There was another outburst of noisy cheering, followed by a new kind of clamour,
"A song!"
"A song!"
"Who'll begin?"
"Where's Steevy?"
"Little Steevy!"
"Steevy! Wheer be ye got to?" roared one old fellow with very white hair and a very red face—"ye're not so small as ye can hide in yer mother's thimble!"
A young giant of a man stood up in response to this adjuration, blushing and smiling bashfully.
"Here I be!"
"Sing away, lad, sing away!"
"Wet yer pipe, and whistle!"
"Tune up, my blackbird!"
Steevy, thus adjured, straightened himself to his full stature of over six feet and drank off a cupful of ale. Then he began in a remarkably fine and mellow tenor:
"Would you choose a wife
For a happy life,
Leave the town and the country take;
Where Susan and Doll,
And Jenny and Moll,
Follow Harry and John,
While harvest goes on,
And merrily, merrily rake!"
"The lass give me here,
As brown as my beer,
That knows how to govern a farm;
That can milk a cow,
Or farrow a sow,
Make butter and cheese,
And gather green peas,
And guard the poultry from harm."
"This, this is the girl,
Worth rubies and pearl,
The wife that a home will make!
We farmers need
No quality breed,
But a woman that's won
While harvest goes on,
And we merrily, merrily rake!"
[Footnote: Old Song 1740.]
A dozen or more stentorian voices joined in the refrain:
"A woman that's won
While harvest goes on,
And we merrily, merrily rake."
"Bravo!"
"Good for you, Steevy!"
"First-class!"
"Here's to you, my lad!"
The shouting, laughter and applause continued for many minutes, then came more singing of songs from various rivals to the tuneful Steevy. And presently all joined together in a boisterous chorus which ran thus:
"A glass is good and a lass is good,
And a pipe is good in cold weather,
The world is good and the people are good,
And we're all good fellows together!"
In the middle of this performance Farmer Jocelyn rose from his place and left the hall, Innocent accompanying him. Once he looked back on the gay scene presented to him—the disordered supper-table, the easy lounging attitudes of the well-fed men, the flare of the lights which cast a ruddy glow on old and young faces and sparkled over the burnished pewter,—then with a strange yearning pain in his eyes he turned slowly away, leaning on the arm of the girl beside him, and went,—leaving the merry-makers to themselves.
CHAPTER III
Returning to the room where he had sat alone before supper, he sank heavily into the armchair he had previously occupied. The window was still open, and the scent of roses stole in with every breath of air,—a few stars sparkled in the sky, and a faint line of silver in the east showed where the moon would shortly rise. He looked out in dreamy silence, and for some minutes seemed too much absorbed in thought to notice the presence of Innocent, who had seated herself at a small table near him, on which she had set a lit candle, and was quietly sewing. She had forgotten that she still wore the wreath of wild roses,—the fragile flowers were drooping and dying in her hair, and as she bent over her work and the candlelight illumined her delicate profile, there was something almost sculptural in the shape of the leaves as they encircled her brow, making her look like a young Greek nymph or goddess brought to life out of the poetic dreams of the elder world. She was troubled and anxious, but she tried not to let this seem apparent. She knew from her life's experience of his ways and whims that it was best to wait till the old man chose to speak, rather than urge him into talk before he was ready or willing. She glanced up from her sewing now and again and saw that he looked very pale and worn, and she felt that he suffered. Her tender young heart ached with longing to comfort him, yet she knew not what she should say. So she sat quiet, as full of loving thoughts as a Madonna lily may be full of the dew of Heaven, yet mute as the angelic blossom itself. Presently he moved restlessly, and turning in his chair looked at her intently. The fixity of his gaze drew her like a magnet from her work and she put down her sewing.
"Do you want anything, Dad?"
He rose, and began to fumble with the buttons of his smock.
"Ay—just help me to get this off. The working day is over,—the working clothes can go!"
She was at his side instantly and with her light deft fingers soon disembarrassed him of the homely garment. When it was taken off a noticeable transformation was effected in his appearance. Clad in plain dark homespun, which was fashioned into a suit somewhat resembling the doublet and hose of olden times, his tall thin figure had a distinctly aristocratic look and bearing which was lacking when clothed in the labourer's garb. Old as he was, there were traces of intellect and even beauty in his features,—his head, on which the thin white hair shone like spun silver, was proudly set on his shoulders in that unmistakable line which indicates the power and the will to command; and as he unconsciously drew himself upright he looked more like some old hero of a hundred battles than a farmer whose chief pride was the excellence of his crops and the prosperity of his farm managed by hand work only. For despite the jeers of his neighbours, who were never tired of remonstrating with him for not "going with the times," Jocelyn had one fixed rule of farming, and this was that no modern machinery should be used on his lands. He was the best employer of labour for many and many a mile round, and the most generous as well as the most exact paymaster, and though people asserted that there was no reasonable explanation for it, nevertheless it annually happened that the hand-sown, hand-reaped crops of Briar Farm were finer and richer in grain and quality, and of much better value than the machine-sown, machine-reaped crops of any other farm in the county or for that matter in the three counties adjoining. He stood now for a minute or two watching Innocent as she looked carefully over his smock frock to see if there were any buttons missing or anything to be done requiring the services of her quick needle and thread,—then as she folded it and put it aside on a chair he said with a thrill of compassion in his voice:
"Poor little child, thou hast eaten no supper! I saw thee playing with the bread and touching no morsel. Art not well?"
She looked up at him and tried to smile, but tears came into her eyes despite her efforts to keep them back.
"Dear Dad, I am only anxious," she murmured, tremulously. "You, too, have had nothing. Shall I fetch you a glass of the old wine? It will do you good."
He still bent his brows thoughtfully upon her.
"Presently—presently—not now," he answered. "Come and sit by me at the window and I'll tell you—I'll tell you what you must know. But see you, child, if you are going to cry or fret, you will be no help to me and I'll just hold my peace!"
She drew a quick breath, and her face paled.
"I will not cry," she said,—"I will not fret. I promise you, Dad!"
She came close up to him as she spoke. He took her gently in his arms and kissed her.
"That's a brave girl!" And holding her by the hand he drew her towards the open window—"Look out there! See how the stars shine! Always the same, no matter what happens to us poor folk down here,—they twinkle as merrily over our graves as over our gardens,—and yet if we're to believe what we're taught nowadays, they're all worlds more or less like our own, full of living creatures that suffer and die like ourselves. It's a queer plan of the Almighty, to keep on making wonderful and beautiful things just to destroy them! There seems no sense in it!"
He sat down again in his chair, and she, obeying his gesture, brought a low stool to his feet and settled herself upon it, leaning against his knee. Her face was upturned to his and the flickering light of the tall candles quivering over it showed the wistful tender watchfulness of its expression—a look which seemed to trouble him, for he avoided her eyes.
"You want to know what the London doctor said," he began. "Well, child, you'll not be any the better for knowing, but it's as I thought. I've got my death-warrant. Slowton was not sure about me,—but this man, ill as he is himself, has had too much experience to make mistakes. There's no cure for me. I may last out another twelve months—perhaps not so long—certainly not longer."
He saw her cheeks grow white with the ashy whiteness of a sudden shock. Her eyes dilated with pain and fear, and a quick sigh escaped her, then she set her lips hard.
"I don't believe it," she said, adding with stronger emphasis—"I WON'T believe it!"
He patted the small hand that rested on his knee.
"You won't? Poor little girl, you must believe it!—and more than that, you must be prepared for it. Even a year's none too much for all that has to be done,—'twill almost take me that time to look the thing square in the face and give up the farm for good."—Here he paused with a kind of horror at his own words—"Give up the farm!—My God! And for ever! How strange it seems!"
The tumult in her mind found sudden speech.
"Dad, dear! Dad! It isn't true! Don't think it! Don't mind what the doctor says. He's wrong—I'm sure he's wrong! You'll live for many and many a happy year yet—oh yes, Dad, you will! I'm sure of it! You won't die, darling Dad! Why should you?"
She broke off with a half-smothered sob.
"Why should I?" he said, with a perplexed frown; "Ah!—that's more than I can tell you! There's neither rhyme nor reason in it that I can see. But it's the rule of life that it should end in death. For some the end is swift—for some it's slow—some know when it's coming—some don't,—the last are the happiest. I've been told, you see,—and it's no use my fighting against the fact,—a year at the most, perhaps less, is the longest term I have of Briar Farm. Your eyes are wet—you promised you wouldn't cry."
She furtively dashed away the drops that were shining on her lashes.
Then she forced a faint quivering smile.
"I'm not crying, Dad," she said. "There's nothing to cry for," and she fondled his hand in her own—"The doctors are wrong. You're only a little weak and run down—you'll be all right with rest and care—and—and you shan't die! You shan't die! I won't let you."
He drew a long breath and passed his hand across his forehead as though he were puzzled or in pain.
"That's foolish talk," he said, with some harshness; "You've got trouble to meet, and you must meet it. I'm bound to show you trouble—but I can show you a way out of it as well."
He paused a moment,—a light wind outside the lattice swayed a branch of roses to and fro, shaking out their perfume as from a swung censer.
"The first thing I must tell you," he went on, "is about yourself. It's time you should know who you are."
She looked up at him startled.
"Who I am?" she repeated,—then as she saw the stern expression on his face a sudden sense of fear ran through her nerves like the chill of an icy wind and she waited dumbly for his next word. He gripped her hand hard in his own.
"Now hear me out, child!" he said—"Let me speak on without interruption, or I shall never get through the tale. Perhaps I ought to have told you before, but I've put it off and put it off, thinking 'twould be time enough when you and Robin were wed. You and Robin—you and Robin!—your marriage bells have rung through my brain many and many a night for the past two years and never a bit nearer are you to the end of your wooing, such fanciful children as you both are! And you're so long about it and I've so short a time before me that I've made up my mind it's best to let you have all the truth about yourself before anything happens to me. All the truth about yourself—as far as I know it."
He paused again. She was perfectly silent. She trembled a little—wondering what she was going to hear. It must be something dreadful, she thought,—something for which she was unprepared,—something that might, perhaps, like a sudden change in the currents of the air, create darkness where there had been sunshine, storm instead of calm. His grip on her hand was strong enough to hurt her, but she was not conscious of it. She only wished he would tell her the worst at once and quickly. The worst,—for she instinctively felt there was no best.
"It was eighteen years ago this very haymaking time," he went on, with a dreamy retrospective air as though he were talking to himself,—"The last load had been taken in. Supper was over. The men had gone home,—Priscilla was clearing the great hall, when there came on a sudden storm—just a flash of lightning—I can see it now, striking a blue fork across the windows—a clap of thunder—and then a regular downpour of rain. Heavy rain, too,—buckets-full—for it washed the yard out and almost swamped the garden. I didn't think much about it,—the hay was hauled in dry, and that was all my concern. I stood under a shed in the yard and watched the rain falling in straight sheets out of a sky black as pitch—I could scarcely see my own hand if I stretched it out before me, the night was so dark. All at once I heard the quick gallop of a horse's hoofs some way off,—then the sound seemed to die away,—but presently I heard the hoofs coming at a slow steady pace down our muddy old by-road—no one can gallop THAT, in any weather. And almost before I knew how it came there, the horse was standing at the farmyard gate, with a man in the saddle carrying a bundle in front of him. He was the handsomest fellow I ever saw, and when he dismounted and came towards me, and took off his cap in the pouring rain and smiled at me, I was fairly taken with his looks. I thought he must be something of a king or other great personage by his very manner. 'Will you do me a kindness?' he said, as gently as you please. 'This is a farm, I believe. I want to leave my little child here in safe keeping for a night. She is such a baby,—I cannot carry her any further through this storm.' And he put aside the wrappings of the bundle he carried and showed me a small pale infant asleep. 'She's motherless,' he added, 'and I'm taking her to my relatives. But I have to ride some distance from here on very urgent business, and if you will look after her for to-night I'll call for her to-morrow. Poor little innocent! She's hungry and fretful. I haven't anything to give her and the storm looks like continuing. Will you let her stay with you?' 'Certainly!' said I, without thinking a bit further about it. 'Leave her here by all means. We'll see she gets all she wants.' He gave me the child at once and said in a very soft voice: 'You are most generous!—"verily I have not found so great a faith, no not in Israel!" You're sure you don't mind?' 'Not at all!' I answered him,—'You'll come back for her to-morrow, of course.' He smiled and said—'Oh yes, of course! To-morrow! I'm really very much obliged to you!' Then he seemed to think for a moment and put his hand in his pocket, but I stopped him—'No, sir,' I said, 'excuse me, but I don't want any pay for giving a babe a night's shelter.' He looked at me very straight with his big clear hazel eyes, and then shook hands with me. 'You're an honest fellow,' he said,—and he stooped and kissed the child he had put into my arms. 'I'm extremely sorry to trouble you, but the storm is too much for this helpless little creature.' 'You yourself are wet through,' I interrupted. 'That doesn't matter,' he answered,—'for me nothing matters. Thank you a thousand times! Good-night!' The rain was coming down faster than ever and I stepped back into the shed, covering the child up so that the drifting wet should not beat upon it. He came after me and kissed it again, saying 'Good-night, poor little innocent, good-night!' three or four times. Then he went off quickly and sprang into his saddle and in the blur of rain I saw horse and man turn away. He waved his hand once and his handsome pale face gleamed upon me like that of a ghost in the storm. 'Till to-morrow!' he called, and was gone. I took the child into the house and called Priscilla. She was always a rough one as you know, even in her younger days, and she at once laid her tongue to with a will and as far as she dared called me a fool for my pains. And so I was, for when I came to think of it the man was a stranger to me, and I had never asked him his name. It was just his handsome face and the way he had with him that had thrown me off my guard as it were; so I stood and looked silly enough, I suppose, while Priscilla fussed about with the baby, for it had wakened and was crying. Well!"—and Jocelyn heaved a short sigh—"That's about all! We never saw the man again, and the child was never claimed; but every six months I received a couple of bank-notes in an envelope bearing a different postmark each time, with the words: 'For Innocent' written inside—"
She uttered a quick, almost terrified exclamation, and drew her hand away from his.
"Every six months for a steady twelve years on end," he went on,—"then the money suddenly stopped. Now you understand, don't you? YOU were the babe that was left with me that stormy night; and you've been with me ever since. But you're not MY child. I don't know whose child you are!"
He stopped, looking at her.
She had risen from her seat beside him and was standing up. She was trembling violently, and her face seemed changed from the round and mobile softness of youth to the worn pallor and thinness of age. Her eyes were luminous with a hard and feverish brilliancy.
"You—you don't know whose child I am!" she repeated,—"I am not yours—and you don't know—you don't know who I belong to! Oh, it hurts me!—it hurts me, Dad! I can't realise it! I thought you were my own dear father!—and I loved you!—oh, how much I loved you!—yet you have deceived me all along!"
"I haven't deceived you," he answered, impatiently. "I've done all for the best—I meant to tell you when you married Robin—"
A flush of indignation flew over her cheeks.
"Marry Robin!" she exclaimed—"How could I marry Robin? I'm nothing!
I'm nobody! I have not even a name!"
She covered her face with her hands and an uncontrollable sob broke from her.
"Not even a name!" she murmured—"Not even a name!"
With a sudden impulsive movement she knelt down in front of him like a child about to say its prayers.
"Oh, help me, Dad!" she said, piteously—"Comfort me! Say something—anything! I feel so lost—so astray! All my life seems gone!—I can't realise it! Yes, I know! You have been very kind,—all kindness, just as if I had been your own little girl. Oh, why did you tell me I was your own?—I was so proud to be your daughter—and now—it's so hard—so hard! Only a few moments ago I was a happy girl with a loving father as I thought—now I know I'm only a poor nameless creature,—deserted by my parents and left on your hands. Oh, Dad dear! I've given you years of trouble!—I hope I've been good to you! It's not my fault that I am what I am!"
He laid his wrinkled hand on her bowed head.
"Dear child, of course it's not your fault! That's what I've said all along. You're innocent, like your name,—and you've been a blessing to me all your days,—the farm has been brighter for your living on it,—so you've no cause to worry me or yourself about what's past long ago and can't be helped. No one knows your story but Priscilla,—no one need ever know."
She sprang up from her kneeling attitude.
"Priscilla!" she echoed—"She knew, and she never said a word!"
"If she had, she'd have got the sack," answered Jocelyn, bluntly. "You were brought up always as MY child."
He broke off, startled by the tragic intensity of her look.
"I want to know how that was," she said, slowly. "You told me my mother died when I was born."
He avoided her eyes.
"Well, that was true, or so I suppose," he said. "The man who brought you said you were motherless. But I—I have never married."
"Then how could you tell Robin—and everyone else about here that I was your daughter?"
He grew suddenly angry.
"Child, don't stare at me like that!" he exclaimed, with all an old man's petulance. "It doesn't matter what I said—I had to let the neighbours think you were mine—"
A light flashed in upon her, and she gave vent to a shuddering cry.
"Dad! Oh, Dad!"
Gripping both arms of his chair he raised himself into an upright posture.
"What now?" he demanded, almost fiercely—"What trouble are you going to make of it?"
"Oh, if it were only trouble," she exclaimed, forlornly. "It's far worse! You've branded me with shame! Oh, I understand now! I understand at last why the girls about here never make friends with me! I understand why Robin seems to pity me so much! Oh, how shall I ever look people in the face again!"
His fuzzy brows met in a heavy frown.
"Little fool!" he said, roughly,—"What shame are you talking of? I see no shame in laying claim to a child of my own, even though the claim has no reality. Look at the thing squarely! Here comes a strange man with a baby and leaves it on my hands. You know what a scandalous, gossiping little place this is,—and it was better to say at once the baby was mine than leave it to the neighbours to say the same thing and that I wouldn't acknowledge it. Not a soul about here would have believed the true story if I had told it to them. I've done everything for the best—I know I have. And there'll never be a word said if you marry Robin."
Her face had grown very white. She put up her hand to her head and her fingers touched the faded wreath of wild roses. She drew it off and let it drop to the ground.
"I shall never marry Robin!" she said, with quiet firmness—"And I will not be considered your illegitimate child any longer. It's cruel of you to have made me live on a lie!—yes, cruel!—though you've been so kind in other things. You don't know who my parents were—you've no right to think they were not honest!"
He stared at her amazed. For the first time in eighteen years he began to see the folly of what he had thought his own special wisdom. This girl, with her pale sad face and steadfast eyes, confronted him with the calm reproachful air of an accusing angel.
"What right have you?" she went on. "The man who brought me to you,—poor wretched me!—if he was my father, may have been good and true. He said I was motherless; and he, or someone else, sent you money for me till I was twelve. That did not look as if I was forgotten. Now you say the money has stopped—well!—my father may be dead." Her lips quivered and a few tears rolled down her cheeks. "But there is nothing in all this that should make you think me basely born,—nothing that should have persuaded you to put shame upon me!"
He was taken aback for a minute by her words and attitude—then he burst out angrily:
"It's the old story, I see! Do a good action and it turns out a curse! Basely born! Of course you are basely born, if that's the way you put it! What man alive would leave his own lawful child at a strange farm off the high-road and never claim it again? You're a fool, I tell you! This man who brought you to me was by his look and bearing some fine gentleman or other who had just the one idea in his head—to get rid of an encumbrance. And so he got rid of you—"
"Don't go over the whole thing again!" she interrupted, with weary patience-"-I was an encumbrance to him—I've been an encumbrance to you. I'm sorry! But in no case had you the right to set a stigma on me which perhaps does not exist. That was wrong!"
She paused a moment, then went on slowly:
"I've been a burden on you for six years now,—it's six years, you say, since the money stopped. I wish I could do something in return for what I've cost you all those six years,—I've tried to be useful."
The pathos in her voice touched him to the quick.
"Innocent!" he exclaimed, and held out his arms.
She looked at him with a very pitiful smile and shook her head.
"No! I can't do that! Not just yet! You see, it's all so unexpected—things have changed altogether in a moment. I can't feel quite the same—my heart seems so sore and cold."
He leaned back in his chair again.
"Ah, well, it is as I thought!" he said, irritably. "You're more concerned about yourself than about me. A few minutes ago you only cared to know what the doctors thought of my illness, but now it's nothing to you that I shall be dead in a year. Your mind is set on your own trouble, or what you choose to consider a trouble."
She heard him like one in a dream. It seemed very strange to her that he should have dealt her a blow and yet reproach her for feeling the force of it.
"I am sorry!" she said, patiently. "But this is the first time I have known real trouble—you forget that!—and you must forgive me if I am stupid about it. And if the doctors really believe you are to die in a year I wish I could take your place, Dad!—I would rather be dead than live shamed. And there's nothing left for me now,—not even a name—"
Here she paused and seemed to reflect.
"Why am I called Innocent?"
"Why? Because that's the name that was written on every slip of paper that came with each six months' money," he answered, testily. "That's the only reason I know."
"Was I baptised by that name?" she asked.
He moved uneasily.
"You were never baptised."
"Never baptised!" She echoed the words despairingly,—and then was silent for a minute's space. "Could you not have done that much for me?" she asked, plaintively, at last—"Would it have been impossible?"
He was vaguely ashamed. Her eyes, pure as a young child's, were fixed upon him in appealing sorrow. He began to feel that he had done her a grievous wrong, though he had never entirely realised it till now. He answered her with some hesitation and an effort at excuse.
"Not impossible—no,—maybe I could have baptised you myself if I had thought about it. 'Tis but a sprinkle of water and 'In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.' But somehow I never worried my head—for as long as you were a baby I looked for the man who brought you day after day, and in my own mind left all that sort of business for him to attend to—and when he didn't come and you grew older, it fairly slipped my remembrance altogether. I'm not fond of the Church or its ways,—and you've done as well without baptism as with it, surely. Innocent is a good name for you, and fits your case. For you're innocent of the faults of your parents whatever they were, and you're innocent of my blunders. You're free to make your own life pleasant if you'll only put a bright face on it and make the best of an awkward business."
She was silent, standing before him like a little statuesque figure of desolation.
"As for the tale I told the neighbours," he went on—"it was the best thing I could think of. If I had said you were a child I had taken in to adopt, not one of them would have believed me; 'twas a case of telling one lie or t'other, the real truth being so queer and out of the common, so I chose the easiest. And it's been all right with you, my girl, whichever way you put it. There may be a few stuck-up young huzzies in the village that aren't friendly to you, but you may take it that it's more out of jealousy of Robin's liking for you than anything else. Robin loves you—you know he does; and all you've got to do is to make him happy. Marry him, for the farm will be his when I'm dead, and it'll give me a bit of comfort to feel that you're settled down with him in the old home. For then I know it'll go on just the same—just the same—"
His words trailed off brokenly. His head sank on his chest, and some slow tears made their difficult way out of his eyes and dropped on his silver beard.
She watched him with a certain grave compassion, but she did not at once go, as she would usually have done, to put her arms round his neck and console him. She seemed to herself removed miles away from him and from everything she had ever known. Just then there was a noise of rough but cheery voices outside shouting "good-night" to each other, and she said in a quiet tone:
"The men are away now. Is there anything you want before I go to bed?"
With a sudden access of energy, which contrasted strangely with his former feebleness, he rose and confronted her.
"No, there's nothing I want!" he said, in vehement tones—"Nothing but peace and quietness! I've told you your story, and you take it ill. But recollect, girl, that if you consider any shame has been put on you, I've put equal shame on myself for your sake—I, Hugo Jocelyn,—against whom never a word has been said but this,—which is a lie—that my child, mine!—was born out of wedlock! I suffered this against myself solely for your sake—I, who never wronged a woman in my life!—I, who never loved but one woman, who died before I had the chance to marry her!—and I say and I swear I have sacrificed something of my name and reputation to you! So that you need not make trouble because you also share in the sacrifice. Robin thinks you're my child, and therefore his cousin,—and he counts nothing against you, for he knows that what the world would count against you must be my fault and would be my fault, if the lie I started against myself was true. Marry Robin, I tell you!—and if you care to make me happy, marry him before I die. Then you're safe out of all harm's way. If you DON'T marry him—"
Her breath came and went quickly—she folded her hands across her bosom, trying to still the loud and rapid beating of her heart, but her eyes were very bright and steadfast.
"Yes? What then?" she asked, calmly.
"Then you must take the consequences," he said. "The farm and all I have is left to Robin,—he's my dead sister's son and my nearest living kin—"
"I know that," she said, simply, "and I'm glad he has everything. It's right that it should be so. I shall not be in his way. You may be quite sure of that. But I shall not marry him."
"You'll not marry him?" he repeated, and seemed about to give vent to a torrent of invective when she extended her hands clasped together appealingly.
"Dad, don't be angry!—it only hurts you and it does no good! Just before supper you reminded me of what they say in Church that 'the sins of the fathers should be visited on the children, even unto the third and fourth generation.' I will not visit the sin of my father and mother on anyone. If you will give me a little time I shall be able to understand everything more clearly, and perhaps bear it better. I want to be quite by myself. I must try to see myself as I am,—unbaptised, nameless, forsaken! And if there is anything to be done with this wretched little self of mine, it is I that must do it. With God's help!" She sighed, and her lips moved softly again in the last words, "With God's help!"
He said nothing, and she waited a moment as if expecting him to speak. Then she moved to the table where she had been sitting and folded up her needlework.
"Shall I get you some wine, Dad?" she asked presently in a quiet voice.
"No!" he replied, curtly—"Priscilla can get it."
"Then good-night!"
Still standing erect he turned his head and looked at her.
"Are you going?" he said. "Without your usual kiss?—your usual tenderness? Why should you change to me? Your own father—if he was your father—deserted you,—and I have been, a father to you in his place, wronging my own honourable name for your sake; am I to blame for this? Be reasonable! The laws of man are one thing and the laws of God are another,—and we have to make the best we can of ourselves between the two. There's many a piece of wicked injustice in the world, but nothing more wicked than to set shame or blame on a child that's born without permit of law or blessing of priest. For it's not the child's fault,—it's brought into the world without its own consent,—and yet the world fastens a slur upon it! That's downright brutal and senseless!—for if there is any blame attached to the matter it should be fastened on the parents, and not on the child. And that's what I thought when you were left on my hands—I took the blame of you on myself, and I was careful that you should be treated with every kindness and respect—mind you that! Respect! There's not a man on the place that doesn't doff his cap to you; and you've been as my own daughter always. You can't deny it! And more than that"—here his strong voice faltered—"I've loved you!—yes-I've loved you, little Innocent—"
She looked up in his face and saw it quivering with suppressed emotion, and the strange cold sense of aloofness that had numbed her senses suddenly gave way like snow melting in the spring. In a moment she was in his arms, weeping out her pent-up tears on his breast, and he, stroking her soft hair, soothed her with every tender and gentle word he could think of.
"There, there!" he murmured, fondly. "Thou must look at it in this way, dear child! That if God deprived thee of one father he gave thee another in his place! Make the best of that gift before it be taken from thee!"
CHAPTER IV
There are still a few old houses left in rural England which are as yet happily unmolested by the destroying ravages of modern improvement, and Briar Farm was one of these. History and romance alike had their share in its annals, and its title-deeds went back to the autumnal days of 1581, when the Duke of Anjou came over from France to England with a royal train of noblemen and gentlemen in the hope to espouse the greatest monarch of all time, "the most renowned and victorious" Queen Elizabeth, whose reign has clearly demonstrated to the world how much more ably a clever woman can rule a country than a clever man, if she is left to her own instinctive wisdom and prescience. No king has ever been wiser or more diplomatic than Elizabeth, and no king has left a more brilliant renown. As the coldest of male historians is bound to admit, "her singular powers of government were founded equally on her temper and on her capacity. Endowed with a great command over herself, she soon obtained an uncontrolled ascendant over her people. Few sovereigns of England succeeded to the throne under more difficult circumstances, and none ever conducted the government with such uniform success and felicity." Had Elizabeth been weak, the Duke of Anjou might have realised his ambitious dream, with the unhappiest results for England; and that he fortunately failed was entirely due to her sagacity and her quick perception of his irresolute and feeble character. In the sumptuous train attendant upon this "Petit Grenouille," as he styled himself in one of his babyish epistles to England's sovereign majesty, there was a certain knight more inclined to the study of letters than to the breaking of lances,—the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin, who being much about the court in the wake of his somewhat capricious and hot-tempered master, came, unfortunately for his own peace of mind, into occasional personal contact with one of the most bewitching young women of her time, the Lady Penelope Devereux, afterwards Lady Rich, she in whom, according to a contemporary writer, "lodged all attractive graces and beauty, wit and sweetness of behaviour which might render her the mistress of all eyes and hearts." Surrounded as she was by many suitors, his passion was hopeless from the first, and that he found it so was evident from the fact that he suddenly disappeared from the court and from his master's retinue, and was never heard of by the great world again. Yet he was not far away. He had not the resolution to leave England, the land which enshrined the lady of his love,—and he had lost all inclination to return to France. He therefore retired into the depths of the sweet English country, among the then unspoilt forests and woodlands, and there happening to find a small manor-house for immediate sale, surrounded by a considerable quantity of land, he purchased it for the ready cash he had about him and settled down in it for the remainder of his life. Little by little, such social ambitions as he had ever possessed left him, and with every passing year he grew more and more attached to the simplicity and seclusion of his surroundings. He had leisure for the indulgence of his delight in books, and he was able to give the rein to his passion for poetry, though it is nowhere recorded that he ever published the numerous essays, sonnets and rhymed pieces which, written in the picturesque caligraphy of the period, and roughly bound by himself in sheepskin, occupied a couple of shelves in his library. He entered with animation and interest into the pleasures of farming and other agricultural pursuits, and by-and-bye as time went on and the former idol of his dreams descended from her fair estate of virtue and scandalised the world by her liaison with Lord Mountjoy, he appears to have gradually resigned the illusions of his first love, for he married a simple village girl, remarkable, so it was said, for her beauty, but more so for her skill in making butter and cheese. She could neither read nor write, however, and the traditions concerning the Sieur Amadis relate that he took a singular pleasure in teaching her these accomplishments, as well as in training her to sing and to accompany herself upon the lute in a very pretty manner. She made him an excellent wife, and gave him no less than six children, three boys and three girls, all of whom were brought up at home under the supervision of their father and mother, and encouraged to excel in country pursuits and to understand the art of profitable farming. It was in their days that Briar Farm entered upon its long career of prosperity, which still continued. The Sieur Amadis died in his seventieth year, and by his own wish, expressed in his "Last Will and Testament," was buried in a sequestered spot on his own lands, under a stone slab which he had himself fashioned, carving upon it his recumbent figure in the costume of a knight, a cross upon his breast and a broken sword at his side. His wife, though several years younger than himself, only lived a twelve-month after him and was interred by his side. Their resting-place was now walled off, planted thickly with flowers, and held sacred by every succeeding heir to the farm as the burial-place of the first Jocelyns. Steadily and in order, the families springing from the parent tree of the French knight Amadis had occupied Briar Farm in unbroken succession, and through three centuries the property had been kept intact, none of its possessions being dispersed and none of its land being sold. The house was practically in the same sound condition as when the Sieur Amadis fitted and furnished it for his own occupation,—there was the same pewter, the same solid furniture, the same fine tapestry, preserved by the careful mending of many hundreds of needles worked by hands long ago mingled with the dust of the grave, and, strange as it may seem to those who are only acquainted with the flimsy manufactures of to-day, the same stout hand-wrought linen, which, mended and replenished each year, lasted so long because never washed by modern methods, but always by hand in clear cold running water. There were presses full of this linen, deliriously scented with lavender, and there were also the spinning-wheels that had spun the flax and the hand-looms on which the threads had been woven. These were witnesses to the days when women, instead of gadding abroad, were happy to be at home—when the winter evenings seemed short and bright because as they sat spinning by the blazing log fire they were cheerful in their occupation, singing songs and telling stories and having so much to do that there was no time to indulge in the morbid analysis of life and the things of life which in our present shiftless day perplex and confuse idle and unhealthy brains.
And now after more than three centuries, the direct male line of Amadis de Jocelin had culminated in Hugo, commonly called Farmer Jocelyn, who, on account of some secret love disappointment, the details of which he had never told to anyone, had remained unmarried. Till the appearance on the scene of the child, Innocent, who was by the village folk accepted and believed to be the illegitimate offspring of this ill-starred love, it was tacitly understood that Robin Clifford, his nephew, and the only son of his twin sister, would be the heir to Briar Farm; but when it was seen how much the old man seemed to cling to Innocent, and to rely upon her ever tender care of him, the question arose as to whether there might not be an heiress after all, instead of an heir. And the rustic wiseacres gossiped, as is their wont, watching with no small degree of interest the turn of events which had lately taken place in the frank and open admiration and affection displayed by Robin for his illegitimate cousin, as it was thought she was, and as Farmer Jocelyn had tacitly allowed it to be understood. If the two young people married, everybody agreed it would be the right thing, and the best possible outlook for the continued prosperity of Briar Farm. For after all, it was the farm that had to be chiefly considered, so they opined,—the farm was an historic and valuable property as well as an excellent paying concern. The great point to be attained was that it should go on as it had always gone on from the days of the Sieur Amadis,—and that it should be kept in the possession of the same family. This at any rate was known to be the cherished wish of old Hugo Jocelyn, though he was not given to any very free expression of his feelings. He knew that his neighbours envied him, watched him and commented on his actions,—he knew also that the tale he had told them concerning Innocent had to a great extent whispered away his own good name and fastened a social slur upon the girl,—yet he could not, according to his own views, have seen any other way out of the difficulty. The human world is always wicked-tongued; and it is common knowledge that any man or woman introducing an "adopted" child into a family is at once accused, whether he or she be conscious of the accusation or not, of passing off his own bastard under the "adoption" pretext. Hugo Jocelyn was fairly certain that none of his neighbours would credit the romantic episode of the man on horseback arriving in a storm and leaving a nameless child on his hands. The story was quite true,—but truth is always precisely what people refuse to believe.
The night on which Innocent had learned her own history for the first time was a night of consummate beauty in the natural world. When all the gates and doors of the farm and its outbuildings had been bolted and barred for the night, the moon, almost full, rose in a cloudless heaven and shed pearl-white showers of radiance all over the newly-mown and clean-swept fields, outlining the points of the old house gables and touching with luminous silver the roses that clambered up the walls. One wide latticed window was open to the full inflowing of the scented air, and within its embrasure sat a lonely little figure in a loose white garment with hair tumbling carelessly over its shoulders and eyes that were wet with tears. The clanging chime of the old clock below stairs had struck eleven some ten minutes since, and after the echo of its bell had died away there had followed a heavy and intense silence. The window looked not upon the garden, but out upon the fields and a suggestive line of dark foliage edging them softly in the distance,—away down there, under a huge myriad-branched oak, slept the old knight Sieur Amadis de Jocelin and his English rustic wife, the founders of the Briar Farm family. The little figure in the dark embrasure of the window clasped its white hands and turned its weeping eyes towards that ancient burial-place, and the moon-rays shone upon its fair face with a silvery glimmer, giving it an almost spectral pallor. "Why was I ever born?" sighed a trembling voice—"Oh, dear God! Why did you let it be?"
The vacant air, the vacant fields looked blankly irresponsive. They had no sympathy to give,—they never have. To great Mother Nature it is not important how or why a child is born, though she occasionally decides that it shall be of the greatest importance how and why the child shall live. What does it matter to the forces of creative life whether it is brought into the world "basely," as the phrase goes, or honourably? The child exists,—it is a human entity—a being full of potential good or evil,—and after a certain period of growth it stands alone, and its parents have less to do with it than they imagine. It makes its own circumstances and shapes its own career, and in many cases the less it is interfered with the better. But Innocent could not reason out her position in any cold-blooded or logical way. She was too young and too unhappy. Everything that she had taken pride in was swept from her at once. Only that very morning she had made one of her many pilgrimages down to the venerable oak beneath whose trailing branches the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin lay, covered by the broad stone slab on which he had carved his own likeness, and she had put a little knot of the "Glory" roses between his mailed hands which were folded over the cross on his breast, and she had said to the silent effigy:
"It is the last day of the haymaking, Sieur Amadis! You would be glad to see the big crop going in if you were here!"
She was accustomed to talk to the old stone knight in this fanciful way,—she had done so all her life ever since she could remember. She had taken an intense pride in thinking of him as her ancestor; she had been glad to trace her lineage back over three centuries to the love-lorn French noble who had come to England in the train of the Due d'Anjou—and now—now she knew she had no connection at all with him,—that she was an unnamed, unbaptised nobody—an unclaimed waif of humanity whom no one wanted! No one in all the world—except Robin! He wanted her;—but perhaps when he knew her true history his love would grow cold. She wondered whether it would be so. If it were she would not mind very much. Indeed it would be best, for she felt she could never marry him.
"No, not if I loved him with all my heart!" she said, passionately—"Not without a name!—not till I have made a name for myself, if only that were possible!"
She left the window and walked restlessly about her room, a room that she loved very greatly because it had been the study of the Sieur Amadis. It was a wonderful room, oak-panelled from floor to ceiling, and there was no doubt about its history,—the Sieur Amadis himself had taken care of that. For on every panel he had carved with his own hand a verse, a prayer, or an aphorism, so that the walls were a kind of open notebook inscribed with his own personal memoranda. Over the wide chimney his coat-of-arms was painted, the colours having faded into tender hues like those of autumn leaves, and the motto underneath was "Mon coeur me soutien." Then followed the inscription:
"Amadis de Jocelin,
Knight of France,
Who here seekynge Forgetfulness did here fynde Peace."
Every night of her life since she could read Innocent had stood in front of these armorial bearings in her little white night-gown and had conned over these words. She had taken the memory and tradition of Amadis to her heart and soul. He was HER ancestor,—hers, she had always said;—she had almost learned her letters from the inscriptions he had carved, and through these she could read old English and a considerable amount of old French besides. When she was about twelve years old she and Robin Clifford, playing about together in this room, happened to knock against one panel that gave forth a hollow reverberant sound, and moved by curiosity they tried whether they could open it. After some abortive efforts Robin's fingers closed by chance on a hidden spring, which being thus pressed caused the panel to fly open, disclosing a narrow secret stair. Full of burning excitement the two children ran up it, and to their delight found themselves in a small square musty chamber in which were two enormous old dower-chests, locked. Their locks were no bar to the agility of Robin, who, fetching a hammer, forced the old hasps asunder and threw back the lids. The coffers were full of books and manuscripts written on vellum, a veritable sixteenth-century treasure-trove. They hastened to report the find to Farmer Jocelyn, who, though never greatly taken with books or anything concerning them, was sufficiently interested to go with the eager children and look at the discovery they had made. But as he could make nothing of either books or manuscripts himself, he gave over the whole collection to Innocent, saying that as they were found in her part of the house she might keep them. No one—not even Robin—knew how much she had loved and studied these old books, or how patiently she had spelt out the manuscripts; and no one could have guessed what a wide knowledge of literature she had gained or what fine taste she had developed from her silent communications with the parted spirit of the Sieur Amadis and his poetical remains. She had even arranged her room as she thought he might have liked it, in severe yet perfect taste. It was now her study as it had been his,—the heavy oak table had a great pewter inkstand upon it and a few loose sheets of paper with two or three quill pens ready to hand,—some quaint old vellum-bound volumes and a brown earthenware bowl full of "Glory" roses were set just where they could catch the morning sunshine through the lattice window. One side of the room was lined with loaded bookshelves, and at its furthest end a wide arch of roughly hewn oak disclosed a smaller apartment where she slept. Here there was a quaint little four-poster bedstead, hung with quite priceless Jacobean tapestry, and a still more rare and beautiful work of art—an early Italian mirror, full length and framed in silver, a curio worth many hundreds of pounds. In this mirror Innocent had surveyed herself with more or less disfavour since her infancy. It was a mirror that had always been there—a mirror in which the wife of the Sieur Amadis must have often gazed upon her own reflection, and in which, after her, all the wives and daughters of the succeeding Jocelyns had seen their charms presented to their own admiration. The two old dower-chests which had been found in the upper chamber were placed on either side of the mirror, and held all the simple home-made garments which were Innocent's only wear. A special joy of hers lay in the fact that she knew the management of the secret sliding panel, and that she could at her own pleasure slip up the mysterious stairway with a book and be thus removed from all the household in a solitude which to her was ideal. To-night as she wandered up and down her room like a little distraught ghost, all the happy and romantic associations of the home she had loved and cherished for so many years seemed cut down like a sheaf of fair blossoms by a careless reaper,—a sordid and miserable taint was on her life, and she shuddered with mingled fear and grief as she realised that she had not even the simple privilege of ordinary baptism. She was a nameless waif, dependent on the charity of Farmer Jocelyn. True, the old man had grown to love her and she had loved him—ah!—let the many tender prayers offered up for him in this very room bear witness before the throne of God to her devotion to her "father" as she had thought him! And now—if what the doctors said was true—if he was soon to die—what would become of her? She wrung her little hands in unconscious agony.
"What shall I do?" she murmured, sobbingly—"I have no claim on him, or on anyone in the world! Dear God, what shall I do?"
Her restless walk up and down took her into her sleeping-chamber, and there she lit a candle and looked at herself in the old Italian mirror. A little woe-begone creature gazed sorrowfully back at her from its shining surface, with brimming eyes and quivering lips, and hair all tossed loosely away from a small sad face as pale as a watery moon, and she drew back from her own reflection with a gesture of repugnance.
"I am no use to anybody in any way," she said, despairingly—"I am not even good-looking. And Robin—poor foolish Robin!—called me 'lovely' this afternoon! He has no eyes!"
Then a sudden thought flew across her brain of Ned Landon. The tall powerful-looking brute loved her, she knew. Every look of his told her that his very soul pursued her with a reckless and relentless passion. She hated him,—she trembled even now as she pictured his dark face and burning eyes;—he had annoyed and worried her in a thousand ways—ways that were not sufficiently open in their offence to be openly complained of, though had Farmer Jocelyn's state of health given her less cause for anxiety she might have said something to him which would perhaps have opened his eyes to the situation. But not now,—not now could she appeal to anyone for protection from amorous insult. For who was she—what was she that she should resent it? She was nothing!—a mere stray child whose parents nobody knew,—without any lawful guardian to uphold her rights or assert her position. No wonder old Jocelyn had called her "wilding"—she was indeed a "wilding" or weed,—growing up unwanted in the garden of the world, destined to be pulled out of the soil where she had nourished and thrown contemptuously aside. A wretched sense of utter helplessness stole over her,—of incapacity, weakness and loneliness. She tried to think,—to see her way through the strange fog of untoward circumstance that had so suddenly enshrouded her. What would happen when Farmer Jocelyn died? For one thing she would have to quit Briar Farm. She could not stay in it when Robin Clifford was its master. He would marry, of course; he would be sure to marry; and there would be no place for her in his home. She would have to earn her bread; and the only way to do that would be to go out to service. She had a good store of useful domestic knowledge,—she could bake and brew, and wash and scour; she knew how to rear poultry and keep bees; she could spin and knit and embroider; indeed her list of household accomplishments would have startled any girl fresh out of a modern Government school, where things that are useful in life are frequently forgotten, and things that are not by any means necessary are taught as though they were imperative. One other accomplishment she had,—one that she hardly whispered to herself—she could write,—write what she herself called "nonsense." Scores of little poems and essays and stories were locked away in a small old bureau in a corner of the room,—confessions and expressions of pent-up feeling which, but for this outlet, would have troubled her brain and hindered her rest. They were mostly, as she frankly admitted to her own conscience, in the "style" of the Sieur Amadis, and were inspired by his poetic suggestions. She had no fond or exaggerated idea of their merit,—they were the result of solitary hours and long silences in which she had felt she must speak to someone,—exchange thoughts with someone,—or suffer an almost intolerable restraint. That "someone" was for her the long dead knight who had come to England in the train of the Duc d'Anjou. To him she spoke,—to him she told all her troubles—but to no one else did she ever breathe her thoughts, or disclose a line of what she had written. She had often wondered whether, if she sent these struggling literary efforts to a magazine or newspaper, they would be accepted and printed. But she never made the trial, for the reason that such newspaper literature as found its way into Briar Farm filled her with amazement, repulsion and disgust. There was nothing in any modern magazine that at all resembled the delicate, pointed and picturesque phraseology of the Sieur Amadis! Strange, coarse slang-words were used,—and the news of the day was slung together in loose ungrammatical sentences and chopped-up paragraphs of clumsy construction, lacking all pith and eloquence. So, repelled by the horror of twentieth-century "style," she had hidden her manuscripts deeper than ever in the old bureau, under little silk sachets of dried rose-leaves and lavender, as though they were love-letters or old lace. And when sometimes she shut herself up and read them over she felt like one of Hamlet's "guilty creatures sitting at a play." Her literary attempts seemed to reproach her for their inadequacy, and when she made some fresh addition to her store of written thoughts, her crimes seemed to herself doubled and weighted. She would often sit musing, with a little frown puckering her brow, wondering why she should be moved to write at all, yet wholly unable to resist the impulse.
To-night, however, she scarcely remembered these outbreaks of her dreaming fancy,—the sordid, hard, matter-of-fact side of life alone presented itself to her depressed imagination. She pictured herself going into service—as what? Kitchen-maid, probably,—she was not tall enough for a house-parlourmaid. House-parlourmaids were bound to be effective,—even dignified,—in height and appearance. She had seen one of these superior beings in church on Sundays—a slim, stately young woman with waved hair and a hat as fashionable as that worn by her mistress, the Squire's lady. With a deepening sense of humiliation, Innocent felt that her very limitation of inches was against her. Could she be a nursery-governess? Hardly; for though she liked good-tempered, well-behaved children, she could not even pretend to endure them when they were otherwise. Screaming, spiteful, quarrelsome children were to her less interesting than barking puppies or squealing pigs;—besides, she knew she could not be an efficient teacher of so much as one accomplishment. Music, for instance; what had she learned of music? She could play on an ancient spinet which was one of the chief treasures of the "best parlour" of Briar Farm, and she could sing old ballads very sweetly and plaintively,—but of "technique" and "style" and all the latter-day methods of musical acquirement and proficiency she was absolutely ignorant. Foreign languages were a dead letter to her—except old French. She could understand that; and Villon's famous verses, "Ou sont les neiges d'antan?" were as familiar to her as Herrick's "Come, my Corinna, let us go a-maying." But, on the whole, she was strangely and poorly equipped for the battle of life. Her knowledge of baking, brewing, and general housewifery would have stood her in good stead on some Colonial settlement,—but she had scarcely heard of these far-away refuges for the destitute, as she so seldom read the newspapers. Old Hugo Jocelyn looked upon the cheap daily press as "the curse of the country," and never willingly allowed a newspaper to come into the living-rooms of Briar Farm. They were relegated entirely to the kitchen and outhouses, where the farm labourers smoked over them and discussed them to their hearts' content, seldom venturing, however, to bring any item of so-called "news" to their master's consideration. If they ever chanced to do so, he would generally turn round upon them with a few cutting observations, such as,—
"How do you know it's true? Who gives the news? Where's the authority? And what do I care if some human brute has murdered his wife and blown out his own brains? Am I going to be any the better for reading such a tale? And if one Government is in or t'other out, what does it matter to me, or to any of you, so long as you can work and pay your way? The newspapers are always trying to persuade us to meddle in other folks's business;—I say, take care of your own affairs!—serve God and obey the laws of the country, and there won't be much going wrong with you! If you must read, read a decent book—something that will last—not a printed sheet full of advertisements that's fresh one day and torn up for waste paper the next!"
Under the sway of these prejudiced and arbitrary opinions, it was not possible for Innocent to have much knowledge of the world that lay outside Briar Farm. Sometimes she found Priscilla reading an old magazine or looking at a picture-paper, and she would borrow these and take them up to her own room surreptitiously for an hour or so, but she was always more or less pained and puzzled by their contents. It seemed to her that there were an extraordinary number of pictures of women with scarcely any clothes on, and she could not understand how they managed to be pictured at all in such scanty attire.
"Who are they?" she asked of Priscilla on one occasion—"And how is it that they are photographed like this? It must be so shameful for them!"
Priscilla explained as best she could that they were "dancers and the like."
"They lives by their legs, lovey!" she said soothingly—"It's only their legs that gits them their bread and butter, and I s'pose they're bound to show 'em off. Don't you worry 'ow they gits done! You'll never come across any of 'em!"
Innocent shut her sensitive mouth in a firm, proud line.
"I hope not!" she said.
And she felt as if she had almost wronged the sanctity of the little study which had formerly belonged to the Sieur Amadis by allowing such pictures to enter it. Of course she knew that dancers and actors, both male and female, existed,—a whole troupe of them came every year to the small theatre of the country town which, by breaking out into an eruption of new slate-roofed houses among the few remaining picturesque gables and tiles of an earlier period, boasted of its "advancement" some eight or ten miles away; but her "father," as she had thought him, had an insurmountable objection to what he termed "gadding abroad," and would not allow her to be seen even at the annual fair in the town, much less at the theatre. Moreover, it happened once that a girl in the village had run away with a strolling player and had gone on the stage,—an incident which had caused a great sensation in the tiny wood-encircled hamlet, and had brought all the old women of the place out to their doorsteps to croak and chatter, and prognosticate terrible things in the future for the eloping damsel. Innocent alone had ventured to defend her.
"If she loved the man she was right to go with him," she said.
"Oh, don't talk to me about love!" retorted Priscilla, shaking her head—"That's fancy rubbish! You know naught about it, dearie! On the stage indeed! Poor little hussy! She'll be on the street in a year or two, God help her!"
"What is that?" asked Innocent. "Is it to be a beggar?"
Priscilla made no reply beyond her usual sniff, which expressed volumes.
"If she has found someone who really cares for her, she will never want," Innocent went on, gently. "No man could be so cruel as to take away a girl from her home for his own pleasure and then leave her alone in the world. It would be impossible! You must not think such hard things, Priscilla!"
And, smiling, she had gone her way,—while Priscilla, shaking her head again, had looked after her, dimly wondering how long she would keep her faith in men.
On this still moonlight night, when the sadness of her soul seemed heavier than she could bear, her mind suddenly reverted to this episode. She thought of the girl who had run away; and remembered that no one in the village had ever seen or heard of her again, not even her patient hard-working parents to whom she had been a pride and joy.
"Now she had a real father and mother!" she mused, wistfully—"They loved her and would have done anything for her—yet she ran away from them with a stranger! I could never have done that! But I have no father and no mother—no one but Dad!—ah!—how I have loved Dad!—and yet I don't belong to him—and when he is dead—"
Here an overpowering sense of calamity swept over her, and dropping on her knees by the open window she laid her head on her folded arms and wept bitterly.
A voice called her in subdued accents once or twice, "Innocent!
Innocent!"—but she did not hear.
Presently a rose flung through the window fell on her bent head. She started up, alarmed.
"Innocent!"
Timidly she leaned out over the window-sill, looking down into the dusky green of clambering foliage, and saw a familiar face smiling up at her. She uttered a soft cry.
"Robin!"
"Yes—it's Robin!" he replied. "Innocent, what's the matter? I heard you crying!"
"No—no!" she answered, whisperingly—"It's nothing! Oh, Robin!—why are you here at this time of night? Do go away!"
"Not I!" and Robin placed one foot firmly on the tough and gnarled branch of a giant wistaria that was trained thickly all over that side of the house—"I'm coming up!"
"Oh, Robin!" And straightway Innocent ran back into her room, there to throw on a dark cloak which enveloped her so completely that only her small fair head showed above its enshrouding folds,—then returning slowly she watched with mingled interest and trepidation the gradual ascent of her lover, as, like another Romeo, he ascended the natural ladder formed by the thick rope-like twisted stems of the ancient creeper, grown sturdy with years and capable of bearing a much greater weight than that of the light and agile young man, who, with a smile of amused triumph, at last brought himself on a level with the window-sill and seated himself on its projecting ledge.
"I won't come in," he said, mischievously—"though I might!—if I dared! But I mustn't break into my lady's bower without her sovereign permission! I say, Innocent, how pretty you look! Don't be frightened!—dear, dear little girl,—you know I wouldn't touch so much as a hair of your sweet little head! I'm not a brute—and though I'm longing to kiss you I promise I won't even try!"
She moved away from him into the deeper shadow, but a ray of the moon showed him her face, very pale, with a deep sadness upon it which was strange and new to him.
"Tell me what's wrong?" he asked. "I've been too wide-awake and restless to go to bed,—so I came out in the garden just to breathe the air and look up at your window—and I heard a sound of sobbing like that of a little child who was badly hurt—Innocent!"
For she had suddenly stretched out her hands to him in impulsive appeal.
"Oh yes—that's true!—I am badly hurt, Robin!" she said, in low trembling accents—"So badly hurt that I think I shall never get over it!"
Surprised, he took her hands in his own with a gentle reverence, though to be able to draw her nearer to him thus, set his heart beating quickly.
"What is it?" he questioned her, anxiously, as all unconsciously she leaned closer towards him and he saw her soft eyes, wet with tears, shining upon him like stars in the gloom. "Is it bad news of Uncle Hugo?"
"Bad news of him, but worse of me!" she answered, sighingly. "Oh,
Robin, shall I tell you?"
He looked at her tenderly. The dark cloak about her had fallen a little aside, and showed a gleam of white neck emerging from snowy drapery underneath—it was, to his fancy, as though a white rose-petal had been suddenly and delicately unfurled. He longed to kiss that virginal whiteness, and trembled at the audacity of his own desire.
"Yes, dear, tell me!" he murmured, abstractedly, scarcely thinking of what he was saying, and only conscious of the thrill and ecstasy of love which seemed to him the one thing necessary for existence in earth or heaven.
And so, with her hands still warmly held in his, she told him all. In a sad voice, with lowered eyes and quivering lips, she related her plaintive little history, disclosing her unbaptised shame,—her unowned parentage,—her desperately forlorn and lonely condition. And Robin listened—amazed and perplexed.
"It seems to be all my fault," concluded Innocent, sorrowfully—"and yet it is not really so! Of course I ought never to have been born—but I couldn't help it, could I? And now it seems quite wrong for me to even live!—I am not wanted—and ever since I was twelve years old your Uncle has only kept me out of charity—"
But at this Robin started as though some one had struck him.
"Innocent!" he exclaimed—"Do not say such a thing!—do not think it!
Uncle Hugo has LOVED you!—and you—you have loved him!"
She drew her hands away from his and covered her face.
"I know!—I know!" and her tears fell fast again—"But I am not his, and he is not mine!"
Robin was silent. The position was so unexpected and bewildering that he hardly knew what to say. But chiefly he felt that he must try and comfort this little weeping angel, who, so far as he was concerned, held his life subservient to her charm. He began talking softly and cheerily:
"Why should it matter so much?" he said. "If you do not know who you are—if none of us know—it may be more fortunate for you than you can imagine! We cannot tell! Your own father may claim you—your own mother—such things are quite possible! You may be like the princess of a fairy-tale—rich people may come and take you away from Briar Farm and from me—and you will be too grand to think of us any more, and I shall only be the poor farmer in your eyes—you will wonder how you could ever have spoken to me—"