The Story of Antony Grace Part 101

"Don't you know me again, Jack?"

He stared hard at me for some moments, took his pipe out of his mouth again, spat once more in the water, said surlily, "No!" and bent down slowly to his work.

"Don't you remember my going up to London with you nine years ago this summer?"

He a.s.sumed the perpendicular at once, stared, scowled, took his pipe out of his mouth with his left hand, and then, as a great smile gradually dawned all over his brown face, he gave one leg a smart slap with a great palm, and seemed to shake himself from his shoulders to his heels, which I found was his way of having a hearty laugh.

"Why, so it is!" he cried, in a sort of good-humoured growl. "Missus, lash that there tiller and come ash.o.r.e. Here's that there young chap."

To Tom's great amus.e.m.e.nt, Jack came ash.o.r.e at the lock, and was followed by his round-faced partner, for whom he showed his affection by giving her a tremendous slap on the shoulder, to which she responded by driving her elbow into his side, and saying, "Adone, Jack. Don't be a fool!"

and ending by staring at us hard.

"I didn't know yer agen," growled Jack. "Lor' ain't you growed!"

"Why, so have you, Jack," I exclaimed, shaking hands with him; and then with the lady, for he joined our hands together, taking up hers and placing it in mine, as if he were performing a marriage ceremony.

"Well, I s'pose I have," he said in his slow, c.u.mbersome way. "This here's my missus. We was only married larst week. This here's our boat. She was born aboard one on 'em."

"I'm glad to see you again, Jack," I said, as the recollection of our journey up recurred to me, strengthened by our meeting.

"So am I," he growled. "Lor'! I do wish my old man was here, too: he often talked about you."

"About me, Jack?"

"Ah! 'member that pot o' beer you stood for him when you was going away--uppards--you know?"

"Yes; I remember."

"So do he. He says it was the sweetest drop he ever had in his life; and he never goes by that 'ere house without drinking your health."

"Jack often talks about you," said "my missus."

"I should think I do!" growled Jack. "I say, missus, what's in the pot?"

"Biled rabbit, inguns, and bit o' bacon," was the prompt reply.

"Stop an' have a bit o' dinner with us, then. I've got plenty o' beer."

I was about to say no, as I glanced at Tom; but his eyes were full of glee, and he kept nodding his head, so I said _yes_.

The result was that the barge was taken through the lock, and half-a-mile lower down drawn close in beneath some shady trees, where we partook of Jack's hospitality--his merry-hearted, girlish wife, when she was not staring at us, striving hard to make the dinner prepared for two enough for four.

I dare say it was very plebeian taste, but Tom and I declared honestly that we thoroughly enjoyed the dinner partaken of under the trees upon the gra.s.s; and I said I never knew how good Dutch cheese and new crusty country loaf, washed down by beer from a stone bottle, were before.

We parted soon after, Jack and I exchanging rings; for when I gave him a plain gold gipsy ring for his handkerchief, he insisted upon my taking the home-made silver one he wore; while his wife was made happy with a gaily coloured silk handkerchief which I used to wear at night.

The last I saw of them was Jack standing up waving his red cap over his head, and "my missus" the gaily coloured handkerchief. After that they pa.s.sed on down stream, and Tom and I went our way.

I could not have been a very good walker in my early days, for my companion and I soon got over the ground between the river and Rowford, even though I stopped again and again--to show where I had had my fight; where I had hidden from Blakeford when the pony-chaise went by; and, as if it had never been moved, there by the road was a heap of stones where I had slept and had my bundle stolen.

It was one bright summer's evening that we entered Rowford, which seemed to have shrunk and its houses to have grown dumpy since the days when I used to go out to post letters for Mr Blakeford.

"There's his house, Tom," I said; and I felt my pulses accelerate their beat, as I saw the gates, and the wall over which I had climbed, and found myself wondering whether the same dog was in there still.

We were too tired with our long walk to take much notice, and made straight for the inn, where, after a hearty meal, we were glad to go early to bed.

Tom was sleeping soundly when I woke the next morning, and finding it was not yet seven, I dressed and went out for a walk, to have a good look round the old place, and truth to tell, to walk by Mr Blakeford's house, thinking I might perhaps see Hetty.

We had made no plans. I was to come down to Rowford, and the next day but one I was due in London, for our walk had taken some time--though a few hours by rail would suffice to take us back.

It was one of those delicious fresh mornings when, body and mind at rest, all nature seems beautiful, and one feels it a joy only to exist.

I was going along the main street on the opposite side of the way, when I saw a tall slight figure in deep mourning come out of Mr Blakeford's gateway, and go on towards the end of the town.

I followed with my heart beating strangely. I had not seen her face, but I seemed to feel that it was Hetty, and following her slowly right out of the town, and along the main road for a time till she struck up a side lane, I kept on wondering what she would be like, and whether she would know me; and if she did--what then?

Perhaps after all it was not Hetty. It might be some friend; and as I thought this, a strange pang of disappointment shot through me, and I seemed to have some faint dawning realisation of what Stephen Hallett's feelings must have been at many a bitter time.

Is this love? I asked myself as I walked on, drinking in the deliciously sweet morning scents, and listening to the songs of the birds and the hum of the insects in the bright June sunshine.

I could not answer the question: all I knew was that I was in an agony to see that face, to be out of my state of misery and doubt; but though a dozen times over I was on the point of walking on fast and then turning back so as to meet her, I had not the courage.

For quite half-an-hour this went on, she being about a hundred yards in advance. We were now in rather a secluded lane, and I was beginning to fear that she intended to cut across the fields, and return by the lower road, when, all at once, she faced round and began to retrace her steps.

I saw her hesitate a moment as she became aware that she had been followed, but she came straight on, and as she drew near my doubts were set at rest. It was unmistakably Hetty, but grown sweeter looking and more beautiful, and my heart began to throb wildly as the distance between us grew short.

She did not know me--that was evident; and yet there was a look of doubt and hesitation in her face, while after a moment's wonder as to how I should address her, I saw her countenance change, and troubled no more about etiquette, but, carried away by my feelings, I exclaimed: "Hetty!

dear Hetty!" and clasped her hands in mine.

CHAPTER SIXTY ONE.

MY MEETING WITH MY ENEMY.

These things are a mystery. No doubt we two, parting as we did, boy and girl, ought to have met formally as strangers, perhaps have been re-introduced, and I ought to have made my approaches _en regle_, but all I knew then was that the bright, affectionate little girl who had been so kind to me had grown into a beautiful woman, whom I felt that I dearly loved; and as for Hetty, as she looked up in my face in a quiet, trusting way, she calmly told me that she had always felt that I should come back some day, and that though she hardly recognised me at first, she was not a bit surprised.

Terribly prosaic and unromantic all this, no doubt; but all young people are not driven mad by persecution, and do not tie their affections up in knots and tangles which can never perhaps be untied. All I know is that I remember thinking that when Adam awoke and found Eve by his side in Paradise, he could not have felt half so happy as I did then; and that, walking slowly back with Hetty's little hand resting upon my arm, and held in its place by one twice as large, I thought Paradise might have been a very pleasant kind of place, but that this present-day world would do for me.

We said very little, much as we wanted to say, but walked on, treading as it were upon air, till, as if in a moment, we were back at the town, when she said with a quiver in her voice:

"I must leave you now. Papa will be waiting for me to pour out his coffee. He will not touch it unless I do."

"You are in mourning for Mrs Blakeford," I said, and my eyes fell upon the little shabby silver brooch I had given her all those years ago.

"Yes, and papa has not been the same since she died. He has very bad health now, and is sadly changed. He is in some great trouble, too, but I don't know what."

I did; and I walked on thoughtfully by her side till we reached the gate, where we stopped, and she laid her hand in mine.