‘it was the hour when woods are cold.’
while the squire of penwyn surveyed his flower and fern-bedecked board, and congratulated himself that he was a power in the land, his lodge-keeper, the woman with tawny skin, sun-browned almost to mahogany colour, dark brows and night-black eyes, sat at her door-step watching the swiftly changing splendours of the west, where the sky was still glorious with the last radiance of the sunken sun. the crimson light glows on the brown skin, and gleams in the dusky eyes as the woman sits with her face fronting westward.
she has a curious fancy for out-of-door life, and is not often to be found inside the comfortable lodge. she prefers the door-step to an arm-chair by the hearth, even in winter; nay, she has been seen to sit at her threshold, with a shawl over her head, during a pitiless storm, watching the lightning with those bright bold eyes of hers. her grandchild elspeth has the same objection to imprisonment within four walls. she has no gates to open, and can roam where she lists. she avails herself of that privilege without stint, and wanders from dawn till sunset, and sometimes late into the starry night. she has resisted all mrs. penwyn’s kind attempts to beguile her along the road to knowledge by the easy steps of the parish school. she will not sit among the rosy-cheeked cornish children, or walk to church with the neatly-clad procession from the sunday school. she is more ignorant than the small toddlers of three or four, can neither read nor write, hardly knows the use of a needle, and in the matter of scriptural and theological knowledge is a very heathen.
if these people had not been the squire’s protégées they would have been dismissed from orderly penwyn long ere now. they were out of harmony with their surroundings, they made a discordant note in the calm music of life at the manor. while all else was neatness, exquisite cleanliness, the lodge had a look of neglect, a slovenliness which struck the observer’s eye disagreeably—a curtain hanging awry at one of the lattices, a tattered garment flying like a pennant from an open casement, a trailing branch of jessamine, a handleless jug standing on a window-sill, a muddy door-step. trifles like these annoyed mrs. penwyn, and she had more than once reproved the lodge-keeper for her untidiness. the woman had heard her quietly enough, had uttered no insolent word, and had curtseyed low as the lady of the mansion passed on. but the dark face had been shadowed by a sullen frown, and no amendment had ever followed mrs. penwyn’s remonstrances.
‘i really wish you would get rid of those people at the north lodge,’ madge said to churchill, one day, after having her patience peculiarly tried by the spectacle of a ragged blanket hanging to dry in the lodge garden. ‘they make our grounds look like some irish squireen’s place, where the lodge-keeper is allowed a patch of potatoes and a drying-ground for the family linen at the park gates. if they are really objects of charity, it would be better to allow them a pension, and let them live where they like.’
‘we will think about it, my love, when i have a little more time on my hands,’ answered mr. penwyn.
he never said an absolute ‘no’ to his wife; but a request which had to be thought about by him was rarely granted.
madge gave an impatient sigh. these people at the lodge exercised her patience severely.
‘waiting till you have leisure seems absurd, churchill,’ she said. ‘with your parliamentary work, and all that you have to see to here, there can be no such thing as spare time. why not send these people away at once? they make the place look horribly untidy.’
‘i’ll remonstrate with them,’ replied churchill.
‘and then they are such queer people,’ continued madge. ‘that girl elspeth is as ignorant as a south sea islander, and i dare say the grandmother is just as bad. they never go to church, setting such a shocking example to the villagers.’
‘my love, there are many respectable people who never go to church. i rarely went myself in my bachelor days. i used to reserve sunday morning for my arrears of correspondence.’
‘oh, churchill!’ cried madge, with a shocked look.
‘my dearest love, you know i do not set up for exalted virtue.’
‘churchill!’ she exclaimed, tenderly, but still with that shocked look. she loved him so much better than herself that she would have liked heaven to be a certainty for him even at the cost of a cycle in purgatory for her.
‘come, dear, you know i have never pretended to be a good man. i do the best i can with my opportunities, and try to be as much use as i can in my generation.’
‘but you call yourself a christian, churchill?’ she asked, solemnly. their life had been so glad, so bright, so busy, so full of action and occupation, that they had seldom spoken of serious things. never till this moment had madge asked her husband that simple, solemn question.
he turned from her with a clouded face, turned from her impatiently even, and walked to the other end of the room.
‘if there is one thing i hate more than another, madge, it is theological argumentation,’ he said, shortly.
‘there is no argument here, churchill; a man is or is not a follower of christ.’
‘then i am not,’ he said.
she shrank away from him as if he had struck her, looked at him for a few moments with a pale agonized face, and left him without a word. she could not trust herself to speak—the blow had been too sudden, too heavy. she went away to her own room and shut herself in, and wept for him and prayed for him. but she loved him not the less because by his own lips he stood confessed an infidel. that was how she interpreted his words of self-condemnation. she forgot that a man may believe in christ, yet not follow him: believe, like the devils, and, like the devils, tremble.
mrs. penwyn never spoke to her husband of the people at the north lodge after this. they were associated with a too painful memory. churchill, however, did not forget to reprove the lodge-keeper’s slovenliness, and his brief and stern remonstrance had some effect. the lodge was kept in better order, at least so far as its external appearance went. within it was still a disorderly den.
the lodge-keeper’s name was rebecca—by this name at least she was known at penwyn. whether she possessed the distinction of a surname was a moot point. she had not condescended to communicate it to any one at the manor. she had been at penwyn nearly two years, and had not made a friend—nay, not so much as an acquaintance who cared to ‘pass the time of day’ as he went by her door. the peasantry secretly thought her a witch, a dim belief in witchcraft and wise women still lingering in nooks and corners of this remote romantic west, despite the printing press and the school board. the women-servants were half disposed to share that superstition. everybody avoided her. unpopularity so obvious seemed a matter of supreme indifference to the woman who called herself rebecca. certain creature comforts were needful to her well-being, and these she had in abundance. the sun and the air were indispensable to her content. these she could enjoy unhindered. her ruling vice was slothfulness, her master passion love of ease. these she could indulge. she therefore enjoyed as near an approach to positive happiness as mere animal mankind can feel. love of man or of god, the one divine spark which lights our clay, shone not here. she had a vague sense of kindred which made some kind of tie between her and her own flesh and blood, but she had never known what it was to love anything. she kept her grandchild, elspeth, gave her food, and raiment, and shelter—first, because what she gave cost her nothing; and secondly, because elspeth ran errands for her, carried a certain stone bottle to be filled and refilled at the little inn in penwyn village, did whatever work there was to be done in the lodge, and saved her grandmother trouble generally. the delicious laziness of the lodge-keeper’s days would have been less perfect without elspeth’s small services; otherwise it would have given this woman little pain to know that elspeth was shelterless and starving.
she sat and watched the light fade yonder over the lake-like sea, and heavy mists steal up the moorlands as the day died. presently, sure that no one would come to the gates at this hour, she drew a short blackened clay pipe from her pocket, filled and lighted it, and began to smoke—slowly, luxuriously, dreamily—if so mindless a being could dream.
she emptied her pipe, and filled again, and smoked on, happy, while the moon showed silver-pale in the opal sky. the opal faded to grey; the grey deepened to purple; the silver shield grew brighter while she sat there, and the low murmur of summer waves made a soothing music—soft, slow, dreamily monotonous. the brightening moon shone full upon that moorland track by which maurice clissold first came to penwyn manor. in making his road across the uplands, the squire had not followed this narrow track. the footpath still remained, at some distance from the road.
turning her eyes lazily towards this path, rebecca was startled by the sight of a figure approaching slowly in the moonlight, a man, broad-shouldered, stalwart, walking with that careless freedom of gait which betokens the habitual pedestrian, the wanderer who has tramped over many a hill-side, and traversed many a stony road, a nomad by instinct and habit.
he came straight on, without pause or uncertainty, came straight to the gate, and looked in at the woman sitting on the door-step.
‘ah!’ he said, ‘it was the straight tip josh collins gave me. good evening, mother.’
the woman emptied the ashes of her pipe upon the door-step before she answered this filial greeting. then she looked up at the wanderer frowningly.
‘what brings you here?’
‘there’s a heartless question!’ cried the man. ‘what brings a son to look after his blessed old mother? do you allow nothing for family feeling?’
‘not in you, paul, or any of your breed. what brought you here?’
‘you’d better let me in first, and give me something to eat and drink. i don’t care about looking through iron bars, like a wild beast in wombwell’s show.’
rebecca hesitated—looked at her son doubtfully for a minute or so before she made up her mind to admit him, weighed the possibilities of the case, and then took her key and unlocked the gate. if it had been practicable to keep this returned prodigal outside without peril to herself, she would have done it, but she knew her son’s disposition too well to trifle with feelings which were apt to express themselves with a savage freedom.
‘come in,’ she said, sulkily, ‘and eat your fill, and go your ways when you’ve eaten. it was an ill wind for me that blew you this way.’
‘that’s not over-kind from a mother,’ responded the nomad, carelessly. ‘i’ve had work enough to find you since you gave us the slip at westerham fair.’
‘you might have been content to lose me, considering the little store you ever set by me,’ retorted rebecca, bitterly.
‘well, perhaps i might have brought myself to look at it in that light, if i hadn’t heard of you two or three months ago from a mate of mine in the broom trade, who happened to pass this way last summer, and saw you here, squatting in the sun like a toad. he made a few inquiries about you—out of friendliness to me—in the village yonder, and heard that you were living on the fat of the land, and had enough to spare. living in service—you, that were brought up to something better than taking any man’s wages—and eating the bread of dependence. so i put two and two together, and thought perhaps you’d contrived to save a little bit of money by this time, and would help me with a pound or two if i looked you up. it would be hard lines if a mother refused help to her son.’
‘you treated me so well when we were together that i ought to be very fond of you, no doubt,’ said rebecca. ‘come in, and eat. i’ll give you a meal and a night’s lodging if you like, but i’ll give you no more, and you’d better make yourself scarce soon after daybreak. my master is a magistrate, and has no mercy on tramps.’
‘then how did he come to admit you into his service? you hadn’t much of a character from your last place, i take it.’
‘he had his reasons.’
‘ay, there’s a reason for everything. i should like to know the reason of your getting such a berth as this, i must say.’
he followed his mother into the lodge. the room was furnished comfortably enough, but dirt and disorder ruled the scene. of this, however, the wanderer’s eye took little note as he briefly surveyed the chamber, dimly lighted by a single tallow candle burning in a brass candlestick on the mantel-piece. he flung himself into the high-backed windsor arm-chair, drew it to the table, and sat there waiting for refreshment, his darkly bright eyes following rebecca’s movements as she took some dishes from a cupboard, and set them on the board without any previous ceremony in the way of spreading a cloth or clearing the litter of faded cabbage-leaves and stale crusts which encumbered one side of the table.
the tramp devoured his meal ravenously, and said not a word till the cravings of hunger were satisfied. at the rate he ate this result was quickly attained, and he pushed away the empty dish with a satisfied sigh.
‘that’s the first hearty feed i’ve had for a week,’ he said. ‘a snack of bread and cheese and a mug of beer at a roadside public has had to serve me for breakfast and dinner and supper, and a man of my stamina can’t live on bread and cheese. and now tell me all about yourself, mother, and how you came into this comfortable berth, plenty to eat and drink and nothing to do.’
‘that’s my business, paul,’ answered the woman, with a dogged air which meant resistance.
‘come, you needn’t make a secret of it. do you suppose i haven’t brains enough to find out for myself, if you refuse to tell me? it isn’t every day in the year that a fine gentleman and a lady take a gipsy fortune-teller into their service. such things are not done without good reason. what sort of a chap is this squire penwyn?’
‘i’ve nothing to tell you about him,’ answered the woman, with the same steady look.
‘oh, you’re as obstinate as ever, i see. all the winds that blow across the atlantic haven’t blown your sullen temper out of you. very well, since you’re so uncommunicative, suppose i tell you something about this precious master of yours. there are other people who know him—people who are not afraid to answer a civil question. his name is penwyn, and he is the first cousin of that poor young fellow who was murdered at eborsham, and by that young man’s death he comes into this property. rather a lucky thing for him, wasn’t it, that his cousin was shot from behind a hedge? if such luck had happened to a chap of my quality, a rogue and vagabond bred and born, there’d have been people in the world malicious enough to say that i had a hand in the murder. but who could suspect a gentleman like mr. penwyn? no gentleman would shoot his cousin from behind a hedge, even though the cousin stood between him and ever so many thousands a year.’
‘i don’t know what you mean by your sneers,’ returned rebecca. ‘mr. penwyn was over two hundred miles away at the time.’
‘oh, you know all about him. you occupy a post of confidence here, i see. pleasant for you. shall i tell you something more about him? shall i tell you that he has family plate worth thousands—solid old plate that has been in the family for more than a century; that his wife makes no more account of her diamonds than if they were dog-roses she pulled out of the hedges to stick in her hair? that’s what i call good luck, for they were both of ’em as poor as job until that cousin was murdered. hard for a chap like me to stand outside their gates and hear about their riches, and pass on, with empty stomach, and blistered feet—pass on to wheedle a few pence out of a peasant wench, or steal a barn-door fowl. there’s destiny for you!’
he emptied the beer jug, which had held a quart of good home-brewed, took out his pipe and began to smoke, his mother watching him uneasily all the time. those two were alone in the lodge. the moonlight and balmy air had lured elspeth far afield, wandering over the dewy moorland, singing her snatches of gipsy song, and happy in her own wild way—happy though she knew she would get a scolding with her supper by and by.
‘they’ve got a party to-night, haven’t they?’ asked paul. ‘half a dozen fine carriages passed me an hour or so ago, before i struck out of the road into the footpath.’
‘yes, there’s a dinner party.’
the gipsy rose and went to the open window. the lighted windows of the manor house shone across the shadowy depth of park and shrubberies. those dark eyes of his glittered curiously as he surveyed the scene.
‘i should like to see them feasting and enjoying themselves,’ he said, moving towards the door.
‘you mustn’t go near the house, you mustn’t be seen about the place,’ cried rebecca, following him hurriedly.
‘mustn’t i?’ sneered the gipsy. ‘i never learnt the meaning of the word mustn’t. i’ll go and have a peep at your fine ladies and gentlemen—i’m not quite a fool, and i shan’t let them see me—and then come back here for a night’s rest. you needn’t be frightened if i’m rather long. it’ll amuse me to look on at the high jinks through some half-open window. there, don’t look so anxious. i know how to keep myself dark.’
