Hills of the Shatemuc Part 61

"O Mr. Winthrop!" cried the other, -- "what shall we do? we can't get home, and I'm so frightened! --"

Winthrop had not time to open his lips, for either civility or consolation, when a phaeton, coming at a furious rate, suddenly pulled up before them, and Mr. Satterthwaite jumped out of it and joined himself to the group. His business was to persuade Miss Haye to take the empty place in his carriage and escape with him to the shelter of her own house or his father's. Miss Haye however preferred getting wet, and walking through the mud, and being blinded with the lightning, all of which alternatives Mr. Satterthwaite presented to her; at least no other conclusion could be drawn, for she very steadily and coolly refused to ride home with him.

"Mr. Landholm," said Mr. Satterthwaite in desperation, "don't you advise Miss Haye to agree to my proposition?"

"I never give advice, sir," said Winthrop, "after I see that people's minds are made up. Perhaps Miss Cadwallader may be less stubborn."

Mr. Satterthwaite could do no other than turn to Miss Cadwallader, who wanted very little urging.

"But Rose!" said her cousin, -- "you're not going to leave me alone?"

"No, I don't," said Rose. "I'm sure you've got somebody with you; and he's got an umbrella."

"Don't, Rose!" said Elizabeth, -- "stay and go home with me -- the storm will be over directly."

"It won't -- I can't," said Rose, -- "It won't be over this hour, and I'm afraid --"

And into Mr. Satterthwaite's phaeton she jumped, and away Mr.

Satterthwaite's phaeton went, with him and her in it.

"You had better step under shelter, Miss Haye," said Winthrop; "it is beginning to sprinkle pretty fast."

"No," said Elizabeth, "I'll go home -- I don't mind it. I would rather go right home -- I don't care for the rain."

"But you can't go without the umbrella," said Winthrop, "and that belongs to me."

"Well, won't you go with me?" said Elizabeth, with a look half doubtful and half daunted.

"Yes, as soon as it is safe. This is a poor place, but it is better than nothing. You must come in here and have patience till then."

He went in and Elizabeth followed him, and she stood there looking very doubtful and very much annoyed; eyeing the fast falling drops as if her impatience could dry them up. The little smithy was black as such a place should be; nothing looked like a seat but the anvil, and that was hardly safe to take advantage of.

"I wish there was something here for you to sit down upon,"

said Winthrop peering about, -- "but everything is like Vulcan's premises. It is a pity I am not Sir Walter Raleigh for your behoof; for I suppose Sir Walter didn't mind walking home without his coat, and I do."

"He only threw off his cloak," said Elizabeth.

"I never thought of wearing mine this afternoon," said Winthrop, "though I brought an umbrella. But see here, Miss Elizabeth, -- here is a box, one end of which, I think, may be trusted. Will you sit down?"

Elizabeth took the box, seeming from some cause or other tongue-tied. She sat looking out through the open door at the storm in a mixture of feelings, the uppermost of which was vexation.

"I hope more than one end of this box may be trusted," she presently roused herself to say. "I have no idea of giving half trust to anything."

"Yet that is quite as much as it is safe to give to most things," said Winthrop.

"Is it?"

"I am afraid so."

"I wouldn't give a pin for anything I couldn't trust entirely," said Elizabeth.

"Which shews what a point of perfection the manufacture of pins has reached since the days of Anne Boleyn," said Winthrop.

"Of Anne Boleyn! -- What of them then?"

"Only that a statute was pa.s.sed in that time, ent.i.tled, 'An act for the true making of pins;' so I suppose they were then articles of some importance. But the box may be trusted, Miss Haye, for strength, if not for agreeableness. A quarter of agreeableness with a remainder of strength, is a fair proportion, as things go."

"Do you mean to compare life with this dirty box?" said Elizabeth.

"They say an image should always elevate the subject," said Winthrop smiling.

"What was the matter with the making of pins," said Elizabeth, "that an act had to be made about it?"

"Why in those days," said Winthrop, "mechanics and tradespeople were in the habit occasionally of playing false, and it was necessary to look after them."

Elizabeth sat silently looking out again, wondering -- what she had often wondered before -- where ever her companion had got his cool self-possession; marvelling, with a little impatient wonder, how it was that he would just as lief talk to her in a blacksmith's shop in a thunder-storm, as in anybody's drawing- room with a band playing and fifty people about. She was no match for him, for she felt a little awkward. She, Miss Haye, the heiress in her own right, who had lived in good company ever since she had lived in company at all. Yet there he stood, more easily, she felt, than she sat. She sat looking straight out at the rain and thinking of it.

The open doorway and her vision were crossed a moment after by a figure which put these thoughts out of her head. It was the figure of a little black girl, going by through the rain, with an old basket at her back which probably held food or firing that she had been picking up along the streets of the city.

She wore a wretched old garment which only half covered her, and that was already half wet; her feet and ancles were naked; and the rain came down on her thick curly head. No doubt she was accustomed to it; the road-worn feet must have cared little for wet or dry, and the round shock of wool perhaps never had a covering; yet it was bowed to the rain, and the little blackey went by with lagging step and a sort of slow crying. It touched Elizabeth with a disagreeable feeling of pain. The thought had hardly crossed her mind, that she was sorry for her, when to her great surprise she saw her companion go to the door and ask the little object of her pity to come in under the shed. The child stopped her slow step and her crying and looked up at him.

"Come in here till the rain's over," he repeated.

She gave her head a sort of matter-of-course shake, without moving a pair of intelligent black eyes which had fixed on his face.

"Come in," said Winthrop.

The child shook her head again, and said,

"Can't!"

"Why not?" said Winthrop.

"Mustn't!"

"Why mustn't you?"

"'Cause."

"Come in," said Winthrop, -- and to Elizabeth's exceeding astonishment he laid hold of the little black shoulder and drew the girl into the shop, -- "it is going to storm hard; -- why mustn't you?"

The little blackey immediately squatted herself down on the ground against the wall, and looking up at him repeated,

"'Cause."

"It's going to be a bad storm; -- you'll be better under here."

The child's eyes went out of the door for a moment, and then came back to his face, as if with a sort of fascination.