PART II.

_Who is the honest man?

He that does still and strongly good pursue,

To God, his neighbour, and himself most true;

Whom neither force nor fawning can

Unpinne, or wrench from giving all their due._

GEORGE HERBERT.

A great oak in Wyncliffe Chase was doomed to be cut down.

It was a goodly, wide-spreading tree, too wide-spreading indeed, for

some of its branches came in the way of a certain forest-king, a

huge-limbed mighty giant among trees, within whose stately area of

space no neighbour was allowed to trespass. So the younger tree was to

come down.

It met its fate on a sparkling autumn day. There was just a touch

of sharpness in the air. The woods were mostly green still, though

already plenty of red and brown and yellow patches told that autumn was

upon us. The horse-chestnuts shining on the ground near their empty

white shells, and the crimson and purple leaves of the bramble-bushes

belonged to autumn too.

Now it is the old story. I have forgotten the great things and

remembered the small. Nine years or more had passed since Caleb

Morton's marriage. We had been growing up all this time, and changing

by little and little, outwardly and inwardly. We left school and set

about our business in life--Cuthbert became second forester under

Clifford, Hildred's brother, and I had lately begun to be old Farmer

Foster's bailiff at Furzy Nook.

How all these changes came about by degrees I have well-nigh forgotten.

But I remember quite well the pheasants crowing in the wood that day,

and the dead gold fern, and the voices that talked and laughed round

the falling tree.

And out of the mists of failing memory, where they have been hidden

for so long, Cuthbert and Hildred, and I myself, seem to come forth

again distinctly on that autumn morning; Cuthbert and I no longer boys,

Hildred a girl, not any more a child.

Cuthbert raised his axe, and struck and struck, until he was fain, for

want of breath, to draw back, and turn towards us and laugh. Hildred

sat on the trunk of a fallen tree, with a great bundle of sticks she

had been gathering, tied up in a red handkerchief at her feet, and I

stood near her--sometimes speaking to her, oftener full of thoughts

that were an idle many-coloured medley, brightly-tinted as the autumn

woods themselves.

First of all it was sweet, passing sweet, to stand there beside

Hildred. That was an old thought. It remained the same, while the

rest shifted, and flitted to and fro, first one way, then another,

like leaves that the wind plays with and blows about as it will. The

tree--it would not be standing half an hour hence. Where would the

rooks that had built in it for three summers past have their nest next

spring? Cuthbert's strokes bit deeper into the tough heart-of-oak than

any of the others. He was stronger even than Matt Clifford. Poor tree,

it was hard for it, Hildred said just now, to leave its fair woodland

world. Yes, and it would be hard to leave a great many things if one

had to do so, first and foremost--I broke off there, for they had got

a rope round the trunk, and Clifford called out to the men to stand

clear. The great tree tottered. Hildred shouted with the rest, and

clapped her hands.

Well, I must see it down now, though I really ought to be where the

ploughs are going over the sunny 'Seven Acres,' on the hill, a mile

away from here. Then I looked again at Hildred, perched laughing on her

mossy seat, with the golden fern at her feet and the dark woods behind

her, and I tried to find a rhyme to the word 'winsome' to end some

verses I had been making in my head.

Master Caleb Morton had not given up lending me books, in the years

since I had ceased to be a scholar of his, and ploughmen and shepherds,

he told me, had been poets before now; so I tried to make verses too.

I kept them very secret, never telling anyone about them, not even

Hildred--whom indeed they chiefly concerned--or Cuthbert. Many an

hour's hard work I beguiled by stringing my rhymes together, always

hoping I was making something that would be beautiful.

But I was a poor scholar, for all Cuthbert and Hildred said, I was

fonder of hard words than Master Caleb himself. My lines would not

often come right. I was not good at putting my thoughts in harness.

They were like a team that will not go together. Some got on too fast

and covered too much ground, and others stood still, or else wanted

to go off at quite a different pace. So I got disheartened. Besides,

what was the use of such poor words as I could find? If I called the

sunshine 'golden,' was that half bright enough for the life-giving

light? And if I said the wind whispered, or the river sang, it was not

what I meant.

Sometimes at night I thought I had made something very good, and went

to sleep contented, but in the morning, when I said over my verses, all

the meaning seemed to have gone out of them. I said to myself at last,

'You are very weak, and Nature is very strong. She can speak to your

heart and tell you all things; but it is not given you to repeat what

she says to others. From henceforth listen, but in silence.' And so I

gave up making verses. I have listened all my life long, and now that

I am old, I try once more to say a little of what I have been hearing

all these years. And perhaps because I am more humble and expect

less, perhaps because my eye and ear are growing duller, I am not so

discontented as I once was. I know my words are poor, but I am waiting.

Soon I shall learn the new song that they sing up there, beyond the

sunlight, and then I shall be satisfied.

However, I had not got to that yet. I went on trying to find my rhyme,

and failed, as better people may have done before me.

It was a pity. The word winsome might have been made for Hildred.

Mistress Dorothy Morton, years ago, had called her the picture of a

child. I am sure she was the picture of a maiden now. It was a very

fair flower that had bloomed in our grey old ruin.

Those bygone times, when we used to let Hildred go about with us now

and then, as a great treat for her, were very wonderful to look back

to. Now I prized every minute that she lighted up with her sunbeam

pleasure.

The knowledge of what she was to me, had come so gradually that I

cannot remember when I first felt that my life-choice was made, and

that the world held for me but one thing worth living for. I had been

sure of it for many a long day, before I dreamed of putting the love I

bore her into words. Nearly all my life it must have lain deep down in

my heart, like a seed that, buried in the ground, waits for the coming

of the spring; and now, in the spring and sunshine of my young manhood,

it had risen up in blossom and in fruit.

'Willie, here comes your father,' said Hildred presently, jumping up

and running off to meet him. They liked each other, those two. My

father--it was no wonder certainly--had smiles and even words for her,

such as he was never known to bestow on anyone else. Hildred was not a

bit afraid of him, though other people said he became more 'dour' and

hard as he got on in life. She came along by his side now, suiting her

light footsteps to his heavy tread; he nodded now and then in answer to

her merry chatter, and a look of slow contentment stole over his face.

She made him stop for a moment to watch the wood-cutters, and as they

stood looking on, the tree came crashing down at last.

Our idling time was over as soon as my father came. I turned away, and

Hildred raised the bundle of sticks on to her head, and moved towards

home.

'I haven't been losing much time,' she said, looking up at him merrily

from under its shadow. 'Look, all these for Granny.'

'Good girl,' he answered, and he even stood still to watch her carrying

it lightly in and out among the trees, and singing as she went.

Hildred never let the grass grow under her feet. She was always up and

about. The bundle of sticks that pleased my father was only of a piece

with all her sunny, helpful ways. She had gathered sticks for Granny

hundreds of times before, only it was fated that this bundle should

first put a thought into my father's head that he pondered over in his

slow way all through the winter.

He told it to me one evening in the early spring, as we were going home

from work together. I saw him looking round at me once or twice, as if

there was something he had a mind to say, if he had known how to set

about it.

'Grandmother's got to be an old woman,' he began at last, but after I

had said 'yes,' he did not appear for some time to have anything to add.

'We need some one younger to keep the house,' he went on presently. 'I

say, Will, do you ever think anything about getting married?'

I certainly did think of it very often indeed--a good deal oftener than

I cared to tell my father. The question took me so by surprise that I

scarcely knew how to answer it. At last I said bashfully, that 'perhaps

I might, odd times.'

'Ha! 'cause if so be she's a stirring, thrifty lass, I don't care how

soon you do.'

'If I could, I don't know if Hildred would,' I stammered, more

astonished than ever, for I had always thought that I should have to

make a home of my own, before I could ask Hildred to marry me.

My father nodded gravely once or twice when he heard her name. 'I

thought as much,' he muttered, more to himself than to me, 'She'll do.'

And as we reached home he stopped to say, 'Then you can bring your wife

home here whensoever it suits yourself. I'm agreeable, lad, without any

more waste of words.'

Without any more words with him, but a great many with myself. My

wife--Hildred! That soft, sparkling little creature, that no trouble

ought to come near--such was my thought then--or sorrow touch. Would

she let me try to take care of her? Would she come to the grey old

gate-house some day in her butterfly brightness and beauty, and fold

her wings there, and be my own? Little Hildred, whom my mother used to

love and pet in the old days. It seemed strange that we were longing

for her now to fill my mother's place. But would she come?

That was the one question. I wearied myself with finding answers to it.

Hildred herself, I was sure, little knew all that she was to me. No one

had found it out, I believed, except my father, with that odd silent

watchfulness of his. Not even Cuthbert--I almost wished he had, that I

might have talked to him about it; but he never guessed my one secret,

and somehow I could not make up my mind to tell him.

No, I must ask Hildred herself first; and now there would be many long

days to live through before I even saw her again. For on the morrow I

had to go away to see my dear old master, Caleb Morton, and it might be

a fortnight before I could get back to Wyncliffe. Granny and Cuthbert

and Matt Clifford were all standing round when I said good-bye to

Hildred. It was a great pity that my father had waited to speak, until

my last day at home. I had been reckoning on my journey beforehand, but

now I should only count the days until I could come back.

It was two years since I had seen Master Caleb. A very dark day it had

been for Wyncliffe when he gave up the school, and went to be master

to a much larger one a long way off. But it was such a piece of good

fortune as he had long deserved, and his friends could only rejoice for

him even while they mourned over losing him.

His new home was in a busy sea-port town, as different as possible from

quiet Wyncliffe. Instead of trees, they had the crowded masts of the

shipping in the harbour to look at. Huge bales of merchandise piled

up along the quays; sailors of all countries and tongues thronging

the streets and waterside; vessels continually gliding into port or

gliding out again on their paths over the sea. This, in exchange for

the harvest fields and the blue hills at home. The smell of salt and

tar on the sea-breeze, instead of the breath of flowering lime-trees.

And the queer-sounding languages shouted by foreign voices, were very

different from the distant cries of field labourers, and the cawing of

the rooks, round Wyncliffe schoolhouse. Only, to make up for all, there

was the solemn beauty and wonder of the sea. Words cannot utter it, or,

once seen, memory lose hold of its vastness.

It mattered little to Master Caleb and his wife where their lot was

cast. They carried their own sunshine with them, and would have been

happy anywhere; still, they were faithful in heart to their first home,

and had been longing, Mistress Morton told me, for the sight of a

Wyncliffe face.

I was to have stayed with them for ten days. I was three months away

from home. On what was to have been the last day of my stay, Master

Caleb and I were overtaken in a thunder-storm, as we were driving home

from a distance along the coast. I never quite knew how it happened.

The horse took fright at the lightning. It was a dark evening, and

Master Caleb, not much skilled in driving, had the reins. We went

over the rocks together, horse and gig and all. Master Caleb escaped,

fortunately, with a few bruises, and I broke my leg.

It might have been much worse. I was taken home to Master Caleb's

house, and Mrs. Janet nursed me. Those weary weeks that I lay unable

to move, would not have seemed so endless if it had not been for my

longing to get home to Hildred. But for that, I should have been well

content. After the first days of racking pain were over, and I came

back to the knowledge of outward things, I used to lie and watch the

little scenes of household life that passed like pictures before my

eyes, and think how pleasantly true to my remembrance of them my old

friends were. Master Caleb, creeping up to my bedside laden with books,

in the full security that even at the worst they must be the best cure

for pain or fever--Mrs. Janet, ordering him and them scornfully away,

coming in with her business step and skilful hand, the very model of

a sick-nurse; prompt of action, short, positive, and encouraging of

speech. How like their old selves they were! And Mistress Dorothy, just

to have her there to look at, did me more good than anything else. None

of the power of comfort or healing had gone from her voice and smile.

To her only I could talk of Hildred. Of course I had told her all about

that. She only could quiet the restlessness that grew on me as the slow

days dragged on.

It seemed so hard to be away just then from Hildred. How was I to keep

still, thinking of what might have been by this time, if I had been

able to go home. Never before had I been without seeing her for so

long. I dreamt of her whenever I fell asleep, always the same dream,

that she was in trouble, and I could not move to help her.

Cuthbert, too, that was another trouble; how was he getting on with my

father all this time? When I was at home I could generally keep things

pretty straight between them, but they did not understand each other.

My father never cared for him; the little he said to him was sharp and

harsh. And Cuthbert--what wonder?--could not always bear it well. He

had a high spirit, and for all his sweet temper, he liked to take his

own way, and, once taken, chose to keep it. If I could only hope that

he would be patient now, or that my father would not try him with some

of those sharp bitter words that stung so deeply!

It was no use Mrs. Janet's telling me that an easy mind helped to mend

broken bones. It might be so, but an easy mind was quite beyond my

reach.

Dorothy did better than preach patience, she shared my impatience.

As often as I pleased she was ready to count over with me the weary

days that they said must pass before I was fit for a journey. Also she

charmed long hours away by letting me talk of Hildred.

My release came at last. I could walk pretty stoutly with a stick, by

the time that the coach dropped me, just after dusk on an evening in

June, at the crossing of the four roads, close to Wyncliffe village.

Before I got into the straggling little street, I heard music in front

of me--fifes and drums sounding noisily through the quiet of the

summer's evening. It was a recruiting party--no unusual sight in those

war days. As I overtook them I was told that I was a fine fellow, and

asked if I would not join them and fight for the King.

They were just going into the Castle--the public-house--when I passed,

and as I turned my head to look at the light that was streaming from

it, I heard my own name called suddenly. The next moment Cuthbert came

out and joined me.

'Willie! thank Heaven you are come. Are you better?' he said, seizing

my hand and wringing it.

'Yes. What's the matter, Cuthbert? what are you doing here?'

He did not answer, but moved so as to stand in the circle of light from

the open door. I looked at him again, and saw the gay ribands that the

recruits wear, fluttering from his hat.

'Cuthbert!'

'Yes, you see I have enlisted. Why, Will, I did not think you would

mind it so much;' for, thunderstruck I leant against the wall to gather

breath. He put his hand on my shoulder.

'It's not worth troubling about.'

'You can be bought off,' I said, recovering myself.

'Not for the world. Why should I? I did it of my own free will, for I

can't stay here, and I won't.'

'Why, what has come to you?'

He was very pale, I saw, and his hands shook. He looked as if some

great storm of trouble or anger had passed over him. After a minute's

pause he said suddenly, 'Did you know that your father kept a store of

money, gold guineas, and shillings, and a five-pound note, in an old

teapot in the cupboard behind his bed?'

'What are you talking about? No.'

'No more did I,' said Cuthbert. 'Well, he lost it.'

'But what has that to do with you?'

Cuthbert gave an odd short laugh. 'Only that he says I took it.'

'I don't understand.'

'Perhaps you think so too,' he said bitterly. 'No, Will, you know I did

not mean that, but they've driven me half out of my senses with all

this.'

'Cuthbert, my father never said you had taken his money.'

'Said it, or thought it, it pretty nearly comes to the same thing. I

understood well enough what he was after, so I'm off. Never mind that

now. We can't talk here, and I've got something to say to you. We don't

go until to-morrow morning, so I can walk back with you.'

'You're coming home for to-night, at all events?'

'I can't go there,' said Cuthbert his lip trembling, 'not to your

father's house. Clifford will take me in.'

He turned and spoke to some one inside the house. There was a confused

noise of singing and loud laughter, and the jingling of glasses from

the bar. In a minute Cuthbert came out again, and said it was all

right. He need not be there until sunrise the next day.

'Come on,' he said impatiently, and he began to walk up the street with

long, quick strides.

'Now tell me,' I said.

Cuthbert's mood had changed. 'There's little enough to tell,' he

answered quietly, 'only that I've enlisted. After all, I'm a soldier's

son, and I know the life. I've always had a hankering after it, as you

know.'

'But my father, what has he done? Try and tell me.'

'It's all along of this money. He's been scraping it and hoarding it

together for ever so long. He thought no one knew about it. No more

they did. But two days ago he missed it.'

Cuthbert had begun quietly, but now his eyes were lighting again, and

his voice quickened. 'And he thinks I took it. _I_ to take his

money! and your father, too.'

'He couldn't think so. You must have made some great mistake.'

'Not I. I saw what he was at well enough. Don't you think I know he's

always hated me? You know it too, Will, though you've tried so hard to

keep me from finding it out. He was mad when he found his money gone,

and he spoke out then pretty plain--as he never did before.'

'He didn't say you took it.'

'Not at first--not straight out, till I asked him what he meant--he did

then. I wouldn't stay another day after that. You wouldn't have had me

stay, Will?'

'There were others there,' he went on again, 'when he accused me of

knowing more of the money than I cared to say. Hildred was there.'

'She didn't believe it of you.'

'God bless her, no.'

I put my hand on his arm. 'Cuthbert, you ought to stay here, don't you

see?'

He looked at me.

'You mean they'll say I've gone off with the money. No, they won't say

that. I thought I'd told you the money was found again.'

'Found!'

'Yes, but that made no odds. I can't stay where I've been served as

your father served me.'

'But who found it?'

'The money? Oh, it was all Granny's doing.' Cuthbert smiled. 'Poor

Granny, she had taken the teapot away, not knowing.'

'What did father say?'

'I don't know. I didn't stay to hear. I tell you it was all one, after

what he had thought of me. Will, I, that he took in--though that was

your doing and your mother's, not his. I, that had grown up in his

house and thought I was like his son. I wish he had turned me out of

doors when your mother died. Maybe some day I may feel as grateful to

him for his charity as I ought to be. I can't now.

'I did not mean to say aught of this to you, old chap,' he went on

sadly. 'I ought not, only I can't help it. It wouldn't any of it have

happened if you had been at home.'

'Then let me get you off,' I said eagerly. 'Let me do something for

you.'

'Yes, that you shall, but not that. What a mercy it is that you have

got home in time! It wasn't all this I wanted to tell you about. I was

going to write you a letter, but talking is much handier.'

'And you must go?'

'Yes.' He took a shilling out of his pocket and held it up in the dim

light with a half-laugh. 'Never mind that; it's done. Will, what I

wanted to say to you besides good-bye was this.' His voice had grown

grave enough now. 'I have something to leave in your charge.'

I don't know why my heart stopped beating for a second, and then went

on again quicker than before.

'Do you know what it is?' Cuthbert continued. 'The greatest treasure I

have--the only thing in all the world that really belongs to me.'

'What?' I asked.

And he answered, 'Hildred.'

We had left the village behind by this time. We were on the bit of

road before you reach the bridge, and the Castle was in front of us.

Often in the evening, when the twilight has gathered, and the air is

heavy with dew, and with a faint sweet smell of newly cut hay, I live

that moment over again. I see Cuthbert's face turned towards me, pale

and eager, in the half-darkness. I see the white road, and the moon

just rising solemn and fiery red over the Castle. I feel the silence,

except that the familiar rush of falling water, unheard for months, was

beginning to sound in my ears again.

I never crossed the bridge afterwards, by night or day, and came

within ear-shot of the waterfall, without hearing Cuthbert's voice say

'Hildred.'

For the next few minutes I don't know what he said. The dusty road--I

noticed even then how dusty it was--seemed to rise up before my face. I

put out my hand to hold by Cuthbert's arm. He thought that, being still

lame, I was tired, and meant to lean on him, and he drew my arm over

his shoulder, supporting me as we climbed up the grassy hill that was

the short cut to the ruins. Presently I knew that he was saying--'It is

hard for her.'

'Does Hildred know you have enlisted?'

'Yes, yes, poor child. I told her, and then, when it was too late, I

found out how much I loved her.'

'Does she care for you?'

'Yes,' he answered very softly. 'Yes indeed, thank God.'

'But oh, Willie, you will take care of her for me. Don't let her forget

me. I trust her to you entirely. Promise me you will be good to her.

Watch over her for me.'

The tears were in his eyes. He was going away. It might be that I

should never see him again. This was no time to think of my shattered

hopes, my ruined life.

'If I could do any good,' I began to say. He interrupted me. 'You

can--you can. It is everything to me. Let me think she has somebody

near her who will be kind to her--who will comfort her if she is

unhappy--who will never let them make her give me up.'

'She will not do that if she cares.'

'No, but I can't help fearing. Tell her how I love her. Talk to her

about me. Promise me.' And he held out his hand.

I took it. I felt what a hard promise it was that he called on me to

make--how little he guessed what he was asking of me. I knew how much

it would cost me to keep it. A dread came over me like a shadow of the

trouble that was to come through this.

But I would not listen. Cuthbert loved her, and she--yes, she loved

him. He was going away, and he trusted me.

I only said two words, and then I had pledged myself, and shut the door

on the long hope of years.

We were within the walls now. Cuthbert, with a few fervent words of

thanks, turned towards Clifford's house, and I went home.

Granny gave a little cry of joy when I opened the kitchen door.

'My dear,' she said, hardly waiting to greet me, 'the very thing I

have been wishing for, is for you to come home. We're in sad trouble,

Willie. Do you know where Cuthbert is?'

'He came back with me just now.'

'I'm thankful for that. One couldn't tell what the poor boy might do.

Willie, my dear, he and father had words,' said Granny, coming close

and whispering mysteriously. 'It's about the money in the teapot, and

it's all my fault.'

'Where's father?' I asked.

'Hush, he's upstairs now, counting It. He's always counting it, I

think. That was where it was, you see. He was called away of a sudden

when he was just putting something into the teapot, and he left the

cupboard door open; and I came in and saw it. It was my old teapot,

Willie, and I was glad to see it again, and so----'

'Granny, I want to go and speak to father.'

'So you shall, my dear; but just you wait and hear me first. And so,

my dear--what was I going to say? It was my old teapot, and I used to

keep odd halfpence in it, and stand it on the mantel-shelf. He took it

away. I thought I'd lost it d'ye see, Willie?'

'Yes, Granny, I see. Will you----'

Granny held my arm tighter, and still whispering went on. 'My dear,

I'm right vexed. I shouldn't ha' done it, but I meant no harm. When I

saw my teapot, I took it thinking it was nobbut my coppers as made it

heavy. Stephen missed it, and Cuthbert was there.'

'What did he say to Cuthbert?'

'My dear, they had words. Clifford, he came in, and Hildred. When I got

into the room father sat there mazed-like about his money, and Cuthbert

was standing as it might be here. I told them, and I brought back the

teapot directly, my dear, but it was too late. Cuthbert flung out of

the house and----. Hush, Willie, here's father coming downstairs.'

He came in. He looked surprised, and as it seemed to me only half

pleased to see me.

'Father,' said my grandmother, 'Cuthbert's got back.'

My father looked up. 'I thought he'd come. What's he been about?'

'He's enlisted,' I said sadly.

I could not tell whether my father was surprised, or glad, or sorry. He

said nothing, but I noticed that he gave me one or two quick looks from

under his shaggy eyebrows.

'Father,' I said, 'you will see poor Cuthbert before he goes?'

'Humph! I suppose you know he's been beforehand with you with Hildred.

Did he tell you that?'

'Yes, he told me. He meant no harm by me. He doesn't know.'

'I wish the lad had never come nigh the place.'

Just as he said this, the door was opened quickly, and Cuthbert came

in. He went straight up to my father, the colour coming all over his

face, and held out his hand.

'I'm going away to-morrow,' he said, speaking quickly, 'and as like as

not I shall never come back again. I am come just to shake hands and

thank you before I go, for all you've done for me; I know how much it's

been.'

My father was taken by surprise. He put out his hand slowly to meet

Cuthbert's.

'About that money,' he began, 'I made a mistake.'

'Thank you,' Cuthbert answered, colouring again. 'I'd sooner you

wouldn't say anything of that.'

Still grasping my father's hand, he went on--

'I know I've often vexed you, but you won't be troubled with me any

longer, and we part good friends--don't we?' he ended with his frank,

sweet smile.

'I'm sure I wish you good luck, lad.'

Cuthbert turned round to me.

It was the one gleam of comfort on that dark night, that those two were

at peace together before Cuthbert went away.

The two troubles coming so quick one upon another seemed to have

confused me. I wanted time to understand them. Every thought brought

a fresh sting, and they kept thronging into my mind, shifting and

changing strangely.

Only one thing was clear: I had lost Cuthbert and Hildred both at

once. He had gone back to her now, for more last words. I was used to

thinking of them as belonging to me. But they belonged to each other

now, and I was nothing to them,--not much at least.

Cuthbert was going away to-morrow. A while ago that would have seemed

hard enough, but harder still, the Hildred I loved, and who I had

thought loved me, was gone already.

Why do I talk about myself? They two who loved each other were the

ones to be pitied. To-morrow, when Cuthbert was away, there would be

time enough to think.

My father sat by the fire, with his hands and chin resting on his

stick, but his eyes followed me whenever I moved. I was not used to

being watched like that, and presently I went to the door.

'I say, boy,' he called after me.

I looked round.

'Don't you go and vex yourself. He's going away, and girls soon forget,

you know.'

'Girls will be girls, Willie,' said Granny, meaning to be comforting.

I went outside and leaned against the wall. The moon was covered with

clouds, and in the hushed darkness you could hear if a leaf stirred or

a grasshopper chirped in the long grass.

'Girls soon forget.' Ay, but I had just promised not to let Hildred

forget. Besides, she wasn't likely to forget Cuthbert. And did I even

wish her to forget him? I did not know. What was the use of thinking?

How long Cuthbert stayed! Granny's flitting light went out upstairs.

She, and my father too, were most likely quietly asleep, before I heard

his step coming quickly through the darkness.

'You waited for me,' he said, coming up. 'Clifford kept me talking.

Come in, will you? I must get my things together. I told you how it

would be. Clifford wanted her to take her promise back, because I was

going away.'

'She did not?'

He shook his head. 'But I have only you to count on that will help

her,' he said sighing.

The packing-up was not a long business, but we went through it very

slowly, though we talked little. Who ever said the parting words they

had meant to speak at the last? Ours were very few.

Once Cuthbert looked up as he was kneeling on the floor beside the old

chest that had held all our goods for so long. 'Will, I can't make

speeches, but I am thinking very much to-night of the time you brought

me home, and took me for your brother. There never was such a brother.

I should like just for once to say, thank you.'

I put my hand on his shoulder and pressed it hard. It was lucky he did

not want words, for I had none. We lay down near each other for the

last time. I don't know whether Cuthbert cried before he went to sleep.

I know I did.

It was soon over the next morning. As we went downstairs in the

doubtful light, we could hear my father's heavy breathing. But poor

Granny was down before us, with some breakfast ready that no one could

eat, and a candle flaring with a sickly ray in the broadening daylight.

'I shall never see thee again, my dear,' Granny said, two slow tears

rolling down her face; 'but be a good lad, and don't forget to say thy

prayers.'

'I won't, Granny;' and as he kissed her she put her trembling old hand

on his brown head and blessed him.

Then Cuthbert went out quickly, and I followed. He stood still for a

minute and looked round. He could not have seen the old place look more

beautiful than in its morning stillness; the birds were waking up here

and there, and a glitter of dew and sunshine lay on the grass.

'Come,' he said, 'it is late.'

Hildred met us under the great yew tree. It had always been a

trysting-place of ours, and we used to part there when we were

children, coming back from school. Their great parting was to be there

now.

He went up to her, and took her in his arms as if he could never leave

her. Hildred was crying. She did not say much, but she clung to him

and held him fast.

'Dear heart!' he said, kissing her hair softly. 'You must not cry so.

Hush, Hildred!'

I did not know how much tenderness there could be in his voice till I

heard those broken words--'See, here is our brother Willie. He is going

to take care of you for me. He will watch over my dear love when I am

gone.'

A few minutes more, and Cuthbert said, 'I must go.'

I did not see their parting. He came to me, grasped both my hands. 'God

bless you. Take care of her. Don't let her forget me.'

'I am going with you.'

'No, go back to her. Stay and comfort her. Oh, be good to her, Willie!'

The distant sound of the fifes and drums came from the village down

below.

'I shall be late.'

Cuthbert was gone. The cliff hid him directly. Those few hours had

changed the world for me.

My brother was gone, and I had lost my love.

I went back, as he bade me, to Hildred. She had flung herself down on

the ground where he left her, and was crying bitterly. I tried to take

her hand and lift her up, but she pushed me away, turning from me and

burying her face deeper in her hands.

'Hildred, don't cry like that.'

She shook her head impatiently, and rocked herself backwards and

forwards like a child. I did not at all know what to do for her.

'I wish I could comfort you, Hildred.'

'You can't,' she said with a gasping sob.

'No I'm afraid nobody could----'

'Cuthbert could,' she interrupted.

It was the first time I had heard from herself that Cuthbert was more

to her than I was, although, of course, I knew it before. The words

stung me so much that I felt almost inclined to go away and leave her.

But presently she took away her hands and looked up, pushing back the

ruffled hair from her forehead. It was such a pitiful little face, her

eyes wet and her cheeks crimsoned with tears.

'Oh dear, I am so unhappy,' she said.

I took her hand again.

'Poor little Hildred, I'm very sorry for you.'

'It's all your father's fault,' said Hildred, with a little impatient

stamp of her foot upon the ground. 'How could he be so wicked?'

'It was a mistake,' I said, after a moment's pause.

'It was cruel of him. Oh, poor Cuthbert! Why did you let him go?'

'I, Hildred?'

'Yes, how could you? He will just go and be killed in the wars, and

then you will be sorry.'

It was weak, almost unmanly, to mind her childish words, but I could

not help it. I turned and walked away. The next moment she ran after me.

'Willie, I don't quite mean it; you know I don't.' She looked up with

one of her own coaxing smiles. 'Don't be angry; I think being unhappy

makes me cross, and I've got such a pain in my throat that I don't know

what to do.'

And then she burst out crying again. Poor little Hildred, poor child!

That was a long, strange day. It seemed as if it ought by rights to be

mid-day, when the sun had only been up for an hour or two, and it was

difficult to understand how other people could be quietly waking up to

their every-day business.

My father was having his breakfast. A few labourers were going across

the bridge to their work. A flock of sheep with a cloud of dust round

them, moved slowly along the road on the way to their pasture. Even

Granny, with the tears all gone and her face as placid as if it had

never been ruffled, was stirring about her morning's work.

'I wonder where poor Cuthbert'ill be now,' she said at dinner

time; 'miles away by this time, I reckon. You'll be feeling a bit

down-hearted, Willie, sure, without him.'

I felt rather more than a bit down-hearted, but it was no good telling

Granny so.

'Well, it does seem strange to think that the lad's really gone,'

she said again; 'don't it now, Stephen?' My father gave a sort of

grunt that might mean anything. After dinner, as he stood by the

chimney-piece, his eyes fell upon a many-clasped knife that belonged to

Cuthbert. He looked round to see if any one was watching him; presently

his fingers closed quietly over it, and it was dropped into his pocket.

I took no heed, it was growing upon him, that habit of secretly

hoarding any stray thing that came in his way.

Then began a time about which there is little to tell. Our life, except

that Cuthbert was gone, moved on, seemingly unaltered. And yet the

old time and the new were as different really, as a place that you

have known in the sunshine looks when you see it again by moonlight.

The place itself is unchanged, the outlines, the shape, the substance

are still there, only the colouring is gone. All that gave warmth and

brightness has been taken away. Grey and black and white tints alone

remain.

Was it really only yesterday that I had come home, I thought--only

yesterday that I was watching a sunset of clear gold and red in a blue

sky, as I came along the road from Morechester, thinking my sunlit

thoughts? In an hour or two I was to see Hildred. Home where she was,

lay somewhere in the heart of that bright west.

When I reached the village the sun set for me indeed. The light faded

in a minute from my cloudland of dreams.

The time hung all the more heavily on my hands, that I was too lame,

for a while after my coming home, to be able to do much. It was a great

comfort when I got strong again. Hard work, work that lasted from

morning until night, was the best thing then. I did not care to think

more than I could help. It only made things worse.

At first I could not make out rightly, how much or how little it

was my duty to be with Hildred, remembering that now she was only

a charge left to me by Cuthbert. It would have been easier to keep

away altogether, but the poor child was unhappy. In the newness and

strangeness of her first sorrow, she needed a great deal of comforting.

No one had much time or thought to give to the remembrance of Cuthbert,

so she came to me, reminding me that I had promised to be good to her.

It has always seemed to me that any trouble is the most easily borne

in silence. Many words only make the pain worse, and take away from

the patience and strength with which one has to bear it. But it was

different for little Hildred. Child-like, or woman-like, it was a

comfort to her to say how very sad she was. She came to tell how she

missed Cuthbert; how long and dull the days seemed without the hope of

seeing him; of how she often thought she heard his voice calling to

her, and forgot that it was gone far beyond her hearing.

Anyone that has loved and lost a friend knows well all that she felt.

But to her it was just as strange and dreadful as if the world, since

it began, had not been full of partings. It was so new to her to wake

up in the morning, wondering what the weight upon her heart could

be--so sorrowful, when everything was quiet, to cry herself to sleep.

We were not the only people in that part of the country who had cause

to rue the visits of recruiting parties. There were the Moores, cousins

of her own, whom Martha Clifford was never tired of holding up as

an example. How often have I heard her exhort Hildred to patience,

by telling her how much less to be pitied she was than the poor old

Moores! Hildred did not think so, inasmuch as a new sorrow always seems

worse than an old one, and the trouble that had come upon the Moores

was of old standing now.

Three or four years ago their only son did, what Cuthbert had just

done--enlisted, leaving his father and mother to get on as best they

could without him.

It was hard on them certainly, for they were growing old, and had

looked to David as the bread-winner for the future. 'If you knew what

it was to want bread, Hildred,' said Martha, 'you would not have so

much time for fretting about Cuthbert.'

I don't think it had come to the Moores wanting bread, but I remember

well the talk of the country side, and how it was said the ferry-house

over the Wynn would soon have other tenants, for an old man like Moore

could never manage the ferry-boat by himself.

Certainly the river at the ferry ran very swift and strong, and the

old boat was a heavy one. Moore's house, a tumble-down stone building,

comfortable enough inside, but a bleak sort of place to look at, stood

hanging over the river, at the corner where the road comes out of

a winding pass through the hills and ends at the ferry. It was the

only way the farmers and people living up in the hills had of getting

to Morechester. The boat carried across many a load of cattle for

Morechester Market, many a man and horse bound for the Market Cross.

Still the place was so wild and unfrequented that passengers were rare

things, and the ferryman often worked in his strip of garden, and

tended his goats, for days together, without the boat being once called

for. There it lay, chained just beneath the house, with its ponderous

oars, as big, clumsy, and flat-bottomed a thing as you would wish to

see.

Cuthbert and I knew it well in the days of our rambles over the

country. We knew old Moore and Moore's wife, and Elfrida their

servant-maid, and David the son, who got so tired of the ferry-boat,

and the lonely house, and the noise of the river sweeping by, that he

went for a soldier, and left the place more silent and deserted than

before.

In time old Moore fell sick. It was then that they began really to miss

David; for what was to become of them, now his father could row the

ferry-boat no longer? Then Elfrida, their faithful maid, went down and

unloosed the boat, and rowed it across herself, with her strong arms.

And she told her old master and mistress not to fret, for she would do

her best--they should not leave the old ferry as long as she had hands

to serve them.

Elfrida--I remember her well--was a tall strong lass, with a grave,

faithful-looking, kindly face, and a pair of steady brown eyes. Hers

was a true heart and a stout arm. The old people had been good to her,

and she was not going to leave them at their need. But it was a rough

life for a woman, especially as winter drew on, and the wind blew

wildly from the hills, and the river rose.

Farmers coming home late at night from Morechester Market, wanted to be

ferried across, and it was bitter work unchaining the boat and pushing

out into mid-stream in the darkness. Elfrida grew to dread the shout

and whistle from the other side, that summoned the ferry-boat to go

across, but she never said anything. It had to be done, and she was

glad to think of the old couple, comfortable under their own roof,

often in bed and asleep, not knowing that she was pushing the boat

along across the black river, with the rain dashing in her face, and

the current striving against the whole strength of her arms, to sweep

the boat down-stream.

One night, a very stormy night in November, Elfrida heard the unwelcome

call come across the water. The wind and the rush of the stream almost

drowned it; still there it was, and often repeated, as if the owner

of the voice was getting impatient. So she lighted her lantern and

pushed off, guiding the boat as well as she could by the rope that was

stretched across the river. Her passenger was a farmer going home from

Morechester, and as he led his horse into the boat Elfrida saw that he

walked unsteadily. She was used to that sort of thing on market days,

but to-night, as they started to cross back again, the man was pulling

at his horse, making it move restlessly. Elfrida spoke sharply, bidding

him be still and keep the horse quiet. The farmer answered angrily,

and moved suddenly from his place--the boat rocked--there was a sudden

splash in the water, a loud cry, and he was gone.

Elfrida knew that the current was running swiftly, and that a moment

would carry him beyond help. She did not stay to think, but plunged in

after him. She was a brave swimmer, and a brave woman, but the stream

was hurling along, and the night was dark. What came after the shock of

the chill water she could never quite tell. She knew that she clutched

the man's hair as he rose, and then all the rest was confusion, until

she felt someone dragging them both up the bank, and saw lights

flashing in her eyes. Another party of homeward-bound farmers had come

up, and pulled them in, but not until she had struggled with her burden

close to the shore.

That night's deed made Elfrida famous in the country round. People went

all the way from Morechester to look at her; but she remained just as

simple as ever, rowing her boat quietly, and speaking little to any one.

It fell out strangely enough, that David Moore belonged to the regiment

which our Cuthbert entered. They met in the barracks when Cuthbert

first joined, and sailed in the same ship for India. We heard of their

being together from David's wife. One evening Elfrida, going across to

fetch a passenger who had called for her, found a little woman waiting

at the river's edge, with a bundle in her arms, who said that she

was David's wife. He was gone to India and had sent her home to his

father, and here was Baby.

Elfrida thought in her heart that they had hard work enough to keep

themselves, and now here was David, instead of coming back to help,

sending his wife and child home to be a burden. She rowed the stranger

across silently, and when they landed took the bundle in her arms--and

it was Baby. Ah, well, perhaps twice in a life-time one may see as

beautiful a child as baby was. Loose tumbled curls that looked like

gold, shone on Elfrida's eyes out of the bundle--eyes like periwinkles,

bright blue stars, she said, looked straight up and smiled at her. A

pouting rosebud of a mouth laughed outright, and baby put out a firm

round dimpled hand to clap her on the cheek.

All in a moment Elfrida's heart bowed down before its lord and master.

'Here is something to work for, early and late, night and day,' she

thought to herself; but she did not say so, only she clasped the bundle

that had suddenly grown so precious, tightly in her arms, and carried

it into the house.

Henceforward baby reigned like a king at the ferry, by right, I

suppose, of his crown of golden locks.

So Elfrida worked on with a will; David's little London-bred wife

sat indoors with the old people, and both they and we thought of the

soldier laddies who were away at the wars.

Day by day I talked to Hildred about Cuthbert, and told her how proud

she would be of him when he came home safe from the wars. And Hildred

believed all I said. It was easy to comfort her for the moment, only

the next day it was all to do over again. I used to build gorgeous

castles in the air for her, feeling all the time that it would half

break my heart to see any of them come true. Yet there was a pleasure

too in watching Hildred, listening with her eyes bent down, and the

long dark lashes that made her face look like a cloudy day sweeping her

cheeks despondently. And when at last she raised them it was just as if

the sun came out suddenly. She was like a child to talk to. I sometimes

thought, what a slight thing she was for two strong men to have set

their hearts upon.

And thus a long time slipped away. Cuthbert left us in the summer, and

winter was well on before Hildred got her first letter from him. That

letter, written at sea and sent home by a vessel which met theirs, how

much we all thought of it!

We stood round Hildred, waiting for news, as she held the big

brown letter in both hands, eager, flushed, and laughing, yet half

unwilling to break its great red seal. She unfolded it slowly and

read it out, her finger pointing along the lines. It was a beautiful

letter--everybody said so--and yet how little it told us about him! It

left him well, he wrote, and he liked a soldier's life, but he often

remembered home, and thought of his own true love by night and day. And

he sent his kind respects to all inquiring friends. That was all.

In time, the letter too became a thing that had come long ago, and the

winter dragged on into spring. Hildred grew slowly more accustomed to

Cuthbert's absence, and I knew better what a hard task it was that he

had left me.

I missed my brother Cuthbert sorely. I had never loved him more than

since he took from me unwittingly that which I cared for most in life.

With him all the life and cheeriness of our house had gone away--we who

remained were so grave and old.

Indeed Granny, the oldest of the three, was the most talkative, perhaps

the happiest. The twilight of her life was closing round her, and,

looking back over the long way she had come, she could talk cheerfully

over what had once troubled her the most, but which now lay dimly

remembered in the distance behind her.

Sometimes she reminded me of my mother, by the expressions which she

used. And I thought Mistress Dorothy was right when she said that there

is a language which the great Master teaches to all his scholars,

different as they may be to one another, and that it grows the more

easy to them the nearer they are to leaving school and being taken home

to their Father's house.

'Stephen will be vexed,' Granny said, 'to think that I should go; but

it's quite time, Willie, and I shall be glad;' and she went on, laying

her hand on mine, 'To think of me, my dear, poor me, with a golden

crown upon my head!'

Dear old Granny, with the white hair under her mob-cap, and her

withered, aged face. Ah, well! would not all the lines be smoothed away

before the crown of life was laid upon her brow?

It may be that my father saw her failing, and was 'vexed' by it, but he

said nothing. Besides, Granny toiled that he should still find a bright

fire and tidy room to greet him, and Hildred was always coming in to

help her. Granny said the sight of her sweet face made her feel young

again. 'Her cheeks are like the red roses that grew over our porch

when I was a girl. They used to say I was like one of those roses once,

for I was a pretty girl, my dears, though you would not believe it now.

I don't think girls are so pretty now-a-days as they used to be when

sister Nancy and I were young.'

'I am sure they are not, Granny,' Hildred would say laughing, and

putting her red-rose cheek fondly against Granny's wrinkled face. 'Do

you want me to do anything more this evening?'

'Bless you, pretty child, no. Run away with Willie. Young folks will

ever be courting, and it's right they should--quite right.' And Granny

nodded wisely. I felt the blood coming up into my cheeks.

'I think Granny sometimes mixes me up with Cuthbert,' I said.

'Perhaps she does,' Hildred answered. 'Yes, she is growing very old.'

One day my father chanced to be by when Granny was putting away the

tea things, a task she never let any one take from her for fear of

accidents. 'Young folks are careless at times, poor dears.' But

Granny's steadiness of hand was not so great as her good will, or else

her eyes failed her, for presently a cup fell down and was smashed to

pieces. She looked startled, sorry, and half-frightened, as she found

my father close behind her, and she gave up the rest of the cups to him

quite meekly.

'Yes, Stephen, I see. You needn't talk about it. I'm not fit to do it

any more. The children'll have to do the best they can, and I'll just

sit still and wait. Don't you be afraid.'

She went and sat down in the chimney-corner, and twirled her thumbs

rapidly one over the other. By-and-by the vexed look went out of her

face, and the patience that made it quite beautiful came back.

'Where's Hildred?' my father asked me, after vainly trying to join the

pieces of the broken cup together with his big fingers.

I said she had gone home.

'You should ha' married the girl, Will,' he said roughly, 'and have

saved all this breaking and wasting. And then there would have been

somebody to see to her,' motioning towards his mother.

'You know I couldn't.'

'I don't say as how you could then, but that's not now. Yon lad has

forgotten her long since, I'll lay. They soldiers never hold to one

thing long together.'

'Cuthbert forgotten Hildred!' I said. 'Not he.'

'Have it your own way,' he answered; 'only we want to get hold of some

woman that'll keep things straight, that's clear.'

It was the first time for very long that he had touched on that old

string. It was not by very many the last. The notion that I must bring

home a wife, to 'keep things straight,' and to take care of Granny,

had taken a strong hold upon him. If I was a fool, and would not marry

Hildred, I must find just some one else; but he had far rather have her

about the place than a stranger: he was used to the lass.

In vain I told him that she cared for Cuthbert, and would not marry me.

'Just you ask her. A bird in hand's worth two in the bush any day. Tell

her I'll be a father to her.'

Once it might have been, not now.

I could only try my best to prevent him from missing any of his

comforts, and turn my hand to everything. But I was clumsy: the woman's

work did not come easily.

And now Cuthbert had been gone for more than two years. A second letter

came from him some six months after the first. Since then we had heard

nothing.

Of course no one could expect to hear often from those out-of-the-way

parts of the world.

There were always plenty of good reasons to give Hildred, when she

wondered, as she often did, why she never got a letter. But after

months and months had passed away in silence, a thought of fear we did

not like to face, which we tried to stifle and forget, began slowly to

creep into our minds.

It seemed as if the clouds grew thicker as the third winter of

Cuthbert's absence darkened over us.

My words of hope and reassurance lost the ring of truth: they did not

comfort Hildred as they used to do.

'It's no good, Willie,' she would say. 'You can't make yourself believe

it all.'

No more I could. Even to my own ears my reasoning sounded hollow and

unsatisfying.

We knew that David Moore's wife had got a letter more than once since

we had heard, but--it seemed strange, her husband never so much as

mentioned Cuthbert's name. Whenever I could spare the time, which was

not often, for it was a long and rough journey, I went over to the

ferry, in the faint hope that they might have tidings for us. There

was a sort of tie between us and this household, where also there was

watching and waiting.

They did not watch as we did. They had less uncertainty, and perhaps

more patience. Moore's quiet little wife never lost her placid look for

long together, even though one of the letters she received was written

by a comrade of David's, to tell her that he was wounded and could not

write himself. He bade his wife not take on, for he was getting better,

and she believed, and obeyed him implicitly. As for the old father and

mother, their daily comforts were their first thought. The draught that

came from the kitchen window, and the fine crop of potatoes in the

garden, occupied them full as much as any fears for David. The pity

that Martha Clifford still bestowed on the poor Moores was wasted. As

long as they had Elfrida to work for them, they wanted nothing else.

What they would have done without her, no one could guess. Elfrida

never told them that she might have left them at any moment, had she so

willed it, for a comfortable home of her own. But so it was.

I used to watch her with great interest. The man whom she had saved

from drowning did not forget what a debt of gratitude he owed her.

He was for ever coming down to the ferry, only, it seemed, for the

pleasure of being rowed over the river by Elfrida, and of staring at

her all the way across.

Each time he tried to get through a set speech of thanks, that with

much trouble he had put together, and each time he forgot it in the

middle. It did not signify, for Elfrida took little heed of him. She

told him once, that she had done but her duty, and that he had no call

to thank her, and after that she wondered why he came so often, and

ferried him quietly backwards and forwards all in the way of business.

He was a widower, the tenant of a small but thriving sheep-farm up

yonder in the hills, where abode peace and plenty, much live stock, and

many children.

Nothing was wanting but a mistress; and after a while he grew to think

that Elfrida was one of the right sort, that she would make a kind

mother to the children and a comfortable partner for himself.

The good man began to paint glowing pictures of the place he could

take her home to, if she had but a mind to come. I don't think Elfrida

turned quite a deaf ear. It did sound very pleasant--that well-to-do

homestead, with the cows in the shed, and the poultry in the yard, the

flocks on the hill-side, the dairy and the pigs. Elfrida felt kindly

to the honest farmer in his best red waistcoat, who wanted to make her

'missus' of all these good things. And then how comfortable it would be

never to have to cross the ferry on the winter nights that were coming

round again, and to be able to put away for ever a certain passing

feeling of uneasy wonder that had troubled her once or twice, as to

what would become of her when she grew old.

Yes, that was all very well. Still there was Baby. She could never

really think of leaving him. What would he do--poor little Davy--if she

were gone? What would any of them do indeed? but that first question

went nearest to Elfrida's heart.

After she had been listening silently all the way across, to the

farmer's description of that place that must surely be very like

Paradise, Elfrida lifted up her eyes, and there stood baby on the

bank, clapping his hands and shouting at the boat. Baby, with a torn

frock and a scratched face, and little bare muddy legs, yet beautiful

exceedingly. Elfrida's heart gave a great thump, as it always did when

she saw him. 'No, I never could leave Baby.'

'But I've got a baby too, up there at home,' the farmer pleaded.

She looked at him. 'Ah, but he's never like our Baby.'

The farmer scratched his head, and thought of his poor little chap

at home, the thin, white-cheeked boy that never would thrive after

his mother died and left him. Then he turned to Davy, and saw how his

blue eyes shone, and how proudly he tossed back his yellow curls, and

laughed his ringing laugh. And how Elfrida looked at him!

No, little Joe was not like that.

'Still, it seems a pity,' he said, 'don't it now, when things are so

comfortable, as I've been telling you?'

Elfrida did not even hear him, for Davy, with the air of a king, was

allowing her to carry him up the steep bank home to supper.

One day when I was there, the farmer brought down Joe to the ferry,

with a kind of hope that the sight of Davy's little motherless rival

might touch Elfrida's heart.

The visit did not turn out well. Davy made a bad beginning by knocking

his guest down, without the smallest provocation except that he did

not like him. Thereafter Joe's shrill cries of fear and anger could by

no manner of means be hushed. He stood clasping his big daddy's leg

with gasping sobs, a weak, pale-faced, poor-spirited little mortal.

'So-ho, Joe, quiet,' his father kept on saying, patting and smoothing

him down, rather as if he had been a cart-horse.

Elfrida, on her side, was holding back Davy, trying to scold him, and

make him beg Joe's pardon; but there he stood, nothing daunted, like a

prince, Elfrida said, his head thrown back, his eyes sparkling, and one

small fist doubled, ready as soon as he was released for another hit at

poor terror-stricken Joe.

It did not do. Joe was taken home to the hills, without having greatly

aided his father's cause, and the farmer was fain to fall back again

upon patience as his best helper after all.

And indeed so were we. I had to go back to Wyncliffe that evening with

the old answer, 'No, Hildred, no news yet.'

'I am so tired, so tired of waiting,' she said wearily.

She was standing on the hearth-stone, in the red light of the fire. The

rest of the room was dark, for the early dusk of winter had gathered

outside. Only the glow from the burning embers fell on her bent face

and clasped hands.

Her words sounded all the more dreary that they were spoken in a

lowered tone, for Granny, who of late had ceased to take much notice of

anything, sat as usual, half asleep, in the chimney-corner.

But she must have heard in part, for she roused up suddenly, and asked,

'Who is tired? What is she talking of?'

We did not answer for a minute, and then I said, 'Only of Cuthbert,

Granny.'

'Ay, Cuthbert. Is the lad here?'

'Oh Granny, no,' said Hildred, 'we wish--we wish he were.'

'He will come,' said Granny, raising herself up and speaking in a

strange, clear tone. You will see him, never fear. It may be a long

time first--' She looked through the firelight into the darkness

beyond, as if her eyes were fixed on something that we could not see;

'a long time, but wait patiently, pretty child; wait, Willie. You will

see him again.'

Hildred came close to me, and, half-frightened, laid her hand on my

arm. We both stood looking wonderingly at Granny, from whose eyes the

unaccustomed light was already fading away. The voice and look had

given me an odd sort of thrill, and Hildred whispered, 'Willie, do you

think she saw anything?'

'No--no--I don't think so. Granny.'

I spoke to her, and Hildred bent down and touched her, but she had sunk

back again into the half slumber from which she had roused herself for

those few minutes.

'Don't let us disturb her now,' Hildred said. 'We must do as she told

us--wait. We will ask her again to-morrow.'

But when to-morrow came, our question remained unasked and

unremembered. We only thought how her own long waiting was over, her

hopeful patience changed into perfect joy. For Granny had gone from

us. In the morning we found her lying with the winter light streaming

across her face. We thought she was asleep. So she was. She had fallen

into the quiet sleep of death.

One could scarcely call this a sudden sorrow, or a bitter sorrow. We

had long known that it must come, and to her it was very welcome. Only

we missed her. The chimney-corner looked empty, and we went in and out

without the kindly, cheerful word that for so many years had been used

to greet us. Granny had been very good to us.

Neither Hildred nor I could forget the words that she had spoken about

Cuthbert on the last evening of her life. We looked upon them as a kind

of prophecy. Without saying anything to one another, I believe we both

began at that time to have a vague feeling that he was near to us--that

he was coming home.

I know I never heard the bell ring at the Castle gate, without a quick

thought that it might perhaps be him. I have seen Hildred stand by

the half-hour together gazing at the bit of road by the bridge, where

people coming from the village up to the Castle could first be seen.

She got into a way of looking over her shoulder, and from side to side

as she walked, as if she half expected that some one would appear from

behind an angle of the broken walls, or from under the shadow of a

tower. For the first time in her life she did not like to cross the

ruins alone after nightfall.

'The girl seems as though she was living in a maze,' Martha Clifford

said one day. 'I don't know what she would be at.' And she went behind

Hildred unawares, and put her hand on her shoulder. Hildred gave a

great start and turned round with the colour rushing into her cheeks.

'Why, child, what ails you?' her sister-in-law asked, not unkindly,

'that you stand there staring at nothing, and shake like a leaf if one

does but touch you?'

'I don't know,' said Hildred, looking down again at the bridge, across

which two people were moving slowly, and sighing as she saw them turn

away along the river side.

The sun was setting in a frosty sky over the trees, and its red light

shone through the bare branches and was reflected in the stream. It was

Christmas Eve.

'Watching will bring no one back the quicker,' said Martha, 'and it's

Christmas time. You'd better be merry with the rest, child.'

Hildred looked after her as she walked away with wistful eyes. 'Oh

Willie,' she said, turning round to me, 'I should so like a merry

Christmas. Everybody seems to be having one, all but us. And I thought

maybe he would be let come home because it is Christmas, and then we

should be merry too.'

'You must wait a little longer, Hildred.'

'That's what you always say; but I'm tired of waiting, and I want so

much to be happy.'

It had seemed as if people were very merry in the village down yonder,

to-day. The one shop-window was turned into a bower of holly and

evergreens, stuck all about with oranges and rosy apples. To almost

every house some one had come home to spend Christmas among their

own folk. The village-green was full of pleased faces, and shouting

children, and laughter, and glad greetings. Couple after couple of

happy lovers had met Hildred, and wished her a merry Christmas as they

passed; and though she gave the wish back heartily, yet each time the

great longing to be happy like the rest swelled higher in her heart.

All day she had been working with the other boys and girls at dressing

the little old grey church for Christmas Day. They had twined green

wreaths round the thick short pillars and over the low arches, and a

bunch of holly was stuck in each corner of the square pews. Under the

east window, woven in shining holly leaves and scarlet berries, the

words gleamed out, 'Behold we bring you glad tidings of great joy.'

They were the last thing that met Hildred's eyes as she turned under

the porch, and looked back into the church. And her heart went out to

meet them. Will it not be forgiven her, that in her sore longing for

'glad tidings,' she passed over their grand meaning, the mighty message

of joy unto all people, and took them to herself as an omen that some

good news was coming to her at last?

Christmas certainly is not always a merry time. Nay, often it is sadder

than all the rest of the year; and yet I believe that people must

be beginning to grow old before they quite give up an unreasonable

half-formed idea that they have in some sort a right to be happier

than usual at Christmas. Old custom has linked the words 'merry'

and 'Christmas' together, and it is hard to put them asunder in our

thoughts, though in action it is easily done.

There is a great deal that makes Christmas look and sound

cheerful;--roaring fires in farm-house kitchens; holidays from school

and work; larders well stocked with Christmas cheer; the church bells,

that ring their merriest peals, chiming and pealing, and clashing out

every change that the ringers can put together.

And the dear old carols; their quaint rhymes set to music full of odd

flourishes, familiar since the childish days when we lay wide awake on

Christmas night, listening breathlessly to the voices in the distance,

and doubting whether the 'angelick host' of which they sang could have

made more melodious music.

We were great at Christmas carols in Wyncliffe. Everybody that

could sing--and some that only thought they could--went down to the

schoolhouse, for the few weeks before Christmas, on the nights that the

singers practised.

Cuthbert and I had been 'waits' ever since we were little schoolboys,

with small shrill voices that were always being left behind when the

tune swept up suddenly to a high note far above our reach, or rolled

down into a manly grumble somewhere in the very heart of the bass.

Standing close together and singing with might and main, we could not

hear our own voices, but could only see each other's mouths wide open.

Our childish piping was buried out of hearing beneath the rude deep

men's voices, and the clear notes of the women, the scraping flourishes

of the fiddles, and the tones of the flute that whistled and stopped,

and lost its way, and found it again, when nobody was expecting it,

like a gust of wandering wind.

Things improved for us as time passed on. I played the violin myself

in these latter days, and for several years Cuthbert's voice made the

fortune, and was the great boast, of the waits. It was a story often

told, how a stranger, hearing us sing one Christmas night, turned

out to be the organist of Morechester Minster, and wanted Cuthbert

afterwards to join the choir of the great church. We did not wonder.

It was but natural. What musician would not have wished for that sweet

rich voice of his, that seemed to blend all the others together and

bring them into harmony?

Ah, well, that was the Christmas before Cuthbert went away. We had

learnt to do without him now. Nevertheless, the carols, like many other

things, were no longer quite what they used to be.

Hildred and Matt Clifford and I had been round with the waits this year

for several nights.

It chanced that I was late in joining them on the evening of Christmas

Day, and as I crossed the village green my father met and stopped me.

'I say, lad, you haven't heard the news.'

There was light enough for me to see the strange, awed look on his

face, and to feel that whatever the news was, it had shocked him, and

made him half-unwilling, and yet eager, to tell it. Besides, he had

just a shade of that triumph which people's faces wear when they have

foretold that something has come to pass.

'That boy Cuthbert has got killed in the wars.'

I stood still and stared at him.

'Yes, he has got killed, poor lad,' my father repeated. 'Esther

Reynolds brought the news. Young Moore, over at the ferry, has come

home, and she had it from him.'

Had Hildred heard it? That must be thought of first of all. Would there

be time to stop them from telling her suddenly?--Hildred, who sometimes

fancied that he was coming home, that he was near to her.

Old Esther Reynolds knew it--the greatest gossip in the village, to

whom the telling of a bit of news was as the breath of life. No thought

for Hildred would keep her silent, if she had the chance of spreading

such a story as this. There was not a moment to be lost.

It was a clear frosty night, and the stars were shining. Every distant

noise sounded distinct and close at hand. My own footsteps rang on the

frozen road.

Very soon I heard them singing, the well-known carol waxing louder

every minute as I got near to them, sounding so strangely discordant

to my ears, which were still tingling with the death news.

Voices were singing, and church-bells chimed, the stars gleamed and

sparkled like silver fire over the living, busy, holiday-keeping world,

and Cuthbert was dead.

For a minute I stood still and gathered breath. How was it possible to

tell Hildred, whose voice I fancied I could hear already rising clear

above the rest--how would it be possible to go on and tell her that her

lover lay dead, killed, buried in a far distant grave? What would she

say? How could she bear it, when the mere thought of the words that

must be spoken were making my heart beat too heavily for speech? Need I

say anything yet? Surely nobody would tell her to-night. I would keep

near her, and when this singing, that was such a mockery, was over,

perhaps some words would be given me, some words, if such there were,

that would make the blow fall less cruelly.

But the next moment I started forward again. There was a confused

murmur, a movement in the group; some of the people stopped singing,

and then came a sudden, sharp, half-choked cry, and the music ceased

altogether.

They had got a lantern; some one held it up, and the light fell on the

face of Esther Reynolds standing there among them. I was too late.

Someone called out my name, and then Hildred, ghastly white in the cold

star-light, turned and met me, with her hands stretched out before her.

'It isn't true! Willie, tell me it isn't true.'

'My poor Hildred!'

I took the hands so pitifully held out, but she snatched them away,

throwing them wildly up into the air, and then with a long sobbing moan

she fell down upon her knees.

The women gathered round her compassionately, and raised her up from

the hard road, weeping with her, and trying to quiet her by kindly

pitying words, of which she took no heed.

Esther Reynolds was wringing her hands, and saying over and over again,

'Oh poor lamb! I would not have told if I'd known she'd have taken on

like this. What can I do for her, poor lamb?'

What could she do? What could any one do, but stand by helplessly,

watching the poor child struggle through the first bitterness of her

sorrow? No one could bear the blow instead of her, or ease her pain.

I daresay her brother Matt did what was the best for her. He laid his

hand on her shoulder and bade her quietly come home. He had looked on

in perplexed silence for the last few minutes, while he unscrewed his

flute slowly, and put it away in his pocket. He did not try now to say

anything comforting, but held his sister up in his strong grasp, for

she was trembling too much to stand alone, and he led her away, her

face hidden in her cloak.

There were no more carols sung that year at Wyncliffe. A blank silence

fell upon those who were left. Presently some one said, 'Poor Hildred!'

They asked who brought the news, and Esther dried her eyes and began

eagerly to tell all she knew. I stood listening with the rest. It was

not much to hear, though told in many words. David Moore had come

back wounded from India, to his home at the ferry-house. He was in

Cuthbert's regiment, and he brought word that Cuthbert had been killed.

'Poor Cuthbert!' said many sorrowful voices. They all loved him. Not

one here but thought of him kindly, and had been friends with him in

the days that were gone. And I. Oh Cuthbert, God knows I loved you, God

knows I mourned for you, bitterly, bitterly.

It was ended then, the long hope, the fear we would not name, the

watching for him who was never to come back. It was all over, and he

was dead.

Dead! that was a hard thing to believe. For there was no farewell to

remember, no day to look back upon as the last day of his life; no

single parting word; only a great blank and silence in our thoughts.

He had been, and he was not. That was all. We should never know for

certain the day nor the hour when we lost him. Only on some day, long

ago now, when thinking nothing, we were busy about our common work, he

had been dying a soldier's painful death, with perhaps a farewell word

for us in his brave heart, that would never reach us.

It had always seemed as if we feared so much, but we knew now how far

stronger than our fears our hope had been. The blow could scarcely have

fallen more heavily months ago, before we began to have the vague dread

of evil that had darkened into utter night.

I thought it all over as I went slowly homewards, with a dull quietness

that it was very strange to feel. I remembered him as a boy, and could

recall his great love to me, without more than a numb heartache, and a

feeling of wonder that I was not more unhappy.

I thought of a future in which I should be always lonely, and Hildred

for ever broken-hearted, with a sort of pity for us both, as if I were

but a looker-on at our lives.

And yet I envied Hildred; for when I went late at night to ask after

her, they told me that she had sobbed herself to sleep. For the moment

she had escaped from trouble, and her stormy sorrow all left behind,

she had gone away into the land of dreams, where tears are not.

For me there were neither dreams nor sleep. All night I sat in my

father's elbow-chair beside the fire, not caring to go to bed. At

first the flames kept me company as they rose and fell and flickered,

lighting the room fitfully. The stars shone in, glittering through the

window. Then the fire died down to a dull glow. It grew black, with

only a red spark here and there. It went quite out, and the room grew

very cold. The night waned. A mist rose up and covered the stars. It

became darker and darker. Then I suppose I fell asleep, for when I

looked again, the grey chill of a winter's dawn was in the room. It was

no longer to-day, but yesterday, that we heard of Cuthbert's death.

I dreaded seeing Hildred in her sorrow. It made me feel strange to

her, as if I should not know how to greet her, and that instead of her

familiar self, she would be to me as a mourner upon whom a great grief

had newly fallen! Poor little Hildred. The strangeness all went away,

and was forgotten directly we met, and she ran to me and held my hands,

crying, 'Oh Willie, I wanted you. He belonged to you and me.'

'But I can't feel as if it could be true,' she said presently. 'I keep

thinking all the time--of course it's foolish--that perhaps old Esther

Reynolds made a mistake after all, and that David Moore meant some one

else. Eh, Willie?'

I shook my head. 'But I can go to see him, and ask him about it,' I

said, after thinking a little.

'Oh, will you? And ask him to tell us,'--her voice failed, and she

shuddered,--'ask him whether it was great pain, and if it was soon

over. I cannot bear to think he suffered long.'

Ah, Hildred! so you too had thought of those dreary questions that had

been haunting me all night.

'I will go to-day,' I said. And that evening I was at the Ferry House.

It was generally a bleak place enough; but this afternoon winter

sunshine was giving it a cheerful look, and a holly tree, brilliant

with berries, made a bright spot of colour near the door.

They say trouble makes people selfish. I scarcely remembered until now

that what brought us sorrow had filled this house with rejoicing.

The picture of home gladness that met my eyes as I went in, came upon

me in sharp contrast with Hildred's tear-stained cheeks and heavy eyes.

Some one had stuck holly-branches all over the room, usually so bare.

The fire blazed cheerily. On one side sat David Moore's little wife,

quiet still, but with a smile of great contentment on her face, looking

down at her husband, who sat on a wooden stool at her feet, with his

arms resting on her lap and his eyes fixed on her.

There was a handkerchief bound round his head, and when he turned round

I saw that he would have looked very ill if it had not been for the

radiant happiness that shone from his pale face. His mother, sitting

close by, put out her hand every now and then, and touched his red

coat to make sure it was really him. Even old Moore had roused up.

And in the back-ground little Davy stood on the dresser with one arm

round Elfrida's neck, a bunch of holly in his hand, and a scarlet

handkerchief, in imitation of his father, twisted in his curly hair.

David Moore did not look like the bearer of evil tidings. The question

I came to ask seemed sadly out of place among these happy people.

But there was a pause after they had greeted me, and then I had to ask

it.

'You were with Cuthbert Franklyn in India?'

'Yes, I was.' He stopped a moment and then said more slowly, 'I suppose

you know he's dead.'

It was true, then--quite true. I stood silent. Little Davy laughed

merrily, and Elfrida stopped him with a grave 'hush.'

Presently Moore said--

'We lost ever so many fellows in our regiment, and I never looked to

come home myself.'

His wife put her hand softly on to his head as he sat at her feet, and

he looked up smiling, and forgot everything else.

'Where was it Cuthbert Franklyn died?' I asked at last.

'Killed at the battle of Conjeveram, fighting against Tippoo Saib, same

day as I got this wound in the head.'

'You are sure? Did you see him after he was killed?'

'No, I got my wound early in the day. I was left for dead. They never

thought I should have lived. I was a long time in hospital. When I saw

some of our fellows again, after I was invalided home, they told me

that Franklyn was among the missing.'

He could tell me no more than this. And I stood there, thinking

sorrowfully over it. I felt that I brought a dreary silence over that

happy party. David Moore and his wife spoke to each other in low

voices. The old father fell asleep, and Elfrida carried little Davy out

of the room.

I turned to go away; Moore followed me to the door, wished he had

brought me better news, and said he would have come over to see his

cousin Martha Clifford, but that his furlough was so short. Only three

days to be with wife and child after this long time! So we shook hands,

and he went back to his bright fireside.

It was too late to go home that night. The short winter's day was over

before I left the ferry, and it was afternoon again, a dark, cold,

Sunday afternoon, before I got to Wyncliffe next day.

The church-bells were still ringing for evening service when I came

into the village. Hildred was to meet me at church, for the Vicar never

liked the musicians to be away if they could help it, and I played the

fiddle up in the gallery every Sunday.

Nearly everybody had gone in when I reached the steps leading up to the

churchyard. Only Hildred was standing under the lych gate, and watching

for me in the failing light.

If it had been good news I was bringing her, I should have quickened my

steps when I saw her.

Now I did not look up, but walked slower, wishing that something would

come to prevent my having to destroy the last hope she had.

I think she understood. She came two steps down towards me. The

church-bells stopped ringing.

'Willie,' she said in a whisper.

I shook my head.

'Was it true, then?'

'All true.'

She drew back, covering her face with her hands, but she was very

quiet. A blow in all its heaviness cannot fall twice.

We stood together for some minutes. She was shivering so, that I told

her to go home, but she shook her head, and passed slowly, without

speaking, under the church porch.

I went up into the gallery. It was the Sunday after Christmas, and the

day had been so short that the light was already waning before the

service began. This afternoon, too, a snow-storm was coming, and the

heavy clouds made it duskier than usual. There were two faint lights

glimmering over the reading-desk. When the last heavy footstep had

sounded along the aisle, and there was silence through the church, it

was almost out of darkness that the vicar's voice came, reading in a

quiet even tone the opening words of the service: 'The sacrifices of

God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou

wilt not despise.'

Broken hearts! It was good that God did not despise them, since there

must be so many in the world.

* * * * *

My father was anxious to be told all that David Moore had said. He

asked me many questions, and listened to every word I could remember

with an interest that would have puzzled me, but that my thoughts were

so full of Cuthbert, that it seemed natural every one should be as much

taken up about him as we were.

'Then Moore didn't say whether he was killed directly, or how long he

lived after he got his wound?'

'No, Moore was hurt himself; he did not hear until long after.'

'How long?'

'Two or three months, I think, he said, when he got back to his

regiment.'

'Well.'

'They told him that poor Cuthbert was among the missing.'

'Only missing,' said my father, leaning forward; 'not killed.'

I paused a moment. It had not struck me before.

'But then it's the same thing, for sure,' my father went on eagerly,

'quite the same thing. It's just the way they put it. I didn't mean to

throw a doubt on his being killed, mind, Willie.'

'Moore did say missing.'

'Ay, missing or killed. 'Tis the same thing. Now don't you go and fash

yourself for a word. The poor lad's killed, sure enough. There's no

manner of doubt about that.'

He bent over and touched my arm, to enforce his words. I could see he

was vexed with himself for having asked the question, and wanted to

make me forget it.

'I suppose they would have known,' I said, after thinking over it, and

the hope that had glimmered for an instant went out again--not quite,

though. The certainty was shaken since it had been questioned; and

yet David Moore had seemed to have no doubt. 'He's dead, you know;' I

remembered his words well.

'To be sure they knew,' said my father, watching me, as I saw, 'I've

thought myself how it would be this long time past. I never looked to

see him come home again.'

My father seldom troubled himself to speak so much. It was almost too

much for the object he wanted to gain, of lulling my doubts to rest.

By-and-by, he said rather hesitatingly, 'I say, lad, you wouldn't go

and tell Hildred what we've been talking of. It'll just unsettle her

again for nothing.'

The more he tried to undo the impression he had made on me, the less

I was able to forget it. It was a small seed of doubt that, sown

unawares, was to live and come up after many days. Try as I would in

after times I could not root it out. There it was, too shadowy to be

met and fought with outright, too real to be disregarded.

I can scarcely tell what feeling prompted me to tell Hildred. It seemed

right to do so. But she scarcely took it in.

'Killed or missing, it's about the same,' my father told her, and

Hildred's eyes, raised with a look of eagerness, sank again listlessly.

'I suppose it is,' she said sighing.

I said no more then. It was better for her that the wearing suspense

should be at an end. And after all, was there any real ground of hope?

I believed, though I could not feel, that Cuthbert was dead.

'If only I had seen him, to say good-bye,' Hildred said, 'I think I

could bear it better. I wish he were buried in the churchyard, where we

could go and see his grave.'

Ah! I wished so too. That silent darkening down of fear had been very

dreadful, but the fitful glimmer that was most likely false, but that

would gleam out now and again, from among the ashes of our dead hopes,

was to my mind more dreadful still.

* * * * *

These were the thoughts of many months.

I find that it is not easy to tell one's story. You may mean to tell it

all, yet you find that the greater part you have left out altogether.

For so many things go to the making up of a man's life. It is not all

sweet nor all bitter. There is in it much brightness, and more shadow,

and a great deal besides that is neither cloud nor sunshine, neither

bitterness nor sweetness, which fills up the measure of each passing

day. One wave does not make a river--rather many; some dance and

sparkle, touched by the sunlight from above, while all the time the

under-current is flowing sorrowfully on.

And we were busy about many things apart from Cuthbert, were glad

and sorry, anxious and hopeful, had plans and thoughts, cares and

pleasures, that had nothing to do with him. Still the thought of him

lay beneath it all.

It was a busy year for me at Furzy Nook; for as Farmer Foster

grew older I had of course more and more on my hands. Time passed

wonderfully quick--Sunday after Sunday marking off a week that ended

before I had thought of it as much more than begun. We could let the

weeks go as they would now, without counting every one as a fresh link

in a chain of waiting. There was nothing to wait for, or to hope for

any longer. So they all said.

It was better for Hildred that it should be so.

After that dark winter was past, she began to brighten with the spring.

She was no longer the merry careless child she used to be. All that was

over. But the flower that the rain had beaten down, lifted its head

again slowly.

It was not that she had any thought of seeing Cuthbert again. Her last

hope died on that Sunday after Christmas Day. No one was of the same

mind as I was. Everybody called him 'poor Cuthbert,' and spoke of him

as dead--everybody, odd to say, excepting good old Farmer Foster.

Directly he heard my doubts he went far beyond me, into a perfect

certainty of hopefulness. 'We shall have him home upon us, never fear,

before we know where we are,' he used to say; and as I walked beside

his pony over the Furzy Nook fields, he told me again and again the

same half-forgotten story, the end of which he never could remember,

about some prisoners who escaped out of a French prison when he was

a lad. I repeated the story, such as it was, to Hildred, but it did

not cheer her. I thought she looked rather more grave than usual

afterwards. 'Catching at straws still, Willie,' she said, shaking her

head.

I suppose it was another straw I caught at later in the summer. One

market-day at Morechester, as I stood near the Cross, I heard the

ill-omened sounds of fifes and drums, and presently a recruiting

party marched down on us from the High Street. It carried me back in

a moment to that evening three years ago. I almost seemed to see the

purple sky above the village street, and the lights shining through the

inn-windows, and then the ribands in Cuthbert's hat, as the loud voice

of the recruiting sergeant sounded in my ears.

No wonder that I recalled it so vividly, for as they drew near, I

saw that this was the same man who had enlisted Cuthbert. I knew his

upright figure and broad good-humoured face directly. The people round

were laughing at the very same jokes that I remembered hearing in the

street of Wyncliffe.

I made my way up to him in the crowd. He had seen Cuthbert after we

had, and might somehow know what had become of him. There were two lads

near him staring up in open-mouthed admiration of his scarlet coat and

soldierly stride.

He turned away from them to me. 'No, I don't want to enlist,' I said,

in answer to the accustomed speech. 'I am come to ask you a question.

Do you mind one Cuthbert Franklyn, that you enlisted here three years

ago?'

He shook his head with a loud laugh. 'If I'd got to remember half their

names, my fine fellow, I'd need to have a good memory. Move on, will

you?'

Walking on beside him I managed to tell him hurriedly, what we had

heard of Cuthbert. 'Was there a chance of his ever coming back?'

'Why not?' he answered, in his careless, jolly voice. 'I don't know

why he shouldn't. We're not all killed, you see, that go for soldiers.

Ah! it's a fine life, my lads,'--this to the two boys who were still

following him. 'No life like it,' and so on.

Those lightly-spoken words of his, the only ones of encouragement I had

ever heard, fell upon me like a blow, and struck me speechless.

'Then you think that he may be living yet,' I asked again, presently.

'You there still!' He looked back good-humouredly. 'Well, there's no

knowing. I can't say.'

'He was reported missing.'

'Ah! reported missing, that sounds bad. Still, I've known stranger

things come round. Where was he killed, say you?'

'At the battle of Conjeveram, I think they called the place.'

'Conjeveram--seems to me I've heard a talk of prisoners taken there,

but the outlandish Indian names are all alike. It's a chance, I tell

you. Now, then.'

He had no more time for me. I went home with a beating heart, to tell

Hildred. She was sitting in the honeysuckle-shaded porch of Clifford's

house, spinning. The bees hummed in the sunshine, the waterfall

splashed, Clifford's children were shouting at the river's edge, and

Hildred was singing a low murmur of song that blended with the whirr of

her wheel and the buzzing of the bees.

'Hildred,' I said, going up to her, 'I have seen Cuthbert's recruiting

sergeant, and he thinks he may be alive.'

Hildred started, her hand fell, and the thread broke.

'He does not see why he should not come home some day,' I went on.

She got up, very pale.

'Cuthbert alive!' she said, dreamily. 'Where is he?'

'Oh Hildred, I don't know; I only said he might be living still.'

'Didn't you say he was coming?'

'No, no, it might be just possible.'

Hildred burst out crying.

'What's all this?' said Martha Clifford, coming up with a pail of water

on her head. 'What's Hildred crying for?'

'I gave her a fright,' I answered repentantly, and I told Martha what I

had heard and said.

'Dear me, Willie, leave the girl alone, do,' said Martha roughly.

'Don't begin all that over again. We had enough of it before we knew he

was killed; watching and worrying, worrying and watching, from morning

till night. Let bygones be bygones.'

'But I can't forget----'

'Well, others can if you can't. Let the dead rest, Willie Lisle.'

'If we could be quite sure----'

'And so you ought to be. It's all a whimsey you've got into your head.

Cuthbert's dead enough, poor lad, but it's my belief you wouldn't be

satisfied if you had seen him buried down yonder with your own eyes.'

'Don't, Martha,' said Hildred, brushing away her tears and coming to my

side.

'It's enough to vex a saint,' Martha went on, 'let alone me, just

when the girl was beginning to leave off fretting, and to take hold a

little. I won't have it done, and so I tell you, Willie.'

'I wouldn't harm Hildred,' I said sorrowfully, 'but she and I can't

forget; after what grandmother said before she died, and all. You mind

that, Martha.'

Martha gave a sort of moan.

'It's only that he's more faithful than any of us,' said Hildred.

'Well, let him be faithful by himself. I won't have him coming

upsetting everything, and you breaking your thread, Hildred, and going

on like that. I'm ashamed of you.'

Hildred did look so pale for a time after this, that I saw Martha was

right in part, and that I ought not to have spoken when there was

nothing real to tell. She was rough-spoken, was poor Martha, but she

was a just woman. No one ever could have a better neighbour, as we

proved that next winter.

It was a hard winter. The snow came early, and lay long; the river, for

the first time in many years, was frozen over. I suppose I noticed the

cold more for my father's sake. All the autumn he had been ailing, but

he would not give in as long as he could keep about. When Christmas

came he was lying between life and death in a rheumatic fever.

We never thought he would see another spring, but somehow he struggled

through it, and by March he was downstairs again, changed, and aged,

and bent, but still a wonder, even to the doctor himself.

Martha Clifford and Hildred nursed him as if they had been daughters of

his own, and he was 'ill to nurse,' as the old women say. Martha never

got a word of thanks from him for all her goodness, but sometimes he

laid his hand kindly on Hildred's head, and smiled at her.

It was pretty to see her trying to cheer him as he sat, hour after

hour, with his eyes fixed gloomily on the fire, beating his stick

slowly on the floor and saying nothing. It was a hard thing for him to

believe, what his stiff aching limbs yet told him too plainly, that he

would never be fit for any work again. Hildred did not lose patience,

even with his darkest moods. Perhaps she guessed that they were darker

still whenever she was away from him.

One wet blowy evening in that same month of March, I chanced to be kept

much later than usual at Furzy Nook. Long before I got home it had

grown dark, though I made as much haste as I could, thinking that my

father's fire would have gone out, and that he would be tired of being

by himself.

But when I lifted the latch, the firelight was shining cheerfully

through the room, and Hildred sat on the wooden stool at my father's

feet. I remember standing still for a moment to watch them. My father's

head was bent down, and he was talking to her. Hildred sat looking up

at him, her chin on her hand, and the fire lighted both their faces.

It looked so comfortable to see her there--so comfortable and homelike,

sitting beside our fire, and keeping my father company. If I had known

that I should find her when I came in from the stormy darkness, she,

whom once I used to fancy would be always there with us!

My father looked round as I came in, but Hildred's face was turned away

from me, and she did not see me. She gave a great start and stood up

hurriedly when I touched her shoulder.

'Did I frighten you?' I said; 'you ought to have gone home, Hildred,

before it came on to rain like this.'

'Does it rain?' she asked, without looking up.

The wind answered her, as it dashed the rain in a noisy gust against

the window.

'You will get wet,' I said, watching her putting on her cloak and hood.

'I don't mind. I only waited because your father was alone, and I

didn't like to leave him. I must go home now.'

'Thank you, my dear,' my father said. 'I wish you had not got to go

home, but that you could stay here with us always.'

It was my father's way to say things like that to Hildred. They were

hard to bear--hard to be reminded of what might have been--hard to

listen to, and to say nothing.

I must let her go out now into the rainy darkness. I could never keep

her--never--safe sheltered in the warmest corner of our fireside.

As my father spoke, Hildred bent down, still hurriedly, to bid him good

night. He kept her hand, and said, 'Hildred, lass, will you come home

here, and stay for always? Will you be my daughter?'

I took a step forward and laid my hand on Hildred's arm to draw her

back. What was my father saying? He looked up at me and did not let go

her hand. 'No one has been so faithful to you as he has. Won't you let

him bring you home at last?'

Hildred could scarcely have heard the last words. The door closed

behind her almost before they were spoken. I did not try to follow her,

though she had gone out alone into the storm. I saw her put her hands

over her face as she went out, to hide her tears.

'Father, what have you done?'

He had taken up his pipe and was lighting it slowly. It seemed strange

that he should look at me so quietly in my great doubt and pain.

'No harm, lad, no harm. I should be glad to see you comfortable with

her before I die.'

'Comfortable! With Hildred!'

'Ay, with my little Hildred. She's a good girl, and she'd make a good

wife. Besides, I've always said as how it's lonesome without a woman

about the house.'

I tried to speak quietly. 'Were you talking about me when I came home?'

The pipe was alight now. He never could be got to talk when he was

smoking. He just answered 'Yes,' and no more.

'You didn't tell her all I once told you?'

'Why not? I've a mind to bring you and her together.'

'Father,' I said, 'you have forgotten Cuthbert and my promise.'

He made no reply for a few minutes, and then, as, he knocked the ashes

out of his pipe, he said, 'Cuthbert's dead.'

I leant my head down upon my arm, without the heart to-night to go over

the old ground.