“I fell—whop! like a sack out of window—like them sacks the miller pitches out of his window into a cart.”
In ten minutes she was humming merrily as she went about the house. But these little incidents made Felise fear that the girl—to whom she was much attached—had overgrown herself, and that in spite of her stoutness and rosiness she was not really very strong. She was remarkably timid, but all cottage folk (and indeed most country people) dislike the idea of a doctor because they seldom resort to one except in serious illness, and the doctor is associated with great troubles.
After awhile Abner reflected that the horse might as well carry him, and by the help of a gate got on Ruy’s back, and so arrived very pleasantly at the Manor House. There was but one labourer about, who showed him the stable, and whose questions he easily parried. He had, however, to wait some time for Martial, and spoke to him at last at the porch; Martial, who was not in a good-humour, thrust the note in his pocket on hearing no answer was expected, and thought no more about it, supposing it to be some trifling business. Some hours consequently elapsed before he opened it; he remembered it just as he was about to retire.
The note contained the printed message: “One who thinks of you returns you your favourite,” and the receipt for Ruy, £70, signed Robert Godwin.
Martial rushed to the stable, and there found his favourite comfortably munching in his old stall. His surprise and delight were about equal. He stayed with Ruy a long time, wondering who it could have been who had made him this magnificent present. Young as he was, it was years now since he had received the least kindness from anyone; the mercenary manner in which the old merchant had broken off the engagement with Rosa on finding out his poverty was not calculated to increase his faith in the generosity of the world generally.
The note itself gave him no clue; the letters might have been printed by a man or woman—indeed, by a child; the watermark, as he held the strip up to the lantern, was partly visible, but the same watermark is impressed on tons of paper. From the labourer who had received the horse not the slightest information could be obtained, and the messenger who had brought him had disappeared hours ago. It was dark when the man gave him the note, and he would not know him again; indeed, he had taken no notice of him whatever.
Robert Godwin could tell him, no doubt; but Martial instantly decided that Robert Godwin would shut his lips and absolutely refuse. He knew the man too well. It could only have been—it must have been one or other of those wealthy London friends who had petted him in boyhood, and deserted him when of an age to appreciate assistance. They had not then forgotten him.
With this conclusion Martial returned to bed, but woke up in the night with the sudden thought that it was Rosa. She had plenty of money; she knew how fond he was of Ruy; she had bought him back. He jumped up and partly dressed; he was so annoyed at the thought that he was ready to return Ruy that very night to Godwin. It would look rather absurd riding over to Godwin’s at three in the morning, so he decided to wait till breakfast. By breakfast-time, after a look at Ruy and at the downs they had so often breasted together, his attachment for the horse conquered his pride; he could not send him away.
His cousins had of course heard of the mysterious return of Ruy, and plied him with questions. Martial did not show them the note, but could not conceal the facts. “It was Rosa, of course,” they said. “What a dear good girl she is, and what a time it is since we have seen her! We must go and call on her.”
Martial left the room in anger. He saddled Ruy; yet even the freshness and beauty of the morning, and the pleasure of riding his favourite once more, could not overcome the bitterness of the thought that he owed that delight to Rosa. So entirely had his nature turned against the woman he once adored.
“Wait for the Wagon” echoed in the stillness of the night round the gables of Beechknoll—the jolly old tune, mellow and loud. Three times Abner whistled it, and Felise, listening in her chamber, knew that Martial had received the horse. Someone else heard the tune too; a window was gently opened, and a low voice called:
“Good night, Ab.”
“Night, you,” said Abner, stumping on down the road.
III
The miller of Glads Mill was a happy man. How many times in her girlhood had the little Felise, wandering round the hamlet, stayed to listen to the rumble of the great wheel, and to glance furtively at the whitened half-length of the miller leaning on the hatch! So few doors now are constructed in this manner that, for the miller’s attitude to be understood, it is almost necessary to explain that a hatch is a door which shuts in two pieces. The upper half may be left open to admit air, while the lower half is closed; and it was upon the top of this lower half that the miller leant his arms and razed steadfastly outwards. This attitude has been the chosen one of millers for many generations.
Luke Bond, the miller of Glads Mill, was seldom seen in any other position. He was there most of the day, and far into the evening, rarely going down into the hamlet. Stout, short, redheaded, and broad of face, his arms, shoulders, and big head filled the upper half of the doorway.
Innumerable wooden witticisms were showered on him by the hamlet youth; he was compared to the moon
