"I must go, Jacob--this suspense is choking me--I could not live another hour without learning something of them."
"No, not yet, I beg of you, do not go yet."
Ada Leicester turned abruptly toward her humble friend; her lips grew very pale.
"Why, why? have you inquired? have you heard anything?"
"No, I did not like to ask questions at first."
"Then you know absolutely nothing?"
"Nothing yet!"
"But you have seen the old house. It should be visible from this hollow!"
"Not now, madam. The orchard has grown round since--since----"
"Have the saplings grown into trees since then, Jacob? Indeed it seems but like yesterday to me," said the lady, with a sad wave of the hand.
"I thought to get a view of the house from this spot, just as one ponders over the seal of a letter, afraid to read the news within. Let me sit down, I feel tired and faint."
Jacob moved back from the stone, and tears absolutely came into his eyes as she sat down.
"How strangely familiar everything is," said the lady, looking around, "this tuft of white flowers close by the stone--it scarcely seems to have been out of blossom since I was here last, I remember. But why have you crushed them with your feet, Jacob?"
"Because _I_ remember!" answered the man, removing his heavy foot from the bruised flowers, and regarding them with a stern curve of the lip, which on his irregular mouth was strangely impressive. The lady raised her eyes, filled with vague wonder, to his features. Jacob was troubled by that questioning glance.
"I never loved flowers," he faltered.
"You never loved flowers! Oh, Jacob, how can you say so?"
"Not that kind, at any rate, ma"am," answered Jacob, almost vehemently, pointing down with his finger. "The last time I came this way, a snake was creeping round among those very flowers. That snake left poison on everything it touched, at least in this valley."
The lady gazed on his excited face a moment very earnestly. Then the broad, white lids drooped over her eyes, and she only answered with a profound sigh.
The look of humble repentance that fell upon Jacob"s face was painful to behold. He stood uneasily upon his feet, gazing down upon the tuft of flowers his pa.s.sion had trampled to the earth. His large hands, with their loosely knit joints, became nervously restless, and he cast furtive glances at the face and downcast features of the lady. He could not speak, but waited for her to address him again, in his heart of hearts sorry for the painful thoughts his words had aroused. At length he ventured to speak, and the humble, deprecating tones of his voice were almost painful to hear.
"The dews are falling, ma"am, and you are not used to sitting in the damp."
"There was a time," said the lady, "when a little night dew would not drive me in doors."
"But now you are tired and hungry."
"No, Jacob, I can neither taste food nor take rest till we have been yonder--perhaps not then, for Heaven only knows what tidings may reach us. Go in and get some supper for yourself, my good friend."
Jacob shook his head.
"I _am_ wrong," persisted the lady; "let me sit here till the dusk comes on; then I will find my way to the house--perhaps I may sleep there to-night, Jacob, who knows?" She paused a moment, and added, "If they are alive, but surely I need not say if. They must be alive."
"I hope so," answered Jacob, pitying the wistful look with which the poor lady searched his features, hoping to gather confidence from their expression.
"And yet my heart is so heavy, so full of this terrible pain, Jacob.
Leave me now; if any thing can make me cry, it will be sitting here alone."
Jacob turned away, without a word of remonstrance. His own rude, honest heart was full, and the sickening anxiety manifest in every tone and look of his mistress was fast undermining his own manhood. He did not return to the tavern, however, but clambering over a fence, leaped into the clover field, and wading, knee-deep, through the fragrant blossoms, made his way toward the old farm-house, whose chimney and low, sloping roof became more and more visible with each step.
On he went, with huge, rapid strides, resolute to carry back some tidings to the unhappy woman he had just left. "I will see them first,"
he muttered; "they might not know her, or may have heard. It ain"t likely, though--who could bring such news into these parts? Anyhow, I will see that nothing is done to hurt her feelings."
Full of these thoughts, Jacob drew nearer and nearer to the old house.
He crossed the clover lot, and a fine meadow, whose thick, waving gra.s.s was still too green for the scythe, lay before him, bathed in the last rays of a midsummer sunset. Beyond this meadow rose the farm-house, silent and picturesque in the waning day, with gleams of golden light here and there breaking over the mossed old roof. Jacob paused, with his hand upon an upper rail of the fence. His heart misgave him. Every object was so painfully familiar, that he shrunk from approaching nearer. There was the garden sloping away from the old dwelling, with a line of cherry trees running along the fence, and shading triple rows of currant and gooseberry bushes, now bent to the ground with a load of crimson and purple fruit. There was the well sweep, with its long, round bucket swinging to the breeze, and the pear tree standing by, like an ancient sentinel staunch at his post, and verdant in its thrifty old age. A stone or two had fallen from the rough chimney, and on the sloping roof lay a greenish tinge, betraying the velvety growth of moss with which time had dotted the decayed shingles, while clumps of house-leeks cl.u.s.tered here and there in ma.s.ses from under their warped edges.
Silent and solemnly quiet stood that old dwelling amid the dying light which filled the valley. A few jetty birds were fluttering in and out of a martin-box at one end, and that was all the sign of life that appeared to the strained eyes of Jacob Strong. He stood, minute after minute, waiting for a sight of some other living object--a horse grazing at the back door--a human being approaching the well, anything alive would have given relief to his full heart.
He could contain himself no longer: a desperate wish to learn at once all that could give joy or pain to his mistress possessed him. He sprang into the meadow, found a path trodden through the gra.s.s, and sweeping the tall, golden lilies aside, where they fell over the narrow way, he strode eagerly forward, and soon found himself in a garden. It was full of coa.r.s.e vegetables, and gay with sun-flowers; tufts of "love-lies-bleeding" drooped around the gate, and flowering beans, tangled with morning-glories, half clothed the worm-eaten fence.
Coa.r.s.e and despised as some of these flowers are, how eloquently they spoke to the heart of Jacob Strong! The very sun-flowers, as they turned their great dials to the West, seemed to him redolent and golden with the light of other days. They filled his heart with new hope; since the earliest hour of his remembrance, those ma.s.sive blossoms had never been wanting at the old homestead.
Again the objects became more and more familiar. The plantain leaves about the well seemed to have kept their greenness for years. The grindstone, with a trough half full of water, stood in its old place by the back porch. Surely, while such things remained, the human beings that had lived and breathed in that lone dwelling, could not be entirely swept away!
Jacob Strong entered the porch and knocked gently at the door. A voice from within bade him enter, and, lifting the latch, he stood in a long, low kitchen, where two men, a woman, and a chubby little girl, sat at supper. One of the men, a stout, sun-burned fellow, arose, and placing a splint-bottomed chair for his guest, quietly resumed his place at the table, while the child sat with a spoon half way to its mouth, gazing with eyes full of wonder at the strange man.
Jacob stood awkwardly surveying the group. A chill of keen disappointment fell upon him. Of the four persons seated around that table, not one face was familiar. He sat down and looked ruefully around. A single tallow candle standing on the table shed its faint light through the room, but failed to reveal the troubled look that fell upon the visitor. The silence that he maintained seemed to astonish the family. The farmer turned in his chair, and at last opened a discourse after his own hospitable fashion.
"Sit by and take a bite of supper," he said, while his wife arose and went to a corner cupboard.
"No, I thank you," answered Jacob, with an effort; for the words seemed blocking up his throat.
"You had better sit by," observed the wife, modestly, coming from the cupboard with a plate and knife in her hands. "There"s nothing very inviting, but you"ll be welcome."
"Thank you," said Jacob, rising, "I"m not hungry; but if you"ve got a cup handy, I will get a drink at the well."
The farmer took a white earthen bowl from the table, and, reaching forward, handed it to his guest.
"And welcome! but you"ll find the well-pole rather hard to pull, I calculate."
Jacob took the bowl and went out. It seemed to him that a draught from that moss-covered bucket would drive away the chill that had fallen on his heart at the sight of those strange faces.
He sat the bowl down among the plantain leaves, and seizing the pole, plunged the old bucket deep into the well. When it came up again, full and dripping, he balanced it on the curb and drank. After this, he lingered a brief time by the well, filled with disappointment, and striving to compose his thoughts. At length he entered the house again with more calm and fixed resolution.
"This seems to be a fine place of yours," he said, taking the chair once more offered to his acceptance, and addressing the farmer. "That was as pretty a meadow I just crossed as one might wish to see!"
"Yes, there is some good land between this and the brook," answered the man, pleased with these commendations of his property.
"You keep it in good order, too; such timothy I have not seen these five years."
"Wal, true enough, one may call that gra.s.s a little mite superior to the common run, I do think!" answered the farmer, taking his chubby little daughter on one knee, and smoothing her thick hair with both his hard palms. "Considering how the old place was run down when we took it, we haven"t got much to be ashamed of, anyhow."
"You have not always owned the farm?" Jacob"s voice shook as he asked the question, but the farmer was busy caressing his child, and only observed the import of his words, not the tone in which they were uttered.