's in it."
"Eh!" said granny, twisting round in her seat and taking the pipe out of
her mouth. "Theer's a pretty business! That do gi'e 'ee some'ut to think
abeawt surely. My man 'ud ha' beaten me black and blue if I'd ha' done
that; he wur free wi' his blows, Jacob wur, 'specially in his cups; but
the preacher's noan o' that soart."
"No," said Meg; "he is not that sort." In a lighter mood she would have
smiled at the statement. She was not afraid of physical violence. Even
in her wildest terrors (and Meg's imagination was apt to become
unreasonable in proportion to the overstrain on her bodily powers) she
knew that _that_ would be as impossible to Barnabas as to her own
father.
Yet granny's suggestion, like Long John's story of "Maister Tummas,"
presented the more brutal side of life to her, and depressed her yet
further. She shrank with increasing nervousness from the thought of that
alien element of roughness at the farm.
She was fearfully tired; and, in the reaction from the excitement of the
morning, could fight no longer against a melancholy that swept over her,
as the clouds steadily rising from the east swept over the sky.
She saw the rest of her life in as unnatural and lurid a light as that
which now lay in a streak across the marshes, and in which the polished
stalks of the marsh grass shone red.
"There is such a glare under the clouds! how it makes one's eyes ache!"
she said; and then she became aware that her charioteer was giving her a
great deal of highly seasoned advice on her behaviour to her husband.
Granny hated all ladies. She hated them even in their natural place. She
had an old and standing grudge against them. But when they chose to
descend from their unassailable platform--when they were silly enough
to force themselves into the grade of honest workers--then they ought to
be made to mend their ways, and eat humble pie in large mouthfuls--not
to keep up their old airs and insult their betters.
"Oh, I know," said Meg, speaking more to herself than to granny; "but I
can't help being different from the others; I have tried, but it is of
no use. There are things one can do, and things one can't do; the thing
I have tried I can't!"
And granny had no more idea what hopelessness lay in that confession
than if Meg had spoken in a foreign language. It even irritated her the
more, as a fresh avowal of a claim to the "fine-ladyism" which to her
was like a red rag to a bull.
"Can't help!" she cried. "An' let me tell 'ee this, young woman, if I
wur your husband I'd mak' yo' help it. Ah, an' he wull one day. You
think the preacher's made of naught but butter; but yo'll find out
theer's more nor that in him. It's all fine for a while. Oh yes, I've
he'rd o' yo're stand-off ways wi' him; but a mon 'ull ha' some
satisfaction from the woman he feeds and clothes. I suppose you've not
thought o' that? Ye fancy becos ye are young, and ha' got eyes that look
as if they saw through stone walls, that ye can do as ye like wi' a mon!
An' so 'ee con, so 'ee con for a bit; but it's only fur a bit wi' ony of
'em, it don't last. Eh, I knaw. I con tell thee, I wur a greater beauty
than ever yo' wur, my lass; and Jacob wur as big a fule over me afore he
married as ever yo' see'd; an', afore that I'd been his'n a month, he
kicked me so that----"
"I don't want to hear, please!" said Meg; but granny laughed scornfully,
and proceeded with the recital. Whether because she took a fierce
pleasure in shocking her companion's sensibilities, or because she
thought it would be good for the lady to realise what she might have had
to suffer if Barnabas hadn't been "softer nor some," she spared no
details.
"It wur no marvel Timothy wur born quare," said granny; "he wur cliverer
than most to live at all, poor lad; tho' ye do look down on 'im." And
there was a kind of fierce affection in that last speech; a defiant love
for the lad she had born in the midst of sore mis-usage, that woke Meg's
pity more than the horrible stories of gross cruelty that had been
poured into her unwilling ears.
"But all men are not like that, granny," she said at last.
"Naw; some be too fur th' other way abeaut," said granny. "Barnabas
Thorpe 'ud ha' brought yo' to knaw yo're place by now, ef he'd made ye
feel him maister; but he won't stand yo' for ever, an' so I tell 'ee;
and he'll be i' th' right too. Yo' con go on talking i' that quare
mincing way, as a body can't understan'; yo' con go on lookin' as if ye
weren't made o' th' same stuff as us (just because ye've been fed and
pampered all yo're life), and pretending not to hear what's said to 'ee,
and holdin' him off wi' yo're airs; but he'll be sick o' that one day,
and where 'ull yo're foine ladyship be then?"
"I don't know," said Meg apathetically. "Perhaps I shall have learned
not to feel any more. People can't go on caring about things always, I
suppose. One will grow old some day, mercifully."
And she looked at the witch-like old hag beside her, who had been the
country beauty once, and whose husband had kicked her when he was tired
of her (within a month), and who had found consolation in smoking and
drinking. "Or perhaps I may die," she said; "which would be much
better!"
A flash of lightning almost blinded her, even while she spoke, and the
quickly following crash of thunder drowned her last words.
Granny leaned forward, shifting the whip in her hand, and struck the
donkey with the butt end.
"We'll just get to th' miser's hut i' time," she said; "but I'll put ye
out o' the cart if ye talk o' death in a thunder-starm; it's temptin'
the Lard."
It was quite dark now, except when the lightning opened the sky, and
momentarily lighted up the stretch of marsh land. The donkey's pace
quickened, and Meg held on to the side of the cart, while they jolted
rapidly over the uneven track. What a tiny speck they seemed under that
vast canopy of cloud!
Every other living thing was in hiding, except a gull, flying inland,
and very close to the ground.
Meg heard its harsh cry, and saw, with a thrill of envy, the gleam of
the white wings as it swept past.
"'Oh that I had wings like a dove; for then would I fly away and be at
rest.'" But there was no flying away for her, no escaping the slow
reaping that would follow the hasty sowing, so surely as the thunder
followed the flash. Ah, there it was again, running along the ground
like a fiery serpent; and the thunder, this time, seemed to burst close
to their ears, and fill the whole air, and shake the earth.
They were at the deserted hut now; and Granny Dale got down and took the
trembling beast out of the shafts, and led him in.
She had much more sympathy with her donkey than with Meg, who further
tried her temper by standing at the entrance to the hut watching.
The old woman crouched down on the mud floor by the fireplace, rocking
to and fro, muttering something that was meant for a prayer, and casting
malevolent glances at the figure in the doorway. The donkey rubbed his
head on her shoulder; he too was "fleyed o' the starm," which increased
in fury every minute.
"Look 'ee here," she cried at last, "I'll ha' no more o' this. It ain't
fittin' to gape at the Lard's judgments, as if they wur a show, and it
'ull bring Him down on us. I won't be struck cos o' yo', and yo'r
uncanny ways. Come in, like a Christian, an' say yo'r prayers, and hide
yo'r eyes; or else be gwon wi' you; an' a good riddance!"
The lightning lighted up Meg's pale face as she turned round; the
sadness of her expression struck granny afresh. "Theer be some'ut
unlucky about 'ee," she cried. "I'm wishful I'd not brought ye; I doubt
ye'll not bring much good to any one. Timothy said as much. Eh, an' what
are ye after now?"
"I know my way from here," said Meg. "I am not afraid of the storm. I
won't stay and bring you bad luck, Mrs. Dale." And she slipped out into
the darkness.
The old woman rose with difficulty and hobbled to the door, which Meg
had shut gently behind her. The wind was rising now, and blew against it
with a shrieking gust. Mrs. Dale battled with it for a minute, then
succeeded in opening it, and looked about. At that moment the heavy
clouds broke, and down came the rain!--dashing down, whistling through
the air, like a solid sheet of water, leaping up again on its fall.
Blessed rain, that had been needed all these hot weeks; that the farmers
would rejoice to hear while they lay in their beds; that the earth would
greet, with a sweetness which would rise like incense! The earth
spurted up, the willows bent under the onslaught of water. It frightened
the birds in their nests, and made all small animals cower and peep in
their shelters. It was not a night in which any living being should be
out in the open.
Granny Dale shut the door again, and relighted her pipe; the danger was
over, so there was no further need to pray. She puffed away
philosophically instead: it was lucky she had brought plenty of "'baccy"
with her. The rain was too violent to last. When it should stop, she and
the donkey would jog on again. As for that crazy woman, who couldn't
speak her own mother tongue properly, she must be getting pretty
drenched; but she was the preacher's affair, not Granny Dale's. No; she
was nowhere to be seen; she had vanished like a ghost, or a storm
spirit,--why bother about her?
Granny swore once or twice; she could not help being bothered; and, when
the storm cleared at last, and she and her donkey started, splashing
through ooze and slush, making deep ruts in their progress, she peered
anxiously to the right and left, seeing Meg in stunted alder trees, and
in clumps of pale reeds, and, even once, in the reflection of the moon
in a pool. It looked to her like the girl's white face, upturned and
floating.
Meg was not on the high road at all; she had turned sharp to the left
from the hut, and struck into a short cut to the farm. She fancied she
knew her way across these familiar marshes, even in the dark.
Indeed, she kept on quite steadily at first, only stooping now and then
to make sure with her hands that her feet were still on the track, or to
shut her eyes, that were nearly blinded by the lightning. How small she
felt among the immense resistless powers that were at play round
her!--One tiny atom in the midst of the great plan of nature that whirls
on through the ages, taking no count of the individual births, and
deaths, and pains and joys! She kept on quite steadily till the sluice
gates opened and the water descended with a force that made her stagger,
taking her breath away, pelting her, drenching her through and through
in a minute. Meg was swept half round by it, driven backwards a few
steps in her surprise up against a tree, to which she clung
instinctively. Both her arms were round the trunk, and she felt it sway
and creak. Already her feet were in a puddle, nearly ankle-deep.
"If this goes on much longer, it will be a second deluge," thought she.
"Were any of the people who were drowned in the Flood rather _glad_ to
be swept away, I wonder?"
But it did not last. The storm ceased almost as suddenly as it had
begun. The birds lifted their heads again, and began to chirp a feeble
sleepy thanksgiving. The worst was over. Meg loosened her hold of the
willow, and wandered on.
She was as soaked as if she had fallen into the stream; her clothes were
very heavy, and her steps were more uncertain than they had been. The
track was lost in water; everywhere there seemed nothing but shallow
glistening pools, which reflected the deep dark sky and the stars, when
the clouds parted and rolled off.
Presently Meg found herself on the verge of a salt-water spring that was
deeper than the others. She discovered that she was going the wrong way
when she got to the "Pixie's Pool". She had all but walked into it, but
had been stopped by the black post with a supposed depth, marked in
rough white figures, put up by one of the Thorpes.
Meg leaned against the post to rest, and looked down into the black
depths; and, thus looking, a temptation seemed to rise from them, and
lay hold of her soul and body.
She had so nearly fallen in! Suppose she let herself drop; a step would
do it, and no one would ever know that it had not been an accident!
Barnabas would be unhappy--for a time; but his work was his real love,
and he never looked on death as a misfortune, and it would set him free.
Tom would be rather sorry, Mr. Thorpe more than "rather"; but, after
all, she had always been a strange element at the farm,--never quite one
of them, even when they were kindest. They would go on as before she
came; there would hardly be a place to fill up; she had never been much
good to any one! She slipped on to her knees and stooped lower over the
water. It seemed drawing her, with a force that was part of the pitiless
power that she had felt in the storm; that she had felt too in her own
life. "As we sow, so we must reap;" "must reap," it was running in her
head again,--but she could escape the "must" so, and so only.
Terrible relentless law, that she felt she could bow to no more. Should
she break through it once and for ever, so that the reaping should be no
more for her,--in this world, at any rate?
She could see the moon in the water; she could fancy herself falling
through it, disturbing the reflection for a moment, then it would close
over her again; it would look just as though she had never been; it
would _be_ just the same. One life less; it counted for nothing among
the thousands; and the sky and marsh and water would keep the secret,
and she would have to make no more efforts. She was tired, oh so tired!
Ah, how the water was pulling her--it was like a magnet to a needle!
She had failed utterly. Life was a perplexity and a terror; and God was
too far away--if, indeed, He "was" at all. Scepticism was unnatural to
Meg; it meant blank despair to her. The horrors "granny" had poured into
her ears, mingled with her own sense of impotence and failure, made her
feel it better to risk anything, to force a verdict of damnation from an
angry God, rather than to stay where He was not, where the heartless
horror of mechanical laws reigned supreme.
Natural healthy love of life was never so strong as it should be in her:
she would always rather fly to the ills she knew not, than bear the
evils she knew, and face misery she could picture to herself. Her
courage had given way. She shut her eyes and swayed towards the pool.
One plunge and it would be done!
"Margaret, Margaret!" the shout, loud and insistent, rang across the
marshes and broke the spell. "Margaret!" farther off and fainter.
"Margaret, Margaret!" once more, quite away in the distance.
It was the preacher's voice. He must be looking for her. Meg had sprung
to her feet at the first call. A choking sensation rose to her throat,
and tears to her eyes. Had he been searching for her all night? _He_ did
not break his bargain, nor fling aside his responsibilities, whatever
she did; and she had promised him she would go back. What a coward she
was! What a mad, dishonourable coward! With a burning sense of shame,
Meg turned her back on the death that had tempted her sorely, with a
yearning, that was deeper than articulate prayer, to the God who alone
knows how hard life is.
"One _must_ pay one's debts and keep one's promises. I'll go on again
and finish it," she said. She spoke to the invisible, and did not know
she had spoken aloud. Then she began to stumble in the direction of the
farm.
It was fresher and cooler after the rain; but her feet sank into the
softened ground, making puddles where they trod, and her wet clothes
clung to her.
She would have run if she could, but that was impossible; and she was
beginning to have a vague impression that she had been several weeks, at
least, struggling over these moonlit boggy tracks. The path was swamped;
but by some wonderful chance she did find herself at last in the
straight cart road to the farm.
The house stood before her, visible at the end of the road, silhouetted
black and solid against the sky. It was at night that she had seen it
first.
Then with that recollection came back the wonder as to what they would
all say. How long had she been gone? Her senses were so confused that
she could not think connectedly, much less find words in which to
explain.
She reached the house and leaned against the rough grey stone, conscious
the while that her limbs would not have carried her any further. The
door was shut, but the light streamed from the windows. Who was up so
late? She could hear voices inside. Some one was saying:--
"Gi'e me the lantern; I'll start again." But she heard as if in a dream.
Approaching steps sounded behind the door, but she had not knocked. It
was opened. The light flashed in her eyes.
"Eh, who is it? my lass!" said Barnabas. She felt his hand on her arm
for a moment, and then he put down the lantern, lifted her up as if she
were a child, and carried her right in. She was in Mr. Thorpe's wooden
chair by the fire, and Barnabas was kneeling beside her; she looked at
him with a vague wonder at seeing him so moved.
"Barnabas, is it morning?" she said quickly. "I meant--I did try--to
keep my promise to come back the same day--I couldn't help it.
Everything tried to prevent me, but I started meaning to come back; only
the storm came on, and father wouldn't see me, and there seemed no end
to the 'reaping,' and I was so tired; but father was quite right, you
know--and you were right too; only--oh! that isn't what I wanted to say;
I can't--I can't remember the right words!"
"Never mind," said Barnabas; and he drew her head on to his shoulder.
"Don't talk, little lass. Ye can tell me to-morrow. Bring me that soup,
Cousin Tremnell. Take a pan o' coals and warm her bed. Eh, ye are
soaked!"
He was feeding her as if she were a baby; and Meg was so utterly
exhausted that she let him do as he liked, with a sense of relief at not
being expected even to lift her hand to her lips.
But the soup revived her, and after a minute she sat upright and looked
round her.
"An' where have ye been?" said Tom. He was dripping too, and had another
lantern in his hand. He was more relieved than he cared to express to
see Barnabas' wife safe.
"A pretty dance ye ha' led us," he cried. "An' what were ye doin'?" But
the preacher saw the scared look come back to Meg's eyes, and
interposed.
"Never mind," he said again. "It doesna matter! There is only one thing
that matters,--that ye've come home to me; ye've come home to me! Why,
ye can hardly stand, lass!" seeing Meg make the attempt.
"I have been running miles, I think, and my knees are shaking so," she
explained. And Barnabas lifted her in his arms again, and carried her
up.
"Good-night!" said Tom good-naturedly, "or good-morning, which is it?
Next time ye go in for these high jinks, Barnabas' wife, do 'ee choose a
finer night! Oh well," stretching himself, "dad needn't ha' been afear'd
lest Barnabas should be too rough on her!"