"Woman's love is writ in water,
Woman's faith is traced in sand."
AYTOUN.
Day after day Steadfast Kenton lingered between life and death, and
though the external wound healed, there was little relief to the deeper
injury which could not be reached, and which the damps and chills of
autumn and winter could only aggravate.
He could move little, and speak even less; and suffered much, both from
pain and difficulty of breathing, as he lay against sacks and pillows
on his bed, or sat up in an elbow chair which Mrs. Elmwood lent him.
Everybody was very kind in those days of danger. Mrs. Elmwood let Rusha
come on many an afternoon to help her sister, and always bringing some
posset, or cordial, or dainty of some sort to tempt the invalid. Goody
Grace, Mrs. Blane, Dame Oates, Nanny Pierce vied with each other in
offers of sitting up with him; Andrew, the young miller, came out of his
way to bring a loaf of white bread, and to fetch the corn to be ground.
Peter Pierce, Rusha's lover, and more old comrades than Patience quite
desired, offered their services in aiding Ben with the cattle and
other necessary labours, but as the first excitement wore off, these
volunteers became scantier, and when nothing was to be heard but "just
the same," nothing to be seen but a weak, wan figure sitting wrapped
by the fire, the interest waned, and the gulley was almost as little
frequented as before. Poor Ben's schooling had, of course, to be given
up, and it was well that he was nearly as old as Stead had been when
they were first left to themselves. Happily his fifteen months of study
had not made him outgrow his filial obedience and devotion to the less
instructed elder brother and sister, who had taken the place of the
parents he had never known. Benoni, child of sorrow, he had been named,
and perhaps his sickly babyhood and the mournful times around had tended
to make him a quiet boy, without the tearing spirits that would have
made him eager to join the village lads in their games. Indeed they
laughed at him for his poverty and scholarship, and called him Jack
Presbyter, Puritan, bookworm, and all the opprobrious names they could
think of, though no one ever less merited sectarian nicknames than he,
as far as doctrine went. For, bred up on Dr. Eales' books, and obliged
to look out on the unsettled state of religious matters, he was
as staunch a churchman as his brother, and fairly understood
the foundations of his faith. Poor boy, the check to his studies
disappointed him, and he spent every leisure moment over his Latin
accidence or in reading. Next to the stories in the Bible, he loved
the Maccabees, because of the likeness to the persecuted state of the
Church; and he knew the Morte d'Arthur almost by heart, and thought it
part of the history of England. Especially he loved the part that tells
of the Holy Grail, the Sacred Cup that was guarded by the maimed King
Pelles, and only revealed to the pure in heart and life. Stead had fully
confided to him the secret of the cave, in case he should be the
one left to deliver up the charge; and, in some strange way, the boy
connected the treasure with the Saint Grail, and his brother with the
maimed king. So he worked very hard, and Patience was capable of a good
deal more than in her earlier days. Stead, helpless as he was, did
not require constant attendance, and knew too well how much was on his
sister's hands to trouble her when he could possibly help doing so. Thus
they rubbed on; though it was a terrible winter, and they often had to
break in on the hoard which was to have built the house, sometimes for
needments for the patient, sometimes to hire help when there was work
beyond the strength of Patience and Ben, who indeed was too slender to
do all that Stead had done.
Ben did not shine in going to market. He was not big enough to hold his
own against rude lads, and once came home crying with his donkey beaten
and his eggs broken; moreover, he was apt to linger at stalls of books
and broadsheets. As soon as Patience could venture to leave her brother,
she was forced to go to market herself; and there was a staidness and
sobriety about her demeanour that kept all impertinence at a distance.
Poor Patience, she was not at all the laughing rustic beauty that Emlyn
would have been at market. She would never have been handsome, and
though she was only a few years over twenty, she was beginning to look
weather-beaten and careworn, like the market women about her, mothers of
half-a-dozen children.
Now and then she saw Emlyn in all her young, plump beauty, but looking
much quieter, and always coming to her for news of Steadfast. There were
even tears in those bright eyes when she heard how much he suffered.
The girl had evidently been greatly sobered by the results of her
indiscretion, and the treachery into which it had led her. She probably
cared more for Steadfast than for anyone else except herself, and was
shocked and grieved at his condition; and she had moreover discovered
how her credulity had been played upon, and that she had had a narrow
escape of being carried off by a buccaneer.
Her master too had been called to order by the authorities, fined and
threatened for permitting Royalist plots to be hatched in his house. He
had been angered by the younger Ayliffe's riotous doings, and his wife
had been terrified. There had been a general reformation in which Emlyn
had only escaped dismissal through her mistress's favour, pleading her
orphanhood, her repentance, and her troth plight to the good young man
who had been attacked by those dissolute fellows, though Mrs. Henshaw
little knew how accountable was her favourite maid for the attack.
So good and discreet was Emlyn, so affectionate her messages to Stead,
and so much brightness shone in his face on hearing them; there was so
much pleasure when she sent him an orange and he returned the snowdrops
he had made Rusha gather, that Patience began to believe that Stead was
right--that the shock was all the maiden needed to steady her--and that
all would end as he hoped, when he should be able to resume his labours,
and add to the sadly reduced hoard.
It was not, however, till the March winds were over that Stead made any
decided step towards recovery, and began to prefer the sun to the fire,
and to move feebly and slowly about the farmyard, visiting the animals,
too few in number, for his skilled attention had been missed. As summer
came on he was able to do a little more, herd them with Growler's help,
and gradually to undertake what required no exertion of strength or
speed, and there he stopped short--all the sunny months of summer could
do no more for him than make him fit to do such work as an old man of
seventy might manage.
He was persuaded, much against his will, to ride the white horse into
Bristol at a foot-pace to consult once more the barber surgeon. That
worthy, who was unusually sagacious for his time and had had experience
in the wars, told him that his recovery was a marvel, but that with the
bullet where it was lodged, he could scarcely hope to enjoy much more
health or comfort than at present. It could not be reached, but it might
shift, when either it would prove fatal or become less troublesome; and
as a friend and honest man, he counselled the poor youth not to waste
his money nor torture himself by having recourse to remedies or doctors
who could do no real good.
Stead thanked the barber, paid his crown, and slowly made his way to
Mrs. Lightfoot's, where he was to rest, dine, and see Emlyn.
Kind Mrs. Lightfoot shed tears when she saw the sturdy, ruddy youth
grown so thin and pale; and as to Emlyn, she actually stood silent for
three minutes.
The two were left together in Mrs. Lightfoot's kitchen, for Patience was
at market, and their hostess had to mind her trade.
Stead presently told Emlyn somewhat of the doctor's opinion, and then,
producing his portion of the tester, and with lips that trembled in
spite of himself, said that he had come to give Emlyn back her troth
plight.
"Oh! Stead, Stead," she cried, bursting into tears. "I thought you had
forgiven me."
"Forgiven you! Yea, truly, poor child, but--"
"But only when you were sick! You cast me off now you are whole."
"I shall never be whole again, Emlyn."
"I don't believe Master Willis. He is nought but a barber," she
exclaimed passionately. "I know there are physicians at the Bath who
would cure you; or there's the little Jew by the wharf; or the wise man
on Durdham Down. But you always are so headstrong; when you have made
up your mind no one can move you, and you don't care whose heart you
break," she sobbed.
"Hearken, little sweet," said Stead. "'Tis nought but that I wot that it
would be ill for you to be bound to a poor frail man that will never be
able to keep you as you should be kept. All I had put by is well nigh
gone, and I'm not like to make it up again for many a year, even if I
were as strong as ever."
"And you won't go to the Jew, or the wise man, or the Bath?"
"I have not the money."
"But I will--I will save it for you!" cried Emlyn, who never had saved
in her life. "Or look here. Master Henshaw might give you a place in
his office, and then there would be no need to dwell in that nasty, damp
gulley, but we could be in the town. I'll ask my mistress to crave it
from him."
Stead could not but smile at her eagerness, but he shook his head.
"It would be bootless, sweetheart, I cannot carry weights."
"No, but you can write."
"Very scurvily, and I cannot cypher."
For Stead, like everyone else at Elmwood, kept his accounts by tally and
in his head, and the mysteries of the nine Arabic figures were perfectly
unknown to him. However, Emlyn stuck to the hope, and he was so far
inspired by it that he ceased to insist on giving up the pledges of the
betrothal, and he lay on the settle in quiet enjoyment of Emlyn's castle
building, as she sat on a stool by his side, his hand on her shoulder,
somewhat as it was wont to lie on Growler's head. And in spite of
Master Willis's opinion, he rode home to the gulley a new man, assuring
Patience, on the donkey by his side, that there was more staunchness
and kindness in little Emlyn than ever they had thought for. Even the
ferryman who put them over the river declared that the doctor must
have done Master Kenton a power of good, and Stead smiled and did not
contradict him.
Stead actually consulted Mr. Woodley how to learn cyphering beyond what
Ben had acquired at school; and the minister lent him a treatise, over
which he pored with a board and a burnt stick for many an hour when he
was out on the common with the cattle, or on the darkening evenings in
the hut. Ben saw his way into those puzzles with no more difficulty than
whetted his appetite, worked out sum after sum, and explained them
to his brother, to the admiration of both his elders, till frowns of
despair and long sighs from Stead brought Patience to declare he was
mazing himself, and insist on putting out the light.
Stead had more time for his studies than he could wish, for the cold
of winter soon affected the injured lungs; and, moreover, the being no
longer able to move about rapidly caused the damp and cold of the
ravine to produce rheumatism and attendant ills, of which, in his former
healthy, out-of-door life, he had been utterly ignorant, and he had to
spend many an hour breathless, or racked with pain in the poor little
hovel, sometimes trying to give his mind to the abstruse mysteries of
multiplication of money, but generally in vain, and at others whiling
away the time with his books, for though there were only seven of them,
including Bible and Prayer-book, a very little reading could be the text
of so much musing, that these few perfectly sufficed him. And then he
was the nurse of any orphaned lamb or sick chicken that Patience was
anxious about, and his care certainly saved many of those small lives.
The spring, when he came forth again, found him on a lower level, less
strong and needing a stick to aid his rheumatic knee.
Not much was heard of Emlyn that spring. She did not come to market
with her mistress, and Patience was not inclined to go in quest of her,
having a secret feeling that no news might be better for Stead than
anything she was likely to hear; while as to any chance of their coming
together, the Kentons had barely kept themselves through this winter,
and Steadfast's arithmetic was not making such progress as would give
him a place at a merchant's desk.
Patience, however, was considerably startled when, one fine June
day, she saw Mrs. Henshaw's servant point her out to two tall
soldierly-looking men, apparently father and son.
"Good morrow to you, honest woman," said the elder. "I am told it is you
who have been at charges for many years for my brother's daughter, Emlyn
Gaythorn."
Patience assented.
"You have been right good to her, I hear; and I thank you for that same,
and will bear what we may of the expense," he added, taking out a heavy
bag from his pouch.
He went on to explain that he and his son having gone abroad with his
master had been serving with the Dutch, and had made some prize money.
Learning on the peace that a small inheritance in Worcestershire had
fallen to the family, they had returned, and found from Lady Blythedale
that the brother's daughter was supposed to be alive somewhere near
Bristol. She had a right to half, and being honourable men, they had
set out in search of her, bringing letters from the lady to Mr. Henshaw,
whose house was still a centre of inquiry for persons in the Cavalier
interest. There, of course, they had discovered Emlyn; and Master
Gaythorn proceeded to say that it had been decided that the estate
should not be broken up, but that his son should at once wed her and
unite their claims.
"But, sir," exclaimed Patience, "she is troth plight to my brother."
"So she told me, but likewise that he is a broken man and sickly, and
had offered to restore her pledge."
Patience could not deny it, though she felt hotly indignant.
"She charged me to give it back to you," added the uncle; "and to bid
you tell the young man that we are beholden to you both; but that since
the young folk are to be wedded to-morrow morn, and then to set forth
for Worcestershire, there is no time for leave-takings."
"I do not wonder!" exclaimed Patience, "that she has no face to see us.
She that has been like a child or a sister to us, to leave us thus! O my
brother!"
"Come, come, my good woman, best not make a pother." Poor Patience's
homely garb and hard-worked looks shewed little of the yeoman class to
which she belonged. "You've done your duty by the maid and here's the
best I have to make it up."
Patience could not bring herself to take the bag, and he dropped it
into her basket "I am sorry for the young man, your brother, but he knew
better than to think to wed her as he is. And 'tis better for all there
should be no women's tears and foolishness over it."
"Is she willing?" Patience could not but ask.
"Willing?" Both men laughed. "Aye, what lass is not willing to take a
fine, strapping husband, and be a landed dame? She gave the token back
of her own free will, eh, Humfrey; and what did she bid us say?"
"Her loving greetings to--What were their Puritanical names?" said the
son contemptuously. "Aye, and that she pitied the poor clown down there,
but knew he would be glad of what was best for her."
"So farewell, good mistress," said Master Gaythorn, and off they clanked
together; and Patience, looking after them, could entirely believe that
the handsome buff coat, fringed belt, high boots, and jauntily cocked
hat would have driven out the thought of Stead in his best days. And now
that he was bent, crippled, weak, helpless,--"and all through her, what
hope was then," thought Patience, "yet if she had loved him, or there
had been any truth in her, she could have wedded him now, and he would
have been at ease through life! A little adder at our hearth! We are
well quit of her, if he will but think so, but how shall I ever tell
him?"
She did not rush in with the tidings but came home slowly, drearily,
so that Stead, who was sitting outside by the door, peeling rushes,
gathered that something was amiss, and soon wormed it out of her, while
her tears dropped fast for him. Still, as ever, he spoke little. He said
her uncle was right in sparing tears and farewells, no doubt reserving
to himself the belief that it was against her will. And when Patience
could not help declaring that the girl might have made him share her
prosperity, he said, "I'm past looking after her lands. Her uncle would
say so. 'Tis his doing; I am glad of what is best for my darling as was.
There's an end of it, Patience--joy and grief. And I thank God that the
child is safely cared for at last."
He tried to be as usual, but he was very ill that night.
Patience found the money in her basket. She hated it and put it aside,
and it was only some time after that she was constrained to use it, only
then telling Stead whence it came, when he could endure to hear that the
uncle had done his best to be just.