“Nay, lad,” said I, “not a whit. I love thee, old Ben, just as I love Jack and Tom, which is to say, as if ye all three were brothers of mine already.”
He shook my hand heartily at that, and said he was sure of it.
“You see, Will,” he continued, “I am now out of my apprenticeship, and my old master, having had enow of trade, is minded to give up his business to me, so that I shall be my own master in future and doing for myself. And so, lad, having loved Lucy this many a year, I shall now ask her to marry me.”
“I wish you success, Ben,” I said. “You will get a good wife.”
“No better,” said he, “in all the world. Oh, Will, ’tis a rare thing to be a lover! The world seems a new place to a man in love, even if he be such a humdrum individual as I. Well, ye will not be long out of love yourself, Will. Mistress Rose’s dark eyes will be too powerful for you.”
But I dare not think of aught of that sort yet, for Rose seemed to me like a young goddess whom all might admire and reverence, but none claim for his own. Yet I thought much of her that night, for the excitement of the day had made me restless, so that I could not sleep, which was a rare thing with me. However, I paid for it next morning, sleeping two hours over my usual time, and waking to find that it was already seven o’clock, and the sun high in the heavens. When I went downstairs I found that Lucy and Ben Tuckett had gone into the barn to make some arrangements for the evening’s festivities, and that my mother and Rose were in the garden, which my mother was very fond of showing to her visitors. There I joined them, and found Rose more attractive than ever in the fresh morning light. Presently my mother went indoors to hurry on the breakfast preparations, and Rose and I were left together. And of what we talked I know not, save that it was about ourselves, and that I could have stayed there forever, listening to her voice, and watching the smiles come and go on her sweet face. And then I suddenly remembered the primrose she had given me years before, and led her to the corner of the garden where I had buried it in my lead box.
“Do you remember, Mistress Rose,” I said, “the primrose you pinned in my coat that afternoon, and the guinea your father gave me when he carried you away? Let us see if they are still where I put them.”
I got a spade, and began to turn up the soil, which had never been disturbed since the day I buried the lead box there. Presently I turned it up to the light, and placed it in her hands, and bade her open it, while I looked over her shoulder, to see how the treasures had fared.
“Oh!” she cried; “see, the primrose is still unfaded, and here is the guinea. And you have kept them all these years! But was it not a strange place to keep them, where you could never see them?”
“Why,” I said, “it was the only place I could call my own. Let me put them back, and do you put another flower in the lead box, and we will dig them up again at some future time, and see how they fare.”
“What shall I put in?” she said. “There are nothing but roses now, I think. This red rose?” and she put it with the primrose, and shut the box, and gave it back to me with a merry laugh, and watched me carefully bury it again. Then, as we were going back to the house, she said:
“I, too, kept some of the primroses gathered that afternoon, and they are pressed between the leaves of an old book at home. Some day, perhaps, I shall show them to you.”
That made me very happy, for I saw that Rose had not forgotten the day when she first met me in the woods above the old mill, but had thought sometimes of it and of me.
XII
Of the First Tidings of War
That day was an eventful one to us at Dale’s Field in more than one way. As soon as breakfast was over we had to commence our preparations for the evening’s festivities, which were to be on a larger scale than those of the previous day. Everybody was busily engaged, and there seemed some difficulty as to what should be done with Rose, until she offered to help my mother.
“For I know something about these matters, Mrs. Dale,” said she, “and will help you if I may, and you will command me. I dare say you will find me of some use where all are so busy.”
And therewith my mother furnished her with a large apron and set her to dust the best china, which was a great honour, as I presently told her, no one but my mother ever daring so much as to touch those priceless cups and platters.
“Then, indeed, I am highly honoured,” she said, while I stood there and watched her graceful fingers move about the things. “But you, Master William, is there nothing that you can do? For you seem to be the only one who is doing nothing.”
Now, I ought to have been riding round the fields at that moment, but I felt compelled to stay where I was—why, I know not.
“There is nothing that I can do,” I said. “I am so awkward and clumsy that they trust nothing to me. If you like, I will help you to wipe these dishes, Mistress Rose.”
“Nay,” she said, “if you are so awkward as all that, I fear the poor dishes would come to the ground.
