That night the young man of the caravan had curious dreams, and
throughout them all moved, like a presiding fairy, Matt of Abertaw.
Sometimes he was wandering on stormy shores, watching the wrecks of
mighty argosies; again, he was in mysterious caverns underneath the
ground, searching for and finding buried treasure; still again, he
was standing on the decks of storm-tossed vessels, while the breakers
thundered close at hand, and the bale-fires burned on the lonely
headlands. But at all times, and in all places, Matt was his companion.
And curiously enough, Matt in his dream was very different to the Matt
of waking reality--taller and brighter--in fact, as beautiful as a
vision can be; so that his spirit was full of a strange sensation
of love and pity, and the touch of the warm little hand filled his
imagination with mysterious joy. So vivid did this foolish dream become
at last, that he found himself seated on a sunny rock by the sea, by
Matt’s side; and he was talking to her like a lover, with his arm around
her waist; and she turned to him, with her great eyes fixed on his, and
kissed him over and over again, so passionately--that he awoke!
It was blowing hard, and the rain was pelting furiously on the roof of
the caravan. He tried to go to sleep again, but the face of Matt (as he
had seen it in his dream) kept him for a long time awake.
“Now, young man,” he said to himself, “this is idiotic. In the first
place, Matt is a child, not a young woman; in the second place, she is a
vulgar little thing, not a young lady; in the third place, you ought
to be ashamed of yourself for thinking of sentiment at all in such a
connection. Is your brain softening, youngster? or are you labouring
under the malign influence of William Jones? The kiss you gave to this
unsophisticated daughter of the desert was paternal, or say, amicable;
it was a very nice kiss, but it has no right to make you dream of stuff
and nonsense.”
But the influence of the dream was over him, and in that half-sleeping,
half-waking state, he felt like a boy in love. He found himself
calculating the age of his own friend. Let him see! it was fifteen years
since, in her own figurative expression, she “come ashore,” and the
question remained, how old was she on that interesting occasion? As far
as he could make out from her appearance, she could not be more than
sixteen. For a damsel of that age, her kiss was decidedly precocious.
At last he tumbled off again, and dreamed that Matt was a young lady of
beautiful attire and captivating manners to whom he was “engaged;” and
her speech, strange to say, was quite poetical and refined; and they
walked together, hand in hand, to a country church on a green hillside,
and were just going to enter, when who should appear upon the threshold
but Mr. Monk of Monkshurst? But they passed him by, and stood before the
altar, where the parson stood in his white robes, and when the parson
asked aloud whether any one saw any just cause or impediment why the
pair should not be joined in holy matrimony, the same Monk stepped
forward with Mephistophelian smile, and cried, “Yes, I do!” On which the
young man awoke again in agitation, to find that it was broad daylight,
and a fine fresh summer morning.
Whom should he find waiting for him when he had dressed himself and
stepped from the house on wheels but Matt herself?
Yes, there she was, as wild and quaintly attired as ever, quite unlike
the ethereal individual of his dreams; but for all that her smile was
like sunshine, and her eyes as roguish and friendly as ever.
Conscious of his dream he blushed while greeting her with a friendly
nod.
“Well, Matt? Here again, eh?” he said; adding to himself, “This won’t do
at all, my gentleman; if the young person continues to appear daily, the
caravan will have to ‘move on.’”
Matt had evidently something on her mind. After looking at Brinkley
thoughtfully for some few minutes, she exclaimed abruptly--
“William Jones don’t like you neither. No more does William Jones’s
father.”
“Dear me!” said the young man. “I’m very sorry for that.”
“He says--William Jones says--you’re come here prying and spying. Do
you?”
“My dear Matt,” replied the young man lightly, “I come here as a humble
artist, seeking subjects for my surpassing genius to work upon. If it
is prying and spying to attempt to penetrate into the beauties of
nature--both scenic, animal, and human--I fear I must plead guilty; but
otherwise----”
She interrupted him with an impatient exclamation, accompanied by a
hitch of her pretty shoulders.
“Don’t talk like that; for then I know you’re chaffing. Talk serious,
and I’ll tell you something.”
“All right. I’ll be serious as a parson. Go ahead!”
“Mr. Monk of Monkshurst wants to marry me. He said so to William Jones.”
The information was delivered with assumed carelessness; but after it
was given, Matt watched the effect of it upon the hearer with precocious
interest. Brinkley opened his eyes in very natural amazement.
“Come, come, Matt; you’re joking.”
“No, I ain’t. It’s true.”
“But you’re only a child--a very nice child, I admit--but to
talk of holy matrimony in such a connection is--excuse my
frankness--preposterous. People don’t marry little girls.”
But Matt did not consent to this proposition at all.
“I ain’t a little girl,” she affirmed with a decisive nod of the head.
“I’m sixteen, and I’m growed up.”
The young man was amused, and could not refrain from laughing heartily.
But the girl’s brow darkened as she watched him, and her under lip fell
as if she would like to cry.
“If you go on laughing,” she said, “I’ll run straight back home, and
never come here no more.”
“Well, I’ll try to keep my countenance; but the idea is very funny.
Really, now? Don’t you see it in that light yourself?”
Certainly Matt did not, to judge from the expression of her face. She
turned her head away; and Brinkley saw, to his surprise, that a tear was
rolling down her cheek.
“Come, Matt,” he said kindly; “you mustn’t take this so seriously. Tell
me all about it--there’s a good girl.”
“I will--if you won’t laugh.”
“I won’t then--there.”
“Well, when I was lying in my bed this morning, I heard William Jones
a-talking to some one. He thought I was asleep, but I got up and
listened, and I heard Mr. Monk’s voice; and he said, says he, ‘She’s
over sixteen years old, and I’ll marry her;’ and William Jones said,
‘Lord, Mr. Monk; what can you be a-thinking about? Matt ain’t old
enough; and, what’s more, she ain’t fit to be the wife of a fine
gentleman.’ Then Mr. Monk he stamped with his foot, like he does when
he’s in a passion, and he said, says he, ‘My mind’s made up, William
Jones, and I’m going to marry her before the year’s out; and I don’t
care how soon.’ Then I heard them moving about, and I crept back to bed
and pretended to be fast asleep.”
The young man’s astonishment increased. There could be no doubt of
the veracity and sincerity of the speaker; and the story she told was
certainly puzzling. Brinkley made up his mind, without much reflection,
that if Mr. Monk wanted to go through the marriage ceremony with
that child, he had some special and mysterious reason for so
doing; unless--which was scarcely possible--he was of a sentimental
disposition, and, in the manner of many men advanced towards middle age,
was enamoured of Matt’s youth and inexperience.
“Tell me, Matt,” said Brinkley, after pondering the matter for some
minutes; “tell me how long have you known this Mr. Monk?”
“Ever since I come ashore,” was the reply.
“Humph! Is he well-to-do?--rich?”
Matt nodded emphatically.
“All Abertaw belongs to him,” she said; “and the woods up there, and the
farms, and the horses up at the big house, and--everything.”
“And though he is such a great person he is very friendly with William
Jones?”
“Oh yes,” answered Matt; “and I think William Jones is afraid of
him--sometimes; but he gives William Jones money for keeping me.”
“Oh, indeed! He gives him money, does he? That’s rather kind of him, you
know.”
At this Matt shook her head with great decision, but said nothing.
Greatly puzzled, the young man looked at her, and mused. It was clear
that there was a mystery somewhere, and he was getting interested.
Presently, he invited Matt to sit down on the steps of the caravan, and
he placed himself at her side. He was too absorbed in speculation to
notice how the girl coloured and brightened as they sat there together.
“You have often told me that you came ashore,” he said, after a long
pause. “I should like to know something of how it happened. I don’t
exactly know what this ‘coming ashore’ means. Can you explain?”
“I don’t remember,” she replied, “but I know there was a ship, and it
went to pieces, and I floated to shore in a boat, or something.”
“I see--and William Jones found you?”
“Mr. Monk, he found me, and gave me to William Jones to keep.”
“I begin to understand. Of course, you were very little--a baby, in
fact.”
“William Jones says I could just talk some words, and that when he took
me home I called him ‘Papa.’”
“What was the name of the ship? Have you ever heard?”
“No,” said Matt.
“Did you come ashore all alone? It is scarcely possible!”
“I came ashore by myself. All the rest was drownded.”
“Was there no clue to who you were? Did nothing come ashore besides to
show them who you were, or where you came from?”
Matt shook her head again. Once more the young man was lost in
meditation. Doubtless it was owing to his abstraction of mind that he
quietly placed his arm round Matt’s waist, and kept it there. At first
Matt went very red, then she glanced up at his face, and saw that his
eyes were fixed thoughtfully on the distant sand-hills. Seeing he
still kept silence, she moved a little closer to him, and said very
quietly--“I didn’t tell William Jones that you--kissed me!”
Brinkley started from his abstraction, and looked at the girl’s blushing
face.
“Eh? What did you say?”
“I didn’t tell William Jones that you kissed me!”
These words seemed to remind the young man of the position of his arm,
for he hastily withdrew it. Then the absurdity of the whole situation
appeared to return upon him, and he broke into a burst of boyish
laughter--at which his companion’s face fell once more. It was clear
that she took life seriously, and dreaded sarcasm.
“Matt,” he said, “this won’t do! This won’t do at all!”
“What won’t do?”
“Well--_this!_” he answered, rather ambiguously. “You’re awfully young,
you know--quite a girl, although, as you suggested just now, and, as you
probably believe, you may be ‘growed up.’ You must--ha!--you must look
upon me as a sort of father, and all that sort of thing.”
“You’re too young to be my father,” answered Matt, ingenuously.
“Well, say your big brother. I’m interested in you, Matt, very much
interested, and I should really like to get to the bottom of the mystery
about you; but we must not forget that we’re--well, almost strangers,
you know. Besides,” he added, laughing again cheerily, “you are engaged
to be married, some day, to a gentleman of fortune.”
Matt sprang up, with heaving bosom and flashing eyes.
“No, I ain’t!” she said. “I hate _him!_”
“Hate the beautiful Monk of Monkshurst! Monk the beneficent! Monk the
sweet-spoken! Impossible!”
“Yes, I hate him,” cried Matt; “and--and--when _he_ kissed me, it made
me sick.”
“What, did he? Actually? Kissed you?”
As he spoke, the young man actually felt that he should like to assault
the redoubtable Monk.
“Yes, he kissed me--once. If he kisses me again, I’ll stick something
into him, or scratch his face.”
And Matt looked black as thunder, and set her pearly teeth angrily
together.
“Sit down again, Matt!”
“I shan’t--if you laugh.”
“Oh, I’ll behave myself. Come!”--and he added as she returned to her
place, “Did it make you sick when _I_ kissed you?”
He was playing with fire. The girl’s face changed in a moment, her eyes
melted, her lips trembled, and all her expression became inexpressibly
soft and dreamy. Leaning gently towards him, she drooped her eyes, and
then, seeing his hand resting on his knee, she took it in hers, and
raised it to her lips.
“I should like to marry _you_,” she said, and blushing, rested her cheek
against his shoulder!
Now, our hero of the caravan was a truehearted young fellow, and a man
of honour, and his position had become extremely embarrassing. He
could no longer conceal from himself the discovery that he had made an
unmistakable impression on Matt’s unsophisticated heart. Hitherto he had
looked upon her as a sort of _enfant terrible_, a very rough diamond;
now he realized, with a shock of surprise and self-reproach, that she
possessed, whether “growed up” or not, much of the susceptibility of
grownup young ladies. It was clear that his duty was to disenchant her
as speedily as possible, seeing that the discovery of the hopelessness
of her attachment might, if delayed, cause her no little unhappiness.
In the meantime he suffered her to nestle to him. He did not like to
shake her off roughly, or to say anything unkind. He glanced round into
her face; the eyes were still cast down, and the cheeks were suffused
with a warm, rich light, which softened the great freckles and made her
complexion look, according to the image which suggested itself to his
mind, like a nice ripe pear. She was certainly very pretty. He glanced
down at her hands, which rested in her lap, and again noticed that they
were unusually delicate and small. Her foot, which he next inspected, he
could not criticize, for the boots she wore would have been a good fit
for William Jones. But the whole outline of her figure, in spite of the
hideous attire she wore, was fine and symmetrical, and altogether----
His inspection was interrupted by the girl herself. Starting as if from
a delightful trance, she sprang to her feet and cried--
“I can’t stop no longer. I’m going.”
“But the picture, Matt?” said Brinkley, rising also. “Shan’t I finish it
to-day!”
“I can’t wait. William Jones wants to send me a message over to
Pencroes, and if I don’t go, he’ll scold.”
“Very well, Matt.”
“But I’ll come,” she said, smiling, “tomorrow; and I’ll come in my
Sunday clothes, somehow.”
“Don’t trouble. On reflection, I think you look nicer as you are.”
She lifted her hat from the ground, and still hesitated as she put it
on.
“Upon my word,” cried the artist, “those Welsh hats are very becoming.
Good-bye, Matt.”
She took his outstretched hand and waited an instant, with her warm,
brown cheek in profile temptingly near his lips. But he did not yield to
the temptation, and after a moment’s further hesitation, in which I
fear she betrayed some little disappointment, Matt released her hand and
sprang hurriedly away.
“Upon my word,” muttered the young man, as he watched her figure
receding in the distance, “the situation is growing more and more
troublesome! I shall have to make a clean bolt of it, if this goes on.
Fancy being caught in a flirtation with a wild ocean waif, a child of
the wilderness, who never even heard of Lindley Murray? Really, it will
never do!”