TRUE LOVE AND PIGNUTS
Mehitabel Smith calmly went to the inner door, and reaching down a
linen smock, she slipped it on over her head and fastened it in with
a belt at the waist. Wat and Scarlett moved meekly and obediently to
their several duties, and the business of breakfast-making went gayly
forward.
When Wat returned from the side-table with the bacon sliced, Mehitabel
Smith had the frying-pan ready and a fire of brushwood crackling
merrily beneath it.
"Do you not think," she said, without looking at him, being busy
buttering the bottom of the pan, "that fish and bacon go well together
when one is hungry? For me, I am always hungry on Branksea. Were you
ever hungry in prison?"
Wat muttered something ungracious enough, which might have been taken
as a reply to either question, but the girl went on without heeding
his answer. She sprinkled oatmeal over half a dozen fresh fish, and
presently she had them making a pleasant, birsling sound in the pan,
shielding her eyes occasionally with her hand when they spattered.
"You must have been very happy in prison?" she said.
And for the first time she looked directly at him for an answer. Wat
was astonished.
"Happy!" he said, "why, one does not expect to be very happy in a Dutch
prison, or for that matter in any other. Prisons are not set up to add
to folks' happiness that ever I heard."
"But what experiences!" she cried; "what famous 'scapes and chances
of adventure! To be in prison at your age (you are little more than
a lad), and that for high-treason! Here on Branksea one has no such
advantages. Only ships and seamen, pots of green paint, and hauling up
and down the flag, or, at best, ninnies that think they ought to make
love to you, because, forsooth, you are a girl. Ah, I would rather be
in prison a thousand years!"
Wat watched her without speaking as she moved nimbly and with a certain
deft, defiant ease about the sprucely painted kitchen.
"Do you believe in love? I don't!" she said, unexpectedly, turning the
fish out on a platter and lifting the pan from the fire to prepare it
for the bacon which Wat had been holding all the time in readiness for
his companion.
"Yes, I do believe in love," said Wat, soberly, as though he had been
repeating the Apostles' Creed. He thought of the little tight curls
crisping so heart-breakingly about the ears of his love, and also of
the grave which had been dug so deep under the sand-hills of Lis. There
was no question. He believed with all his heart in love.
The girl darted a swiftly inquiring glance at him. But her suspicions
were allayed completely by Wat's downcast and abstracted gaze. He was
not thinking at all of her. She gave a sigh, half of relief and half of
disappointment.
"Oh yes," she returned, quickly, "fathers and mothers, godfathers and
godmothers, tutors and governors--that sort of love. But do you believe
in love really--the love they sing about in catches, and which the lads
prate of when they come awooing?"
Wat nodded his head still more soberly. "I believe in true love," he
said.
"Oh, then, I pray you, tell me all about her!" cried Mehitabel Smith,
at once laying down the fork with which she had been turning the bacon,
and sitting down to look at Wat with a sudden increase of interest.
Scarlett came in a moment after and sniffed, with his nose in the air;
then he walked to the pan in which the bacon was skirling.
"It seems to me that the victual is in danger of burning," he said. "I
think next time it were wiser for the Gray Badger to fry the pan, and
for those that desire to talk--ah! of high-treason--to go and fetch the
water."
Mehitabel started up and began turning the bacon quickly.
"A touch of the pan gives flavor, I have ever heard," she said,
unabashed; "and if you like it not, Gray Badger, you can always stick
to the fish."
When breakfast was over, Scarlett and Wise Jan were ordered to wash the
dishes. This they proceeded to do, clattering the platters and rubbing
them with their towels awkwardly, using their elbows ten times more
than was necessary. Scarlett worked with grim delight, and Jan with
many grumblings. Then, having seen them set to their tasks, Mistress
Mehitabel made Wat lift a pair of wooden buckets, scrubbed very white,
and accompany her to the spring. She went first along the narrow path
to show him the way. She had taken off her cooking-smock, and was again
in the neat kirtle of dark blue cloth, which showed her graceful young
figure to advantage.
When they reached the well, Mehitabel appeared to be in no hurry to
return. She sat down, and to all appearance lost herself in thought,
leaning her chin upon her hand and looking into the water.
"There was a lass here but yester-morn, no further gone," she said,
"who believed in love. She gave me this, and bade me show it to the man
that should come after her also believing in love."
She held out a small heart of wrought gold with letters graven upon it.
Wat leaped forward and snatched it out of her hand.
"It is hers--Kate's. I have seen it a thousand times about her neck.
She wore it ever upon the ribbon of blue."
And he pressed the token passionately to his lips. Mehitabel Smith
looked on with an interested but entirely dispassionate expression.
"I wonder," she said, presently, "if it is as good to be in love as to
sit in the tree-tops and eat pignuts?"
But Wat did not hear her; or, hearing, did not answer.
"It is Kate's--it is hers--hers. It has rested on her neck. She has
sent it to me," he murmured. "She knew that I would surely compass the
earth to seek her--that so long as life remained to me I should follow
and seek her till I found her."
"Faith!" said Mehitabel, "I do believe this is the right man. He has
the grip of it better than any I ever listened to. If he so kiss the
gift, what would he not do to the giver?"
"Tell me," said Wat, looking eagerly and tremulously at her, "what said
she when she gave you the token?--in what garb was she attired?--was
her countenance sad?--were they that went with her kind?"
"Truly and truly this is right love, and no make-believe," said the
girl, clapping her hands; "never did I credit the disease before, but
ever laughed at them that came acourting with their breaking hearts and
their silly, sighing ardors. But this fellow means it, every word. He
has well learned his lover's hornbook. For he asks so many questions,
and has them all tumbling over one another like pigs turned out of a
clover pasture."
Wat made a little movement of impatience.
"I pray you be merciful, haste and tell me--for I have come far and
suffered much!"
The pathetic ring in his voice moved the wayward daughter of Captain
Smith of the _Sea Unicorn_.
"I will tell you," she answered, more seriously, "but in my own way.
It was, I think, this lass of yours that sat here in the house-place
and talked with me but four-and-twenty hours agone. She looked not in
ill health but pale and anxious, with dark rings about her eyes. Those
that were about her were kind enough, but watched her closely day and
night--for that was the order of their master. But I am sure that the
Lowland woman who was with her would, in an evil case, prove a friend
to your love."
"And whither have they taken her?" asked Wat, anxiously.
Mehitabel Smith looked carefully every way before she attempted to
answer.
"The name of the place I cannot tell at present. It is an island,
remote and lonely, in the country of the Hebridean Small Isles; but I
heard my father say that it bore somewhere near where the Long Island
hangs his tail down into the ocean."
"She has gone in your father's ship, then?" asked Wat.
"Aye, truly," said Mehitabel Smith; "but your lass is to be taken
off the _Sea Unicorn_ at some point on the voyage, and thence to her
destination in a boat belonging to the islanders. I heard the head man
of them so advising my father."
As the girl went on with her tale, Wat began to breathe a little more
freely. He had feared things infinitely worse than any that had yet
come to pass. He was now on the track, and, best of all, he had the
token which Kate had sent to him, in her wonderful confidence that he
would never cease from seeking her while life lasted to him.
Mehitabel watched him quietly and earnestly. At last she said, a little
wistfully, "I think, after all, it must be better than eating pignuts.
I declare you are fonder of that lass than you are of yourself."
Wat laughed a lover's laugh of mellowest scorn. Mehitabel went on. "And
I suppose you want to be with her all the time. You dream about her
hair and the color of her eyes; you will kiss that bit of gold because
she wore it about her neck. That is well enough for you. But to my
thinking this love is but a sort of midsummer madness. For it is better
to sleep sound than to dream; any golden guinea is worth more than that
tiny heart on a ribbon, and would buy infinitely more cates--while it
is best of all to sit heart-free among the topmost branches of the
beeches and whistle catches while the sea-wind cradles you on the bough
and the leaves rustle you to sleep like a lullaby. What, I pray you, is
this love of yours to that?"
"That you will know one day," said Wat, sagely nodding his head, "and
it may not be long, for your eyes are looking for love, and in love
what one looks for that one finds. Hearken, I have stood one against
fifty for the sake of my love. Willingly and gladly I have left land,
rank, friends, future; I have made them all no more than broken toys
that I might win my love. I count my life itself but a little thing,
scarce worth the offering, all for her sake!"
"And is it because you hope to be so happy with her that you do all
these things?" asked Mehitabel, now perfectly sober and serious, and
clearly anxious to comprehend the matter.
"Nay," answered Wat, in a low voice, "to be happy may indeed come to
us--pray God it may, and speedily. But to prove one's love as a man
proves the edge of his sword, to do somewhat great for the beloved, to
be something worthier, higher, better, to make your love glad and proud
that she loves you, and that she possesses your love--these are greater
aims than merely selfishly to be happy."
Mehitabel sighed as she rose.
"I suppose it must be so," she said, "but it is a great and weary
mystery. Moreover, I have yet to see the man I would choose before
a plate of early strawberries. And, anyway, pignuts, dug out of the
ground and eaten on the tree-tops, are right excellent good!"