There was some one else who came daily down the schoolhouse lane, and waited at the door for lessons to be over. Roger Bardwell, whether it rained or shone, was always there to walk home with the school-mistress and to stay for a few minutes, chatting with Master Simon, when they reached her door. For a year he had been doing so, although the first day of it and the first look of welcome in his blue eyes when he met her coming up the lane, told Margeret that he loved her. But of this he had never spoken, nor ever broken the silence of that mystery as to who he was or whence he had come. What with this silence, and with her other anxieties, the girl had begun to carry a heavy heart as she went about her labours of the day.
Upon this Sabbath afternoon, as the service ended and the grave-faced congregation came out into the winter twilight, Roger Bardwell walked at her side again, down the steep path where the snow creaked under their feet.
“Margeret,” said he, “I have news for you that, I fear, threatens trouble.”
“What is it?” she asked quickly, then voicing her first thought. “Does it concern my father?”
“Yes,” he answered, “it concerns him and you and me. I believe that Samuel Skerry has made up his mind to speak at last.”
“But after five years!” exclaimed Margeret. “Do you think that he could bring evil to my father now?”
“My thought is that he has given over the hope of harming Master Simon and wants only to strike at you and me. I have heard that he often says that the teaching of children is no work for women, that you should not be mistress of the school and that he could tell strange tales of you if he wished. He has brought up again the words of that mad Scotch minister who said that your father was a wicked man and that his garden would be laid waste for his sins. The shoemaker has much to say of me also, and with this last accusation seeks to ruin the two of us, at last.”
Margeret wrung her hands in helpless anxiety.
“Are you sure of this, Roger?” she asked.
“This much I know,” he told her. “On next Thursday, the market day, when all from the outlying houses will be in the village, he has urged the men to come up to the schoolhouse and see how their children are taught. Since you are the first woman to teach the school, he knows there are many who are still uncertain whether a maid can rule their sons and daughters. But I think that is not the whole of the mischief that he is planning. I wish I had no need to tell you of this, Margeret.”