He entered the garden, ascending five worn steps of stone, between two weatherworn stone-urns. It is a pretty garden, all the prettier though sadder for its neglected state. Tall trees overtop its walls from without, and those gray walls are here and there overgrown with a luxuriant mantle of ivy; within are yew-trees and wonderfully tall old myrtles; laurels not headed down for fifty years, and grown from shrubs into straggling, melancholy trees. Its broad walls are now overgrown with grass, and it has the air and solitude of a ruin.
In this conventual seclusion, seated under the shade of a great old tree, he saw her. The old-fashioned rustic seat on which she sat is confronted by another, with what was once a gravel walk between.
More erect, shaking himself up as it were, he strode slowly toward her. Her head was supported by her hand—her book on her lap—she seemed lost in a reverie, as he approached unawares over the thick carpet of grass and weeds.
“Well, lass, what brings you here? You’ll be sneezing and coughing for this; won’t you—sneezing and coughing—a moist, dark nook ye’ve chosen,” said Squire Harry, placing himself, nevertheless, on the seat opposite.
She started at the sound of his voice, and as she looked up in his face, he saw that she had been crying.
The Squire said nothing, but stiffly scuffled and poked the weeds and grass at his feet, for a while, with the end of his stick, and whistled low, some dreary old bars to himself.
At length he said abruptly, but in a kind tone—
“You’re no child, now; you’ve grown up; you’re a well-thriven, handsome young woman, little Alice. There’s not one to compare wi’ ye; of all the lasses that come to Wyvern Church ye bear the bell, ye do, ye bear the bell; ye know it. Don’t ye? Come, say lass; don’t ye know there’s none to compare wi’ ye?”
“Thank you, sir. It’s very good of you to think so—you’re always so kind,” said pretty Alice, looking very earnestly up in his face, her large tearful eyes wider than usual, and wondering, and, perhaps, hoping for what might come next.
“I’ll be kinder, maybe; never ye mind; ye like Wyvern, lass—the old house; well, it’s snug, it is. It’s a good old English house: none o’ your thin brick walls and Greek pillars, and scrape o’ rotten plaster, like my Lord Wrybroke’s sprawling house, they think so fine—but they don’t think it, only they say so, and they lie, just to flatter the peer; d⸺ them. They go to London and learn courtiers’ ways there; that wasn’t so when I was a boy; a good old gentleman that kept house and hounds here was more, by a long score, than half a dozen fine Lunnon lords; and you’re handsomer, Alice, and a deal better, and a better lady, too, than the best o’ them painted, fine ladies, that’s too nice to eat good beef or mutton, and can’t call a cabbage a cabbage, I’m told, and would turn up their eyes, like a duck in thunder, if a body told ’em to put on their pattens, and walk out, as my mother used, to look over the poultry. But what was that you were saying—I forget?”
“I don’t think, sir—I don’t remember—was I saying anything? I—I don’t recollect,” said Alice, who knew that she had contributed nothing to the talk.
“And you like Wyvern,” pursued the old man, with a gruff sort of kindness, “well, you’re right; it’s not bin a bad home for ye, and ye’d grieve to leave it. Ay—you’re right, there’s no place like it—there’s no air like it, and ye love Wyvern, and ye shan’t leave it, Alice.”
Alice Maybell looked hard at him; she was frightened, and also agitated. She grew suddenly pale, but the Squire not observing this, continued—
“That is, unless ye be the greatest fool in the country’s side. You’d miss Wyvern, and the old woods, and glens, and spinnies, and, mayhap, ye’d miss the old man a bit too—not so old as they give out though, and ’tisn’t always the old dog gives in first—mind ye—nor the young un that’s the best dog, neither. I don’t care that stick for my sons—no more than they for me—that’s reason. They’re no comfort to me, nor never was. They’d be devilish glad I was carried out o’ Wyvern Hall feet foremost.”
“Oh, sir, you can’t think—”
“Hold your little fool’s tongue; I’m wiser than you. If it warn’t for you, child, I don’t see much my life would be good for. You don’t wish me dead, like those cubs. Hold your tongue, lass. I see someone’s bin frightenin’ you; but I’m not going to die for a bit. Don’t you take on; gi’e us your hand.”
And he took it, and held it fast in his massive grasp.
“Ye’ve been cryin’, ye fool. Them fellows bin sayin’ I’m breakin’ up. It’s a d⸺d lie. I’ve a mind to send them about their business. I’d do it as ready as put a horse over a three-foot wall; but I’ve twelve years’ life in me yet. I’m good for fourteen years, if I live as long as my father did. He took his time about it, and no one heard me grumble, and I’ll take mine. Don’t ye be a fool; I tell you there’s no one goin’ to die here, that I know of. There’s gentle blood in your veins, and you’re a kind lass, and I’ll take care o’ you—mind, I’ll do it, and I’ll talk to you again.”
And so saying, he gave her hand a parting shake, and let it drop, and rising, he turned away, and strode stiffly from the garden. He was not often so voluble; and now the whole of this talk seemed to Alice Maybell a riddle. He could not be thinking of marrying; but was he thinking of leaving her the house and a provision for
