Into the Highways and Hedges Part 21

She took herself to task for her disgust, as if it had been a crime, but could not prevail upon herself to return to the kitchen. Tom's deformity did not cause her the least repulsion; it was as it were accidental, and the man himself inspired her with respect; but Timothy seemed to her like some horrible brute, whose very likeness to humanity made him the more repulsive.

She sat down on the wide sill of the staircase window, and tried to forget the troublesome details of this rough-edged life, the while her eyes rested on the reed beds bowing in the wind, and the low grey sky, where a buzzard hung poised.

Thus seated, she clenched her hands; and, presently, began to sing very softly to herself, to the tune of an old Roundhead battle hymn. The inspiration of hard fighting was in it, and it did her good.

In the middle of a bar, she became aware that some one was listening; and, turning round, saw Mr. Thorpe standing on the stair above her.

The old man looked worn and tired; but smiled, and spoke to her with a rather melancholy gentleness that won her heart.

"Ye've a very sweet voice, la.s.sie," he said. "Are ye for driving the old enemy away with it? Ye were singing as if ye were leading a forlorn hope. Ye had better not stop till ye've routed him."

The girl looked wonderingly for a moment; and then her heart went out to him with instinctive womanly sympathy. "I can sing as long as ever you please," she said; and she sang on with gathering courage, till the dusk began to creep over the landscape, and the shadows broadened on the stairs, and her voice failed from weariness.

She slid down from her place, warmed and cheered by a sense of comrades.h.i.+p, and stood beside him as he thanked her. The preacher's wife became wonderfully clever, as time went on, in foreseeing and warding off the black fits of depression that laid hold on the man; but, on that first evening, he had helped her, as a stronger and more cheerful spirit never could have.

"I am ashamed to go back to the kitchen," she said shyly; "I was so silly at dinner-time."

"An' so ye are Barnabas' wife!" he answered irrelevantly. "Well, well, it's no wonder ye feel a bit strange; but ye have driven the devil back.

Come along wi' me, la.s.s." And they went down together.

The preacher came home in the evening; he had been out all day. His eyes turned at once to the chimney corner, where Meg was sitting with her head bent down, fondling a kitten on the hearth.

"How is dad?" he asked of Tom, who hopped into the room with a tablecloth, which was entirely for their guest's benefit, under his arm.

"All right," said Tom. "Thanks to your wife, she's witched away the blues this time, and I thought we were in for a spell of 'em. I'll forgive ye for having the bad taste not to like me, if ye can cheer up dad;" turning round on Meg. "But what are we to call ye? Ye can't allus be 'Barnabas' wife!'"

"My name is Margaret," said Meg slowly. "I suppose that is what you had better call me."

"Oh, not if you don't like it," cried Tom, who perceived with wonderful quickness the "unwilling" inflection in her voice. "I'd not call any woman by her name against her will. Ye needn't think it. Will 'ee sit down to supper with us, Barnabas' wife, or would ye liefer stay at a safe distance till we've quite done, eh?"

"Doan't ye heed him; he talks a deal o' nonsense by times," said Barnabas. And Meg was rather thankful for once to have his broad shoulders between herself and Tom's over sharp-sighted eyes.

And so the first day at the farm came to an end, and in the course of the many that followed the stranger settled down among the Thorpes, even if she didn't take root, and still remained more or less strange.

She grew fond of Mr. Thorpe, who pitied the "little lady" from his heart. She was uneasily conscious of Tom's shrewd observation, which was uncomfortably keen to live with; and she saw very little of the man who had been her daily companion for the last three months.

The preacher seldom came in till late, and then exchanged few words with her. There had been nothing like a quarrel between them, and Meg had the most absolute trust in him; nevertheless, she breathed more freely when he was not present, sitting on the bench in the kitchen netting or carving silently, and looking at her every now and then with a look that haunted her.

She had been some weeks at the farm, when, one day, something occurred to break the surface calm that seemed to have settled on them, and frightened her with a glimpse of the Thorpe temper that Mrs. Tremnell had talked about, and of something else as well, which she was unwilling enough to reckon with.

Barnabas Thorpe had been away for several days, and was striking home across the flats. He quickened his pace on nearing the farm. The dull ache of anxiety he constantly felt when absent, had changed to a sharper excitement that made his pulses beat fast, when suddenly the faint echo of a scream caught his ear, and with a shout that rang out over the snow-covered marsh, he ran at full speed towards the farm.

Tom, seeing him in the distance, and wondering at the headlong rush, followed him as fast as his lame foot would allow, and arrived five minutes after him panting and curious.

By that time the preacher was standing in the middle of the kitchen with the fingers of his left hand twisted in "Foolish Timothy's" collar, and his right arm raised in the act of striking. Timothy was howling like a wild beast, and livid with mingled rage and fright and pain; the weight of Barnabas Thorpe's arm was not light, and he did all things with a superabundant amount of energy. Barnabas' wife was standing in a corner with a face as white as the snow outside.

"I say," said Tom, "whatever Tim's been doing, I think ye'd better put off the rest o' that thras.h.i.+n' till your wife's out o' the way."

Meg found her voice at the same instant. "Oh do let him go--I only want him to go!" she cried. And the preacher let his arm drop at the sound of her voice.

"All right, I won't hit him again. You needn't look at me like that.

He's not half so much hurt as he deserves," he said. And then, half twisting the idiot round with a turn of his strong wrist, he spoke between his teeth.

"If I gave you your deservings," he said, "I'd thrash you till you hadn't a whole bone left. I can't do that now; not that it wouldn't do you good, but it's against my calling. You'll get off a deal too easy; but if ever I catch you frightening my wife or any other woman again, I'll take it it 'ull be my duty to pay ye with interest; and I swear you shall have enough to last your life. Off wi' ye! and don't let's see your face under this roof again."

With that, he loosened his grasp; and Timothy, choking, made for the door. Before pa.s.sing through it, he turned and shook his fist at Barnabas.

"I'll be even with you and your fine wife yet!" he cried. "Curse you both! Bad luck is on your scent, Barnabas! She always follows them as lays hands on me; and you've tempted her before. You've taken to wife a maid as wasn't born for the likes of you or yours, and every drop of blood in her body shrinks from you. She's pining after her own people already, and she'll go back to them and leave you to whistle for her.

She's theirs, not yours! and if ye try to hold her she'll hate you. You can force man to obey you, but you can't make a woman cleave to you.

She'll leave you, I say, and there'll be worse to follow. I'll live to see you brought low, and----"

"Clear out!" said Tom. "Or ye'll sartainly live to see yourself 'brought low' in half a second." And Timothy fled; but the brothers looked at each other with foreboding in their faces. Neither of them was above superst.i.tion.

"It is terrible unlucky," said Tom, "to lay a hand on such as him. I wish ye hadn't, lad!"

"He may think himself fortunate. I'd not ha' dealt so gently by him once," said the preacher grimly. "But," with a sudden change of tone, "I've scared my poor la.s.s nigh as much as that varmin did!"

He turned to Meg, who was still standing with a blanched face in the corner. "How came it ye were alone wi' him?" he asked.

"Mrs. Tremnell and your father have gone into town to-day," said Meg, trying rather vainly to steady her voice. "Tom thought I was with them, but my head ached, and I stayed behind. I didn't come down to dinner because Timothy was there; but, after dinner, I heard him go out with Tom, and thought it was quite safe. He crept back when I was alone in the kitchen." She shuddered, and Barnabas clenched his hand unconsciously.

"Do you mean to say ye had ever reason to be scared of him before?" he asked thickly.

"It was chiefly my silliness before," said Meg. "He only made faces at me and tried to pinch me one day when Tom's back was turned; but, of course, I knew he hadn't all his wits, and I didn't like to make a fuss.

Oh, Barnabas, _please_ don't go on talking about it; let's forget."

"I am sorry, lad," said Tom, who was watching his brother curiously.

"Aren't you wis.h.i.+n' you were unconverted an' free to wring his neck?

But," with a swift wheel round, "doan't ye think ye really were a little fool not to ha' told me, Barnabas' wife? Ye might ha' known, by this time, tha' I'd not ha' let that scamp bother you."

"I thought you would say I was behaving like a fine lady, and fancying myself different from the rest of you," said Meg.

And Tom laughed loudly. "There wouldn't be much fancy needed," said he.

The episode seemed, by the very fact of its having stirred their emotions, to have brought the woman's aliency into stronger relief. She looked longingly at the door, and made a step towards it, when Barnabas interposed.

"I'll leave ye in peace in a moment, Margaret," he said; "but afore I go, will 'ee promise me one thing? Will ye tell Tom next time if aught troubles ye while I am away? or I'll have no rest for thinking some'ut may be wrong with 'ee."

He spoke insistently, and Meg hesitated for an appreciable second; then shook her head, the colour coming back to her cheek with a rush: she had already promised this man more than she could perform.

"I would rather not promise," she said. "I might not want to. If you say I must, I will, because you have a right, I suppose; but I would rather not."

Tom grunted impatiently; Barnabas picked up the stick he had broken across Timothy's shoulders and turned away.

"Do as ye choose; it'll be a bad day for us both when I take to saying ye must do a thing because I've a right," he answered.

The moment the door had closed upon his brother Tom swore.