“I would rather stay with Mistress Dale,” said Rose.
“Then we will go up with thee, Will. Indeed, man, I should have come to see thee but for fear of waking sad memories. It was but a sad time when I saw thy poor mother last. But now, here is Rose’s horse at the inn stable. What shall we do with him?”
“I will send a man for him, sir,” said I. “Make yourself easy about that.”
So we went up the hill and turned in at the orchard gate of Dale’s Field and went into the house. Parson Drumbleforth and Jack had gone homeward, but Ben Tuckett had gotten himself a few days’ holiday and was to stay with us over the festivities, and we now found him making himself agreeable to my mother and Lucy. I led Philip and Rose into my mother’s parlour and fetched her in to them from the great kitchen, whispering to her who our visitors were and what I wanted. And she, receiving them with hearty hospitality, would not be content until they sat down and ate and drank, and she sent Lucy off to prepare a chamber for Rose, and herself pressed Philip Lisle to remain overnight with us and continue his journey next day. But to that he could not consent.
“Indeed,” said he, “I ought to be an hour on my journey now, and should have been, only I must needs linger on the bridge saying farewell to this maid of mine until Will yonder comes up and presses me to enjoy your hospitality, Mistress Dale. And glad enough I am, I assure you, to leave my Rose in such good hands for a day or two, for ’tis but poor work for young maidens to stay at a wayside inn, though well enough for old campaigners like myself.”
“We shall take good care of her here, sir,” said my mother, stroking Rose’s hand with her own as she sat by her. “Please God you will bring us back good news, for we need better than we have had lately.”
But on that point Philip Lisle could say nothing certain. Presently he rose and bid my mother and Lucy farewell, and kissed Rose, and I went out with him and walked by his horse’s side to the gate, where he stayed a moment to speak to me.
“I may return this way, Will,” said he, “tomorrow night, or next day. When I come I shall have news. Say naught to anyone, lad, but I fear that there are great things at hand.”
“You fear war?”
“Ay, and such war as is worse than war ’twixt two nations. It will be war of brother upon brother, which is a bad and sorry matter. However, let us do our best. Fare thee well, good Will, till I come again.”
And with that he shook Caesar’s bridle and rode away into the moonlight, and I stood there until the sound of the horse’s hoofs died away, and then went indoors to find Lucy and Ben Tuckett telling Rose about our doings that day, and of the grand entertainment we were to have on the morrow.
Now to see Rose Lisle sitting there in my own house by my mother’s side was to me the greatest delight I had ever known. For it seemed somehow as if Rose and I were old and familiar friends, though, indeed, we had only met once in all our lives, and that many years before, when we were but boy and girl. I could not choose but look at her as she sat there talking to my mother, and I wondered if there were any other maidens in the world who were half so fair as she. I had never forgotten how she looked that afternoon when I tumbled out of the elm-tree, having kept the memory of her fresh in my heart. Then she was a little dark-eyed, gipsy-looking maiden, with a merry laugh and an arch way of looking at you. Now she had become tall and stately and graver of face, but she was more beautiful, and when she smiled I saw the old arch look in her dark eyes. Very often she glanced at me as I sat watching her, and it seemed to me that a man could have no greater happiness than to have such eyes for his light all through life.
Now, Ben Tuckett was nothing if not softhearted, and when my mother and Lucy had taken Rose to her chamber, what must he do but pull his chair up to mine and begin to pour out his sorrows into my ear.
“Will,” said he, “I know you are in love with Mistress Rose yonder, for no one who is not blind could fail to see it.”
“You can see more than I can, then, Master Ben,” I answered. “Why, man, I have never seen her since she was a child until this night.”
“No matter,” said he. “Time is nothing to a lover. You see your sweetheart, and it is all over in an instant. Why, Will, your eyes were upon her every minute of the time!”
I made an impatient movement, not being inclined for this sort of conversation.
“However,” continued Ben, “I am not going to talk of that, having other matters which are perhaps more interesting to me. Will, dear lad, hast ever noticed how it is with me?”
I knew quite well what he was aiming at, but I was willing to jest with him a little.
“Nay,” I said, “what is it, Ben? You are certainly not so fat as you were, but ’tis the hot weather that has pulled you down.”
“You will jest, Will. But there are other matters than hot weather that pull a man down. Though as to being fat, I am not sorry to see myself going thinner. I had rather be a beanstalk than a butter-tub. But seriously, Will, have you any objection
