Chapter 4

Her tears had been running quietly for some minutes past, but at this she began to sob unrestrainedly. Dick comforted her in the orthodox fashion, and in that sweet employment almost succeeded in forgetting his own sorrow. He drew bright pictures of the future: youth held the palette, and hope laid on the colour. Two or three years of partial separation--so little--and he would have a livelihood in his hand, and could offer her a safe asylum from parental tyranny, and bid his own people either to accept the situation or renounce him, as they might choose. He was quite heroic internally about the whole business. He felt the promise of the coming struggle brace his nerves, and he was more than ready for the test. Young love is selfish at the best, and the heroic likeness of himself doing battle with the world of London half obliterated the pitiful figure of the poor girl, left at home, with nothing to fill her heart but dreams. For him, the delight of battle; for her, long months of weary waiting.

It was no doubt of him, but only the rooted longing for assurance of his love, that made her ask,

‘You won’t forget me, Dick, in London?’

Forget her! His repetition of the word, his little laugh of loving scorn, were answer enough, though he found others, and arguments unanswerable, to clinch them. How could he forget the sweetest, dearest girl that ever drew the breath of life, the prettiest and the bravest? She spoke treason against herself in asking such a question. He could no more forget her in London than Romeo, Juliet in Mantua. She laughed a little at his recalling the old story, from which Mrs. Jenny had drawn so many illustrations of the course of their love since they were children. It recalled the old woman to their minds.

‘I shall write to you every week, and send the letters under cover to her,’ said Dick. ‘And you may be sure that I shall find--or make--plenty of opportunities to run down here from time to time. There is a coach every day to Birmingham.’

They had been walking slowly all this time. It was night now, the last gleam of sunset had faded, the stars were lustrous overhead, and a yellow moonlight flooded the surrounding country. A long distance off, faint but clear in the dead hush of the summer night, they heard, but did not mark, the beat of horses’ hoofs approaching them.

‘I must go, Dick,’ said Julia. ‘It is late, and they will wonder where I am No, let me go now, while I have the strength.’

He took her in his arms again, and her head dropped on his shoulder, and the tears began to run afresh. He held her close, but in that last moment of parting could find no word of comfort, only dumb caresses. The hoof-beats were near at hand now, just beyond the bend of the road. They rounded the corner, and broke on the lovers’ ears with a loud and startling suddenness. The girl broke away, and ran through the gate into the field with a stifled sob. Dick turned, and walked down the road in the direction of the approaching horseman. The moon was at the full, and shone broadly upon his face and figure.

‘Hullo!’ cried the rider, in gruff challenge, and pulling his horse into Dick’s path, reined in. The young man looked up and recognised Samson Mountain. Flight would have been as useless as ignominious, and it had never been Dick’s way out of any difficulty.

‘Well?’ he asked curtly, and stood his ground.

‘Is that my daughter?’ demanded Mountain, pointing with his heavy whip after the white figure glinting across the field. ‘Spake the truth for once, though you be a Reddy.’

‘It’s a habit we have,’ said Dick quietly. His calm almost surprised himself. ‘Yes.’

Mountain had always been of a heavy build, and of late years had increased enormously in girth and weight. But his wrath at this confirmation of his half guess stirred him so, that before the sound of the word had well died out on the air he had dismounted, and came at the young man with his riding-whip flourished above his head.

‘Don’t do that, sir.’ Dick spoke in a low voice, though quickly; and there was something in his tone which brought the weapon harmlessly to the farmer’s side again. ‘It is your daughter. We love each other, and she has promised to be my wife.’

Mountain staggered, as if the words had been a pistol bullet or a stab, and struck furiously. Quick as was Dick’s parry, he only half saved himself, his hat spun into the road, and the whip whistled within an inch of his ear. He made a step back, and stopped a second furious stroke. The whip broke in the old man’s hand, and he flung the remaining fragment from him with a curse.

‘I can’t strike you, sir,’ said Dick. ‘You’re her father.’ Mountain’s choking breath filled in the pause, and Dick went on: ‘You know well enough there’s not another man in England I’d take that from.’

‘You’re a coward, like all your tribe,’ said Mountain.

‘Not at all, I assure you, sir,’ said Dick calmly. ‘If you like to send anybody else with that message, I’ll talk to him. Let us talk sensibly. What harm have I ever done you? Or my father either? Why should two honest families keep up this ridiculous story, which ought to have been buried ages back? Why not let bygones be bygones? I love your daughter. I am a young man yet, sir, with my way to make in the world, and I am going away to London to study. I met your daughter to-night to say goodbye to her, and if you had not come I should have gone away and said nothing until I could come and claim her, with a home worthy of her to take her to.

But since you know, I speak now. We love each other, and intend to marry.’

‘Oh!’ said Mountain. He had gone all on a sudden as cool as Dick, and nothing but his stertorous breathing hinted of the rage which filled him. ‘That’s it, is it? Then, if you’re finished, hear me. I ain’t got the gift o’ the gab as free as you, but I can mek plain my meanin’, p’raps. I’d rather see her a-layin’ theer ‘(he pointed with a trembling hand at the ground between them); ‘I’d rather lay her there, dead afore my eyes, an’ screw her in her coffin a’terwards, than you or any o’ your kin should as much as look at her, wi’ my goodwill. And now you’ve got your answer, Mr. Fair an’ Fine. Remember it, an’ look out for yourself. For, by the Lord! ‘he went on, with a solemn malignity doubly terrible in a man whose passion was ordinarily so violent, ‘if iver I ketch you round my house again, I’ll put a bullet atween thy ribs as sure as my naame’s Samson Mountain.’

With this, he took his horse by the bridle, and passed through the gate, leaving the young man to his own reflections. He took the beast to the stable, delivered him into the care of a servant, and made straight for the parlour, where his wife and Mrs. Rusker were seated at an early supper.

‘You’re back early, Sam,’ said the former, rising to draw an additional chair to the table. ‘Wilt have some tay, or shall Liza draw you a jug o’ beer?’

Samson returned no answer, either to this or to Mrs. Rusker’s greeting.

‘Lawk a mussy, what ails the man? ‘asked Mrs. Mountain, as Samson stood looking round the room. She had never seen such an expression on her husband’s face before. The skin was livid under its rude bronze, and his lips twitched strangely.

‘Wheer’s that wench of ourn?’ he asked, after a second glance round the room, Mrs. Busker’s heart jumped, and she held on tight to the arm-pieces of her chair.

‘Julia?’ said Mrs. Mountain. ‘Her’s about the house, I reckon.’

‘Call her here,’ said Samson; and his wife wondering, but not daring to question, went to the door of the sitting-room and screamed ‘Julia!’ A servant girl came running downstairs at the call, and said that Miss Julia did not feel well, and had gone to bed.

‘Fatch her down,’ said Samson from the sitting-room, and the girl, on receipt of a confirmatory nod from Mrs. Mountain, went upstairs again. Samson took a chair and sat with his head bent forward and his arms folded, staring at the paper ornaments in the grate.

‘Samson!’ said his wife appealingly, ‘don’t skeer a body i’ thisnin. Whativer _is_ the matter?’

‘Hold thy chat,’ said Samson. ‘Thee’st know soon enough,’ and the trio sat in silence until Julia entered the room. She was pale, and there were traces of tears on her cheeks, and Samson, as he glanced at her askance from under his heavy eyebrows before he rose, saw that she was struggling to repress some strong emotion. She advanced to kiss him, but he repelled her--not roughly--with his heavy hand upon her shoulder.

‘You wanted to see me, father,’ she asked, trembling.

‘I sent for you.’

Mrs. Rusker was in a state of pitiable excitement, if anybody had had the leisure to notice her.

‘Theer’s some’at happened to-day as it’s fit an’ right as yo’ should know. I met ode Raybould today i’ th’ Exchange, an’ he tode me some’at as I’d long suspected, about his son Tom. I reckon you know what it was.’

Julia knew well enough. Tom Raybould was a young farmer, a year or two older than herself. She had known him all her life, and he had been a schoolfellow and chosen chum of her brother’s. He had shown unmistakable signs of affection for her, but had never spoken. He was a good fellow, according to common report, and she had a good deal of liking and respect for him, and a little pity, being a good girl, and no coquette.

‘I see thee understandest,’ said Samson. ‘I told th’ ode man as he might look on it as settled, an’ Tom ‘ll be here to-morrow. He’s a likely lad, an’ he’ll have all the Bush Farm when his father goes, as must be afore long, i’ the course o’ nature. The two farms ‘ll goo very well in a ring fence. Theer’s no partic’lar hurry, as I know on, an’ we’ll ha’ the weddin’ next wik, or the wik after.’

The girl’s breast was labouring cruelly, in spite of the hand that strove to still it.

‘Father!’ she said. ‘You don’t mean it!’

‘Eh?’ said Samson. ‘I ginerally mean what I say, my wench. I should ha’ thout as yo’d ha’ known that by this time.’

He stopped there, for Julia, but for her mother’s arm, would have fallen.

‘You great oaf!’ cried Mrs. Mountain, irritated for once into open rebellion. ‘Oh, it’s like a man, the stupid hulkin’ creeturs as they are, to come an’ frighten the life out of a poor maid i’ that style.’

‘Theer, theer!’ said Samson, with the same heavy and threatening tranquillity he had borne throughout the interview. ‘Tek her upstairs.’

He sat down again, and without another word filled and lit his churchwarden, and stared through the smoke-wreaths at the grate.

V

Mrs. Jenny Rusker, who was half dead with fear of an _exposé_ of her part in this unlucky love-affair, was additionally prostrated by the dire reversal of all her hopes by Samson Mountain’s ultimatum. Mrs. Mountain, with the aid of a female servant, supported Julia upstairs, and Samson smoked on stolidly, taking no note whatever of the visitor’s presence. Still in doubt of what Samson might or might not know, and fearing almost to breathe, lest any reminder of her presence should call down his wrath upon her, she listened to the tramping and the muffled noises overhead until they ceased, and then, gathering courage from his continued apathy, slipped from the room and left the house.

She got home and went to bed and passed an interminable night in tossing to and fro, and bewailing the untoward fate of the two children. Dawn came at last, though it had seemed as if it never would break again, and, for the first time for many a year, the first gleam of sunlight saw her dressed and downstairs. She felt feverous and ill, and having brewed for herself a huge jorum of tansy tea, sat down over this inspiring beverage, and tried to pull her scattered wits together and think out some way of untangling the skein of difficulty with which she had to deal. The danger was pressing, and if she had been herself the poor lovesick girl who lay a mile away, stifling her sobs lest they should reach her father’s ears, and vainly calling on her lover’s name, she would scarcely have been more miserable.

One thing was clear. Dick must be warned, and his journey to London postponed by some device. He might lie hidden for a day or two in Birmingham, and Julia be smuggled there and secretly married. It was no time for half measures, and whatever was done should be done quickly and decisively. At this idea, at once romantic and practical, Mrs. Jenny’s spirits revived.

‘Samson ‘ll disown Julia, I know. Her ‘ll never see a penny o’ his money. An’ I doubt as Abel Reddy ‘ll do the same wi’ Dick. He’s just as hard and bitter as th’ other, on’y quieter wi’ it. Well, they shan’t want while I’m alive, nor after my death neither, and Dick ud make his own way with nobody’s help. I’ll write to him, and find somebody to take the letter. I won’t go myself, at this hour o’ the day.’

She concocted a letter and sealed it, and putting on her bonnet sallied out to find a messenger. Fate was so far propitious that scarce a hundred yards from her door she met Ichabod Bubb, bound for his morning’s work at Perry Hall Farm. Ichabod was bent and gnarled and twisted now, stiff in all his joints and slow of movement, but his quaint visage bore the same look of uncertain and rather wistful humour which had marked it in earlier times.

‘Morning, mum,’ he said, with a stiff-necked nod at Mrs. Jenny.

‘Good-mornin’, Mr. Bubb,’ said the old lady. Ichabod beamed at this sudden and unexpected ceremonial of title, and straightened his back.

‘You ‘m afoot early, mum.’

‘Why, yes. But it’s such a beautiful morning; it’s a shaame to lie abed a time like this.’

‘So many folks, so many ways o’ thinkin’,’ said the ancient one; ‘not as it’s a sin as I often commits, nayther, ‘cos why, I don’t get the chance.’

‘I’ve got a bit o’ business as I want done, Mr. Bubb,’ said Mrs. Busker, ‘if ye don’t mind earnin’ a shillin’.’

‘Why,’ returned Ichabod, ‘I don’t know as I’ve got any, not to say rewted, objection to makin’ a shillin’.’

‘You’re goin’ to the farm?’ Ichabod nodded. ‘Then I want you to take this note to Mr. Richard. But mind, you must get it to him private. Nobody else must know. D’you understand?’

‘I’m all theer, missus,’ responded Ichabod.

‘Then there’s the note, an’ there’s the shillin’. An’ if you’re back in two hours you shall have a pint o’ beer.’ Ichabod took the note and the shilling, and clattered off with a ludicrous show of despatch, and the old lady returned to her sitting-room to await the result of his message. It came in less than the appointed time, and disappointed her terribly. Ichabod had ascertained that Dick had started half an hour before his arrival at the farm for Birmingham, and would only return to-morrow night to sleep and take away his luggage on the following morning.

‘And you come to me w’ a message like that, y’ ode gone-off!’ said the exasperated old woman. ‘You might ha’ caught him up i’ the time as you’ve wasted comin’ back here.’

‘Caught him up,’ said Ichabod, with a glance at his legs. ‘Yis, likely, like a cow might ketch a race-hoss. I’m a gay fine figure, missus, to ketch up the best walker i’ the country-side.’

Mrs. Jenny was a woman, and therefore to offer her reason as an antidote to unreasoning anger was merely to heap fuel on flame.

‘Ah!’ she said, reasonably enraged with the whole masculine half of her species,’ you’re like the rest on ‘em.’

‘Then I’m sorry for the rest on ‘em,’ said Ichabod, ‘whoever they may be.’ Here Mrs. Jenny shut the door upon him, leaving him in the street, and retired to her sitting-room. But with beer to be gained by boldness, Ichabod was leonine in courage. He knocked, and the summons brought the old lady to the door again. Ichabod spoke no word, but writhed his twisted features into a grin which expressed at once humorous deprecation and expectancy, and rabbed the back of his veiny hand across his bristly lips.

‘Go round to the brewus,’ said Mrs. Jenny; ‘you’ll find the maid there. It’s all you’re fit for, ye guzzlin’ old idiot.’

Ichabod retired, elate.

‘Her tongue’s a stinger; but, Lord bless thee, Ichabod, her bark’s a long sight worse than her bite. An’ her beer’s main good.’

Mrs. Jenny, meanwhile, retired to the sitting-room, and there sat immersed in gloom. Things looked black for her young protégés, and fate was against them. With that curious interest in familiar trifles which comes with any fit of hopelessness or despondency, she sat looking at the furniture of the room and the pictures which decorated the walls. Among these latter was a work of her own hands, her masterpiece, a reproduction in coloured wool of a German engraving of the last scene of _Romeo and Juliet_. There was a pea-green Capulet paralytically embracing a sky-blue Montague in the foreground, with a dissolving view of impossibly-constructed servitors of both houses and the County Paris, with six strongly accented bridges to his nose and a worsted tear upon his cheek, in the background. Under this production was worked in white, upon a black ground, the legend which Mrs. Rusker mournfully repeated as she gazed on it--

‘For never was a story of more woe, Than this of Juliet and her Romeo’;

and as she spoke the words an inspiration flashed into her mind. She had her plan.

The new-born idea so possessed her that she could not sit or rest. It drove her out, as the gad-fly drove lo, to devious wanderings in the neighbouring lanes, and as she walked and walked, finding some little ease in the unusual and incessant exercise, she drew nearer and nearer to the Mountain Farm. As she paused on a little eminence and looked towards it, the distant church bell struck clear across the intervening fields, proclaiming nine o’clock.

‘Thank the Lord,’ said the old woman. ‘I can go now. I dussent go too early. They might suspect.’

She made straight for the house, and found Mrs. Mountain alone. Samson was afield, and in answer to Mrs. Busker’s inquiries regarding Julia, Mrs. Mountain tearfully informed her that the poor girl was too ill to come downstairs, and had not eaten a crumb of the tempting breakfast prepared and sent to her room for her. Mrs. Mountain was voluble in condemnation of her husband’s lack of wit in his announcement of the matrimonial scheme he had formed for the girl, and Mrs. Jenny was fluent and honest in sympathy. Might she see the girl? Julia was fond of her, and her counsels might bring some comfort. Mrs. Mountain yielded a ready assent, and the old lady went up to the girl’s room, and entering on the languid summons which followed her knock, saw Julia seated at the window, listless, dejected, and tearful The tears flowed even more freely at the sight of her, and the girl sobbed on her old friend’s breast in full abandonment to the first great grief of her life.

‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Jenny, when this gush of sorrow was over, ‘take a bit o’ heart. Things is rarely as bad as they seem; an’ there’s help at hand always if we on’y know where to look for it.’

There was more meaning, to Julia’s thinking, in the tone in which this commonplace condolence was delivered than in the words themselves. Mrs. Rusker’s manner was big with mystery.

‘Now, my darlin’, I know you ‘m a brave gal, and can act accordin’ when there’s rayson for it. I’ve got a plan as ‘ll save you yet, if on’y you’ve got the courage.’

Julia’s clasped hands and eager look encouraged her to proceed.

‘My dear, you remember _Romeo and Juliet?_ You remember how Juliet got the sleepin’ draught an’ took it? ‘Julia’s look was one of wonder, pure and simple, now. ‘That’s my plan, my dear, an’ the Dudley Divil can do it for us, if on’y you’ll ha’ the courage to tek it. Not as I mean as you need be buried afore Dick comes to you. We shouldn’t go as far as that. But I’ll get the stuff, an’ it’ll send you to sleep, an’ they’ll think as you’re dead, an’ then I’ll tell ‘em how you an’ Dick loved each other so’s you couldn’t bear to part wi’ him, an’ the fear of it’s killed you. That’ll soften their hard hearts, my dear. Old Reddy knows all about it--that’s why he’s sendin’ Dick away to London an’ I’ll get him fetched back to see the last o’ you, an’ I’ll mek your father an’ his father shaake hands, an’ then you’ll come to, an’ after that what can they do but marry you to Dick, an’ forget all that rubbidge about the brook, an’ live in peace together, as decent folk should do.’

Julia’s reception of this brilliant scheme, which Mrs. Rusker developed with a volubility which left no opportunity for detailed objection, was to fall back in her chair and begin to cry anew at the sheer hopeless absurdity of it.

‘What’s the matter wi’ the wench?’ demanded Mrs. Rusker, almost sternly. ‘Come, come,’ she continued, her brief anger fading at the sight of Julia’s distress, ‘have a bit o’ sperrit. Now, will you try it? Spake the word, an’ I’ll goo to the Divil this minute.’

This wholesale self-abandonment in the cause of love produced no effect on Julia, except to frighten her. Mrs. Rusker argued and reasoned, but finding her fears too obdurate to be moved by any such means, left the house in dudgeon, whereat poor Julia only cried the more. But Mrs. Rusker’s confidence in her plan was unshaken, and her persistency unchecked. She would save the silly girl against her will, since it must be so, and half an hour after she had crossed the Mountain threshold she was in her trap, _en route_ for the dwelling of the wizard.

She found that celebrity alone, and opened fire on him at once.

‘Ruffis, I want thy help, an’ I’m willin’ to pay fur it.’ The necromancer’s fishy eye brightened. Things were going poorly with him, the rising generation followed newer lights unevident in his earlier days, and his visitors were mostly of Mrs. Rusker’s age, and were getting fewer day by day.

‘My skill’s at your service, ma’am, such as it is,’ he answered, with gravity.

‘I want some’at as ‘d send a body to sleep--mek ‘em sleep for a long time, wi’out hurtin’ ‘em. Can you doit?’

‘Why, yis; I could do that much, I think.’ His tone and manner intimated vaguely how much more he could have done, and his disappointment at the facility of his task. ‘But,’ he added prudently, ‘it’s a job as ain’t s’ easy as you might fancy.’

Mrs. Busker laid a sovereign on the table.

‘Wilt do it for that?’ she asked.

The wizard stole a look at her. She was obviously very much in earnest.

‘The hingredients,’ he said, ‘is hard to find, and harder to mix in doo perportions.’

‘I must have it now, and at once,’ said Mrs. Busker.

‘That,’ said Rufus, ‘ain’t possible.’ Mrs. Jenny laid a second piece of gold beside the first ‘It’s a dangerous bisness, missus,’ he went on. ‘Theer’s noofangled laws about. ‘Twas only last wik as that young upstart, Doctor Hodges, comes an’ threatens me with persecution as a rogue an’ vagabond, a-obtainin’ money under false pertences for practisin’ my lawful an’ necessary art. Why, it ain’t so long since I cured his mother o’ the rheumatiz, as is more nor he can dew, wi’ all his drugs, an’ the pestle an’ mortar o’er his door.’

‘You ought to know as you’re safe wi’ me, Rufus,’ said Mrs. Rusker. ‘Who should I tell? Why, I should tell o’ myself tew, at that raate; an’ is that likely?’

‘It’s dangerous, missus,’ repeated the wizard.

‘Well, if yo’ won’t, I must try them as wull,’ said Mrs. Jenny, rising and taking up the coins.

‘I didn’t say as I wouldn’t,’ returned Rufus. ‘Theer’s no call to be so uppish But if I tek a chance like that I expect to be paid for it.’

‘Two pound ud mek it wuth your while to do more than that.’

‘I’ll dew it,’ said the wizard. ‘Give us the money?’

‘Wheer’s the stuff?’

‘Why, it ain’t made yet. D’you think as I can percure a precious hessence like that all of a minute?’

‘Then mek it, an’ I’ll gie you the money.’