Mary Anerley : a Yorkshire Tale Part 22

"You must have a very low middle," said Insie; "why, it never comes half way to my knees."

"You have got no stockings, and no new gaiters," Lancelot answered, reasonably; and then, like two children, they set to and laughed, till the gill almost echoed with them.

"Why, you're holding the mouth of the pitcher down stream!" Insie could hardly speak for laughing. "Is that how you go to fill a pitcher?"

"Yes, and the right way too," he answered; "the best water always comes up the eddies. You ought to be old enough to know that."

"I don't know anything at all--except that you are ruining your best clothes."

"I don't care twopence for such rubbish. You ought to see me on a Sunday, Insie, if you want to know what is good. There, you never drew such a pitcher as that. And I believe there is a fish in the bottom of it."

"Oh, if there is a fish, let me have him in my hands. I can nurse a fish on dry land, until he gets quite used to it. Are you sure that there is a little fish?"

"No, there is no fish; and I am soaking wet. But I never care what anybody thinks of me. If they say what I don't like, I kick them."

"Ah, you are accustomed to have your own way. That any one might know by looking at you. But I have got a quant.i.ty of work to do. You can see that by my fingers."

The girl made a courtesy, and took the pitcher from him, because he was knocking it against his legs; but he could not be angry when he looked into her eyes, though the habit of his temper made him try to fume.

"Do you know what I think?" she said, fixing bright hazel eyes upon him; "I think that you are very pa.s.sionate sometimes."

"Well, if I am, it is my own business. Who told you anything about it?

Whoever it was shall pay out for it."

"n.o.body told me, Sir. You must remember that I never even heard of your name before."

"Oh, come, I can't quite take down that. Everybody knows me for fifty miles or more; and I don't care what they think of me."

"You may please yourself about believing me," she answered, without concern about it. "No one who knows me doubts my word, though I am not known for even five miles away."

"What an extraordinary girl you are! You say things on purpose to provoke me. n.o.body ever does that; they are only too glad to keep me in a good temper."

"If you are like that, Sir, I had better run away. My father will be home in about an hour, and he might think that you had no business here."

"I! No business upon my own land! This place must be bewitched, I think.

There is a witch upon the moors, I know, who can take almost any shape; but--but they say she is three hundred years of age, or more."

"Perhaps, then, I am bewitched," said Insie; "or why should I stop to talk with you, who are only a rude boy, after all, even according to your own account?"

"Well, you can go if you like. I suppose you live in that queer little place down there?"

"The house is quite good enough for me and my father and mother and brother Maunder. Good-by; and please never to come here again."

"You don't understand me. I have made you cry. Oh, Insie, let me have hold of your hand. I would rather make anybody cry than you. I never liked anybody so before."

"Cry, indeed! Who ever heard me cry? It is the way you splashed the water up. I am not in the habit of crying for a stranger. Good-by, now; and go to your great people. You say that you are bad; and I fear it is too true."

"I am not bad at all. It is only what everybody says, because I never want to please them. But I want to please you. I would give anything to do it; if you would only tell me how."

The girl having cleverly dried her eyes, poured all their bright beauty upon him, and the heart of the youth was enlarged with a new, very sweet, and most timorous feeling. Then his dark eyes dropped, and he touched her gently, and only said, "Don't go away."

"But I must go away," Insie answered, with a blush, and a look as of more tears lurking in her eyes. "I have stopped too long; I must go away at once."

"But when may I come again? I will hold you, and fight for you with everybody in the world, unless you tell me when to come again."

"Hush! I am quite ashamed to hear you talk so. I am a poor girl, and you a great young gentleman."

"Never mind that. That has nothing to do with it. Would you like to make me miserable, and a great deal more wicked than I ever was before? Do you hate me so much as all that, Insie?"

"No. You have been very kind to me. Only my father would be angry, I am sure; and my brother Maunder is dreadful. They all go away every other Friday, and that is the only free time I have."

"Every other Friday! What a long time, to be sure! Won't you come again for water this day fortnight?"

"Yes; I come for water three or four times every day. But if they were to see you, they would kill you first, and then lock me up forever. The only wise plan is for you to come no more."

"You can not be thinking for a moment what you say. I will tell you what; if you don't come, I will march up to the house, and beat the door in. The landlord can do that, according to law."

"If you care at all for me," said Insie, looking as if she had known him for ten years, "you will do exactly what I tell you. You will think no more about me for a fortnight; and then if you fancy that I can do you good by advice about your bad temper, or by teaching you how to plait reeds for a bat, and how to fill a pitcher--perhaps I might be able to come down the gill again."

"I wish it was to-morrow. I shall count the days. But be sure to come early, if they go away all day. I shall bring my dinner with me; and you shall have the first help, and I will carve. But I should like one thing before I go; and it is the first time I ever asked anybody, though they ask me often enough, I can tell you."

"What would you like? You seem to me to be always wanting something."

"I should like very much--very much indeed--just to give you one kiss, Insie."

"It can not be thought of for a moment," she replied; "and the first time of my ever seeing you, Sir!"

Before he could reason in favor of a privilege which goes proverbially by favor, the young maid was gone upon the winding path, with the pitcher truly balanced on her well-tressed head. Then Pet sat down and watched her; and she turned round in the distance, and waved him a kiss at decorous interval.

Not more than three days after this, Mrs. Carnaby came into the drawing-room with a hasty step, and a web of wrinkles upon her generally smooth, white forehead.

"Eliza," asked her sister, "what has put you out so? That chair is not very strong, and you are rather heavy. Do you call that gracefully sinking on a seat, as we used to learn the way to do at school?"

"No, I do not call it anything of the kind. And if I am heavy, I only keep my heart in countenance, Philippa. You know not the anxieties of a mother."

"I am thankful to say that I do not. I have plenty of larger cares to attend to, as well as the anxieties of an aunt and sister. But what is this new maternal care?"

"Poor Pet's illness--his serious illness. I am surprised that you have not noticed it, Philippa; it seems so unkind of you."

"There can not be anything much amiss with him. I never saw any one eat a better breakfast. What makes you fancy that the boy must be unwell?"

"It is no fancy. He must be very ill. Poor dear! I can not bear to think of it. He has done no mischief for quite three days."

"Then he must indeed be at the point of death. Oh, if we could only keep him always so, Eliza!"

"My dear sister, you will never understand him. He must have his little playful ways. Would you like him to be a milksop?"

"Certainly not. But I should like him first to be a manly boy, and then a boyish man. The Yordases always have been manly boys; instead of puling, and puking, and picking this, that, and the other."