This last remark was addressed to the roan cow, whose stall Jacob was bedding down with straw. He poked and prodded the straw about her feet before he resumed his remarks.
“ ’Tis as natural to fall in love,” said Jacob, “as it is for schoolboys to fight. The most natural thing in the world it is. For in going through the world, William, what does a man see? He sees the birds a-mating and a-building their nests everywhere, and the doves making love after their fashion in every coppice. Wherefore, I say, it is a very natural thing that young men and women should pair off.”
“But, Jacob,” I said, “you never paired off with anybody, because you have never been married. Come, now, why didn’t you practise what you preach?”
“Why, certainly,” he said, “that’s true, but there’s a many people very good at preaching who are very poor at practising, William. True it is I have never been married.”
“Nor in love, Jacob?”
“Why,” he said, “as to that, there was a young woman in Badsworth parish that I did think of at odd times. A young widow woman she was, and as plump as a partridge. Ah! I once walked a matter of seven miles to see her. A fine figure of a woman.”
“And it never came to anything, Jacob?”
“No‑o,” said Jacob slowly, “no‑o. I never could quite give my mind to wedlock, though admiring it in others. It seemed beautiful at a distance, but I don’t know how it might be nearer at hand.”
“Oh, Jacob, and that is you who talk so finely about birds and doves and suchlike.”
“Ay, marry,” he said, with a twinkle of his gray eyes, “and why not? I am well pleased to see Master Tuckett come a-courting of our Lucy, and between thee and me and the post, William, I should like to see thee making towards a gold ring thyself. What, man, didst ever see a properer maiden than yond? I lay not.”
He pointed across the fold to the orchard, where Rose Lisle, fair as a dream of May, was gathering the ripe fruit into a basket and singing some old ditty softly to herself. I turned and watched her in silence.
“If I were thou, William,” said old Jacob, “I should thank God three times a day for such a wife as yond. Never in all this world wilt thou find so fair a maiden, nor so good. Let her not slip from thee. I speak, being old and anxious for thy welfare, having loved thee from thy birth upwards. I should like to see thy boy sitting on my knees before I go, William, even as thou didst sit there many years ago.”
Andhaving said that he immediately began to make a noise and bustle amongst the cows, shaking up the straw in their stalls and causing them to tug so at their chains that I escaped from the racket and joined Rose Lisle in the apple orchard, being half inclined to tell her there and then of my love for her; yet I refrained, for I was not minded to be too hasty, although I knew right well that I loved her as truly as if I had known her for twenty years.
During the first autumn weeks in that year we had little news of Philip Lisle and Jack Drumbleforth. They had sent us word soon after their departure of their safe arrival at Nottingham, where the King was gathering an army about him, but after that there came a long period during which we had no tidings whatever. We often made inquiry of the people travelling along the road, but received nothing but vague and indefinite tidings of the course of events. Some said that the King had gathered a great army about him; others reported that his Majesty had but a scanty following. Towards the end of September came news of a fight at Powick Bridge, in which the Royalist troops had been successful, and this naturally gave a feeling of encouragement to those who like ourselves were loyal to the monarchy. Then came another period of silence; and then, a month later, we began to hear rumours of a great fight at Edgehill, on the borders of Warwick and Oxford, at which, said our informants, many men on both sides had been slain and wounded. We were somewhat anxious at this, being in ignorance as to the safety of our own friends, and we made many inquiries of travellers coming from the south, hearing nothing, however, till well into November, when a horseman, covered with mire and mud, rode up to our door, and, asking for Master Dale, delivered into my hands a thick packet directed to me in Jack Drumbleforth’s writing.
XVIII
Of Jack’s Letters from the Seat of War
Now, as good fortune would have it, Parson Drumbleforth happened to be in our house at the very moment of the arrival of Jack’s letter, and knowing that the latter would not fail to send news to his father, I asked the messenger if he had no communication for the Vicar of Darrington.
“Yea, troth have I,” he answered, touching his pouch significantly, “and here it is in my satchel. God send it be not out of my track, for me and my horse are tired enow, having ridden I know not how many miles this day, and being bound for the Castle at Pontefract with despatches for Colonel Lowther.”
“It is not out of your track, friend,” I said; “but here is the Vicar himself, and you can do your errand without further hindrance. And if your despatches are not too pressing, and if you will please to dismount, we will entertain both your horse and yourself with food and rest, which will do
