"Then let me beg of you to be secret," whispered Christian, coming close to her ear.
The girl laughed bitterly.
"Never fear," she said, "it"s not for the woman to blab. No, the world is all for the man, and the law too. Men make the laws and women suffer under them--that"s the way of it."
The girl laughed again, and continued in mocking tones, ""Poor fellow, he"s been sorely tempted," says the world; "tut on her, never name her,"
says the law."
And once more the girl forced a hollow, bitter laugh.
Just then a child"s silvery voice was heard in the street beneath. The blithe call was--
"Sweet violets and primroses the sweetest."
The little feet tripped under the window. The loom stopped, and they listened. Then Christian looked into the young woman"s face, and blinding tears rose on the instant into the eyes of both.
"Mona!" he cried, in low pa.s.sionate tones, and opened his arms. There was an unspeakable language in her face. She turned her head toward him longingly, yearningly, with heaving breast. He took one step toward her.
She drew back. "No--not yet!" His arms fell, and he turned away.
Then the voice of Kerruish Kinvig could be heard in the outer factory.
"I"ve been middling long," he said, hurrying in, "but a man, a bailiff from England, came bothering about some young waistrel that I never heard of in my born days--had run away from his debts, and so on--had been traced to the Isle of Man, and on here to Peel. And think of that tomfool of a Tommy-Bill-beg sending the man to me. I bowled him off to your father."
"My father!" exclaimed Christian, who had listened to Kinvig"s rambling account with an uneasy manner.
"Yes, surely, and the likeliest man too. What"s a magistrate for at all if private people are to be moidered like yonder? But come, I"ll show you the sweet action of this loom in unwinding. Look now--see--keep your eye on those hooks."
And Kerruish Kinvig rattled on with his explanation to a deaf ear.
"Mr. Kinvig," interrupted Christian, "I happened to know that father is not risen yet this morning. That bailiff--"
"More shame for him; let him be roused anyhow. See here, though, press your hand on that level--so. Now when Mona puts down that other level--do you see? No! Why don"t you look closer?"
"Mr. Kinvig, do you know I half fancy that young fellow the man was asking for must have been an old college chum of mine. If you wouldn"t mind sending one of your girls after him to Balladhoo to ask him to meet me in half an hour at the harbor-master"s cottage on the quay--"
"Here! Let it be here;" calling "Jane!"
"No, let it be on the quay," said Christian; "I have to go there presently, and it will save time, you know."
"Bless me, man! have you come to your saving days at last?"
Kinvig turned aside, instructed Jane, and resumed the thread of his technical explanations.
"Let me show you this knot again; that b.u.m-bailiff creature was bothering you before. Look now--stand here--so."
"Yes," said Christian, with the resignation of a martyr.
Then Kinvig explained everything afresh, but with an enthusiasm that was sadly damped by Christian"s manifest inability to command the complexities of the invention.
"I thought once that you were going to be a bit of an engineer yourself, Christian. Bless me, the amazing learned you were at the wheels, and the cranks, and the axles when you were a lad in jackets; but"--with a suspicious smile--"it"s likely you"re doing something in the theology line now, and that"s a sort of feeding and sucking and suction that won"t go with the engineering anyhow." Christian smiled faintly, and Kinvig, as if by an after-thought shouted:
"Heigh-ho! Let"s take the road for it. We"ve kept this young woman too long from her work already." (Going out.) "You didn"t give her much of a spell at the work while I was away." (Outside.) "Oh, I saw the little bit of your sweethearting as I came back. But it"s wrong, Christian.
It"s a shame, man, and a middling big one, too."
"What"s a shame?" asked Christian, gasping out the inquiry.
"Why, to moider a girl with the sweethearting when she"s got her living to make. How would _you_ like it, eh? Middling well? Oh, _would_ you?
All piecework, you know; so much a piece of net, a hundred yards long and two hundred meshes deep; work from eight to eight; fourteen shillings a week, and a widowed mother to keep, and a little sister as well. How would you like it, eh?"
Christian shrugged his shoulders and hung his head.
"Tut, man alive, you fine fellows browsing on your lands, you scarce know you"re born. Come down and mix among poor folks like this girl, and her mother, and the little lammie, and you"ll begin to know you"re alive."
"I dare say," muttered Christian, making longish strides to the outer gate. A broad grin crossed the face of Kerruish Kinvig as he added:
"But I tell you what, when you get your white choker under your gills, and you do come down among the like of these people with your tracts, and your hymns, and all those rigs, and your face uncommon solemn, and your voice like a gannet--none of your sweethearting, my man. Look at that girl Mona, now. It isn"t reasonable to think you"re not putting notions into the girl"s head. It"s a shame, man."
"You"re right, Mr. Kinvig," said Christian, under his breath, "a cursed shame." And he stretched out his hand impatiently to bid good-by.
"No. I"ll go with you to Tommy-Bill-beg"s. Oh, don"t mind me. I"ve nothing particular on hand, or I wouldn"t waste my time on ye. Yes, as I say, it"s wrong. Besides, Christian, what you want to do now is to marry a girl with a property. That"s the only thing that will put yonder Balladhoo right again, and--in your ear, man--that"s about what your father"s looking for."
Christian winced, and then tried to laugh.
"Oh, that"s it, is it?" he said, absently.
"But leave the girls alone. They"re amazin" like the ghos"es, are the girls; once you start them you never know where they"ll stop, and they get into every skeleton closet about the house--but of course, of course, I"m an old bachelor, and as the saying is, I don"t know nothin"."
"Ha! ha! ha! of course not," laughed Christian with a tragic effort.
They had stopped outside the ivy cottage of the harbor-master, and that worthy, who was standing there, had overheard the last loud words of Kinvig"s conversation.
"What do _you_ say, Tommy-Bill-beg?" asked Kinvig, giving him a prod in the ribs.
"I say that the gels in these days ought to get wedded while they"re babbies in arms--"
"That"ll do, that"ll do," shouted Kinvig with a roar of laughter.
At the same moment one of the factory girls appeared side by side with a stranger.
"Good-by, Mr. Kinvig," said Christian.
"Good-day," Kinvig answered; and then shouting to the stranger, "this gentleman knows something of the young vagabond you want."
"So I see," answered the stranger with a cold smile, and Christian and the stranger stepped apart.