mind her trade.
Stead presently told Emlyn somewhat of the doctor's opinion, and then, producing his portion of the tester, and with lips that trembled in spite of himself, said that he had come to give Emlyn back her troth plight.
'Oh! Stead, Stead,' she cried, bursting into tears. 'I thought you had forgiven me.'
'Forgiven you! Yea, truly, poor child, but--'
'But only when you were sick! You cast me off now you are whole.'
'I shall never be whole again, Emlyn.'
'I don't believe Master Willis. He is nought but a barber,' she exclaimed passionately. 'I know there are physicians at the Bath who would cure you; or there's the little Jew by the wharf; or the wise man on Durdham Down. But you always are so headstrong; when you have made up your mind no one can move you, and you don't care whose heart you break,' she sobbed.
'Hearken, little sweet,' said Stead. ''Tis nought but that I wot that it would be ill for you to be bound to a poor frail man that will never be able to keep you as you should be kept. All I had put by is well nigh gone, and I'm not like to make it up again for many a year, even if I were as strong as ever.'
'And you won't go to the Jew, or the wise man, or the Bath?'
'I have not the money.'
'But I will--I will save it for you!' cried Emlyn, who never had saved in her life. 'Or look here. Master Henshaw might give you a place in his office, and then there would be no need to dwell in that nasty, damp gulley, but we could be in the town. I'll ask my mistress to crave it from him.'
Stead could not but smile at her eagerness, but he shook his head.
'It would be bootless, sweetheart, I cannot carry weights.'
'No, but you can write.'
'Very scurvily, and I cannot cypher.'
For Stead, like everyone else at Elmwood, kept his accounts by tally and in his head, and the mysteries of the nine Arabic figures were perfectly unknown to him. However, Emlyn stuck to the hope, and he was so far inspired by it that he ceased to insist on giving up the pledges of the betrothal, and he lay on the settle in quiet enjoyment of Emlyn's castle building, as she sat on a stool by his side, his hand on her shoulder, somewhat as it was wont to lie on Growler's head. And in spite of Master Willis's opinion, he rode home to the gulley a new man, assuring Patience, on the donkey by his side, that there was more staunchness and kindness in little Emlyn than ever they had thought for. Even the ferryman who put them over the river declared that the doctor must have done Master Kenton a power of good, and Stead smiled and did not contradict him.
Stead actually consulted Mr. Woodley how to learn cyphering beyond what Ben had acquired at school; and the minister lent him a treatise, over which he pored with a board and a burnt stick for many an hour when he was out on the common with the cattle, or on the darkening evenings in the hut. Ben saw his way into those puzzles with no more difficulty than whetted his appetite, worked out sum after sum, and explained them to his brother, to the admiration of both his elders, till frowns of despair and long sighs from Stead brought Patience to declare he was mazing himself, and insist on putting out the light.
Stead had more time for his studies than he could wish, for the cold of winter soon affected the injured lungs; and, moreover, the being no longer able to move about rapidly caused the damp and cold of the ravine to produce rheumatism and attendant ills, of which, in his former healthy, out-of-door life, he had been utterly ignorant, and he had to spend many an hour breathless, or racked with pain in the poor little hovel, sometimes trying to give his mind to the abstruse mysteries of multiplication of money, but generally in vain, and at others whiling away the time with his books, for though there were only seven of them, including Bible and Prayer-book, a very little reading could be the text of so much musing, that these few perfectly sufficed him. And then he was the nurse of any orphaned lamb or sick chicken that Patience was anxious about, and his care certainly saved many of those small lives.
The spring, when he came forth again, found him on a lower level, less strong and needing a stick to aid his rheumatic knee.
Not much was heard of Emlyn that spring. She did not come to market with her mistress, and Patience was not inclined to go in quest of her, having a secret feeling that no news might be better for Stead than anything she was likely to hear; while as to any chance of their coming together, the Kentons had barely kept themselves through this winter, and Steadfast's arithmetic was not making such progress as would give him a place at a merchant's desk.
Patience, however, was considerably startled when, one fine June day, she saw Mrs. Henshaw's servant point her out to two tall soldierly-looking men, apparently father and son.
'Good morrow to you, honest woman,' said the elder. 'I am told it is you who have been at charges for many years for my brother's daughter, Emlyn Gaythorn.'
Patience assented.
'You have been right good to her, I hear; and I thank you for that same, and will bear what we may of the expense,' he added, taking out a heavy bag from his pouch.
He went on to explain that he and his son having gone abroad with his master had been serving with the Dutch, and had made some prize money. Learning on the peace that a small inheritance in Worcestershire had fallen to the family, they had returned, and found from Lady Blythedale that the brother's daughter was supposed to be alive somewhere near Bristol. She had a right to half, and being honourable men, they had set out in search of her, bringing letters from the lady to Mr. Henshaw, whose house was still a centre of inquiry for persons in the Cavalier interest. There, of course, they had discovered Emlyn; and Master Gaythorn proceeded to say that it had been decided that the estate should not be broken up, but that his son should at once wed her and unite their claims.
'But, sir,' exclaimed Patience, 'she is troth plight to my brother.'
'So she told me, but likewise that he is a broken man and sickly, and had offered to restore her pledge.'
Patience could not deny it, though she felt hotly indignant.
'She charged me to give it back to you,' added the uncle; 'and to bid you tell the young man that we are beholden to you both; but that since the young folk are to be wedded to-morrow morn, and then to set forth for Worcestershire, there is no time for leave-takings.'
'I do not wonder!' exclaimed Patience, 'that she has no face to see us. She that has been like a child or a sister to us, to leave us thus! O my brother!'
'Come, come, my good woman, best not make a pother.' Poor Patience's homely garb and hard-worked looks shewed little of the yeoman class to which she belonged. 'You've done your duty by the maid and here's the best I have to make it up.'
Patience could not bring herself to take the bag, and he dropped it into her basket 'I am sorry for the young man, your brother, but he knew better than to think to wed her as he is. And 'tis better for all there should be no women's tears and foolishness over it.'
'Is she willing?' Patience could not but ask.
'Willing?' Both men laughed. 'Aye, what lass is not willing to take a fine, strapping husband, and be a landed dame? She gave the token back of her own free will, eh, Humfrey; and what did she bid us say?'
'Her loving greetings to-- What were their Puritanical names?' said the son contemptuously. 'Aye, and that she pitied the poor clown down there, but knew he would be glad of what was best for her.'
'So farewell, good mistress,' said Master Gaythorn, and off they clanked together; and Patience, looking after them, could entirely believe that the handsome buff coat, fringed belt, high boots, and jauntily cocked hat would have driven out the thought of Stead in his best days. And now that he was bent, crippled, weak, helpless,--'and all through her, what hope was then,' thought Patience, 'yet if she had loved him, or there had been any truth in her, she could have wedded him now, and he would have been at ease through life! A little adder at our hearth! We are well quit of her, if he will but think so, but how shall I ever tell him?'
She did not rush in with the tidings but came home slowly, drearily, so that Stead, who was sitting outside by the door, peeling rushes, gathered that something was amiss, and soon wormed it out of her, while her tears dropped fast for him. Still, as ever, he spoke little. He said her uncle was right in sparing tears and farewells, no doubt reserving to himself the belief that it was against her will. And when Patience could not help declaring that the girl might have made him share her prosperity, he said, 'I'm past looking after her lands. Her uncle would say so. 'Tis his doing; I am glad of what is best for my darling as was. There's an end of it, Patience--joy and grief. And
