CHAPTER XXVI
THE WAY OF A MAID WITH A MAN
It took me to cure Jack. I administered one dose of medicine and he atonce began to fill out and get strong and chesty in a manner almostabsurd, whereon there was much twitting of our Kate who, in her old way,rated me soundly in public and crept up to me in private, and kissed meand wept gladly in the most approved maiden-like style.
This was the way of it. I sent Joe Braggs into Stafford the day after Igot home to fetch out Master Dobson, and had him alone in my room. True hewas as near and grasping as ever, but I saw even this side of him in a newlight now, for he had been near and grasping for Jack. He was ratheruncertain when we met; glad enough, of course, to see an old friend backagain safe and sound, but dubious on the main point.
"Master Dobson," said I, "your Jack desires to wed our Kate."
"So he tells me," said he dolefully, rubbing his thin finger under theedge of his bob-wig to scratch his perplexed head.
"She is an excellent young woman, and a comely," said I, grinning at him.
"Undoubtedly," he conceded.
"But, as the head of the family, Master Dobson, I offer no objection tothe proposal." Much it would have mattered if I had, but I always takecredit when and while I can.
"It's very kind of you, Ol ... Mr. Wheatman," said he, "but...."
"Yes," said I encouragingly.
"But there's what I may call the material side of the matter to beconsidered. My son's bride should be suitable from the business point ofview."
"I've been considering that point, Master Dobson. It is undoubtedlyimportant. Jack's a careless young dog, and I'm sure our Kate is just thewoman he wants from a business point of view. She'll keep an eye on everymeg in his pockets."
"Tut, tut!" said he, stirred to action, as I knew he would be. "Youmistake me completely. My son will not be wanting in this world's gear andhe must have a wife to match."
"I see," said I. "One with something substantial in her pocket."
"Precisely," said he.
"Well, Master Dobson, if our Kate is willing to marry your Jack, a pointon which I can offer only a conjecture, she will marry him with fivethousand pound in her pocket."
He sat bolt upright and stared at me with his mouth wide open.
We fetched them in, mother coming with them, and the old man there andthen gave them his blessing. Kate ran into mother's arms, while Jack wrungmy hand and danced for joy. Afterwards he ate the most astonishing dinnerimaginable, loudly asseverating that he was as right as nine-pence andsick of slops.
My coming back made a great noise all over our countryside. Of what I hadactually done there was no knowledge whatsoever. The tale went that I hadbeen to America and found a goldmine, and come home and bought back thelost Hanyards. Acute sceptics in barbers' shops and market ordinariesadvanced the opinion that it must have been a very little goldmine, butthey were unable to substitute any other explanation and so fell intocontempt. The tale suited me and I never contradicted it. In a world wherea man who has travelled to London is a person of consideration and renown,I, who had been to America, was as a god. My first visit to Stafford putthe sleepy old town into commotion.
Every night around the fire in the house-place I told them of myadventures. Jack, the sly fox, sat among his cushions, which he had notbeen fool enough to discard along with his slops, with Kate on a low stoolat his knees. The vicar sat by mother's side on the settle. I drew a chairclose to her, so that her hand could clasp mine as I talked, and veryhelpful I found it, for she understood in silence and in silence comfortedme. Jane laid supper, taking a long time over it, for between journeys toand from the kitchen she would stand behind the settle and listenwide-eyed to a spell of my talk. Every night the vicar said grace, adding,in his simple, apostolic way, a special thanksgiving to the good God whohad brought the young lad safe home again, through perils by sea andperils by land, and out of the very hands of evil men who had compassedhim about to destroy him. Then, after supper, I escorted the good man homeand came back through the moonlit lanes; and every night, without fail, Iwent and stood on the very spot where the gaff had slipped out of mycollar, and I had turned round to see Margaret.
The only discontented person in our little circle was Joe Braggs, who hadcaught the dace that caught the jack, and so started me out of my jog-trotyeoman's round into the great world of life and adventure. Joe had donewell while I had been away; our fields had yielded fruitfully under hiscare as bailiff; and, having had a favourable harvest, we were much moneyin hand on the year's working. I had thanked him heartily, confirmed himas my bailiff now that I was back, and given him fifty guineas, a sumwhich to him was wealth untold. Still the rascal was not satisfied, andwent about with a bear on his back, as Jane had it, so that I was greatlytempted to clip his ear for him.
The day before Christmas, he was busy all morning under Jane's garrulouscommand, getting in bunches of holly and other evergreens from thehedgerows. His last journey had been to one of the farms on the UpperHanyards in quest of mistletoe, which grew abundantly there in an ancientorchard. On getting back he had held a sprig over Jane's head for acertain familiar and laudable purpose, and had been rewarded with a smackthat sounded like the dropping of an empty milk-pail. A little later Ifound him glowering in a cowhouse, and had it out with him.
"Look here, Joe, my lad," said I, "tell me straight what's the matterwith you or I'll break your head."
"What d'ye want to come back 'ere for, upsettin' Jin like this'n?" heblurted.
"What the blazes have I done to upset Jin?" I asked.
"Why didna y' bring 'er back wi' ye, then?"
"Who's her, you jolt-head?" I demanded angrily.
"That leddy o' yourn. Jin's that upset 'er wunna luk at me, an' we worgettin' on fine."
It was no use talking to Joe. I explained that she was a great lady andwas to marry a marquess, that is a much more important person than anearl. He knew what an earl was, for of course he had heard of the 'Yurl,'meaning that old rascal Ridgeley. A marquess, however, was outside hisken, and the information was wasted.
"Why didna y' marry 'er y'rsel', Master Noll, and bring 'er back 'ere,then Jin wud 'a' bin all rate?"
"I couldn't," said I.
"Did y' ask 'er?"
"No."
"More fule yow," said he bitterly. "She'd 'a' 'ad y', rate enough. Jinsays so, an' 'er knows."
What could be done with such a silly fellow? I left off discussing andtook him indoors with me. In front of Jane I pledged him in a mug of aleand told him he was one of the best lads breathing, and I was greatlybeholden to him. In front of him I kissed Jane under the mistletoe andtold her that, bonny lass as she was, she was lucky to have the best ladin Staffordshire. I left them in the kitchen, and heard no more crashes.Later on, Joe whistled his three tunes with admirable skill andintolerable persistency while, under Jane's orders, he took in charge theboiling of the Christmas puddings in a vast iron pot hung over the kitchenfire.
It was growing dark. Everybody was happy. Mother was out and round thevillage with her Christmas gifts, attended by one of our men and a cartpacked with good things. Nothing could have made her happier. Jack andKate were in the house-place busy with all sorts of housewiferies, inwhich he was as interested as she. Joe and Jane were in the kitchen, asmerry as grigs. I went into my own room, across the passage from theparlour, sacrosanct to me, my books and my belongings.
There, too, was the great jack, set up to the very life by the skilfulhand of Master Whatcot. He appeared to be cleaving a bunch of reeds topounce on a dace, just as he had done once too often on that memorableday. Brothers of the angle had made pilgrimages to see him from thirtymiles round, and it was an added charm to fancy that the monster had beencaught in a spot where Izaak Walton had fished as a boy, he having beenborn and bred in these parts. My jack is a famous jack, for the curiousreader will find an account of him, with his dimensions and catchingweight exactly given, in Master Joshua Spindler's folio volume entitled"Rudimenta Pi
scatoria, or the Whole Art of Angling set forth in a Seriesof Letters from a Nobleman to his Son," London, 1751. No one who has yetseen him has seen a bigger, though most of them have heard of one.
I lit my candles, got my pipe going, and drew my chair near the fire toread and smoke. It was, however, early days yet for me to read for long.Moreover, by habit I had picked up my Virgil, and it was as yet impossiblefor me to feel the tips of my fingers in the teeth-marks without thinkingof the poor wretch who had made them. I could see in exactest detail hisdead body lying in the road and Swift Nicks beside it, pitching the bag ofguineas up and down in the air, and smiling gleefully and yet wistfully atme. From that grim event, whether my mind travelled backwards or forwards,it traversed scenes such as few men are privileged, or fated, to passthrough.
It was, again, too soon for me to realize the full effect of myexperiences on myself. I was not moody, as in the days aforetime. Ineither loathed my lot nor cursed my destiny. I had seen warfare andbloodshed, I had had my heart wrung and my nerves racked, and now thepeaceful meadows winding along the river and stretching up to the purplehills were dear to eyes from which the scales had fallen. This was thelife and labour on which the world was based, and it was worthy of anyman. I had seen Death the Harvester at work, and he was a less alluringfigure than Joe Braggs with a flashing sickle in his hand and a swathe ofgolden grain under his arm.
I should never be really alone again. I had company of which I shouldnever tire as I sat here with my memories. Margaret was rarely absent frommy mind, and every memory of her was a blessing and an inspiration. I didnot regret my love, foolish and vain as it had been. The thing that reallymattered was that Jack was alive. I could now look back on everythingwithout bitterness. If Margaret came for me now, to call me forth toanother hard round of struggle and adventure, I should be off with herlike a shot. She had made a splendid companion. She would make a splendidmarchioness. Some day, when the pain would not be unendurable, I would goto London and steal another peep at those matchless eyes and that tower ofgolden, gleaming hair.
I did not hear the door open, but I heard mother's calm voice, gentlyreproving Jane for an unseemly giggle. A pair of arms crept round my neck,and slim white fingers cupped my chin. Kate did not know that it was I whohad so nearly sent her sweetheart to an untimely grave, for Jack hadsternly forbidden me to mention the subject to anyone, and, as I havesaid, it might never have happened so far as he was concerned. ThereforeKate, always a loving and attentive sister, was now more loving andattentive than ever because she knew in her heart that, though I hadgained much in my wanderings, I had lost the one thing she had found inthe quiet sickroom where, during long weary months, she had lured Jackback to life. It was always her task to fetch me from my books and mythoughts to the beloved circle in the house-place, when, as now, she hadprepared a dish of tea for us.
The soft resolute hands raised my chin, and I gasped as I looked intoMargaret's eyes.
She lightly held me down, and, as if we had only parted five minutesbefore in the house-place, began to speak, quietly but rapidly.
"Oliver, do you remember waking me in the barn?"
I nodded. I was too amazed to speak, and there was that in her eyes whichmade me tremble.
"I was dreaming," she said, and I nodded again and remembered how she hadflushed like the dawn.
"Because you are the greatest goose of a man that ever lived, I am goingto tell you my dream. I dreamed that you were carrying me across the PearlBrook, and as you carried me the brook got wider and wider--you had madeit as wide as you could, you know--until it seemed as if we should neverget across it. And you would not put me down, though I begged you to doso, but carried me on and on. You grew tired and weary, and your face wentwhite and drawn, as I find it now, but you would not let me go. Was it nota curious dream, Oliver?"
Again I nodded.
"Why can't you speak, Oliver? Anything would make it less hard. Then,because you were so weary, and so good to me, and so faithful, andlong-enduring, I did in my dream ... in my dream, you mark ... somethingvery un-maidenly ... and immediately we were both on the other side; and Iawoke as you put me down at last and found you by my side, having, in yourknightly unselfishness, ruined your hat to give me a drink of milk. Andbecause you are the best man on earth, and also a blind silly goose,Oliver, and I must take some risk or lose my all, I am going ... to do theunmaidenly thing I did in my dream ... and ... you ... must not misjudgeme, Oliver."
She stopped, smiled as only Margaret can, and bent her head until a loosecoil of amber hair fell on my face Then she brushed it aside and, after alittle gasping cry, kissed me on the lips.