LOOKING EASTWARD.
THE battle was over between two and three o’clock. A thin little boy, dark and handsome, who, with great black eyes, had been watching the vicissitudes of the combat with silent interest, got quickly from the fair green so soon as the fight was ended, and ran, with a light foot, through the old town of Willarden, and away westward, towards Dardale Moss.
William had left home in the gray of the dawn; and old Martha Gillyflower, talking at breakfast to her guest, said: —
“Now, see, if here isn’t a cow?” She had whisked round the tea-leaves that remained in the bottom of her cup, and inverted it in her saucer, and was now reading futurity, after the manner of her kind, in the tracing thus made on the sides of her tea-cup. “A cow. Look here; isn’t there one horn, and there the other? — and its tail here? That’s what he’ll bring home, ye’ll find — a cow; and if he does, he mun find room for her in his study, for there’s none on the farm. He did the same at Crinkford — half-a-score sheep, without ever a word to Clinton, and more sheep at Haworth than Peter kenn’d what to do wi’.”
The girl laughed. “Well, if he brings home a cow, it will be an odd day’s shootin’.”
“Shootin’, child! The first time I heard of a gentleman shootin’ at a fair,” replied Martha.
“Oh! the fair? What fair? — Willarden?” asked the girl, carelessly, but with a slight change of color.
“Ay, Willarden. He’s not gane there to sell, sa it mun be to buy, I consayte; it will not be the gingerbread and peep-shows that taks him thiddher.”
The girl laughed. “Some young lady — a sweet-heart, mayhap,” said she.
“Na — na. Willie’s nane o’ that sort; he’s too wise. Time enough to court when he’s thinkin’ to marry, and time enough to marry when he has meyar years o’er his pow, and meyar goud in his poke. He’ll no du a’ that lids. Na — na; he’ll no be thinkin’ o’ fetchin’ hame a marrow to Haworth this mony a year yet; en afoore ony sic like cattle comes hiddher to Haworth, I wish a’ad Martha may be far enough out o’ the way.”
The girl talked on very merrily. She was in great spirits. But so it was, that when Martha was no longer near, she grew thoughtful and restless, and after a time walked down to the ruin that stands near the road to Willarden, and stood on that eminence looking towards it. It was too early yet for any one to return from the fair. The narrow old road was deserted. She sat there, looking for a long time. She sang sometimes little snatches of airs, wild and quaint, of which the world knows nothing. Then came intervals of silence, and then, in her low sweet voice, she would talk to the dog, of which she made a pet, as it sat beside her, and then a silent watch again.
Then into the house die would run, and whistle to the bullfinch, or lend a hand in any work that was going on, and make a bit of fun for Mrs. Gillyflower.
“Wi’ all your fun, thou’s not eatin’ a bit. Thou’s not well, lass?” asked old Martha, kindly.
“Never better — only I was thinking, Mrs. Gillyflower; and where’s the good of thinking? Everything dies — birds, flowers, lads, and lasses — all, and sorrow itself dies at last; and so, ma’am, I say, let us not care too much for any, for ’tis only grief, at best; and if you like them well, and their liking dies first, where are ye? So keep your heart sure locked, and the key where none can find it, and your love won’t be stole away; and ye’ll have a merry mind, and careless days, and light sleep, and ye’ll die a good old woman. Shall I sing you the song of the little fiddler that died of love of Willie Faa’s big aunt, and was buried on the top of the hill in his fiddle-case?”
So the strange girl sang this song, which affected from first to last a pedantic strain of philosophy, with a tune somewhat monotonous and severe, both of which, contrasted with the irresistibly absurd images and incidents of the tale, made old Mrs. Gillyflower’s fat sides shake with laughter.
Away the girl ran again, before the laughter was half over, and was looking eastward once more from the same eminence — watching listlessly sometimes, and sometimes more anxiously, for the distant figure of the returning horseman.
Had she once been satisfied that she saw him and that he was safe, she would have returned, and the preux chevalier would never have known that his return had been so watched for.
Many restless toings-and-froings had there been.
It is now within an hour of sunset, and she hears a whistle, and guesses who is coming. She advances. A little blackeyed boy comes running up the foad, that here winds with a picturesque irregularity, and he sees her and raises his hands. She beckons, in her cold lofty way, and in a moment more he has reached her side.
He has a story to tell. It is related with wonderful gestures and volubility. She stands listening, with her hand extended. They are quite out of sight of the house.
Out comes her little red purse, and she gives the boy some money. He has a word or two more to say. He is going, but she beckons him back again, and has more questions to ask — possibly the old ones over again.
And now she waves him off, and away goes he; and she is alone, looking down on the grass beside her with a pale face.