“Dear me, here you are; we thought you were lost,” said the bailiff’s wife; “tea is waiting for you, and there’s husband, sir, coming up from his work; he’ll be proud and glad to know you, sir, and you too, my dear; we have no children of our own.”
It is past eleven. Sophy, worn out, but with emotions far more pleasurable than she has long known, is fast asleep. Waife kneels by her side, looking at her. He touches her hand, so cool and soft; all fever gone: he rises on tiptoe; he bends over her forehead,—a kiss there, and a tear; he steals away, down, down the stairs. At the porch is the bailiff holding Sir Isaac.
“We’ll take all care of her,” said Mr. Gooch. “You’ll not know her again when you come back.”
Waife pressed the hand of his grandchild’s host, but did not speak.
“You are sure you will find your way,—no, that’s the wrong turn,—straight onto the town. They’ll be sitting up for you at the Saracen’s Head, I suppose, of course, sir? It seems not hospitable like, your going away at the dead of night thus. But I understand you don’t like crying, sir, we men don’t; and your sweet little girl I dare say would sob ready to break her heart if she knew. Fine moonlight night, sir,—straight on. And I say, don’t fret about her: wife loves children dearly,—so do I. Good-night.”
On went Waife,—lamely, slowly,—Sir Isaac’s white coat gleaming in the moon, ghostlike. On he went, his bundle strapped across his shoulder, leaning on his staff, along by the folded sheep and the sleeping cattle. But when he got into the high road, Gatesboro’ full before him, with all its roofs and spires, he turned his back on the town, and tramped once more along the desert thoroughfare,—more slowly and more, more lamely and more, till several milestones were passed; and then he crept through the gap of a hedgerow to the sheltering eaves of a haystack; and under that roof-tree he and Sir Isaac lay down to rest.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Laugh at forebodings of evil, but tremble after day-dreams of
happiness.
Waife left behind him at the cottage two letters,—one entrusted to the bailiff, with a sealed bag, for Mr. Hartopp; one for Sophy, placed on a chair beside her bed.