The Squire's Daughter. Hocking Silas Kitto

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      He reached the high road at length, and then hurried forward with long strides in the direction of St. Goram.

      The cottage they had taken was at the extreme end of the village, and, curiously enough, was in the neighbouring parish of St. Ivel.

      CHAPTER IX

      PREPARING TO GO

      Almost close to St. Goram were the lodge gates of Hamblyn Manor. The manor itself was at the end of a long and winding avenue, and behind a wide belt of trees. As Ralph reached the lodge gates he walked a little more slowly, then paused for a moment and looked at the lodge with its quaint gables, its thatched roof and overhanging eaves. Beyond the gates the broad avenue looked very majestic and magnificently rich in colour. The yellow leaves were only just beginning to fall, while the evergreens looked all the greener by contrast with the reds and browns.

      He turned away at length, and came suddenly face to face with "the squire's little maid." She was seated in her rubber-tyred bath-chair, which was drawn by a white donkey. By the side of the donkey walked a boy in buttons. Ralph almost gasped. So great a change in so short a time he had never witnessed before. Only eight or nine weeks had passed since the accident, and yet they seemed to have added years to her life. She was only a girl when he carried her from Treliskey Plantation down to the high road. Now she was a woman with deep, pathetic eyes, and cheeks hollowed with pain.

      Ralph felt the colour mount to his face in a moment, and his heart stabbed him with a sudden poignancy of regret. He wished again, as he had wished many times during the last two months, that he had pocketed his pride and opened the gate. It might be quite true that she had no right to speak to him as she did, quite true also that it was the most natural and human thing in the world to resent being spoken to as though he were a serf. Nevertheless, the heroic thing – the divine thing – would have been to return good for evil, and meet arrogance with generosity.

      He would have passed on without presuming to recognise her, but she would not let him.

      "Stop, James," she called to the boy; and then she smiled on Ralph ever so sweetly, and held out her hand.

      For a moment a hot wave of humiliation swept over him from head to foot. He seemed to realise for the first time in his life what was meant by heaping coals of fire on one's head. He had the whole contents of a burning fiery furnace thrown over him. He was being scorched through every fibre of his being.

      At first he almost resented the humiliation. Then another feeling took possession of him, a feeling of admiration, almost of reverence. Here was nobleness such as he himself had failed to reach. Here was one high in the social scale, and higher still in grace and goodness, condescending to him, who had indirectly been the cause of all her suffering. Then in a moment his mood changed again to resentment. This was the daughter of the man who had broken his father's heart. But a moment ago he had looked into his father's hopeless, suffering eyes, and felt as though it would be the sweetest drop of his life if he could make John Hamblyn and all his tribe suffer as he had made them suffer.

      But even as he reached out his hard brown hand to take the pale and wasted one that was extended to him, the pendulum swung back once more; the better and nobler feeling came back. The large sad eyes that looked up into his had in them no flash of pride or arrogance. The smile that played over her wan, pale face seemed as richly benevolent as the sunshine of God. Possibly she knew nothing of the calamity that had overtaken him and his, a calamity that her father might have so wonderfully lightened, and at scarcely any cost to himself, had he been so disposed. But it was not his place to blame the child for what her father had done or left undone.

      The soft, thin fingers were enveloped in his big strong palm, and then his eyes filled. A lump came up into his throat and prevented him from speaking. Never in all his life before had he seemed so little master of himself.

      Then a low, sweet voice broke the silence, and all his self-possession came back to him.

      "I am so glad I have met you."

      "Yes?" he questioned.

      "I wanted to thank you for saving my life."

      He dropped his eyes slowly, and a hot wave swept over him from head to foot.

      "Dr. Barrow says if you had not found me when you did I should have died." And she looked at him as if expecting an answer. But he did not reply or even raise his head.

      "And you carried me such a long distance, too," she went on, after a pause; "and I heard Dr. Barrow tell the nurse that you bound up my head splendidly."

      "You were not much to carry," he said, raising his head suddenly. "But – but you are less now." And his voice sank almost to a whisper.

      "I have grown very thin," she said, with a wan smile. "But the doctor says I shall get all right again with time and patience."

      "I hoped you would have got well much sooner," he said, looking timidly into her face. "I have suffered a good deal during your illness."

      "You?" she questioned, raising her eyebrows. "Why?"

      "Because if I had not been surly and boorish, the accident would not have happened. If you had died, I should never have forgiven myself."

      "No, no; it was not your fault at all," she said quickly. "I have thought a good deal about it while I have been ill, and I have learnt some things that I might never have learnt any other way, and I see now that – that – " And she dropped her eyes to hide the moisture that had suddenly gathered. "I see now that it was very wrong of me to speak to you as I did."

      "You were reared to command," he said, ready in a moment to champion her cause, "and I ought to have considered that. Besides, it isn't a man's place to be rude to a girl – I beg your pardon, miss, I mean to a – "

      "No, no," she interrupted, with a laugh; "don't alter the word, please. If I feel almost an old woman now, I was only a girl then. How much we may live in a few weeks! Don't you think so?"

      "You have found that out, have you?" he questioned. And a troubled look came into his eyes.

      "You see, lying in bed, day after day and week after week, gives one time to think – "

      "Yes?" he questioned, after a brief pause.

      She did not reply for several seconds; then she went on as if there had been no break. "I don't think I ever thought seriously about anything before I was ill. I took everything as it came, and as most things were good, I just enjoyed myself, and there seemed nothing else in the world but just to enjoy one's self – "

      "There's not much enjoyment for most people," he said, seeing she hesitated.

      "I don't think enjoyment ought to be the end of life," she replied seriously. Then, suddenly raising her eyes, she said —

      "Do you ever get perplexed about the future?"

      "I never get anything else," he stammered. "I'm all at sea this very moment."

      "You? Tell me about it," she said eagerly.

      He shrugged his shoulders, and looked along the road toward the village. Should he tell her? Should he open her eyes to the doings of her own father? Should he point out some of the oppressive conditions under which the poor lived?

      For a moment or two there was silence. He felt that her eyes were fixed intently on his face, that she was СКАЧАТЬ