I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales Part 28

"There, that'll do. I do believe you're spiteful because I didn't offer to kiss you when I came in. Here, Cousin 'Lizabeth," he exclaimed, starting up, "I'll be sworn for all your tongue you're the prettiest maid I've seen this five year. Give me a kiss."

"Don't, William!"

Such pa.s.sionate entreaty vibrated in her voice that William, who was advancing, stopped for a second to stare. Then, with a laugh, he had caught and kissed her loudly.

Her cheeks were flaming when she broke free.

William turned, emptied his gla.s.s at a gulp, and began to mix a second.

"There, there; you never look so well as when you're angered, 'Lizabeth."

"'Twas a coward's trick," she panted.

"Christmas-time, you spitfire. So you ain't married yet? Lord!

I don't wonder they fight shy of you; you'd be a handful, my vixen, for any man to tame. How's the old man?"

"He'll never be better."

"Like enough at his age. Is he hard set against me?"

"We've never spoke of you for years now, till to-night."

"To-night? That's queer. I've a mind to tip up a stave to let him know I'm about. I will, too. Let me see--"

"When Johnny comes marching home again, Hooray! Hoo--"

"Don't, don't! Oh, why did you come back to-night, of all nights?"

"And why the devil not to-night so well as any other? You're a comfortable lot, I must say! Maybe you'd like common metre better:--

"Within my fathers house The blessed sit at meat.

Whilst I my belly stay With husks the swine did eat."

--"Why shouldn't I wake the old man? I've done naught that I'm ashamed of."

"It don't seem you're improved by soldiering."

"Improved? I've seen life." William drained his gla.s.s.

"An' got degraded."

"Burn your tongue! I'm going to see him." He rose and made towards the door. 'Lizabeth stepped before him.

"Hush! You mustn't."

"'Mustn't?' That's a bold word."

"Well, then--'can't.' Sit down, I tell you."

"Hullo! Ain't you coming the mistress pretty free in this house?

Stand aside. I've got something to tell him--something that won't wait.

Stand aside, you she-cat!"

He pushed by her roughly, but she held on to his sleeve.

"It _must_ wait. Listen to me."

"I won't."

"You shall. He's dead."

"_Dead!_" He reeled back to the table and poured out another gla.s.sful with a shaking hand. 'Lizabeth noticed that this time he added no water.

"He died to-night," she explained; "but he's been ailin' for a year past, an' took to his bed back in October."

William's face was still pallid; but he merely stammered--

"Things happen queerly. I'll go up and see him; I'm master here now.

You can't say aught to that. By the Lord! but I can buy myself out--I'm sick of soldiering--and we'll settle down here and be comfortable."

"We?"

His foot was on the stair by this time. He turned and nodded.

"Yes, _we_. It ain't a bad game being mistress o' this house.

Eh, Cousin 'Lizabeth?"

She turned her hot face to the flame, without reply; and he went on his way up the stairs.

'Lizabeth sat for a while staring into the wood embers with shaded eyes.

Whatever the path by which her reflections travelled, it led in the end to the kettle. She remembered that the tea was still to make, and, on stooping to set the kettle back upon the logs, found it emptied by William's potations. Donning her stout shoes and pattens, and slipping a shawl over her head, she reached down the lantern from its peg, lit it, and went out to fill the kettle at the spring.

It was pitch-dark; the rain was still falling, and as she crossed the yard the sodden straw squeaked beneath her tread. The yard had been fashioned generations since, by levelling back from the house to the natural rock of the hill-side, and connecting the two on the right by cow-house and stable, with an upper storey for barn and granary, on the left by a low wall, where, through a rough gate, the cart-track from the valley found its entrance. Against the further end of this wall leant an open cart-shed; and within three paces of it a perpetual spring of water gushing down the rock was caught and arrested for a while in a stone trough before it hurried out by a side gutter, and so down to join the trout-stream in the valley below. The spring first came to light half-way down the rock's face. Overhead its point of emergence was curtained by a network of roots pushed out by the trees above and sprawling over the lip in helpless search for soil.

'Lizabeth's lantern threw a flare of yellow on these and on the bubbling water as she filled her kettle. She was turning to go when a sound arrested her.

It was the sound of a suppressed sob, and seemed to issue from the cart-shed. 'Lizabeth turned quickly and held up her lantern. Under the shed, and barely four paces from her, sat a woman.

The woman was perched against the shaft of a hay-waggon, with her feet resting on a mud-soiled carpet-bag. She made but a poor appealing figure, tricked out in odds and ends of incongruous finery, with a bonnet, once smart, hanging limply forward over a pair of light-coloured eyes and a very lachrymose face. The ambition of the stranger's toilet, which ran riot in cheap jewellery, formed so odd a contrast with her sorry posture that 'Lizabeth, for all her wonder, felt inclined to smile.

"What's your business here?"

"Oh, tell me," whimpered the woman, "what's he doing all this time?

Won't his father see me? He don't intend to leave me here all night, surely, in this bitter cold, with nothing to eat, and my gown ruined!"

"He?" 'Lizabeth's att.i.tude stiffened with suspicion of the truth.