CHAPTER XXXII.

THE NEW LEASE.

"Sir Noel, farmer Storms is here, wanting to see you about something important, he says."

Sir Noel Hurst was sitting in his library, looking and feeling more like his old self than he had done for days.

"I will see him presently," he said, almost smiling, "but not quite yet. Tell him to wait."

The servant retired, and Sir Noel began to walk up and down the room, rubbing his white hands in a gentle, caressing way, as if some joyous feeling found expression in the movement. The physician had just left him, with an assurance that the son and heir for whose life he had trembled was now out of danger. He had heard, too, that William Jessup was slowly improving, and the burden of a fearful anxiety was so nearly lifted from his heart that he saw the fair form of Lady Rose coming through the flower-garden, beneath his window, with a smile of absolute pleasure. A flight of stone steps led to the balcony beneath the window, and the young lady lingered near them, looking up occasionally, as if she longed to ascend, but hesitated.

"Sweet girl! Fair, noble girl," thought Sir Noel, as he looked down upon the lovely picture she made, standing there, timid as a child, with a glow of freshly-gathered flowers breaking through the muslin of her over-skirt, which she used as an apron. "God grant that everything may become right between them, now."

Sir Noel stepped to the window with these thoughts in his mind, and beckoned the young lady to come up. She caught a glance of his face, and her own brightened, as if a cloud had been swept from it. She came up the steps swiftly, and paused before the window, which Sir Noel flung open.

"I saw the doctor, but dared not question him. You will tell me, Sir Noel; but I feel what the news is. You would not have called me had it been more than I--than we could bear."

"I would not, indeed, dear child. God knows if I could endure all this trouble alone, it would not be so hard."

"I have been down yonder every day, Sir Noel; so early in the morning, sometimes, that it seemed as if the poor flowers were weeping with me. Oh, how often I have looked up here after the doctors went away, hoping that you would have good news, and notice me!"

"I saw you, child, but had no heart to make you more sorrowful."

"Did you think him so fearfully dangerous, then?" questioned the lady, with terror in her blue eyes. "I tried to persuade myself that it was only my fears. Every morning I came out and gathered such quantities of flowers for his room, but he never once noticed them, or me--"

"You! Have you seen him, then?"

A flood of crimson swept that fair face, and the white lids drooped over the eyes that sunk beneath his.

"No--no one else could arrange the flowers as he liked them. Once or twice--but only when his eyes were closed. I never once disturbed him."

"Dear child, how he ought to love you!"

Sir Noel kissed the crimson forehead, which drooped down to the girl's uplifted hands, and he knew that the flush, which had first been one of maiden shame, was deepened by coming tears.

"There, there, my child, we must not grieve when the doctors give us hope for the first time. He is sleeping, they tell me, a calm, natural sleep. Go, and arrange these flowers after your own dainty fashion. He will notice them when he awakes. Already he has called the doctor by name."

"Oh, uncle! dear, dear guardian, is it so?"

The girl fell upon her knees by a great easy-chair that stood by, and the blossoms, no longer supported by her hand, fell in glowing masses around her as she gave way to such happy sobs as had never shaken her frame before. At last she looked up, smiling through her tears.

"Is it really, really true?" she questioned, shaking the drops from her face.

"Go, and see for yourself, Rose."

"But he might awake, he might know."

"That an angel is in his room? Well, it will do him no harm, nor you either."

Lady Rose looked down at the flowers that lay scattered around her, and gathered them into the muslin of her dress again. She was smiling, now, yet trembling from head to foot. Would he know her? Would the perfume of her flowers awaken some memory in his mind of the days when they had made play-houses in the thickets, and pelted each other with roses, in childish warfare? How cold and distant he had been to her of late! Would he awake to his old self? Would she ever be able to approach him again without that miserable shrinking sensation?

"Sir Noel," she said, "I think my own father would never have been so kind to me as you are."

"I am glad you think so, child, for that was what I promised him on his death-bed. That and more, which God grant I may be able to carry out."

"I cannot remember him," said Lady Rose, shaking her head, as if weary with some mental effort.

"No; he left us when you were a little child. But we must not talk of this now."

"I know! I know! Just a moment since I was in such haste. Now I feel like putting it off. Isn't it strange?"

Sir Noel understood better than that fair creature herself the significance of all these tremors and hesitations. Now that his first fears were at rest, they both touched and amused him, and a smile rose to his lips as she glided from the room, leaving a cloud of sweet odors behind her.

Into this delicate perfume old farmer Storms came a few minutes after, looking stolid, grim, and clumsily awkward. The nails of his heavy shoes sunk into the carpet at every step, and his fustian garments contrasted coarsely with the rich cushions and sumptuous draperies of the room.

"Well, Sir Noel, I've come about the new lease, if you've no objection. I want your word upon it; being o'er anxious on the young man's account."

"Why, Storms, has there been any disagreement between you and the bailiff? It has always been my orders that the old tenants should have preference when a lease dropped in."

"Well, as to that, Sir Noel, it isn't so much the lease itself that troubles one; but Dick and I want it at a lighter rent, and we would like a new house on the grounds agin the time when the lad will get wed, and want a roof of his own. That is what we've been thinking of, Sir Noel."

"A new house?" said Sir Noel, astonished. "Why, Storms, yours is the best on the place. It was built for a dower house."

"Aye, aye! I know that; but as our Dick says, no house is big enough or good enough for two families. The lad is looking up in the world a bit of late. He means to take more land; that is why I come about the lease; and we shall give up our home to him and his wife."

"Indeed!" said Sir Noel. "What has he been doing to warrant this extraordinary start in the world?"

"Something that he means to keep to himself yet a while, he says, but it is sure, if things turn out rightly. So I want a promise of the lease, and all the other things, while the iron is hot. He told me to say nothing about it, only to ask, in a civil way, if the young master had come to his senses yet, or was likely to. He is awful fond of the young master, is my son, and sends me o'er, or comes himself to the lodge every day to hear about him. He would be put about sorely if he knew that I had let on about the house just yet; but I can see no good in waiting. You will kindly bear it in mind that we shall want a deal more than the lease. Dick says he's sure to have it, one way or another; and a rare lad for getting his own will is our Dick."

There was something strange in the extravagance of this request, that made the baronet thoughtful. He felt the stolid assumption of the old man, but did not resent it. Some undercurrent of apprehension kept him prudent. He only replied quietly, "Well, Storms, the lease is not out yet. There is plenty of time," and, with a wave of the hand, dismissed the old man.

In the hall Storms was astonished to find his son waiting, apparently careless, though his eyes gleamed with suppressed wrath. He followed the old man out, and once under the shelter of the park, turned upon him.

"What were you doing in there?"

"Nothing, Dick! Only asking after the young master, and talking a bit with the baronet."