He walked slowly, and with evident feebleness, across the length of the field which divided him from the farmhouse garden, and opening the green gate leading thereto, disappeared. The sun-bonneted individual called Priscilla walked or rather waddled towards the hay-waggon, and setting her arms akimbo on her broad hips, looked up with a grin at the young people on top.
"Well! Ye"re a fine couple up there! What are ye a-doin" of?"
"Never mind what we"re doing," said Robin, impatiently. "I say, Priscilla, do you think Uncle Hugo is really ill?"
Priscilla"s face, which was the colour of an ancient nutmeg, and almost as deeply marked with contrasting lines of brown and yellow, showed no emotion.
"He ain"t hisself," she said, bluntly.
"No," said Innocent, seriously,--"I"m sure he isn"t." Priscilla jerked her sunbonnet a little further back, showing some tags of dusty grey hair.
"He ain"t been hisself for this past year," she went on--"Mr. Slowton, bein" only a kind of village physic-bottle, don"t know much, an" yer uncle ain"t bin satisfied. Now there"s another doctor from London staying up "ere for "is own poor "elth, and yer Uncle said he"d like to "ave "is opinion,--so Mr. Slowton, bein" obligin" though ignorant, "as got "im in to see yer Uncle, and there they both is, in the best parlour, with special wine an" seedies on the table."
"Oh, it"ll be all right!" said Robin, cheerfully,--"Uncle Hugo is getting old, of course, and he"s a bit fanciful."
Priscilla sniffed the air.
"Mebbe--and mebbe not! What are you two waitin" for now?"
"For the men to come back with Roger. Then we"ll haul home."
"You"ll "ave to wait a bit longer, I"m thinkin"," said Priscilla--"They"s all drinkin" beer in the yard now an" tappin"
another barrel to drink at when the waggon comes in. There"s no animals on earth as ever thirsty as men! Well, good luck t"ye! I must go, or there"ll be a smell of burnin" supper-cakes."
She settled her sunbonnet anew and trotted away,--looking rather like a large spotted mushroom mysteriously set in motion and rolling, rather than walking, off the field.
When she was gone, Innocent sat down again upon the hay, this time without Cupid. He had flown off to join his mates on the farmhouse gables.
"Dad is really not well," she said, thoughtfully; "I feel anxious about him. If he were to die,--" At the mere thought her eyes filled with tears. "He must die some day," answered Robin, gently,--"and he"s old,--nigh on eighty."
"Oh, I don"t want to remember that," she murmured. "It"s the cruellest part of life--that people should grow old, and die, and pa.s.s away from us. What should I do without Dad? I should be all alone, with no one in the world to care what becomes of me."
"_I_ care!" he said, softly.
"Yes, you care--just now"--she answered, with a sigh; "and it"s very kind of you. I wish I could care--in the way you want me to--but--"
"Will you try?" he pleaded.
"I do try--really I do try hard," she said, with quite a piteous earnestness,--"but I can"t feel what isn"t HERE,"--and she pressed both hands on her breast--"I care more for Roger the horse, and Cupid the dove, than I do for you! It"s quite awful of me--but there it is! I love--I simply adore"--and she threw out her arms with an embracing gesture--"all the trees and plants and birds!--and everything about the farm and the farmhouse itself--it"s just the sweetest home in the world! There"s not a brick or a stone in it that I would not want to kiss if I had to leave it--but I never felt that way for you! And yet I like you very, very much, Robin!--I wish I could see you married to some nice girl, only I don"t know one really nice enough."
"Nor do I!" he answered, with a laugh, "except yourself! But never mind, dear!--we won"t talk of it any more, just now at any rate. I"m a patient sort of chap. I can wait!"
"How long?" she queried, with a wondering glance.
"All my life!" he answered, simply.
A silence fell between them. Some inward touch of embarra.s.sment troubled the girl, for the colour came and went flatteringly in her soft cheeks and her eyes drooped under his fervent gaze. The glowing light of the sky deepened, and the sun began to sink in a mist of bright orange, which was reflected over all the visible landscape with a warm and vivid glory. That strange sense of beauty and mystery which thrills the air with the approach of evening, made all the simple pastoral scene a dream of incommunicable loveliness,--and the two youthful figures, throned on their high dais of golden-green hay, might have pa.s.sed for the rustic Adam and Eve of some newly created Eden.
They were both very quiet,--with the tense quietness of hearts that are too full for speech. A joy in the present was shadowed with a dim unconscious fear of the future in both their thoughts,--though neither of them would have expressed their feelings in this regard one to the other. A thrush warbled in a hedge close by, and the doves on the farmhouse gables spread their white wings to the late sunlight, cooing amorously. And again the man spoke, with a gentle firmness:
"All my life I shall love you, Innocent! Whatever happens, remember that! All my life!"
CHAPTER II
The swinging open of a great gate at the further end of the field disturbed the momentary silence which followed his words. The returning haymakers appeared on the scene, leading Roger at their head, and Innocent jumped up eagerly, glad of the interruption.
"Here comes old Roger!" she cried,--"bless his heart! Now, Robin, you must try to look very stately! Are you going to ride home standing or sitting?"
He was visibly annoyed at her light indifference.
"Unless I may sit beside you with my arm round your waist, in the Pettigrew fashion, I"d rather stand!" he retorted. "You said Pettigrew"s hands were always dirty--so are mine. I"d better keep my distance from you. One can"t make hay and remain altogether as clean as a new pin!"
She gave an impatient gesture.
"You always take things up in the wrong way," she said--"I never thought you a bit like Pettigrew! Your hands are not really dirty!"
"They are!" he answered, obstinately. "Besides, you don"t want my arm round your waist, do you?"
"Certainly not!" she replied, quickly.
"Then I"ll stand," he said;--"You shall be enthroned like a queen and I"ll be your bodyguard. Here, wait a minute!"
He piled up the hay in the middle of the load till it made a high cushion where, in obedience to his gesture, Innocent seated herself.
The men leading the horse were now close about the waggon, and one of them, grinning sheepishly at the girl, offered her a daintily-made wreath of wild roses, from which all the thorns had been carefully removed.
"Looks prutty, don"t it?" he said.
She accepted it with a smile.
"Is it for me? Oh, Larry, how nice of you! Am I to wear it?"
"If ye loike!" This with another grin.
She set it on her uncovered head and became at once a model for a Romney; the wild roses with their delicate pink and white against her brown hair suited the hues of her complexion and the tender grey of her eyes;--and when, thus adorned, she looked up at her companion, he was fain to turn away quickly lest his admiration should be too plainly made manifest before profane witnesses.
Roger, meanwhile, was being harnessed to the waggon. He was a handsome creature of his kind, and he knew it. As he turned his bright soft glance from side to side with a conscious pride in himself and his surroundings, he seemed to be perfectly aware that the knots of bright red ribbon tied in his long and heavy mane meant some sort of festival.
When all was done the haymakers gathered round.
"Good luck to the last load, Mr. Clifford!" they shouted.
"Good luck to you all!" answered Robin, cheerily.
"Good luck t"ye, Miss!" and they raised their sun-browned faces to the girl as she looked down upon them. "As fine a crop and as fair a load next year!"
"Good luck to you!" she responded--then suddenly bending a little forward she said almost breathlessly: "Please wish luck to Dad! He"s not well--and he isn"t here! Oh, please don"t forget him!"
They all stared at her for a moment, as if startled or surprised, then they all joined in a stentorian shout.