True Tilda Part 35

"Though," said he, "there be scenes hereabouts that I finds painful, and I'm doin' a great deal to oblige you."

"It's a strange thing to me," said Tilda reflectively, gazing after him until his tall figure was lost in the darkness between the gas-lamps, "'ow all these grown-ups get it fixed in their 'eads that _they're_ doin' the pertectin'. I reckon their size confuses 'em."

They found the Fat Lady sitting up and awaiting them in some anxiety.

"It's on account of the dog," she explained while 'Dolph devoured them with caresses. "I managed to keep him pretty quiet all day, but when the time came for me to perform, and I had to leave him locked in the van here, he started turnin' it into a menagerie. Gavel has sent around twice to say that if it's a case of 'Love me, love my dog,' him and me'll have to break contracts."

"Leadin' this sort o' life don't suit 'im," said Tilda.

"No," Mrs. Lobb agreed; "he's drunk as a lord again, and his temper something awful."

Tilda stared.

"I meant the dog," she explained.

So the children, looking forth and judging the coast clear, took G.o.dolphus for a scamper across the dark meadow. They returned to find their hostess disrobed and in bed, and again she had the tea-equipage arrayed and the kettle singing over the spirit-lamp.

"It's healthful, no doubt--all this exercise," she remarked with a somewhat wistful look at their glowing faces; "but it's not for me," she added. "There's another thing you've taught me. I've often wondered, sittin' alone here--supposin' as there had really been a Mr. Lobb--how I could have done with the children. Now, my dears, it's pleasant havin'

your company; but there's an anxiety about it that I find wearin'.

A week of it, and I'd be losin' flesh. And the moral is, if you're an artist you must make sacrifices."

The Fat Lady sighed. She sighed again and more heavily as, having extinguished the lamp, she composed herself to sleep.

Early next morning they bade her farewell, and departed with her blessing. Now Tilda the match-maker had arranged in her mind a very pretty scene of surprise and reconciliation. But, as she afterwards observed, "there's times when you worrit along for days together, an' no seemin' good of it; an' then one mornin' you wakes up to find everything goin' like clockwork, an' yerself standin' by, an' watchin', an' feelin'

small."

So it happened this morning as they drew near to Weston. There in the morning light they saw the broken lock with a weir beside it, and over the weir a tumble of flashing water; an islet or two, red with stalks of loosestrife; a swan bathing in the channel between. And there, early as they came, Sam Bossom stood already on the lock-bank; but not awaiting them, and not alone. For at a distance of six paces, perhaps, stood the girl of the blue sun-bonnet, confronting him.

Tilda gasped.

"And I got 'er promise to wait till I called 'er. It's--it's unwomanly!"

Sam turned and caught sight of them. He made as though to leave the girl standing, and came a pace towards them, but halted. There was a great awe in his face.

"'Enery's broke it off!" he announced slowly, and his voice trembled.

"I could a-told yer that." Tilda's manner was short, as she produced the letter and handed it to him. "There--go to 'im," she said in a gentler voice as she slipped past the girl. "'E's good, as men go; and 'e's suffered."

She walked resolutely away down the path.

"But where are you going?" asked Arthur Miles, running and catching up with her.

"Farther on, as usual," she snapped. "Can't yer see they don't want us?"

"But why?"

"Because they're love-makin'."

He made no answer, and she glanced at his face. Its innocent wonderment nettled her the more, yet she had no notion why. She walked on faster than ever. In the clearing by the "Four Alls" they came on the young American. He had packed up his camp furniture, and was busy stowing it in the canoe.

"Hullo!" he greeted them. "Can't stay for another sitting, if that's what you're after."

With Tilda in her present mood the boy felt a sudden helplessness.

The world in this half-hour--for the first time since his escape--had grown unfriendly. His friends were leaving him, averting their faces, turning away to their own affairs. He stretched out his hands.

"Won't you take us with you?"

Mr. Jessup stared.

"Why, certainly," he answered after a moment. "Hand me the valise, there, and nip on board. There's plenty of room."

He had turned to Tilda and was addressing her. She obeyed, and handed the valise automatically. Certainly, and without her help, the world was going like clockwork this morning.

CHAPTER XVIII.

DOWN AVON.

"_ O, my heart! as white sails shiver, And crowds are pa.s.sing, and banks stretch wide, How hard to follow, with lips that quiver, That moving speck on the far-off side._"--JEAN INGELOW.

They were afloat: Arthur Miles in the bows, Tilda amidships, and both facing Mr. Jessup, who had taken the stern seat, and there steered the canoe easily with a single paddle, as the Indians do.

They shot under the scour of a steep bank covered with thorns and crab-apple trees and hummocks of sombre gra.s.s. Beyond this they drifted down to Welford Weir and Mill, past a slope where the yellowing chestnuts all but hid Welford village. They had to run the canoe ash.o.r.e here, unlade her of the valises and camp furniture, and carry her across the weir. The children enjoyed this amazingly.

"Boy, would you like to take a paddle?" asked Mr. Jessup.

Now this was what Arthur Miles had been desiring for twenty minutes past, and with all his soul. So now, the canoe having been launched again and Tilda transferred to the bows, he found himself perched amidships, with his gaze fixed on the reaches ahead, and in his hand a paddle, which he worked cautiously at first, following Mr. Jessup's instructions. But confidence soon grew in him, and he began to put more vigour into his strokes. "Right, sonny," and "Better and better"

commented his instructor, for the child took to it as a duck to water.

In twenty minutes or so he had learnt to turn his paddle slantwise after the stroke, and to drag it so as to a.s.sist the steering; which was not always easy, for here and there a snag blocked the main channel, or a pebbly shallow where the eye had to search for the smooth V that signals the best water. Tilda watched him, marvelling at his strange apt.i.tude, and once, catching her eye, he nodded; but still, as he mastered the knack, and the stroke of the paddle became more and more mechanical, his attention disengaged itself from the moment--from the voice of Mr.

Jessup astern, the girl's intent gaze, the swirl about the blade, the scent and pageant of the green banks on either hand--and pressed forward to follow each far curve of the stream, each bend as it slowly unfolded.

Bend upon bend--they might fold it a hundred deep; but somewhere ahead and beyond their folding lay the Island.

In this wise they pa.s.sed under a gra.s.sy hillside set with trimmed elms, and came to Grange Mill and another portage; and below Grange to Bidford, where there is a bridge of many arches carrying the old Roman road called Icknield Street; and from the bridge and grey little town they struck into a long reach that ran straight into the dazzle of the sun--through flat meadows at first, and then, with a turn, under the steep of Marcleeve Hill, that here borders Avon to the south for miles.

Here begin the spurs of the Cotswolds--scars of green and red marle dotted with old thorn trees or draped with ash and maple, or smothered with trails of the Traveller's Joy.

Mr. Jessup, whose instructions had become less and less frequent, and indeed were by this time patently superfluous, so quick the boy showed himself to antic.i.p.ate the slightest warning, hereabouts engaged Tilda in converse.

"He's a wonder, this child! I don't know where he comes from, or you, or how far you 're willing I should take you. In fact, there's an unholy flavour of kidnapping about this whole adventure. But I guess, if I wanted to return you, there are no railways hereabouts. We must strike the first depot we come to, and I'll frank you back, with apologies to your parents."

"We got none," Tilda a.s.sured him.

"For a steady-going country like England that's unusual, eh?"

"There is a bit o' that about us," she conceded after a pause.

"But you must belong to somebody?" he urged.