Wilfrid Cumbermede Part 12

I had expected to spend the rest of the day with her, but the moment we reached her apartment, she got out a bottle of her home-made wine and some cake, saying it was time for me to go home. I was much disappointed--the more that the pretty Clara remained behind; but what could I do? I strolled back to Aldwick with my head fuller than ever of fancies new and old. But Mrs Wilson had said nothing of going to see her again, and without an invitation I could not venture to revisit the Hall.

In pondering over the events of the day, I gave the man I had met in the wood a full share in my meditations.

CHAPTER XI.

A TALK WITH MY UNCLE.

When I returned home for the Christmas holidays, I told my uncle, amongst other things, all that I have just recorded; for although the affair seemed far away from me now, I felt that he ought to know it. He was greatly pleased with my behaviour in regard to the apple. He did not identify the place, however, until he heard the name of the housekeeper: then I saw a cloud pa.s.s over his face. It grew deeper when I told him of my second visit, especially while I described the man I had met in the wood.

'I have a strange fancy about him, uncle,' I said. 'I think he must be the same man that came here one very stormy night--long ago--and wanted to take me away.'

'Who told you of that?' asked my uncle startled.

I explained that I had been a listener.

'You ought not to have listened.'

'I know that now; but I did not know then. I woke frightened, and heard the voices.'

'What makes you think he was the same man?'

'I can't be sure, you know. But as often as I think of the man I met in the wood, the recollection of that night comes back to me.'

'I dare say. What was he like?'

I described him as well as I could.

'Yes,' said my uncle, 'I dare say. He is a dangerous man.'

'What did he want with me?'

'He wanted to have something to do with your education. He is an old friend--acquaintance I ought to say--of your father's. I should be sorry you had any intercourse with him. He is a very worldly kind of man. He believes in money and rank and getting on. He believes in nothing else that, I know.'

'Then I am sure I shouldn't like him,' I said.

'I am pretty sure you wouldn't,' returned my uncle.

I had never before heard him speak so severely of any one. But from this time he began to talk to me more as if I had been a grown man.

There was a simplicity in his way of looking at things, however, which made him quite intelligible to a boy as yet uncorrupted by false aims or judgments. He took me about with him constantly, and I began to see him as he was, and to honour and love him more than ever.

Christmas-day this year fell on a Sunday. It was a model Christmas-day.

My uncle and I walked to church in the morning. When we started, the gra.s.s was shining with frost, and the air was cold; a fog hung about the horizon, and the sun shone through it with red rayless countenance.

But before we reached the church, which was some three miles from home, the fog was gone, and the frost had taken shelter with the shadows; the sun was dazzling without being clear, and the golden c.o.c.k on the spire was glittering keen in the moveless air.

'What do they put a c.o.c.k on the spire for, uncle?' I asked.

'To end off with an ornament, perhaps,' he answered.

'I thought it had been to show how the wind blew.'

'Well, it wouldn't be the first time great things--I mean the spire, not the c.o.c.k--had been put to little uses.'

'But why should it be a c.o.c.k,' I asked, 'more than any other bird?'

'Some people--those to whom the church is chiefly historical--would tell you it is the c.o.c.k that rebuked St Peter. Whether it be so or not, I think a better reason for putting it there would be that the c.o.c.k is the first creature to welcome the light, and tell people that it is coming. Hence it is a symbol of the clergyman.'

'But our clergyman doesn't wake the people, uncle. I've seen him send _you_ to sleep sometimes.'

My uncle laughed.

'I dare say there are some dull c.o.c.ks too,' he answered.

'There's one at the farm,' I said, 'which goes on crowing every now and then all night--in his sleep--Janet says. But it never wakes till all the rest are out in the yard.'

My uncle laughed again. We had reached the churchyard, and by the time we had visited grannie's grave--that was the only one I thought of in the group of family mounds--the bells had ceased, and we entered.

I at least did not sleep this morning; not however because of the anti-somnolence of the clergyman--but that, in a pew not far off from me, sat Clara. I could see her as often as I pleased to turn my head half-way round. Church is a very favourable place for falling in love.

It is all very well for the older people to shake their heads and say you ought to be minding the service--that does not affect the fact stated--especially when the clergyman is of the half-awake order who take to the church as a gentleman-like profession. Having to sit so still, with the pretty face so near, with no obligation to pay it attention, but with perfect liberty to look at it, a boy in the habit of inventing stories could hardly help fancying himself in love with it. Whether she saw me or not, I cannot tell. Although she pa.s.sed me close as we came out, she did not look my way, and I had not the hardihood to address her.

As we were walking home, my uncle broke the silence.

'You would like to be an honourable man, wouldn't you, Willie?' he said.

'Yes, that I should, uncle.'

'Could you keep a secret now?'

'Yes, uncle.'

'But there are two ways of keeping a secret.'

'I don't know more than one.'

'What's that?'

'Not to tell it.'

'Never to show that you knew it, would be better still.'

'Yes, it would--'

'But, suppose a thing:--suppose you knew that there was a secret; suppose you wanted very much to find it out, and yet would not try to find it out: wouldn't that be another way of keeping it?'

'Yes, it would. If I knew there was a secret, I should like to find it out.'