Innocent : her fancy and his fact Part 4

"That's right, Miss! Good luck to the master! Many good years of life to him, and better crops every year!"

She drew back, smiling her thanks, but there were tears in her eyes.

And then they all started in a pretty procession--the men leading Roger, who paced along the meadow with equine dignity, shaking his ribbons now and again as if he were fully conscious of carrying something more valuable than mere hay,--and above them all smiled the girl's young face, framed in its soft brown hair and crowned with the wild roses, while at her side stood the very type of a model Englishman, with all the promise of splendid life and vigour in the build of his form, the set of his shoulders and the poise of his handsome head. It was a picture of youth and beauty and lovely nature set against the warm evening tint of the sky,--one of those pictures which, though drawn for the moment only on the minds of those who see it, is yet never forgotten.

Arriving presently at a vast enclosure, in which already two loads of hay were being stacked, they were hailed with a cheery shout by several other labourers at work, and very soon a strong smell of beer began to mingle with the odour of the hay and the dewy scent of the elder flowers and sweet briar in the hedges close by.

"Have a drop, Mr. Clifford!" said one tall, powerful-looking man who seemed to be a leader among the others, holding out a pewter tankard full and frothing over.

Robin Clifford smiled and put his lips to it.

"Just to your health, Landon!" he said--"I'm not a drinking man."

"Haymaking's thirsty work," commented the other. "Will Miss Jocelyn do us the honour?"

The girl made a wry little face.

"I don't like beer, Mr. Landon," she said--"It's horrid stuff, even when it's home-brewed! I help to make it, you see!"

She laughed gaily--they all laughed with her, and then there was a little altercation which ended in her putting her lips to the tankard just offered to Robin and sipping the merest fleck of its foam. Landon watched her,--and as she returned the cup, put his own mouth to the place hers had touched and drank the whole draught off greedily. Robin did not see his action, but the girl did, and a deep blush of offence suffused her cheeks. She rose, a little nervously.

"I'll go in now," she said--"Dad must be alone by this time."

"All right!" And Robin jumped lightly from the top of the load to the ground and put the ladder up for her to descend. She came down daintily, turning her back to him so that the hem of her neat white skirt fell like a little snowflake over each rung of the ladder, veiling not only her slim ankles but the very heels of her shoes. When she was nearly at the bottom, he caught her up and set her lightly on the ground.

"There you are!" he said, with a laugh--"When you get into the house you can tell Uncle that you are a Rose Queen, a Hay Queen, and Queen of everything and everyone on Briar Farm, including your very humble servant, Robin Clifford!"

"And your humblest of slaves, Ned Landon!" added Landon, with a quick glance, doffing his cap. "Mr. Clifford mustn't expect to have it all his own way!"

"What the devil are you talking about?" demanded Robin, turning upon him with a sudden fierceness.

Innocent gave him an appealing look.

"Don't!--Oh, don't quarrel!" she whispered,--and with a parting nod to the whole party of workers she hurried away.

With her disappearance came a brief pause among the men. Then Robin, turning away from Landon, proceeded to give various orders. He was a person in authority, and as everyone knew, was likely to be the owner of the farm when his uncle was dead. Landon went close up to him.

"Mr. Clifford," he said, somewhat thickly, "you heard what I said just now? You mustn't expect to have it all your own way! There's other men after the girl as well as you!"

Clifford glanced him up and down.

"Yourself, I suppose?" he retorted.

"And why not?" sneered Landon.

"Only because there are two sides to every question," said Clifford, carelessly, with a laugh. "And no decision can be arrived at till both are heard!"

He climbed up among the other men and set to work, stacking steadily, and singing in a fine soft baritone the old fifteenth-century song:

"Yonder comes a courteous knight, l.u.s.tily raking over the hay, He was well aware of a bonny la.s.s, As she came wandering over the way.

Then she sang Downe a downe, hey downe derry!

"Jove you speed, fair ladye, he said, Among the leaves that be so greene, If I were a king and wore a crown, Full soon faire Ladye shouldst thou be queene.

Then she sang Downe a downe, hey downe derry!"

Landon looked up at him with a dark smile.

"Those laugh best who laugh last!" he muttered, "And a whistling throstle has had its neck wrung before now!"

Meanwhile Innocent had entered the farmhouse. Pa.s.sing through the hall, which,--unaltered since the days of its original building,--was vaulted high and heavily timbered, she went first into the kitchen to see Priscilla, who, a.s.sisted by a couple of strong rosy-cheeked girls, did all the housework and cooking of the farm. She found that personage rolling out pastry and talking volubly as she rolled:

"Ah! YOU'LL never come to much good, Jenny Spinner," she cried. "What with a muck of dirty dishes in one corner and a muddle of ragged clouts in another, you're the very model of a wife for a farm hand! Can't sew a gown for yerself neither, but bound to send it into town to be made for ye, and couldn't put a b.u.t.ton on a pair of breeches for fear of 'urtin' yer delicate fingers! Well! G.o.d 'elp ye when the man comes as ye're lookin' for! He'll be a fool anyhow, for all men are that,--but he'll be twice a fool if he takes you for a life-satchel on his shoulders!"

Jenny Spinner endured this tirade patiently, and went on with the was.h.i.+ng-up in which she was engaged, only turning her head to look at Innocent as she appeared suddenly in the kitchen doorway, with her hair slightly dishevelled and the wreath of wild roses crowning her brows.

"Priscilla, where's Dad?" she asked.

"Lord save us, lovey! You gave me a real scare coming in like that with them roses on yer head like a pixie out of the woods! The master? He's just where the doctors left 'im, sittin' in his easy-chair and looking out o' window."

"Was it--was it all right, do you think?" asked the girl, hesitatingly.

"Now, lovey, don't ask me about doctors, 'cos I don't know nothin' and wants to know nothin', for they be close-tongued folk who never sez what they thinks lest they get their blessed selves into hot water. And whether it's all right or all wrong, I couldn't tell ye, for the two o'

them went out together, and Mr. Slowton sez 'Good-arternoon, Miss Friday!' quite perlite like, and the other gentleman he lifts 'is 'at quite civil, so I should say 'twas all wrong. For if you mark me, lovey, men's allus extra perlite when they thinks there's goin' to be trouble, hopin' they'll get somethin' for theirselves out of it."

Innocent hardly waited to hear her last words.

"I'm going to Dad," she said, quickly, and disappeared.

Priscilla Friday stopped for a minute in the rolling-cut of her pastry.

Some great stress of thought appeared to be working behind her wrinkled brow, for she shook her head, pursed her lips and rolled up her eyes a great many times. Then she gave a short sigh and went on with her work.

The farmhouse was a rambling old place, full of quaint corners, arches and odd little steps up and down leading to cupboards, mysterious recesses and devious winding ways which turned into dark narrow pa.s.sages, branching right and left through the whole breadth of the house. It was along one of these that Innocent ran swiftly on leaving the kitchen, till she reached a closed door, where pausing, she listened a moment-then, hearing no sound, opened it and went softly in.

The room she entered was filled with soft shadows of the gradually falling dusk, yet partially lit by a golden flame of the after-glow which shone through the open latticed window from the western sky.

Close to the waning light sat the master of the farm, still clad in his smock frock, with his straw hat on the table beside him and his stick leaning against the arm of his chair. He was very quiet,--so quiet, that a late beam of the sun, touching the rough silver white of his hair, seemed almost obtrusive, as suggesting an interruption to the moveless peace of his att.i.tude. Innocent stopped short, with a tremor of nervous fear.

"Dad!" she said, softly.

He turned towards her.

"Ay, la.s.s! What is it?"

She did not answer, but came up and knelt down beside him, taking one of his brown wrinkled hands in her own and caressing it. The silence between them was unbroken for quite two or three minutes; then he said:

"Last load in all safe?"

"Yes, Dad!"

"Not a drop of rain to wet it, and no hard words to toughen it, eh?"