For a few minutes neither spoke; there was no need. They were together, the world was far and parting was near and love sang aloud with triumphant and commanding voice.
But at last she sighed and with infinite tenderness whispered simply: “And I won’t never give you up neither, Charley. No, not if I was to die for it.”
“I know ye won’t,” said he, “I ain’t a bit afraid, else I wouldn’t go.” He paused a moment, looking into her eyes. A ray of moonlight filtered through the trees and lit her face; it made it white as the face of death. But the lips were parted in wondering rapture, and after a few moments he laughed a little laugh and repeated dreamily: “No, I ain’t a bit afraid. Ye’d never give me up.”
Then he sighed too, and in a different tone, striving for cheeriness, added: “And it won’t be so bad, ye know, arter all, darlin’. I’ll be bound I shall get on. Where there’s a will there’s a way, they say, and there ain’t no mistake about the will, is there? Besides, I’m a man now—twenty-one last March—and I’m strong, and school-master used to say I’d got a precious good head-piece when I’d a mind. I ’ave got a mind now, ye see, though I never ’ad before. I’ll soon come back and fetch you, you bet. It ain’t so much as we shall want.”
“No,” said she eagerly, “a very little ’d do to keep me on. I don’t eat much, and I’m very quick at things and real hearty, though some might think I looked a bit slim. Why, I could do a bit of earnin’ too,—take in needlework or some such-like, though I’d rather work out-doors, with you. Oh, Charley,” cried she again entreating, “I don’t see why we shouldn’t just be wed now, somewheres on the quiet, and me go away with you wherever you be bound for. It’d be much safer, and they won’t never say ‘yes’ to us, not if we was to wait till Doomsday.”
A great gust of wind swept them furiously, and she clutched his arm and looked up at him with bewildering pleading in her eyes.
But the boy turned his away and shook his head with a superior air of wisdom.
“It’d never do, Bess,” said he. “Ye’re too young. Why, you ain’t seventeen yet! Ye might be fallin’ sick on my ’ands. We mightn’t ’ave enough to eat. A man can starve a bit, but a girl can’t—not one like you.”
She sighed again, it was almost a moan, and lay her cheek against his once more. Then, suddenly, a tremor ran through her. They were standing within the edge of the wood with their backs to the open land beyond it. But in seeking his face she had turned hers towards the sky upon which low thorn-trees stood black, studding the rising ground.
“What’s that there?” she whispered terrified.