CHAPTER X.

When Reuben found time to gather himself together and to face his own

emotions he discovered himself to be more amazed than disconcerted. He

cast about in his mind for an explanation of the old lady's displeasure,

and found none. Why should she desire to insult him? In what possible

way could he have offended her? Even a lover (ingenious as lovers always

are in the art of self-torment) could not persuade himself that Ruth was

a willing party to her aunt's singular treatment of him. The apology in

her glance had been unmistakable.

He was altogether at a loss to understand in what way he could have

excited Miss Blythe's anger, but it was unpleasant to know that there

was an enemy in the camp which he had always thought entirely friendly.

With the exception of Ruth herself he had been sure of the approval of

everybody concerned.

His performance at the homely one o'clock dinner spread at his mother's

table was so poor as to be noticeable, and he had to endure and answer

many tender but unnecessary inquiries as to the state of his health, and

to pretend to listen while his mother related the melancholy history

of a young man who fell into a decline and died through mere neglect of

meal-times. When this narrative was over and done with he escaped to his

own room, carrying writing materials with him, and sat down to express

on paper the hopes he had fully meant to express vocally an hour

earlier. The golden rule for writing is to know precisely what you want

to say, but though Reuben seemed to know, he found it hard to get upon

paper. Half a score of torn sheets went into the fire-grate, and were

there carefully fired and reduced to ashes. It was only the discovery

that he was reduced to his final sheet of paper which really screwed his

courage to the sticking-point. Being once there it held until the need

for it was over; but when the letter was written it would have followed

its forerunners if there had but been another sheet of paper in the

house or the day had been anything but Sunday. As it was, he let it

stand perforce, enveloped and addressed it in a sort of desperation, and

put it in his pocket ready for personal delivery. The quartette party

always met on Sunday afternoons and played sacred music. Not so long ago

they had been used to meet in church; but since the introduction of gas

to the venerable building the afternoon service had been abandoned and

an evening service instituted in its stead. The music-parties were held

at Fuller's in the summer-time, and Reuben's chance of a declaration

by letter looked simple and easy enough. It was but to slip the

all-important note into Ruth's hand with a petition to her to read it,

and the thing was done. He had time enough to do this over and over and

over again in fancy as he walked down the sunlit street with his

violin case tucked under his arm. He had time enough to be accepted

and rejected just as often--to picture and enjoy the rapture of the one

event and the misery and life-long loneliness entailed by the other.

Every time his eager fancy slipped the note into Ruth's fingers his

heart leaped and his hands went hot and moist, but if ever the screw of

courage gave a backward turn the thought of Ferdinand twisted it back

to the sticking-point again, and he was all resolve once more. The

experience of ages has declared that there is no better spur for

the halting paces of a laggard lover than that which is supplied by

jealousy. The simplest coquette that ever tortured hearts in a hay-field

is aware of the fact, and needs no appeal to the experience of ages to

support her.

Reuben pushed the green gate aside, and entering upon the lawn, found

Fuller in the act of carrying the table to its customary place. He had

been so free of the house, and had been for years so accustomed to enter

it and leave it at his will, that there was nothing in the world but his

own restraining sense of shyness to prevent him from walking past his

host with the merest salutation and fulfilling his own purpose then

and there. But the trouble was that to his own disturbed feeling Fuller

would infallibly have guessed his purpose, and either of the other

members of the quartette arriving, or any chance visitor strolling in,

would have known in a moment that he could have no other reason for

entering the house than to ask Ruth's hand in marriage. So he stood

somewhat awkwardly by the table, while Fuller re-entered the house and,

after a little pause, returned with a pile of music.

“This here's one of Ezra's books, I reckon,” said the elder, singling

one volume from the pile. “It's the one you browt here the day he gi'en

you his libery.”

“Ah!” said Reuben, “Manzini? That was the last music he opened for his

own playing, so he told me.” He fluttered the leaves, glancing towards

the house meanwhile, but seeing nothing of his goddess. Fuller contented

himself with a mere grunt in answer to Reuben's statement, and rolled

off into the house once more, returning this time with his 'cello. He

propped the instrument tenderly against the table, and, seating himself

near it, began to arrange the music. Reuben still stood awkwardly

fingering the leaves of Manzini's duets, when Ruth appeared at the house

door. He had made but a step towards her, and had not even made a step

in his mind towards reading the half-shy, half-appealing aspect she

wore, when the prim figure of Aunt Rachel appeared from behind her, and

the old woman, with defiance expressed in every line and gesture, laid

her mit-tened hand on the girl's arm and advanced by her side. Reuben

stood arrested, and made a bow which he felt to be altogether awkward.

Ruth's brown eyes drooped, and she blushed, but she found courage a

second or two later for a glance of appeal which Reuben did not see. He

offered chairs to the old woman and the young one as they came near him,

but Rachel, with a stony little nod, walked by, taking her niece with

her.

The young man took instant counsel with himself. He sat down near the

table with Manzini's oblong folio in his lap, and, turning the pages

here and there, selected a moment when he was unobserved, and slipped

his missive between the front board of the binding and the first blank

leaf. It would be strange if he could not find time to whisper, “Look in

Manzini” before the day was over; and even if that course should fail he

could at least forward his letter by the penny-post, though that would

imply a delay of twelve hours, and was hardly tolerable to think of. If

he missed the opportunity for that hasty whisper he would carry Manzini

away, and so re-secure possession of his letter.

While he was planning thus, Rachel and her niece were walking up and

down the grass-plot, and the old lady was talking away at a great rate,

describing the glories of the house of Lady De Blacquaire, and affecting

to be absorbed in her theme. She was not so much absorbed, however,

that her manner did not clearly indicate her misliking sense of Reuben's

nearness every time she passed him, though she did not so much as cast

a glance in his direction. By-and-by the two Elds appeared, and the

customary business of the afternoon began. Reuben had much ado to pin

himself down to the music, but he succeeded fairly well, and gave nobody

reason to suppose that his mind wandered far and often from his task. It

was well for his repute for sanity, especially after the wild leadership

at morning service, that he was familiar with the theme. Even when his

thoughts wandered farthest he was mechanically accurate. All the time

the book with the all-important missive in it lay on the table before

him, and in his fancy disasters were constantly happening which revealed

his secret. He repeated the terms of the note again and again, and added

to it and altered it and resolved to rewrite it, and again resolved to

leave it as it was.

The afternoon party received an unusual addition in the persons of

Mrs. Sennacherib and Mrs. Isaiah, who arrived when the performers were

half-way through their programme.

“I forgot to tell thee, Reuben, lad,” said Fuller, “Ruth's got a bit

of a tay-party this afternoon, and thee beest to stop with the rest on

'em.”

“Thank you,” said Reuben; “I shall stay with pleasure.” He felt Rachel's

disapproving glance upon him, and looking up met it for a moment, and

returned it with a puzzled gravity. She was standing alone at a little

distance from the table, and Ruth and the two new arrivals were in the

act of entering the house. Reuben obeyed the impulse which moved him,

and rising from his place crossed over to where the little old lady

stood. “May I ask,” he said, “how I came to fall under your displeasure,

Miss Blythe?” He glanced over his shoulder to assure himself that nobody

took especial note of him, and spoke in a low and guarded voice.

Miss Blythe made the most of her small figure, glanced with extreme

deliberation from his eyes to his boots and back again, and, turning

away, followed her niece and the two new arrivals, walking with an air

of exaggerated dignity. Reuben, returning to his seat, had to make great

play with his pocket-handkerchief to cover the signs of confusion

which arose at this rebuff. Miss Blythe could scarcely have expressed a

livelier contempt for him if he had been a convicted pick-pocket.

His share of the music went so ill after this that he excited something

like consternation in the minds of his friends.

“What's come to the lad, 'Saiah,” asked Sennacherib.

“Bist a bit out o' sorts, Reuben, bisent?” said Isaiah, mildly anxious.

“I can't play to-day,” Reuben answered, almost fretfully. “Let us try

again. No. There's nothing the matter. Nothing in the world. Let us try

again.”

They tried again, and by dint of great effort Reuben kept control

over himself and escaped further disgrace, although at one time Ruth's

sympathetic, shy look almost broke him down, and at another, Rachel's

stony gaze so filled him with wonderment and anger that he had much ado

to save himself from falling.

Ruth retired to superintend the preparation of the tea-table

within-doors, and Rachel followed her. In their absence he got on

better, but it was almost as great a relief as he had ever known to find

that the concert at last was over, and that he could give unrestrained

attention to the thoughts which pressed upon him.

“Tea is ready,” said Ruth, standing in the doorway, and shading her eyes

from the afternoon sunlight with one hand. Rachel surveyed the quartette

party from the window, but Reuben could see that she was held in talk by

Mrs. Sennacherib.

“This may be my only chance to-day,” said the lover to himself, with

one great heart-beat and a series of flutterings after it. He controlled

himself as well as he might, and with a single glance towards Ruth stood

a little behind the rest and feigned to arrange the music on the table.

Isaiah and Sennacherib went first, and Fuller waddled in their rear.

Reuben, after as long a pause as he dared to make, followed them, and

raising his eyes saw that Ruth stood just without the door-way making

room for her guests to pass. “Would she give him a chance for a word?

The girl saw the unconscious pleading in his eyes, and blushing, looked

on the ground. But she kept her place, and Reuben coming up to her just

as Fuller's burly figure rolled out of sight through the door of the

sitting-room, took both her hands in his, not knowing in his eagerness

that he dared to advance so far, and murmured,

“Ruth, look in the Manzini. The duets. The book my uncle gave me.”

“Niece Ruth,” said Rachel's voice from the sitting-room door-way. Reuben

dropped the hands he held, becoming conscious in that action only of

the fact that he had taken them, and stepped into the dusky passage,

thankful for the gloom, for he felt that he was blushing like a boy.

Ruth had made a guilty start forward into the garden, and did not pause

until she had reached the table. “I beg your pardon, sir,” said Rachel,

frostily, as she moved aside to make room for Reuben to pass her, but

when she had once seen the young people wide apart she was satisfied,

and forbore to call the girl again.

“Look in the Manzini,” Reuben had said, and the girl, almost without

knowing it, had paused with her hands resting on the glazed brown

mill-board which bound it. He would think, if she opened the book at

once, that she was curiously eager to obey him, and her heart told her

pretty truly what she would find when she looked there. The fear almost

made her turn away; but then, since she was there, if she did not care

to look he would think her cruelly disdainful. Was anybody watching

her? In every nerve she felt the eyes of all the party in the

sitting-room as if they actually pierced and burned her. But standing

with bent head, with an attitude of reverie which she felt to be

unspeakably guilty, she raised the board with an air of chance, a

semblance of no interest touching her features--as though that could

influence anybody, since her face was hidden--and saw a letter with her

name upon it. To lay one hand upon this, and to slip it into the pocket

of her dress while actually turning with a look of nonchalance towards

the sitting-room window, was felt by the criminal herself to be the most

barefaced and wickedest of pretences. To make the tour of the garden

afterwards with the letter in her pocket, and to gather flowers for a

bouquet for the tea-table, while tea was actually ready and everybody

was awaiting her, was at once a necessity, an hypocrisy, and a dreadful

breach of good-manners.

She took her place at the tea-table with perfect innocence and

unconsciousness of aspect; but Reuben looked guilty enough for two,

until the genuine gravity of the situation recalled him to himself, when

he began to look as solemn as a graven image, and returned wry

answers to the talk of those about him. There was no calling back his

declaration now, and he felt it to be clumsy beyond expression, and

inadequate alike to his sense of Ruth's perfections and his own poor

deserts. No man can quite know, until he has tried it, how severe an

ordeal it is to sit at table with the lady of his heart, while that lady

has his declaration, as yet unread, in her pocket.

Ruth was so self-possessed and tranquil that it was evident to her

lover's masculine understanding that she was ignorant of the nature

of his missive, and probably indifferent to it. Reuben's anxiety and

preoccupation were in themselves a gladness to the girl, for they bore

out the delightful prophecy of her own heart. She had always thought

Reuben, even when she was a school-girl, the handsomest and manliest and

cleverest of men. If it were unmaidenly to have thought so, and to allow

her heart to be captured by a man who had never spoken a word of open

love to her, she must be called unmaidenly. But there was never a purer

heart in the world, and the sophistications of experience, vicarious

or otherwise, had not touched her. It came natural to love Reuben, and

perhaps the young man's eyes had made more of an excuse for her than

would readily be fancied by those who have never experimented.

It may be, if the truth were known, that the maiden found the situation

almost as trying as her lover, for there was a most tantalizing element

of uncertainty in it, and uncertainty is especially grievous to the

feminine heart. But at last her duty as hostess no longer severely

holding her, she left the room, ostensibly to assist in clearing away

the tea-things, and was no sooner out of sight than she skimmed like a

swallow to her own chamber and there read Reuben's letter. When she came

back again Reuben knew that she had read it, and knew, too, that she

had read it with favor and acceptance. There was a subtle, shy, inward

happiness in Ruth's heart which diffused itself for her lover's delight

as if it had been a perfume. Not another creature but himself and her

knew of it, and yet to him it was real, and as evident as anything he

saw or touched.

Once or twice she looked at him so sweetly, so shyly, so tenderly, and

yet withal so frankly, that his heart ached with the desire he felt to

rise and clasp her in his arms and claim her for his own before them

all. Aunt Rachel looked at him once or twice also, as if she stabbed him

with an icicle, but he glanced back with a smile sunny enough to have

thawed the weapon if only the bearer of it had been within measurable

distance.

Rachel did not read her niece, for the simple reason that she was too

resolved on reading what she supposed herself to have written to be able

to trace the characters of mere nature. But she partly read the young

man's triumph, and adjudged it as a piece of insolence, determining that

he should be punished for it richly, as he deserved. She had exposed

the character of the Golds to her niece, and had told her that they were

wicked and bad and shameless--male jilts, whose one delight it was to

break feminine hearts. Ruth would certainly believe what she had

been told on such unimpeachable authority, and would never dream

of permitting herself to be duped by a man of whom she knew so much

beforehand. Any airs of triumph the young man might display were

therefore ridiculous and insolent, deserving both of chastisement and

contempt.

Ruth's household occupations took her away a second time, and if she

chose to fill a mere two or three minutes by writing a note to a young

man who sat within six yards of her, nobody suspected her of being so

engaged. When she came back to her visitors, Reuben would fain have

made opportunity to be near her, but Rachel was unwinking in her

watchfulness, and he was compelled to surrender his design. The bells

began to ring for evening church, and Ruth and the womenfolk went

up-stairs to make ready for out-of-doors. The quartette party sat

downstairs with open windows, each of the three seniors pulling gravely

at a long church-warden, and the junior pretending to look at an

old-fashioned book of beauty, in which a number of impossible ladies

simpered on the observer from bowers of painted foliage.

Sitting near the window with his back to the garden, and deeply absorbed

in his own fancies, he found himself on a sudden impelled to turn his

head, not because of any sound that reached him, but because of some

curious intuition of Ruth's neighborhood to him. She was walking towards

him at that moment, her footsteps falling soundlessly on the greensward,

her face blushing and her eyes downcast. As she passed him and entered

the house she raised her eyes for a moment, and Reuben read in them a

sweet, enigmatical intelligence, and a charmed shyness so delicious that

he thrilled at it from head to feet.

He longed, as any lover may imagine of him, to exchange a word with

her. He was certain, but he desired to be more than certain. To know was

nothing--his heart demanded to hear the good news and to be surfeited

with hearing. But the small dragon still guarded his Hesperides, and

on the way to church he escorted Mrs. Isaiah, a matron gaunt and stern,

whose cheerful doctrine it was that any spoken word not made actually

necessary by the business of life was a sin. Mrs. Isaiah's grim

reticence was less of a trouble to him than it would have been under

ordinary circumstances, for he had his own thoughts to think, and did

not care to be drawn away from them.

At the lich-gate Aunt Rachel paused to shake hands with everybody but

Ruth and Reuben.

“You had better take Manzini home to-night, Reuben,” said Ruth. She

tried hard to make her voice commonplace; but to Reuben's ears there was

a meaning in it, and his eyes answered to the meaning with such a flash

of tenderness and assured joy that, in spite of all she could do, Ruth

must needs lower her head and blush again.

Rachel's youthful eyes flashed from one to the other.

“I do not propose to attend the service this evening, Niece Ruth,” she

said, a minute later, when Reuben and his _confrere_ had entered on

the cavernous darkness of the winding stairway. “I will call for you,

however,” she added. “I shall be in the porch at the close of the

service.”

At the first clause of this speech Ruth rejoiced, but at the second her

sense of relief was spoiled.

“Very well, dear,” she answered. Aunt Rachel could not stand much longer

between her and Reuben, and if a fight should have to be made it would

be early enough to begin it when she had her father definitely on her

side, as she would have to-morrow. So she went into church and made

strenuous efforts to attend to the service and the sermon, and failed

dismally, and thought herself terribly profane.

Aunt Rachel, being left alone at the church porch, turned away and

walked straight back to the house she had left. The green door in the

high wall needed no more than a push to open it, and Rachel entered the

garden, and, walking straight to the table at which the quartette party

had sat playing an hour or two earlier, laid hands upon Manzini's volume

of duets for the violin. She took it by the back of the cover and gave

it a shake, and out from its pages fell a neatly folded little note,

addressed in her niece's hand to Mr. Reuben Gold, and sealed in bronze

wax with the impress of a rose. The little old lady pounced upon it, and

held it at arm's-length in both hands.

“Infatuated child!” she said, in her primmest and most fashionable

accent. “My premonitions have not deceived me.”

She placed the note in the bosom of her dress, set the book in its

former position upon the table, and left the garden. Nobody looking at

her could have supposed that she had been guilty of such an act; for

if ever conscious rectitude and high resolve for good shone in a human

face, they lighted hers. Once she stopped short in the lonely lane, and

stamped one small foot with lofty emphasis.

“The very method!” she said aloud, in a voice of scorn. “For aught I

know, the very book! You shall not suffer as I have suffered, my poor

dear child. I thank Heaven that I am at hand to preserve you.”

Thus animated by her own self-approval, Aunt Rachel, sometimes in scorn,

sometimes in tenderness, but of tener in triumph, walked homeward,

waited the due time, and walked back to church again. She succeeded in

getting Ruth away without a sight of Reuben, but the young man passed

them on their way with a step still quicker than he had used that

morning. He threw a gay “good-night, Ruth,” over his shoulder as he

walked, and Ruth felt the old lady's hand tighten on her arm, though she

was far from guessing the nature of the emotion which moved her.

Once out of sight in the summer dusk, Reuben ran. He reached the green

door, and with no surprise found it wide open. He approached the table,

seized the old folio? and turning it back downward so that nothing could

fall from it, sped home, hugging it by the way. When he reached his own

room he was breathless, but he struck a light, drew down the blinds, and

turned over the leaves of the music-book one by one. In the centre

of the book he paused, for there he seemed to find the object of his

search. A note, bearing for sole superscription “Mr. Gold,” was pinned

to the edge of the page. But was that quaint, old-fashioned handwriting

Ruth's? Why should she write to him on paper so old and yellow and

faded? Why should the very pin that held it to the page be rusted as if

it had been there for years?

The note was sealed with two wafers, and the paper cracked across as he

opened it. It began “Dear Mr. Gold,” and was signed “R.” It ran thus--

“I have not ansrd your estmd note until now, though in receipt of it

since Thursday, for I dare not seem precipitate in such a matter. But I

have consulted my own heart, and have laid it before the Throne, knowing

no earthly adviser. Dear Mr. Gold, it shall be as you wish, and I trust

God may help me to be a worthy helpmeet. So no more till I hear again

from you.”

It was impossible that this should be meant for him, or that Ruth should

have written it; but though he searched the book from cover to cover,

there was no other missive to be found within it.

CHAPTER X.

“That is a very insolent young man,” said Aunt Rachel, as Reuben threw

his hurried greeting over his shoulder in the dusk.

“Indeed, aunt,” the girl answered, a little more boldly than she would

have dared to speak had the light been clearer--“indeed, aunt, you are

quite mistaken about him, and I don't understand why you should speak of

Mr. Gold and his uncle as you do.”

She cared less what Rachel thought or said of Reuben's uncle, though she

had always had a friendly and admiring friendship for the old solitary,

than she cared what was thought and said of Reuben. But it was easier to

champion the two together than to defend her lover alone.

“You are a child,” said Aunt Rachel, composedly. “What do you know of

the opposite sex?”

The question was obviously outside the range of discussion, but it

silenced Ruth for the moment. The elder woman presumed upon her triumph,

and continued:

“Confidence is natural to youth. That is an axiom I have frequently

heard fall from the lips of my dear mistress. As you grow older you will

grow less positive in your opinions, and will be careful to have a solid

foundation for them. Now I know these people, and you do not.”

“My dear aunt,” said Ruth, in protest, “I have known Mr. Gold ever since

I could walk.”

“Of which Mr. Gold are we speaking?” demanded Rachel.

“It is true of both of them,” Ruth answered. “Neither of them would harm

a fly, or go a hair's-breadth from the truth for all the world. They are

the best men I have ever known.”

“Niece Ruth!” said Rachel, stopping short in her walk, and bringing Ruth

to a halt also, “upon the only occasion, since my return to Heydon Hay,

on which I have found myself in the society of Mr. Ezra Gold, I took you

into my confidence with respect to him. That is to say, I took you into

my confidence as much as I have ever taken anybody. Mr. Ezra Gold is a

mean and hypocritical person. Mr. Ezra Gold is a person who would not

stop at any act of baseness or cruelty. Mr. Ezra Gold is a villain.”

All this came from the old maid's lips with a chill and prim precision,

which troubled her hearer more than any heat or violence could have

done. But the old man's face and figure were before her with a wonderful

vivid clearness. The stoop was that of fatigue, and yet it had a

merciful mild courtesy in it too, and the gray face was eloquent of

goodness.

“I can't believe it!” cried the girl, warmly. “Dear aunt, there must

have been some terrible mistake. I am sure he is a good man. You have

only to look at him to know that he is a good man.”

“A whited sepulchre,” said Aunt Rachel, walking on again. She had kept

her mittened hand upon the girl's arm throughout the pause in their

walk, and her very touch told her that Ruth was wounded and indignant.

“What I say, I say of my own knowledge. He is a deliberate and a cruel

villain.”

The girl contained herself and was silent. In a little while she began

to think with an almost tragic sense of pity of the withered and lonely

old maid who walked beside her. She could pity thus profoundly because

she could image herself in the like case; and though the figure she saw

was far from being clear, her own terror of it and revolt from it told

her how terrible it was. If she and Reuben should part as her aunt and

Ezra had parted--if she should ever come to think of Reuben as Aunt

Rachel thought of Ezra! The thought touched her with an arctic sense of

cold and desolation. She drew away from it with an inward shudder, and

in that instant of realization she saw the little old maid's personality

really and truly standing in the middle of that bleak and frost-bound

barrenness which she had dreamed as a possibility for herself. For the

first time she saw and understood, and anger and bewilderment were alike

swept away in the warm rush of sympathetic pity.

The road was lonely, and Ruth, with both eyes brimming over, placed her

arm about her aunt's neck, and, stooping, kissed her on the cheek. Two

or three of the girl's tears fell warm on Rachel's face, and the

old maid started away from her with a sudden anger, which was less

unreasonable than it seemed. She had of late years had an inclination to

linger in talk about the theme of woman's trust and man's perfidy. For

Ruth, and for Ruth only, she had identified this theory of hers with a

living man who was known to both, but she had never intended herself to

be pitied. She had never asked for pity in insisting that a righteous

judgment should be dealt out to Ezra Gold. She had cried in Ruth's

presence after her meeting with Ezra, but she had persuaded herself that

her tears resulted from nothing more than the shock she felt at meeting

an old repulsion. And since she had got to believe this, it followed as

a thing of course that Ruth ought also to have believed it. The girl's

pity wounded her and shamed her.

“Thank you,” she said, in her chillest and primmest fashion, as she

withdrew from Ruth's embrace. “I am not in want of pity.” It was in her

mind to tell Ruth to beware lest she herself should be in need of pity

shortly; but she suppressed herself at considerable cost, and walked on

stiffly and uncomfortably upright.

“I am very sorry, dear,” said Ruth. “I did not mean to hurt you.”

But Rachel was very indignant, and it was only as she remembered the

purloined letter that she consented to be appeased. After all, she had

taken the girl's welfare in hand, and had interested herself so kindly

in her niece's behalf that she could not bear to be angry with her.

So she permitted a truce to be called, and on Ruth's renewed apologies

asked graciously that no more should be said about the matter. They

parted at the green door of the garden, and Rachel, walking homeward,

pondered on one important question. Ought she or ought she not to know

the contents of the letter? Without knowing them, how could she know

exactly the length to which her niece and the intending worker of her

ruin had already gone together? It was necessary to know that, and she

slid her hand into the bosom of her dress, and held the letter there,

half resolving to read it on her arrival at home. But although, as her

theft of the letter itself would prove, her ideas of honor were quaint,

they were strong. She had constituted herself Niece Ruth's guardian, and

she meant to fulfil all her self-imposed duties to the letter, but there

was one whose rights came before her own. The letter should be opened

in the presence of Ruth's father, and the two authorities should consult

together as to what might be done.

She cast about for a safe and unsuspicious resting-place for the letter,

and at last decided upon the tea-caddy.

She placed it there, locked it up, and by the aid of a chair and a table

stowed it securely away in the topmost corner of a tall cupboard. Then,

having hidden the key in the parlor chimney, she went to bed and to

sleep, profoundly convinced that she had adopted the wisest of possible

courses, and that Niece Ruth would be saved in the morning.

Meantime Aunt Rachel's antique griefs being out of sight for Ruth, were

out of mind. She had her own affairs to think of, and found them at once

pressing and delightful. By this time Reuben would have read her note,

and would know all it had to tell him. When she thought how much it told

him it seemed daring and strange, and almost terrible that she should

have written it. For it admitted that his letter had made her very

happy; she was not quite sure that she had not written “very, very

happy,” and wished it were to write again. But here in the solitude

of her own chamber she could kiss Reuben's letter, and could rest it

against her hot cheek in an ecstasy of fluttering congratulations. How

he looked, how he walked, how he talked, how he smiled, how he played!

How brave, how handsome, how altogether noble and good and gifted he

was! There was nobody to compare with him in Heydon Hay, and the young

men of Castle Barfield were contemptible by comparison with him. A

human sun before whose rays other young women's luminaries paled like

rush-lights! She seemed to have loved him always, and always to have

been sure that he loved her; and yet it was wonderful to know it, and

strange beyond strangeness to have told. She fancied him in the act of

reading her letter, and she kissed his as she did so. Did he kiss hers?

Was he as glad as she was? At these audacious fancies she hid herself

and blushed.

Reuben all this while, and until a much later hour, was bewildering

himself about the curious and old-fashioned missive he had discovered

between the melodious pages of Manzini. Over and over again he searched

through the volume, though he had already turned it leaf by leaf and

knew that there was no chance of his having overlooked anything. Almost

as often as he turned over the leaves of the music-book he reread the

note he had taken from it. He questioned himself as to the possibility

of his having allowed Ruth's note to fall, and mentally retraced his own

fashion of taking up the book, and step by step the way in which he had

carried it home. He was sure that nothing could have escaped from its

pages since he had laid hands upon it, and was confronted with a double

mystery. How had this time-stained epistle found its way into the pages,

and how had the more modern missive be had fully expected to find there

found its way out of it?

Suddenly an idea occurred to him which, though sufficiently far-fetched,

seemed as if it might by chance explain the mystery. Long and long ago a

son of the house of Gold had married a daughter of the house of Fuller.

It was not outside the reasonable that Ruth should have had possession

of this old document, in which a Ruth of that far-distant day had

accepted a member of his own household. She might have chosen to answer

him by this clear enigma, but a sense of solemnity in the phrasing

of the letter made him hope his guess untrue. Desperate mysteries ask

naturally for desperate guesses, and Reuben guessed right and left, but

the mystery remained as desperate as ever. His thoughts so harried him

that at last, though it was late for Heydon Hay, he determined to go at

once to Fuller's house and ask for Ruth.

He slipped quietly down-stairs, and, leaving the door ajar, walked

quickly along the darkened road, bearing poor Rachel's long-lost letter

with him; but his journey, as he might have expected, ended in blank

disappointment. Fuller's house was dark. He paced slowly home again,

refastened the door, and went to bed, where he lay and tossed till

broad dawn; and then reflecting that he would catch Ruth at her earliest

household duties, fell asleep, and lay an hour or two beyond his usual

time.

But if Reuben were laggard the innocent guardian dragon was early

astir. Fuller, in his shirt-sleeves and a broad-brimmed straw hat, was

pottering about his garden with a wheelbarrow and a pair of shears. He

saw her at the open door of the garden, and sang out cheerily,

“Halloo, Miss Blythe! Beest early afoot this mornin'. I'm a lover o'

the mornin' air myself. Theer's no time to my mind when the gardin-stuff

looks half as well. The smell o' them roses is real lovely.”

He gave a loud-sounding and hearty sniff, and smacked his lips after it.

Rachel seemed to linger a little at the door.

“Come in,” said Fuller, “come in. There's nobody here as bites. Beest

come to see Ruth? I doubt if her's about as yet. We ode uns bin twice as

early risin' as the young uns, nowadaysen. Wait a bit and I'll gi'e her

a bit of a chi-hike. Her'll be down in a minute.”

“No,” said Rachel, “don't call her. I do not wish to see her yet. It

will be necessary to see her later on; but first of all I desire to

speak to you alone.” Fuller looked a little scared at this exordium, but

Rachel did not notice him. He had never known her so precise and picked

in air and speech as she seemed to be that morning, and through all this

a furtive air of embarrassment peeped out plainly enough for even him

to become aware of it. “May we sit down at this table?” she asked.

“I presume the chairs are aired already by the warm atmosphere of the

morning? There is no danger of rheumatism?”

“What's up?” inquired Fuller, sitting down at once, and setting his

shirt-sleeved arms upon the table. “Theer's nothin' the matter, is

theer?”

“You shall judge for yourself,” replied Rachel. She drew a letter

from her pocket, and covering it with her hand laid it on the table. A

distinct odor of tea greeted Fuller's nostrils, and he noticed it even

then. “I presume that you are not unacquainted with the character of the

Messrs. Gold?”

“It 'ud be odd if I warn't acquynted with 'em,” said Fuller. “I've lived

i' the same parish with 'em all my days.”

“That being so,” said Rachel, “you will be able to appreciate my

feelings when I tell you that almost upon my first arrival here I

discovered that the younger Gold was making advances to my niece Ruth.”

“Ah?” said Fuller, interrogatively. “I don't count on bein' able to see

no furder through a millstone than my neighbors, but I've been aweer o'

that for a day or two.”

“Ruth is motherless,” pursued Rachel, a little too intent upon

saying things in a predetermined way to take close note of Fuller. “A

motherless girl in a situation of that kind is always in need of the

guidance of an experienced hand.”

“Yis, yis,” assented Fuller, heartily. “Many thanks to you, Miss Blythe,

for it's kindly meant, I know.”

“Last night,” said Rachel, “I made a discovery.” There was nothing

in the world of which she was more certain than she was of Fuller's

approving sanction. Only a few minutes before she had had her doubts

about it, and they had made her nervous. She was so very serious

that Fuller began to look grave. But he was built of loyalty and

unsuspicion; and though for a mere second a fear assailed him that the

old lady was about to charge Reuben with playing his daughter false, he

scouted the fancy hotly. In the warmth thus gained he spoke more briskly

than common.

“Drive along, ma'am. Come to the root o' the matter.”

“This letter,” said Rachel, taking Ruth's answer to Reuben in both

hands, “was written last night. It is addressed in your daughter's

handwriting to Mr. Reuben Gold.”

“Tis, yis, yis,” said Fuller, impatiently, not knowing what to make of

Rachel's funereal gravity.

“It appeared to me, after long consideration, that the best and wisest

course I could adopt would be to bring it to you. I regard myself as

being in a sense, and subject always to your authority, one of the

child's natural guardians. If I did not view things in that light,”

the old lady explained, making elaborate motions with her lips for the

distinct enunciation of every word, “I should consider that I was guilty

of a sinful neglect of duty.”

“Well,” said Fuller, “as to sinful. But drive on, Miss Blythe.”

“It appeared to me, then,” continued Rachel, “that our plain duty would

be to read this together, and to consult upon it.”

“Wheer does the letter come from?” Fuller demanded, with a look of

bewilderment.

“I discovered it in the--”

“What!” cried the old fellow, jumping from his chair and staring at her

across the table with red face and wrathful eyes.

“I discovered it,” replied Rachel, rising also and facing him with her

head thrown back and her youthful eyes flashing, “I discovered it in the

music-book which was left last night upon this table. I saw it placed

there clandestinely by my niece Ruth.”

“Be you mad, Miss Blythe?” asked Fuller, with a slow solemnity of

inquiry which would have made the question richly mirthful to an

auditor. “Do you mean to tell me as you go about spyin' after wheer my

little wench puts her letters to her sweetheart? Why, fie, fie, ma'am!

That's a child's trick, not a bit like a growd-up woman.”

Fuller was astonished, but Rachel's amazement transcended his own.

“And you tell me, John Fuller, that you know the character of this man?”

“Know his character!” cried Fuller. “Who should know it better nor me?

The lad's well-nigh lived i' my house ever sence he was no higher 'n my

elber. Know his character? Ah! Should think I did an' all. The cliverest

lad of his hands and the best of his feet for twenty mile around--as

full o' pluck as a tarrier an' as kindly-hearted as a wench. Bar his

Uncle Ezra, theer niver was a mon to match him in Heydon Hay i' my time.

Know his character!” He was unused to speak with so much vigor, and he

paused breathless and mopped his scarlet face with his shirt-sleeve,

staring across his arm at Rachel meanwhile in mingled rage and wonder.

“His Uncle Ezra?” said Rachel, looking fixedly and scornfully back at

him. “His Uncle Ezra is a villain!”

For a second or two he stared at her with a countenance of pure

amazement, and then burst into a sudden gurgle of laughter. This so

overmastered him that he had to cling to the table for support, and

finally to resume his seat. His jolly face went crimson, and the tears

chased each other down his fat cheeks. When he seemed to have had

his laugh quite out, and sat gasping and mopping his eyes with his

shirt-sleeve, a chance look at Rachel reinspired the passion of his

mirth, and he laughed anew until he had to clip his wide ribs with his

palms as if to hold himself together. A mere gleam of surprise crossed

the scorn and anger of Rachel's face as she watched him, but it faded

quickly, and when once it had passed her expression remained unchanged.

“Good-morning, Aunt Rachel,” cried Ruth's fresh voice. “You are early.”

Rachel turned briskly round in time to see Ruth disappear from a

white-curtained upper window. Fuller rose with a face of sudden

sobriety, and began once more to mop his eyes. In a mere instant Ruth

appeared at the door running towards the pair with a face all smiles.

“Why, father,” she cried, kissing the old man on the cheek, “what

a laugh! You haven't laughed so for a year. What is the joke, Aunt

Rachel?”

She saw at a glance that, whatever the jest might be, Aunt Rachel was no

sharer in it.

“I know of no joke, Niece Ruth,” said the old lady, with mincing

iciness.

“Theer's summat serious at the bottom on it, but the joke's atop, plain

for annybody to see,” said Fuller. “But Miss Bly the's come here this

mornin' of a funny sort of a arrant, to my thinking, though her seems to

fancy it's as solemn a business as a burying.”

“What is the matter?” asked Ruth, looking from one to the other. Some

movement of Rachel's eyes sent hers to the table, and she recognized her

own letter in a flash. She moved instinctively and laid her hand upon

it.

“That's it,” said her father, with a new gurgle. “'Twas your Aunt

Rachel, my dear,” he explained, “as see you put it somewheer last night,

an' took care on it for you.” Ruth turned upon the little old lady

with a grand gesture, in which both hands were suddenly drawn down and

backward until they were clinched together, crushing the letter between

them behind her. “Her comes to me this morning,” pursued Fuller, while

the old woman and the young one looked at each other, “an' tells me

plump an' plain as her wants t' open this letter and read it, along with

me.”

“Aunt Rachel!” said Ruth, with a sort of intense quiet, “how dare you?”

“I did nothing but my duty,” said Rachel. “If I have exposed to you the

character of these men in vain--”

“Exposed! Exposed!” cried Fuller. “What's this here maggot about

exposin'? Who talks about exposin' a lad like that? The best lad i' the

country-side without a 'ception!”

“You tell me then,” said Rachel, turning upon him slowly, as if Ruth's

eyes had an attraction for her, and she could scarcely leave them--“you

tell me then that this Reuben Gold has your approval in making

approaches to your daughter?”

“Approval!” shouted Fuller. “Yis. I've seen 'em gettin' fond on each

other this five 'ear, and took a pleasure in it. What's agen the lad?

Nothin' but the mumblin' of a bumble-bee as an old maid's got in her

bonnet. A spite agen his uncle is a thing as _is_ understandable.”

“Indeed, sir,” said Aunt Rachel, with frigid politeness. “Will you tell

me why?”

“Well, no,” said Fuller. “I'd rather I didn't. Look here. Let's have

harmony. I'm no hand at quarrelin', even among the men, let alone among

the petticuts. Let's have harmony. The wench has got her letter back,

and theer's no harm done. And if theer is, ye'd better fight it out

betwigst ye.” With this he turned his back and waddled a pace or two.

Then he turned a laughing face upon them, moving slowly on his axis.

“Mek it up,” he said, “mek it up. Let's have no ill blood i' the family.

Nothin' like harmony.”

Having thus delivered himself he rolled in-doors, and there sat down

to his morning pipe. But anger and laughter are alike provocative of

thirst, and seeking a jug in the kitchen he took his way to the cellar,

and there had a copious draught of small beer, after which he settled

himself down in his arm-chair, prepared to make the best of anything

which might befall him.

The quarrel from which he had withdrawn himself did not seem so easy to

be made up as he had appeared to fancy. Ruth and Rachel stood face

to face in silence. To the younger woman the offence which had been

committed against her seemed intolerable, and it took this complexion

less because of the nature of the act itself than because of its

consequences. It had mocked Reuben, and it had made her seem as if she

were the mocker.

“You are angry, child!” said Rachel, at length. “I was prepared for

that. But I was not prepared for your father's acquiescence in the

ruinous course upon which you have entered.”

“Ruinous course?” said Ruth.

“I repeat,” said the old lady, “the ruinous course upon which you have

entered. These men are villains.”

“Do they steal other people's letters?” asked Ruth.

“They are villains,” repeated Aunt Rachel, ignoring this inquiry.

“Villains, cheats, deceivers. You will rue this day in years to come.”

Then, with prodigious sudden stateliness, “I find my advice derided.

My counsels are rebuffed. I wish you a good-morning. I can entertain no

further interest in your proceedings.”

CHAPTER XII.

Rachel marched from the garden and disappeared through the door-way

without a backward glance. The girl, holding the crumpled letter in both

hands behind her, beat her foot upon the greensward, and looked downward

with flushed cheeks and glittering eyes. Her life had not hitherto

been fruitful of strong emotions, and she had never felt so angry or

aggrieved as she felt now.

“How did she dare? What can Reuben think of me?”

These were the only thoughts which found form in her mind, and each was

poignant.

A knock sounded at the street door, and she moved mechanically to answer

it, but catching sight of her father's figure in the hall she turned

away, and seated herself at the musicians' table.

Fuller greeted Reuben--for the early visitor was no other than he--with

a broad grin, and stuck a facetious forefinger in his ribs.

“Come in, lad, come in,” he said, chuckling. “I never seed such a lark

i' my born days as we've had here this mornin'.”

“Indeed!” said Reuben. “Can I--” He began to blush and stammer a little.

“Can I see Miss Ruth, Mr. Fuller?”

“All i' good time, lad,” replied Fuller. “Come in. Sit thee down.”

Reuben complied, scarcely at his ease, and wondered what was coming.

“Was you expectin' any sort of a letter last night, Reuben?” the old

fellow asked him, with a fat enjoying chuckle.

“Yes, sir,” said Reuben, blushing anew, but regarding his questioner

frankly.

“Was that what you took away the book o' duets for, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Didst find the letter?” Fuller was determined to make the most of his

history, after the manner of men who have stories ready made for them

but rarely.

“I don't know,” replied Reuben, to the old man's amazement. “Do you know

what the letter was about, Mr. Fuller?”

“Don't know?” cried Fuller. “What beest hov-erin' about? Knowst whether

thee hadst a letter or not, dostn't?”

“I had a letter,” said Reuben, “but I can't think it was meant for me.

Perhaps I ought to have spoken first to you, sir, but I wrote to Miss

Ruth yesterday--” There he paused, asking himself how to put this

altogether sacred thing into words.

“Didst now?” asked Fuller, unctuously enjoying the young man's

discomfort. “What might it ha' been about?”

“I wrote to ask her if she would marry me,” said Reuben, with desperate

simplicity.

“Ah!” said Fuller. “And what says her to that?”

“I can't believe that I have had her answer,” returned Reuben, with much

embarrassment. “I found a letter in the book, but I think--I am sure--it

is not meant for me.”

“You'll find Ruth i' the gardin,” said Fuller, puzzled in his turn.

“Her'll tell you, mayhap. But wait a bit; her's rare an' wroth this

mornin', and I ain't sure as it's safe to be anigh her. Miss Blythe's

been here this mornin'--Aunt Rachel, as the wench has allays called her,

though her's no more than her mother's second cousin--and it seems as

th' old creetur found out about Ruth's letter, and went and took it

from wheer it was and marched it off. Her was here this mornin' t' ask

me to open it and read it along with her. Theer's no tekin' note of her,

Reuben, poor old ooman. Her's got a hive in her head. 'Do you know this

young man's character' her says. 'Why, yis,' I says; 'it'd be odd if I

didn't,' I says. 'Well,' her says, 'he's a villin.' 'Rubbidge,' says I;

'theer's no moor esteemable feller i' the parish,' I says, 'onless it's

his uncle Ezra.' Then her fires up and her says, 'His uncle Ezra is

a villin.' Then I bust out a-laughin' in her face. Her's flighty, you

know, lad, her's uncommon flighty. Six-and-twenty year ago--it was afore

thee couldst toddle--her left the parish because of Ezra.”

“Because of my uncle?” There were so many things to be amazed at in this

speech of Fuller's that the youngster hardly knew which to be surprised

at most.

“Didst never hear o' that?” asked Fuller. “It's been the talk o' the

parish ever sence her come back to live in it. Your uncle used to be a

good deal at her mother's house from thirty to six-and-twenty 'ear ago,

and used to tek his fiddle theer and gie 'em a taste o' music now

and then. Her seems to ha' let it tek root in her poor head as he was

squirin' her and mekin' up to her for marriage; but after four or five

year her got tired and hopeless, I reckon, and went away. Then I expect

her begun to brood a bit, after the mode of a woman as is lonely, and

has got no such thing as a man around her, and that's how it is, lad.”

“My uncle!” Reuben fell to pacing up and down the room, talking aloud,

but as if he addressed himself rather than his sweetheart's father.

“Manzini was the last man whose works he played--the last man he ever

handled bow and fiddle for. His own words. He left the book open when

he went away, and closed it when he came back again.” He drew the

discolored note from his pocket, and stared at it with a look of tragic

certainty.

“Be we all mad together?” said Fuller. “What's the matter with the lad,

i' the name o' wonder?”

“I'll explain everything, sir,” answered Reuben, like a man awakening

from sleep. “And yet I don't know that I can. I don't know that I have

a right to explain. I could ask Ruth's advice. It's hard to know what to

do in such a case.”

“Theer's no such thing as a straight wescut i' the house, worse luck,”

said Fuller. “Theer _is_ a clothesline, if that 'ud serve as well.”

“May I see Miss Ruth, sir?” asked Reuben. “I'll tell you all about it if

I can. But I think I have found out a very strange and mournful thing.”

Fuller threw open the window and called “Ruth.” She came in slowly,

and started when she saw Reuben there, and both she and he stood for a

moment in some confusion.

“Gi'e the wench a kiss and ha' done with it,” said Fuller. “Her's as

ready as thee beest willin'.”

Reuben acted on this sage counsel, and Ruth, though she blushed like a

rose, made no protest.

“Theer,” said papa, hugging his fat waistcoat, and rolling from the

room. “Call me when I'm wanted.”

He was not wanted for a long time, for the lovers had much to say to

each other, as was only natural. First of all, Ruth shyly gave Reuben

the letter she had written the night before, and he read it, and then

there were questions to be asked and answered on either side, as--Did

she really love him? And why? And since when? And had she not always

known that he loved her? All which the reader shall figure out of his

or her own experience or fancy; for these things, though delightful in

their own time and place, are not to be written of, having a smack of

foolishness with much that is tender and charming.

Next--or rather interlaced with this--came Ruth's version of Aunt

Rachel's curious behavior. And then said Reuben,

“I think I hold the key to that. But whether I do or not remains to be

seen. I found this in Manzini. You see how old it looks. The very pin

that held it to the paper was rusted half through. You see,” turning

it over, “it is addressed to Mr. Gold. I am afraid it was meant for my

uncle, and that he never saw it. If it is a breach of faith to show it

you I cannot help it. Read it, darling, and tell me what you think is

best to be done.”

Ruth read it, and looked up with a face pale with extreme compassion.

“Reuben,” she said, “this is Aunt Rachel's handwriting. This is all her

story.” She began to cry, and Reuben comforted her. “What can we do?”

she asked, gently evading him. “Oh, Reuben, how pitiful, how pitiful it

is!”

“Should he have it after all these years?” asked Reuben. “What can it be

but a regret to him?”

“Oh yes,” she answered, with clasped hands and new tears in her eyes,

“he must have it. Think of his poor spirit knowing afterwards that we

had kept it from him?”

“It will be a sore grief for him to see it. I fear so. A sore grief.”

“Aunt Rachel will be less bitter when she knows. But oh, Reuben, to

be parted in that way for so long! Do you see it all? He wrote to her

asking her to be his wife, and she wrote back, and he never had her

answer, and waited for it. And she, waiting and waiting for him, and

hearing nothing, thinking she had been tricked and mocked, poor thing,

and growing prouder and bitterer until she went away. I never, never

heard of anything so sad.” She would have none of Reuben's consoling

now, though the tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Go,” she begged

him--“go at once, and take it to him. Think if it were you and me!”

“It would never have happened to you and me, my darling,” said Reuben.

“I'd have had 'Yes' or 'No' for an answer. A man's offer of his heart is

worth a 'No, thank you,' though he made it to a queen.”

“Go at once,” she besought him. “I shall be unhappy till I know he

knows!”

“Well, my dear,” said Reuben, “if you say go, I go. But I'd as lief put

my hand in a fire. The poor old man will have suffered nothing like this

for many a day.”

“Stop an' tek a bit o' breakfast, lad,” cried Fuller, as Reuben hurried

by him, at the door which gave upon the garden. “It'll be ready i' five

minutes.”

“I have my orders, sir,” said Reuben, with a pale smile. “I can't stop

this morning, much as I should like to.”

Like most healthy men of vivid fancy he was a rapid walker, and in a few

minutes he was in sight of his uncle's house. His heart failed him and

he stopped short irresolutely. Should he send the letter, explaining

where he found it, and how? He could hardly bear to think of looking on

the pain the old man might endure. And yet would it not be kinder to be

with him? Might he not be in need of some one? and if he were, who was

there but his nephew--the one man of his kindred left alive?

“I'll do it at once,” said Reuben, and walking straight to the door, he

knocked. He would have given all he had to be away when this was done,

but he had to stand his ground, and he waited a long time while a hand

drew back the shrieking bolts and clattering chain within. Then the key

turned in the lock. The door opened and his uncle stood before him.

“Beest early this morning,” he said, with a smile. “Theer's something

special brings thee here so 'soon?”

“Yes,” answered Reuben, clearing his throat, “something special.”

“Come in, lad,” said Ezra. “No trouble, I hope. Theer's a kind of a

troubled look upon you. What is it?”

Reuben entered without an immediate answer, and Ezra closed the door

behind him. The gloom and the almost vault-like odors of the chamber

struck upon him with a cold sense of solitude and age. They answered

to the thoughts that filled him--the thoughts of his uncle's lonely and

sunless life.

“Trouble!” said the old man, in an inward voice. “Theer's trouble

everywheer! What is it, lad?”

“Sit down, uncle,” began Reuben, after a pause in which Ezra peered at

him anxiously. “I find I must tell you some business of my own to make

myself quite clear. I wrote a note to Ruth last night, and I learned

from her that she had put an answer between the leaves of Manzini. I

took the book home and found a note addressed to Mr. Gold. I opened

it, and it was signed with an 'R,' and so I read it. But I can't help

thinking it belongs to you. The paper's very yellow and old, and I think

“--his voice grew treacherous, and he could scarcely command it--“I

think it must have lain there unnoticed for some years.”

He held it out rustling and shaking in his hand. Ezra, breathing hard

and short, accepted it, and began to grope in his pockets for his

spectacle-case. After a while he found it, and tremblingly setting his

glasses astride his nose, began to unfold the paper, which crackled

noisily in the dead silence.

When he had unfolded it he glanced across at Reuben and walked to the

window.

“Theer's summat wrong,” he said, when he had stood there for a minute or

two, with the crisp, thick old paper crackling in his hand. “Summat the

matter wi' my eyes. Read it--out.” His voice was ghastly strange.

Reuben approached him and took the letter from his fingers. In this

exchange their hands met, and Ezra's was like ice. He laid it on

Reuben's shoulder, repeating, “Read it out.”

“'Dear Mr. Gold,'” read Reuben, “I have not answered your esteemed note

until now, though in receipt of it since Thursday.'”

“Thursday?” said Ezra.

“Thursday,” repeated Reuben. “'For I dare not seem precipitate in such

a matter. But I have consulted my own heart, and have laid it before the

Throne, knowing no earthly adviser.'”

There was such a tremor in the hand which held him that Reuben's voice

failed for pure pity.

“Yes,” said Ezra. “Goon.”

“'Dear Mr. Gold,'” read Reuben, in a voice even less steady than before,

“'it shall be as you wish.'” There he paused again, his voice betraying

him.

“Go on,” said Ezra.

“'It shall be as you wish, and I trust God may help me to be a worthy

helpmeet. So no more till I hear again from you. R.'”

“That's all?” asked Ezra.

“That's all.”

“Thank you, lad, thank you.” He stooped as if in the act of sitting

down, and Reuben, passing an arm about his waist, led him to an

armchair. “Thank you, lad,” he said again. An eight-day clock ticked in

a neighboring room. “That was how it came to pass,” said the old man,

in a voice so strangely commonplace that Reuben started at it. “Ah! That

was how it came to pass.” He was silent again for two or three minutes,

and the clock ticked on. “That was how it came to pass,” he said again.

With great deliberation he set his hands together, finger by finger, in

the shape of a wedge, and then pushing them between his knees, bent his

head above them, and seemed to stare at the dim pattern of the carpet.

He was silent for a long time now, and sat as still as if he were carved

in stone. “Who's there?” he cried, suddenly looking up.

“I am here, uncle,” Reuben answered.

“Yes, yes,” said Ezra. “Reuben. Yes, of course. And that was how it came

to pass.”

Reuben, with a burning and choking sensation in his throat, stood in his

place, not knowing what to say or do.

“Wheer is it?” asked Ezra, looking up again. Reuben handed him the note,

and he sat with bent head above it for a long time. “Reuben, lad,” he

said then, “I'll wish thee a good-mornin'. I'm like to be poor company,

and to tell the truth, lad, I want to be by mysen for a while. I've been

shook a bit, my lad, I've been shook a bit.”

As he spoke thus he arose, and with his hands folded behind him walked

to and fro. His face was grayer than common, and the bright color which

generally marked his cheeks was flown; but it was plain to see that

he had recovered full possession of himself, though he was still much

agitated. Reuben went away in silence, and Ezra continued to pace the

room for an hour. His house-keeper appeared to tell him that breakfast

was on the table, but though he answered in his customary manner he took

no further notice. She came again to tell him with a voice of complaint

that everything was cold and spoiled.

“Well, well, woman,” said Ezra, “leave it theer.”

He went on walking up and down, until, without any acceleration of his

pace, he changed the direction of his walk and passed out at the door,

feeling in the darkened little passage for his hat.

“You sha'n't goo out wi' nothing on your stomach,” said the servant, who

had been watching and waiting to see what he would do. Ezra, to satisfy

her, poured out and drank a cup of coffee, and then walked out into the

street, bending his steps in the direction of Rachel's cottage. Twice on

the way he paused and half drew from his waistcoat-pocket the yellow

old note which had so long lingered on its way to him, but each time he

returned it without looking at it, and walked on again.

He stood for a moment at the wicket-gate, and then opening it passed

through, suffering it to fall with a clatter behind him. His hand

trembled strangely as he lifted it to the door, and he knocked with

a tremulous loudness. When he had waited for a time he heard Rachel's

footsteps tapping on the oil-cloth of the passage which divided her toy

sitting-room from her bandbox of a parlor. His gray face went a shade

grayer, and he cleared his throat nervously, with the tips of his thin

fingers at his month. He heard the rattling of the door-chain, but

it seemed rather as if it were being put up than taken down, and this

suspicion was confirmed when it was opened with a little jar and stopped

short at the confines of the chain. Rachel's face looked round the edge

of the door. He had time to speak but a single word--“Rachel!”

The door was vigorously slammed in his face, and he heard the emphatic

tapping of footsteps as she retired. He stood for a minute irresolute,

and then, quitting the porch, walked round the thread of gravelled

foot-path which led to the back of the cottage. He had but rounded the

corner of the building when the back door closed with a clang, and he

heard the bolts shot. Next, while he still stood irresolute, he saw

Rachel approach a window and vigorously apply herself to the blind cord.

In the mere instant which intervened between this and the descent of the

blind she looked at him with a profound and passionate scorn. The old

man sighed, and nodding his head up and down retraced his steps, but

lingering in the pathway in the little garden, and surveying the house

wistfully, he was again aware of Rachel, who faced him once more with an

unchanging countenance. This time she appeared at the parlor window,

and a second time the blind came down between him and her gaze of

uncompromising scorn.

“Eh, dear!” he said, tremblingly, as he turned away. “Her's got reason

to think it, poor thing. It's hard to find out the ways o' Providence.

If it warn't for good it couldn't ha' happened, but it's a heavy burden

all the same.”

CHAPTER XIII.

Ezra walked home and sat there alone until evening. His house-keeper

routed him from his armchair for dinner and tea, and at each meal he

made a feeble pretence of eating and drinking, and, having been scolded

for his poor appetite, went back to his old place. He sat there till the

room was dark, scarcely moving, but wearing no very noticeable sign of

pain or trouble. The story was so old, and the misfortune it related was

so long past mending! He had been gray himself these many years, and the

things which surrounded him and touched him had long since shared all

his own want of color.

There was no relighting these old ashes. And yet, in defiance of that

avowed impossibility, they seemed now and again to glow. They warmed him

and lighted him back to a perception of lost odor and dead color. They

stung him into some remembrance of the pain of years ago. And then,

again, they were altogether cold and lifeless.

He said vaguely in a half whisper that it was a pity; and the phrase

rose to his lips a hundred times--oftener than not an utterance purely

mechanical, and expressing neither regret for Rachel nor for himself,

nor sorrow for their division. When he was not thinking of her or of

himself, he murmured that this was how it had come to pass, and did not

seem to care or feel at all.

When the gloom was deepening in Ezra's ill-lighted chamber, though the

light of the summer evening still lingered outside, the house-keeper

came in and drew the blinds, and left behind her a single candle, which

left the room as dusky as before. Shortly after this Reuben came in,

and Ezra, nodding, signed him to a chair. The young man took a seat in

silence.

“Well, lad,” said his uncle, when to the young man the continued

stillness had grown almost ponderous. The seconds had seemed to drop one

by one upon him from the audible ticking of the old clock in the next

room, each with an increasing weight of embarrassed sympathy.

“Well, uncle?” returned Reuben, trying to speak in his ordinary way, and

only succeeding in sounding shamefully flippant and unsympathetic to his

own ears.

“I've a mind to have a talk with you,” said Ezra. “Is the door shut?”

Reuben rose to see, and murmuring that it was closed, resumed his seat.

He waited a while in expectation that his uncle was about to confide in

him.

“When beest going to make up your mind to pluck up a courage and speak

to Ruth?” the old man asked.

“To Ruth, sir?” returned Reuben. The question staggered him a little.

“To Ruth,” said Ezra.

“I have spoken,” answered Reuben. “We are going to be married.”

“That's well,” the old man said, mildly. “But I looked to be told of any

such thing happening. Thee and me, lad, are all as is left o' th' old

stock i' this part o' the world.”

“Don't think I should have kept you ignorant of it,” said Reuben. “I

only knew this morning. I have not seen you since till now.”

“Well, lad, well,” said Ezra, “I wish thee happy. But I'm sure you know

that without need of any word o' mine. I asked because I meant to give

out a bit of a warning agen the danger of delay. Theer's not alone the

danger of it, but sometimes the cruelty of it. It's hard for a young

woman as has been encouraged to set her heart upon a man, to be kept

waitin' on the young man's pleasure. You see, lad, they'm tongue-tied.

Perhaps”--he offered this supposition with perfect gravity--“perhaps

it's the having been tongue-tied afore marriage as makes some on 'em so

lively and onruled in speech when marriage has set 'em free.”

There was a definite sense in Reuben's mind that the old man was not

saying what he wished to say, and this sense was strengthened when Ezra,

after moving once or twice in his seat, cleared his throat and began to

walk up and down the room.

“Had you read that letter as you brought to me this morning, lad?” he

asked, coughing behind his hand, and trying to speak as if the thing

were a commonplace trifle.

“I read it because I thought that it must be addressed to me,” said

Reuben. “I had written to Ruth, and she told me to look in Manzini for

her answer. I found nothing but that letter in the book.”

“Why, how was that?” asked Ezra, without turning towards him.

“Her own note had been taken away before I got the book.” Reuben felt

himself on dangerous ground. It was unpleasant to have to talk of these

things, and it looked impossible to reveal Rachel's eccentricity to

Ezra, knowing what he knew.

“Ah!” said Ezra, absent-mindedly. “You read the letter then!” He went on

pacing up and down. “You understood it?”

“I--seemed to understand it,” said Reuben. Ezra came back to his chair

and seated himself with a look of half resolve.

“Reuben,” he began, in a voice pathetically ill-disguised, “it was

something of a cruelty as that letter should ha' been found at all after

such a lapse o' time. The rights of the case was these: As a younger man

than now--I was six-an'-thirty at the time--I wrote to--I wrote an offer

of myself in marriage to a person as was then resident i' this parish.

The day but one after I wrote I had to go up to London to see to some

affairs as was in the lawyer's hands relating to thy grandfather's

property. He'd been dead a year or more, and the thing was only just got

straight. While theer, I heard Paganini, and I've told you, more than

once, I never cared to touch a bow theerafter. I found Manzini on the

music-stand and closed the pages. He was open theer as I had left him,

for I was a bit particular about my things, and mother used to pretend

as her dursn't lay a hand upon 'em. I waited and waited for th'

answer. I met the person as I had wrote to once, and bowed to her. I've

remembered often and often the start her gave, as if I'd done her some

sort of insult. I could never understand how or why. I did not know as I

had gi'en her any right to treat me thus contemptuous. I thought her set

a value upon herself beyond my deservin's, and I abode to bear it. In

the course of a two-three weeks she left the parish, and I made up my

mind as her'd left despising me. I won't pretend as I might not ha'

found her letter if her had been less prideful and disdainous, for

in the course of a little while I might ha' gone back to the music if

things had gone happier with me. But it would ha' been kinder not to

know the truth at all than find it out so late.”

He had spoken throughout in what was meant for his customary tone of dry

gravity, but it failed him often, though for a word only. At such times

he would pause and cough behind his wasted hand, and these frequent

breaks in the narrative made its quiet tones more touching to the hearer

than any declamation or any profession of profound regret, however

eloquently expressed, could possibly have been.

“Have you explained to her since you received the letter?” asked Reuben.

“Don't you think, uncle, that she ought to know?”

Ezra looked at him in a faint surprise. He supposed he had guarded

himself from any suspicion of betraying his old sweetheart's

personality.

“Yes,” he said, still bent upon this reservation. “It happens as the

person I speak of came back to Heydon Hay some time ago, and was within

the parish this very day. I went to make a call upon her, and to show

how Providence had seen fit to deal with both of us, but her refused to

exchange speech with me. You see, Reuben,” he went on, coughing with a

dry mildness of demeanor, “it's doubtless been upon her mind for a many

years as I was making a sort of cruel and unmanly game of her. Seeing

her that offstanding, it seemed to me her valued me so lowly as to take

my letter for a kind of offence. It seems now as it was me, and not her,

as was too prideful.”

They were both silent for a time, but Reuben was the first to speak

again.

“She ought to know, uncle. She should be told. Perhaps Ruth could tell

her.”

“My lad, my lad!” said Ezra, mournfully reproving him. “How could I tell

another of a thing like this?”

“Well, sir,” Reuben answered, “I know now how the idea came into her

mind, though I was puzzled at first. But she is strongly opposed to my

being engaged to Ruth, and came down to tell Mr. Fuller this morning

that I was a villain. I am thinking of her own lonely life, and I am

sure that if Ruth and I are married she will never speak again to the

only relatives she has unless this is explained. For her own sake,

uncle, as well as yours, I think she ought to know the truth.”

He was looking downward as he spoke, and did not see the questioning air

with which Ezra regarded him.

“You know who it was, then, as wrote this letter?”

“Yes,” said Reuben, looking up at him. “Ruth knew the handwriting.”

“Reuben!” cried the old man, sternly. He rose with more open signs of

agitation than Reuben had yet seen in him, and walked hurriedly to and

fro. “Reuben! Reuben!” he repeated, in a voice of keen reproach. “Ah!

when was ever youth and folly separate? I never thought thee wast the

lad to cry thine uncle's trouble i' the market-place!”

“No, uncle, no! Don't think that of me,” cried his nephew. “I did not

know what to do. I asked Ruth's advice. I could not be certain that the

note was meant for you. And--guessing what I thought I guessed--I was

afraid to bring it.”

“Well, well! Well, well!” said Ezra. “It's been too sad an' mournful

all along for me to go about to make a new quarrel on it. Let it pass. I

make no doubt you acted for the best. Art too good a lad to tek pleasure

in prying into the pain of an old man--as--loves thee. Leave it alone,

lad. Let's think a while, and turn it over and see what may be done.”

He went back to his arm-chair, and Reuben watched him in sympathetic

silence.

“I know her to be bitter hard upon me in her thoughts,” said Ezra, after

a time. “The kind of scorn her bears for me is good for nobody, not even

if it happens to be grounded i' the right. It might be a blow to her

at first, but it 'ud be a blow as 'ud carry healing with it i' the long

run. Let the wench tek the letter. It'll be easier for her to get it at

a woman's hands.”

He drew the cracked and faded letter from his waistcoat-pocket, and held

it out towards Reuben without looking at him.

“I think that will be the best and kindest course, sir,” said Reuben,

accepting the letter and placing it in his pocket-book. “It may not be

easy for Ruth to speak to her just at first, for she is very angry with

her for having engaged herself to me.”

“I have heard word of her opposing it,” answered Ezra. “Theer are them

in Heydon Hay as elsewheer--folks, without being aythur coarse-hearted

or hard-minded, as talk of their neighbors' affairs, and love to tell

you whatever there is to be heard as is unpleasing. I have been told

as her describes me as a villin, and speaks in the same terms of you,

Reuben. And that's why I advised you to speak out before there should be

time to make mischief, if by any chance mischief might be made. And

I've seen enough to know as theer's no staple so easy to mannyfacture as

ill-will, even betwixt them as thinks well of each other. But, Reuben,

even the best of women are talkers, and I look for it to be made a point

on between Ruth and you, that no word of this is breathed except between

your two selves.”

“You may trust Ruth as much as you trust me, uncle,” said Reuben.

“Like enough,” answered Ezra. “And I've a warm liking for her. But

there'll be no unkind-ness in naming my particular wish i' this affair.”

“No, no,” answered Reuben. “I will tell her what you say. You may trust

us both.”

“Let me know how things go,” said the old man. “And good-night, Reuben.”

A tender twilight still reigned outside, and Reuben, walking along the

village street, could see the softened mass of roofs and chimneys and

the dark green bulk of trees outlined clearly against the sky. The air

was soft and still, and something in the quiet and the dimness of the

hour seemed to bear a hint of memory or continuation of the scene which

had just closed. He was going to see Ruth at once, and she was naturally

in his mind, and presented herself as vividly there as if he had been

in her presence. The old man's trouble was so much more real to a lover

than it could have been to another man! If it were he and Ruth who were

thus parted! There lay a whole heartache. He loved Ezra, and yet it did

not seem possible to feel his grief half so well save by seeing it as

his own. Such a lonely terror lay in the thought of parting from Ruth

and living forever without her, that it awoke in him an actual pang of

pain for his uncle's trouble.

“But,” said Reuben, as he strode along, “that is what was. He felt it,

no doubt, and felt it for many a dreary month. But it's over now,

for the most part. I could have cried for him this morning, and again

to-night, but it was more pity for the past than for the present.”

Ezra had been a sad man always, since Reuben could remember him, and

yet not altogether an unhappy one. The sunshine of his life had seemed

veiled, but not extinguished. And could love do so little at its most

unfortunate and hapless ending? For some, maybe, but surely not for

Reuben! For him, if love should die, what could there be but clouds and

darkness forever and always? But the old take things tranquilly, and to

the young it seems that they must always have been tranquil. Uncle Ezra

a lover? A possible fancy. But Ezra loving as _he_ loved? An impossible

fancy. And even six-and-thirty looked old to Reuben's eyes, for he stood

a whole decade under it.

“I will go at once,” said Ruth, so soon as she knew what was required of

her. “I'll just tell father, and then I'll put on my hat and be ready in

a minute. Will you “--with an exquisite demureness and simplicity--“will

you go with me, Reuben?”

“Go and see Aunt Rachel?” cried old Fuller, when the girl had told him

her intention. “Well, why not?” Ruth ran up-stairs, and Fuller waddled

into the room where Reuben waited. “Ruth talks about bringin' th' ode

wench back to rayson,” he said, with a fat chuckle, “but that's a

road Miss Blythe 'll niver travel again, I reckon. Her said good-by to

rayson, and shook hands a many hears ago. It's a bit too late i' life to

patch up the quarrel betwigst 'em now.”

The old man's paces were so leisurely and heavy and Ruth's so quick and

light that she was in the room before he had formulated this opinion,

and stood at the looking-glass regarding Reuben's reflection in its

dimly illumined depths as she patted and smoothed the ribbons beneath

her chin.

“Let us hope not, father,” she said; and then turning upon Reuben, “I am

ready.”

He offered her his arm and she took it. It was the simple fashion of

the time and place. No engaged lovers took an airing of a dozen yards

without that outward sign of the tie between them. They walked along in

the soft summer evening, pitying Ezra and Rachel in gentle whispers.

“I was thinking just now if you and I should part, dear--if their case

were ours!”

“Oh, Reuben!”

And so the grief of the old was a part of the joy of the young,

tender-hearted as they were. They played round the mournful old history.

“But you would speak, Reuben? You would never let me go without a word?”

“And if I didn't speak, dear? If something held me back from speaking?”

“But you wouldn't let it hold you back.”

“Not now, darling. But I might have done yesterday--before I knew.”

Before he knew! He must have always known! But of that she would say

nothing.

In front of the one village shop in which the pair of window candles

still glimmered, they paused, while Reuben searched his pocket-book

for the note, and then went on again, in perfumed darkness, until they

reached the gate of Rachel's cottage.

“Be brave, darling,” Reuben whispered here. “Don't let her repulse you

easily.”

Ruth entered at the gate, stole on tiptoe along the gravelled path,

knocked and listened. The whole front of the little house was in

darkness, but by-and-by even Reuben from his post behind the hedge heard

the faint noise made by slippered feet in the oil-clothed hall. “Who's

there?” said' a voice from within.

“Dear aunt,” Ruth answered, “let me in. Do, please, let me in. I want to

speak to you.”

Reuben, listening, heard the sound of the jarring chain, and the door

was opened. He peeped through the interstices of the hedge, and saw Miss

Blythe smiling in the light of the candle she carried in her left hand.

“Dear niece,” said Rachel, with an unusually fine and finicking accent.

“Enter, you are welcome.”

Ruth entered, the door was closed, and Reuben sat down on the bank

outside to await his sweetheart's return.

“I understand,” said Rachel. “You are welcome, my child. I detest rancor

in families. I can forgive and forget.” As she spoke thus she led

the way into her small sitting-room. To Ruth the poor creature's

unconsciousness seemed terrible. She laid her arms about Aunt Rachel's

withered figure, and cried a little as she leaned upon her shoulder.

“There, there,” said Aunt Rachel, with a note of patronage in her voice,

“compose yourself, dear child, compose yourself. I am glad to see you.

Take your own time, dear child, your own time.”

At this Ruth cried afresh. It was evident that Aunt Rachel supposed her

here to perform an office of penitence; and it was all so pitiful to

the girl's heart, which, tender enough by nature, had been made soft and

more tender still by her recent talk with Reuben in the lane.

“Don't talk so. Don't speak so,” she said, brokingly. “Dear aunt, read

this, and then you will know why I am here.”

“Ah!” sighed Aunt Rachel, with a world of meaning. “What did I tell you,

my dear?” She took the letter from her niece's hand, kissed the charming

bearer of it casually, as if in certainty that she would soon be

comforted, and began to search for her glasses.

Ruth, understanding the old lady's error, was moved still more by it,

but emotion and tender interest were at war, and she sat in a half

frightened silence, piteously wondering what would happen. Rachel had

found her glasses, had set the letter upon the table before her, and now

drawing the candle nearer, placed the spectacles deliberately astride

upon her fine little nose, snuffed the candle, and took up the cracking

old bit of paper with an air of triumph and hope fulfilled which cut

Ruth to the heart.

The younger woman hid her face in her hands, and furtively watched the

elder through her fingers.

Rachel read but a line, and then dropping the letter stared across the

candle at Ruth, and passed a hand across her forehead, brushing her

glasses away in the act. She groped for them, polished them with an

automatic look, and began again. Ruth, too frightened even to sob, still

looked at her, and save for the rustle of the withered paper in the

withered fingers the silence was complete.

“What is this?” cried Aunt Rachel, suddenly. “Why do you bring me this?”

She was standing bolt upright, with both hands clasped downward on the

letter.

“It was only found last night,” said Ruth, rising and making a single

step towards her. “From the hour you wrote it until then it was never

seen. Reuben found it and brought it to me.”

The old maid's face went white, and but that the chair she had thrust

away from her in rising rested against the mantle-piece, she would have

fallen. Ruth ran towards her and set a protecting arm about her waist.

Her own tears were falling fast, and her voice was altogether broken.

“It was in Manzini, the book you took Reuben's letter from. He found it

there, and thought it came from me, until he saw that the paper was old,

and that it did not quite answer his own letter. He took it to his uncle

Ezra, and the poor old man's heart is broken. Oh, aunt, his heart is

broken! He had never seen it. He had waited, waited--”

She could say no more, she was so agitated by her own words, and so

stricken by the stony face before her.

Suddenly the old maid melted into tears. Reuben, sitting and waiting on

the bank of the hedge without, had heard Ruth's broken voice, and now he

could hear Rachel weeping. The night was without a sound, and he could

hear nothing but the murmurs and sobbings from the little sitting-room.

Rachel cried unrestrainedly and long, and Reuben waited with exemplary

patience. At last Ruth came out and whispered to him,

“Tell father I am going to stay with Aunt Rachel to-night.”

Reuben, naturally enough, would have kept her there and questioned her,

but she ran back into the cottage before he could detain her, and after

lingering a while bareheaded before the casket which held her, he took

his way back to Fuller and gave him his daughter's message.

“Ah!” said Fuller. “At that rate it 'ud seem to be pretty well

straightened out betwigst 'em. I'm glad to think it, for theer's nothin'

like, harmony among them as is tied together. But hows'ever her an' the

wench may mek it up, Reuben, thee'lt be a villin till the end o' the

chapter.” The villany attributed to Reuben and Ezra tickled the old man

greatly, and his fat body was so agitated by his mirth that his legs

became unequal to their burden. He had to drop into his great cushioned

arm-chair to have his laugh out. “That villany o' thine 'll be the death

o' me,” he said, as he wiped his eyes.

Rachel and Ruth sat far into the night, and the old maid told over and

over again the story of the courtship and the misunderstanding between

herself and Ezra.

“Even when he was young,” she told her listener often, “he was shy and

proud. And he would think I had treated him as though he had been the

dirt beneath my feet. I did. I did. He will never forgive me. Never,

never.”

She always cried afresh tempestuously at this, but when the first

passion of her grief had worn itself out she came back to her story and

lauded Ezra without stint. He was proud, oh yes, he was proud, but then

it was not in a way to hurt anybody. He joined in the sports of the

other young men when she was quite a girl, a mere chit of a thing, my

dear, and he was master of them all. Then Ruth chimed in. And so was

Reuben now. Reuben was not like the rest of them. He was their master

in everything, and everybody who was old enough to remember said that he

was more like his uncle than like his father even. The duet of praise,

accompanied by the old maid's tears, murmured along for an hour.

“You will meet him now?” Ruth suggested, rather timidly. “You will be

friends again?”

“We could never bear to meet each other,” cried Rachel. “How could I

come before him?” Then, “I must go away.”

“No, no,” Ruth pleaded, “you must not go away. You must stay here. You

must be friends again. What shall we tell him, dear? He has found the

letter at last, and he sends to you. Can you let him think that you are

still against him?”

“No,” said Rachel, almost wildly. “You will tell him I went away because

I could not bear to see him. I ought to have known him too well to have

thought so basely of him.”

“It was his duty to speak to you. It was less your fault than his. It

was nobody's fault. It was a disaster.” Ruth thought poorly of Ezra's

tactics as a lover, but she was not bent on expressing her own opinions.

Reuben would never have acted in such a way. He would have known at

least whether his letter had been received or no. Would any _man_ take

silent contempt as a final answer from the woman he loved? It was the

man's real business to come conquering, whatever airs of gentleness he

might wear. And animated by these reflections the girl became filled

with impatience at the old maid's self-upbraidings. She was sorry, sorry

with all her heart, for both, but if there were fault at all it lay

on Ezra's side. “I shall see him in the morning,” she said, finally,

thinking of Reuben. “He will go to his uncle.”

“Child,” said Aunt Rachel, with the beginning of a return to her old

manner, “do you think I can consent to have my affairs bandied from

messenger to messenger in this way? I will write.”

She said this boldly enough, but her heart shrank from it. Her mind went

blank when she tried to figure what she should say. She could do nothing

but prostrate herself anew before the re-established idol. She began to

realize the fact that whatever disguise of hate and despite her love had

taken, she had done nothing but love him all along.

Ruth contented herself with the promise, but, as it happened, Rachel

never wrote, or had need to write, upon this question. For Reuben,

strolling early in the morning, and finding his feet wandering in the

direction of Rachel's cottage, encountered his uncle, and their talk

rendered the letter unnecessary. Ezra flushed and coughed behind his

hand in more than a commonly deprecatory way when he sighted his nephew.

“Well, lad,” he began.

“Ruth took the letter,” answered Reuben. “I waited outside for her,

and I know Miss Blythe was deeply affected by it, because I heard

her crying. Ruth stayed all night with her,” he continued, “and I

suppose”--with a flush and a little hesitation--“I suppose she's there

now.”

“That means as they two are reunited?” said Ezra; and, without saying

much more, the old man took his nephew's arm and they strolled by the

cottage together.

Its inmates were early astir despite the lateness of the hour at which

they had retired; and hearing voices as they stood together in the

bedroom renewing the moving duet of the evening, they peeped through the

curtains and saw uncle and nephew go by arm-in-arm. At this they flew

together and embraced, and from that moment the duet became broken and

confused. The little maid who assisted Rachel in her household affairs

had not jet arrived; so the old lady herself lit the fire and made tea,

while Ruth established herself in ambush in the parlor, and kept a watch

upon the road. When Rachel came in to lay the snowy table-cloth, the

china and the spoons made an unusual clatter in her trembling hands,

and the two were in such a state of agitation that breakfast was a pure

pretence. While they were seated at table Reuben and Ezra again strolled

by; and Ruth divined the fact that not only was Reuben waiting for her,

which was to be expected, but Ezra was attending the moment when she

should quit the house in order that he might make a call upon

Aunt Rachel. So in such a state of tremulous-ness as she had never

experienced before--even when she took Reuben's note from the pages of

Manzini or hid her own there--she arose, and, protesting that her father

would never breakfast in her absence, and that she should be roundly

scolded for being so late, she put on her hat and gloves, kissed Aunt

Rachel's cold cheek, and ran out into the lane with blushes so charming

and becoming that she might have been taken for the very humanized

spirit of the dawn, lingering an hour or two beyond her time to make

acquaintance with daylight. If this simile should seem to border on the

ridiculous, the responsibility of it may be safely thrown upon Reuben,

who not merely met her with it in his mind, but conveyed it to her as

they walked homeward together. Ezra was even more bashful than Ruth,

though in him the sentiment wrought less attractive tokens of itself.

“I'll walk about a little while farther,” he said, awkwardly, when he

had bidden Ruth good-morning; and without need to watch him, they

knew that he had walked no farther than Rachel's cottage. The girl, on

leaving it, had neglected to close the door, and the old maid had not

dared to rise. He stood in the open door-way, and it gave him a mute

invitation to enter, though he had not courage to accept it. He knocked

faintly once or twice, and by-and-by was aware of a movement in the

parlor. He turned towards the door and saw it open slowly, and Rachel

looked out at him, trembling from head to foot, with signs of tears in

her face.

“Miss Blythe,” he began, shakily, “I trust all ill-feelin' is at an end

between us. May an old friend exchange a word with you?”

“Pray come in,” said Miss Blythe, in a frightened whisper; and he

entered. “Will you take a seat?” she asked him.

“Rachel,” he said, “I was to blame, but never as you thought. But I kept

single for your sake, Rachel.”

By what wonderful alchemy of nature the withered heart grew young

again at that moment, Heaven knows; but it was out of a heart suddenly

impassioned and warm with youth that she answered him,

“And I will keep single for yours.”

CHAPTER XIV.

Ferdinand, in obedience to the call of the political situation, had

absented himself from Heydon Hay for a week or two. The Liberals had

put into the field a stronger man than he had expected to encounter, and

there was a sudden awakening in the constitutional camp. He had to go

the rounds and visit his bandsmen, and without being particularly

alert himself to see that everybody else was on the _qui vive_. The

constitutional candidate was, perhaps, as little interested in the

coming strife as any man in the limits of the constituency, but he had

allowed himself to be entered for the race, and was bound to a pretence

of warmth even if he could not feel it. Ruth was not much in his mind

while he was away, but when he came back again he found time once more

hanging heavy on his hands; and being greeted by her when he went to

listen to the quartette party precisely as he had been from the first,

he determined more than ever to start a pronounced flirtation with the

haughty little hussy, and bring her to a proper sense of her position.

So he went early to church afoot on Sunday morning, leaving his lordship

to follow alone in his carriage, and he chatted affably with the members

of the little crowd that lingered about the lich-gate and the porch, and

there awaited Ruth's coming.

Fuller was rather impressed with the young man's civility as a general

thing, being open to the territorial sentiment, and was proud to

be singled out from the rest by the Earl of Barfield's visitor,

and publicly talked to on terms of apparent equality. And Ruth, who

accompanied her father, was on this particular morning not quite what

she had been hitherto. “When Ferdinand raised his hat and proffered her

his hand she blushed, and her eyes held a singular uncertainty he had

never before remarked in them. He could even feel in the few brief

seconds for which her hand lay in his own that it trembled slightly.

Aha! She began to awake, then. The young Ferdinand plumed himself and

spread himself for her vision. The old man, not unwilling that his

neighbors should remark him in familiar intercourse with the great of

the land, lingered at the porch, and for once Ruth did not desert his

side and run into the church alone.

“Upon my word,” said Ferdinand, “there is something in the air of Heydon

Hay, Mr. Fuller, which would seem to be unusually favorable to the

growth of feminine charms. May I congratulate Miss Ruth upon her aspect

this morning?”

He meant the little thing no harm. He could compliment her in her

father's presence as easily as out of it, and perhaps with a better

conscience. Whensoever loosed from the string the arrow of compliment

would find its mark. Besides, the very carelessness of his appreciation

would help its force. He might be a little kinder and more confidential

later on.

“Well, sir,” said Fuller, with a chuckle, “her's bound to look her best

just now.”

“Father,” said Ruth, with an amazingly sudden vivacity, “I want to speak

to you. Excuse us, Mr. De Blacquaire.”

Her face was of the color of the rose from brow to chin, and her eyes

were as shy as ever in spite of her vivacity. They met Ferdinand's

smiling, conquering glance for a moment, and no more. He raised his hat

and withdrew. He had shot his arrow, and had hit the white. He could

afford to retire contented for the moment, and he did so. But by-and-by

that young Gold, who played first fiddle in the quartette, came up with

his auburn mane, with his fiddle tucked under his arm, and stopped to

talk with Ruth and Fuller. Ferdinand, exchanging a friendly word or two

with a doubtful voter, watched with interest. She was blushing still,

and still surveying the ground, and marking patterns on it with the toe

of her pretty little boot--conscious of his glance, the puss, no doubt,

and was posing a little for his admiration.

Ferdinand sat in the Barfield pew, and Ruth sat opposite. Why, the

philtre was working more and more! She was so conscious that she seemed

scarcely able to raise her eyes; and when, as happened no less than

three times, she met his glance, she looked down in the sweetest

confusion. The victorious young gentleman was so absorbed in his own

reflections that he took but little note of the service, and suffered

his attention to it to be for the most part mechanical. But on a sudden

a certain quite indefinable sense of general interest touched him.

Something was doing, or was going to be done, which was not altogether

in the common.

“I publish banns of marriage,” said Parson Hales, in those generous old

port-wine tones of his, “between Reuben Gold, bachelor, and Ruth Fuller,

spinster, both of this parish, and--”

Mr. Ferdinand de Blacquaire realized with a shocking suddenness and

vividness that he was an ass and a puppy. He learned later on that he

was not absolutely either, but he gets a twinge out of “I publish banns

of marriage,” even unto this day.

Sennacherib, who sat near Reuben in the music-gallery, nudged him with

his elbow.

“Knowest what's what?” he whispered, to the younger man's prodigious

scandal and discomfort. “Hast got the best wench i' the parish.”

Reuben would willingly have chosen another time and place for the

receipt of congratulations.

Both Rachel and Ezra were in church, and each looked seriously and sadly

down, thinking of what might have been.

When service was over the ringers met by previous arrangement, and

startled Heydon Hay with a peal. Ezra was at Rachel's side when the

flood of sound descended on them and drowned his salutation. But they

shook hands, and walked away side by side until they reached the front

of Ezra's house, when Rachel turned to say good-by.

“I'll walk a little way if you'll permit it, Miss Blythe,” said Ezra;

and the old maid assenting, they walked on until the strenuous clang of

the bells was softened into music. “They'll mek a handsome couple,” said

Ezra, breaking the silence.

“Upon acquaintance with the young man,” said Rachel, “I discover many

admirable qualities in him.” The speech was prim still, and was likely

to continue so, but it had lost something, and had gained something. It

would be hard to say what it had lost or gained, and yet the change

was there, and Ezra marked it, and thought the voice tenderer and more

womanly. Perhaps the flood-tide of youth which had swept over her heart

at their reconciliation had not entirely ebbed away, and its inward

music lent an echo to her speech. If it were there still, it was that

which lent some of its own liquid sweetness to her look. Not much,

perhaps, and yet a little, and discernible.

There were half a dozen homeward-going worshippers ahead of them, a

hundred yards away, and a handful more a hundred yards behind, as Ezra's

backward glance discerned. They were all moving in the same direction,

and at pretty much the same pace. The air was very quiet, and the clear

music of the bells made no hinderance to their talk.

“I'm thinkin', Miss Blythe,” said Ezra, slowly, walking with his hands

clasped behind him and his downcast eyes just resting on her face and

gliding away again, “I'm thinkin' as the spectacle of them two young

lives being linked the one with the other gives a sort of a lonely

seeming to the old age as you and me has got to look to.”

“Perhaps so, Mr. Gold,” said Rachel, stopping with dry brevity in her

walk and holding out her hand. “I must hasten homeward. I wish you a

good-morning.”

Ezra took her proffered hand in his, shook it gravely, and accepted his

dismissal.

Not many newspapers came to Heydon Hay, and the few that found their way

thither reached the regular subscribers a day or two after their news

was stale to London readers. Ezra got his _Argus_ regularly every

Tuesday morning, and in fine weather would sit in the garden to read it.

It happened that on the Tuesday after the first time of asking of the

banns, he sat beneath a full-leaved, distorted old cherry-tree, gravely

reading “Our Paris Correspondence,” when his eye fell upon an item

of news or fancy which startled him and then set him a-thinking. “All

Paris,” said our correspondent, “was delightfully fluttered by the

approaching marriage of the Marquis of B. and Madame De X. Madame De

X. was a reigning beauty in the days of the Consul Plancus. It would be

unfair to reveal her precise age even if one knew it. The Marquis of B.

was turned seventy. The two had been lovers in their youth, and had been

separated by a misunderstanding. The lady had married, but the gentleman

for her sake had kept single. Monsieur X. had lived with his bride for

but a year, and had then succumbed to an attack of phthisis. Now, after

a separation of forty years, the two lovers had met again, the ancient

misunderstanding had been romantically explained, and they had decided

to spend the winter of their days together. Paris was charmed, Paris was

touched by this picture of a life-long devotion presented by the Marquis

of B.”

Ezra, rising from his seat, laid the paper upon it and walked soberly

about the garden. Then he took up the journal, surrounded the paragraph

which related to the devotion of the Marquis of B. with heavy ink-marks,

waited patiently until the lines dried, folded up the paper, put it in

his pocket, and walked into the road. There he turned to the left, and

went straight on to Miss Blythe's cottage. There in the garden was Miss

Blythe herself, in a cottage bonnet and long gloves, busily hoeing

with little pecks at a raised flower-bed of the size of a tea-tray. She

looked up when Ezra paused at the gate, nodded with brisk preciseness in

answer to his salutation, and then went on industriously pecking at the

flower-bed.

“My weekly paper has just arrived, Miss Blythe,” said Ezra. “It appears

to contain an unusual amount of interestin' matter, and I thought I'd

ask you in passing if you'd care to have a look at it.”

“You are remarkably obliging, Mr. Gold,” said Rachel. “I thank you

extremely.” She took the newspaper from his hand and retired into the

house with it. Ezra lingered, and she returned to resume her occupation.

“It is beautiful weather,” said Ezra.

“It is beautiful weather, indeed,” said Rachel. Ezra lingered on, but

rather hopelessly, for she would not so much as glance in his direction

so far as he could see, but her features were entirely hidden by the

cottage bonnet.

“I trust you will find a item or two as will be of interest,” he said,

after a lengthy pause. Rachel contented herself with an emphatic-seeming

little nod at the flower-bed. “Good-day, Miss Blythe.”

“Good-day, Mr. Gold, and thank you very much for being so good as to

think of me.”

They did not encounter again until the following Sunday morning, when

the banns between Ruth and Reuben were called a second time. The

ringers were at work again when Ezra and Rachel met in the porch as the

church-goers streamed slowly away, and the two shook hands mutely. They

walked on side by side until Ezra's house was reached, and neither spoke

until then. Pausing before the door, Miss Blythe put out her hand.

“If I might be allowed to go a little farther, Miss Blythe,” said Ezra,

gently. Rachel withdrew her hand and said nothing. So once more they

walked, apart from other home-going worshippers, down the lane that led

to Rachel's cottage.

“Did you,” began Ezra, pausing to cough behind his hand--“did you tek

a look at the paper, Miss Blythe?” He received a nod for sole answer,

unless the pinching of the lips and an unconsciously affected maiden

drooping of the eyelids might be supposed to add to it. “Did you happen

to read a particular item,” said Ezra, pausing to cough behind his hand

again, “a item in the letter from Paris?”

“Really, Mr. Gold,” said Rachel, marching on with exceeding stateliness,

and looking straight before her, “at our ages that piece of news would

offer a very frivolous theme for conversation.”

“Might we not talk of it without being frivolous, Miss Blythe?” asked

Ezra.

“Decidedly not, in my opinion,” Miss Blythe responded.

“To talk of love,” pursued Ezra, glancing at her now and then, “in the

sense young people use the word, between persons of the ages of that

lady and gentleman, 'ud be frivolous indeed. But I persoom, Miss Blythe,

they did not talk so.”

“I should think not, indeed,” said Rachel, with decision. “I should hope

not.”

“But to talk of love as love is betwixt the elderly--to talk of

companionship--to talk of shelterin' one another again the loneliness of

late old age--to talk of each one tekin' up the little remnant of

life as was left to 'em and putting it i' the other's hands for kindly

keepin'! Should you think as that was ridiculous, Rachel?”

“I should think,” said Rachel, “that old fools are the greatest fools

of all.” Ezra sighed. “I do not know,” she said at this, “that the

poor-marquis is so much to blame, but the lady should have known better

than listen to his folly.”

“I had thought,” said Ezra, patiently, “you would ha' took a different

view of it, Rachel.” They went on to the gate without another word.

“Good-morning, Rachel,” Ezra said there. “Don't be afraid of me. I

will not come back again to this subject. I had hoped you would not ha'

looked on it with such mislikin'; but sence you do, I will say no more

about it.”

So they parted, and met again and were good friends, and not infrequent

companions, and Ezra said no more.

The eve of Reuben's great day came round, and Reuben was dismissed from

his sweetheart's presence to wander where he would, for Ruth and her

assistants (among whom was none more important than Aunt Rachel) had

a prodigious deal to do. The lovers were to leave directly after their

marriage for no less a place than London, and there were dresses to be

tried on and finished and packed, and altogether the time was trying.

In his wanderings about the fields Reuben encountered the younger

Sennacherib, whom he strove vainly to avoid; not because he disliked

him, but because his own thoughts kept him in better company just then

than the younger Sennacherib was likely to provide in his own person.

But Snac was not a man to be lightly shaken off, and Reuben bent himself

to listen to him as best he might.

“So,” said young Sennacherib, “thee beest goin' to enter into the bounds

of 'oly matterymony?” Reuben laughed, and nodded an affirmative. “Well,

theest done a very pretty thing for me amongst you.”

“For you?” said Reuben. “How?”

“Why this way,” said Snac, bending his knees to make the tight embraces

of his cords endurable. “Thee wast by when my feyther gi'en me the

farewell shillin'. Very well. I'd got nothin' i' the world, and he

knowed it. After a bit he begun to relent a bit, though nobody 'd iver

had expected sich a thing. But so it was. He took to sendin' me a sov

a week, onbeknownst to anybody, and most of all to mother. Well, mother

sends me a sov a week from the beginning unbeknownst to anybody, and

most of all him. Her'd ha' gone in fear of her life if her'd ha' guessed

he knowed it. And now my income's cut down to half, and all because of

this here weddin' o' thine.”

“I don't see how,” said Reuben.

“Why thus,” said Snac, with a somewhat rueful grin. “This here Rachel

Blythe as has come back to the parish has come to a reconciling with

your uncle, as was a by-gone flame of hern; and her tells my mother as

it's thee and thy bride as browt that to pass.”

“True enough,” Reuben allowed; “but still I don't see--”

“An' niver will see,” said Snac, “till thee lettest me tell thee. Her

comes to my feyther's house, this Miss Blythe, an' tells mother what

a beautiful thing this reconcilin' is, and they fall to weepin' and

cry-in' to my feyther both together, an' all on a sudden, t' everybody's

mightiest astonishing, what's he to do but say, 'Theer, I forgi'en him.

Hold your jaw, the pair on you!' Well, now, see what a pitch I'm let to

fall on. Feyther durn't tell mother for his life as he helped me; her

durn't tell him as her helped me. So they mek up their minds to gi'e me

a pound a week betwigst the two on 'em, and that's how it comes about

with these here cussed reconcilings, as I'm done out o' fifty per cent,

o' my income. Look here, Mr. Gold, don't you goo about reconcilin' no

more of my relations.”

“Why, Snac,” cried Reuben, “it's none of my doing.”

“Well,” Snac allowed, “it'd be hard upon a man to mek him answerable for

all the doin's of his wife's mother's second cousin. But if it had been

a man as had ha' done it, I'd ha' had a try to punch his head for him.

I should ha' took a trial trip at you yourself, Mr. Gold, for all so big

and all so handy as you be.”

“Well, Snac,” said Reuben, “it will be all the bet-ter for you in the

end, and I hope it may mend sooner. But if the fact of my meaning to get

married has done so much good as you say it has, I'm very glad to know

it, and I'll take it as a happy sign.”

It seemed an augury of happiness as he walked alone about the fields,

and dwelt upon it. It seemed a fitting thing that love should spread

peace abroad, and that peace should multiply itself.

On the morrow the ringers rang; and being inspired by plenitude of beer

and rich gratuity, and hearty good-will into the bargain, they rang till

sundown. And when the wedding was over, and the bride and bridegroom had

driven away with cheers and blessings in their train, the wedding-guests

sat in the garden with the sylvan statues standing solemnly about, and

the bells making joyful music. Everybody was very sober and serious when

the excitement of cheering away the wedded pair was over, and in a while

the guests began to go. Ezra and Rachel lingered among the latest, and

Rachel's going was the signal for Ezra to say his good-bys and follow.

She made no objection to his society, and they walked on without

speaking. The declining sun shone full in their faces, and cast their

shadows far behind. Except for themselves the lane was lonely.

“Did you see in last week's copy of the _Argus_,” said Rachel, suddenly,

and with great dryness, “that the Marquis of B. and the lady are

united?”

“I noted it,” said Ezra. “Do you think so badly of them as you did?”

Rachel said nothing.

“Do you think so badly of them as you did?” he asked again, and still

Rachel said nothing. The lane was lonely. He laid a hand upon the

shoulder nearest him, and asked the question for a third time. Still she

said not a word, but bent her head, perhaps to avoid the level sunlight.

“Shall we garner up the years that are left for us together, dear?”

She gave no answer still, but he seemed to understand. They walked

on side by side towards the sunset, and the joy-bells, half sad with

distance, sounded in their ears.

THE END.