VII.
They brought the yellow-haired little maiden to the mill (ran the story), and Gloam called her Swanhilda. Jael, the old housekeeper, looked at her sharply, and asked what good such a little creature could be among poor people? the girl was of no use herself, and would only hinder those who had to work.
Gloam answered, “Heaven has sent her to us. She shall be our inspiration, and the symbol of our good. Treat her with reverence, and tenderly, as you would treat the best and purest aspiration of your heart. If we wrong her, it will be our deadliest sin. If we cherish her, the sins we have committed may be forgiven us.”
“She is a gentleman’s daughter, at all events,” said Jael. “Look at the shape of her hands and feet! No, she never worked, nor did her mother before her. Well, maybe her family will come after her some day, and pay us well for taking care of her. Or who knows but she may turn out heiress to some great estate, when she grows up? If that were so.... David, son, come hither. See—she’s a pretty little thing.”
Handsome David stooped down and took the child’s small soft hand. “And so she is—a little beauty!” he exclaimed, looking into her blue eyes. “Can’t speak English, eh? That’s a pity; but live and learn. Right glad am I that you brought her here, sir,” he added to Gloam. “Where did you pick her up?”
“She’s the rainbow after the storm,” Gloam answered, smiling. “But I shall not teach her English. Let her speak only the language which she has brought with her.” And he led the child away.
“That may do for him,” muttered David, “but it won’t do for me. He can talk with her and I can’t; so if he won’t teach her English I will. Devil take me if she isn’t a sweet little fairy; and she’s quite enchanted the Scholar already. He’s a changed man since yesterday. But he shan’t have all the fun to himself.”
“She looks thirteen, don’t you think?” said Jael. “She won’t be a child much longer, David. Why, come three years or so, she’ll be old enough to be married.”
“Ay, old woman; but I shall be too old to marry her,” he answered, with a keen look and a laugh.
“I tell you, son, she’s a lady, and good enough to mate with any man.”
“That’s your notion, and likely enough it’s true. But good blood isn’t all I want—I’ve got that already, thanks to your good looks; what I want and haven’t got is money. And Miss Swanhilda, pretty as she is, has less money even than I.”
“But she has relations—rich relations; her own father and mother may be alive for all we know. If she was saved off a ship where all the rest were lost, of course there’ll be no telling for some time to come. But it’s worth waiting for.”
“Did no papers come ashore—nothing to help identify her?”
“I asked Poyntz that,” said Jael, “and so far as I can make out, I think there hasn’t been anything.”
“Well, I’ll make sure of that next time I go over. We might advertise in the foreign papers after awhile. A right pretty little thing she is, and no mistake. But I’m not a-going to run any risks, old woman. Supposing I was to get tied down to her for life, and then find out that she’d got nothing, what would I do then?”
“There’s no need of supposing any such thing, David. As if you couldn’t make the girl fond of you so as she wouldn’t marry any but you; then you’d have her safe, and if all turned out well, ’twould be time enough to put the ring on her finger.”
“Ay, that’s about the idea, I suppose. Well, the Scholar’s got the start of us now; and ’twon’t do to let him see what we’re up to; luckily he never did see what’s going on under his nose. By-the-way, that’s a quaint bit of a necklace the child wears; mayhaps that’ll help us to find out something——”
He broke off suddenly, with an oath, and he and his mother stood listening, pale-faced. His eyes were angry, but terror lurked in those of the woman.
A strange jarring sound filled the air; it seemed to come from every side, and screamed harshly into the listeners’ ears. If a fiend had burst into a long fit of malignant laughter close at hand the effect could not have been more hateful and discordant.
“The laugh again!” David muttered between his teeth. “It would be just our luck if it scared our best customer away. Devil take me if I don’t begin to believe it is the soul of that cursed husband of yours, that you treated so affectionately. I’ll swear there’s not a spot of rust on the machinery as big as a pin’s head.”
“Oh, son, don’t look that way at me,” said the woman, in a shaken voice. “I would prevent it if I could; what can I do?”
“You might jump in and follow your husband; that’s what he wants, I suppose,” returned the son, angrily. “It’s you that wronged him, not I; and as long as you’re here we’ll have no luck. That’s the long and short of it!”
The laugh had died away, and Jael, pressing her hand above her heart, turned aside and passed out. She loved her son, and would have shed her blood for him; but this was not the first time he had spoken thus.
After she was gone, David stood at the window, biting his lips and muttering to himself. Suddenly he heard Gloam’s step behind him, and looked round in surprise.
“What was that noise?” Gloam asked.
“Why, nothing new, sir. The same old story. Something wrong with the wheel again, I suppose.”
“I remember no such sound before,” said Gloam, excitedly. “It is hideous, like the shriek of an evil spirit. Let it never come again; it frightens Swanhilda, and comes between us like a prophecy of woe. Let it never come again!”
“You have taken to hearing through her ears and feeling through her senses—that’s all the matter,” answered David, smiling. “It sounds bad to you because it makes her head ache. As to stopping it, I’d do so, and gladly, if I but knew how. It loses us half our custom, for folks say the devil’s at the bottom of it, sure enough.”
“It is a wicked sound!” exclaimed Gloam again, “full of mockery and bitterness. Swanhilda was born to hear divine harmonies, and she will leave us if we greet her with such hideous discord.”
“She was born to take her chance with the rest of the world, Mr. Gloam,” replied the younger man, in a harder tone. Then he smiled again and added, in his muttering way, as he left the room, “She’ll get used to it fast enough, never fear.”
But a long time passed without the recurrence of the hateful sound, and meanwhile Swanhilda was recovering from her first melancholy and home-sickness. Gloam had told her that she would see her father and mother again some day, and by degrees her anxiety calmed down to a quiet and not uncheerful expectation. She seemed to know little of the history of her family, or else was averse from discussing it; for amidst all her winning sweetness and pure sincerity she retained a maidenly reserve and dignity not lightly to be overcome. But the guileless fascination which she unconsciously exercised upon all she met was impossible to resist. She gladdened all eyes and hearts, and the mill became a storehouse of beauty and gladness as well as of grain and meal. People came from all the surrounding neighbourhood to see Scholar Gloam’s water-nymph; and at last, when the Laughing Mill was mentioned, they thought of Swanhilda’s airy merriment—not of the ill-omened sound that had first given it that name, but was already being fast forgotten. So the prosperity of handsome David increased, and was greater than it had ever been before; he had as many customers as the mill could supply, and bade fair, in the course of years, to become a wealthy man. He and Jael treated the little water-nymph with every kindness, as well they might; and what Gloam had said seemed likely to come true—that she would be the means of their regeneration.
And Gloam himself was as a man transfigured. He lived no longer amidst his books, but made himself free to all; and the neighbours wondered to find him so genial and gladsome. He and Swanhilda were constantly together; they played and laughed like children; they went on long rambles hand-in-hand; in winter they pelted each other with snow-balls; in summer and autumn they gathered flowers and berries and nuts. He treated her with the most reverent and entire affection; he was ready to sacrifice anything for her sake, to give her anything—unless it were, perhaps, the freedom to be to another all that she was to him. But apparently she was well content. Gloam was the only one who spoke her language, and the only one, therefore, with whom she could converse unrestrainedly. He would not teach her English, and if others attempted to do so it was without his knowledge or consent. He believed, it may be, that no one but himself could appreciate her full worth, and thought it would be a kind of desecration to let another approach her too nearly. Certainly they were happy together. That part of his nature to which she appealed was not less youthful than she was herself; and in her society he felt himself immortally young. He forgot that there were lines upon his brow, and that his figure was bent, and that his hair had begun to be prematurely white. And he doubted not that as he felt so he seemed to her.
Was his confidence justified? Had this child who was just beginning to be a young woman, penetration to see the fresh soul within the imperfect body? A more experienced man would have had misgivings, knowing that young women are apt to judge by appearances, and to be more swayed by downright power and passion than by abstract right and beauty. But Gloam’s experience had not taught him this. He did not dream that she could ever learn to deceive him, or to give him less than the first place in her heart. But he dreamed that some day, distant perhaps, at least indefinite—they would be married. By all rights they belonged to each other, and when they had played their childish games to the end, and had wearied of them, then would they enter upon that new phase of life. Meanwhile he would not speak to her of the deeper love, lest she should be startled, and the frankness of their present intercourse be impaired. But women have been lost ere now through fear of startling them.
So more than two years slipped away, and the child Swanhilda had grown to be a tall and graceful maiden; which seemed half a miracle, so quickly had the time passed. Her blue eyes had waxed larger and deeper, and in moments of excitement they became almost black. Her hair was yellow as an evening cloud; her face and bearing full of life and warmth. Her nature was strengthening and expanding; she was beginning to measure herself against her associates. Though so gentle, she was all untamed; no one had ever mastered or controlled her. She knew neither her own strength nor weakness, but the time approached when she would seek to know them. Every woman is both weaker and stronger than she believes, and it is well for her, when the trial comes, if her strength be not the betrayer of her weakness.