Freda shook her head.
“I have been very foolish,” she said at last, “to listen to all the things I have heard said against him. And perhaps it is as a punishment to me that I have heard this. He was good and kind when I was a baby: how can he be bad now? And if he has done bad things since then, the Holy Spirit will come down into his heart again now, if I pray for him.”
“Amen,” said Barnabas solemnly.
This farmer had no more definite religion himself than that there was a Great Being somewhere, a long way off behind the clouds, whom it was no use railing at, though he didn’t encourage honest industry as much as he might, and whom it was the parson’s duty to keep in good humour by baptisms, and sermons, and ringing of the church-bells. But he had, nevertheless, a belief in the more lively religion of women, and thought—always in a vague way—that it brought good luck upon the world. So he took off his hat reverently when the girl was giving utterance to her simple belief, and then he led the horse past the dead body, and jumping up into the cart beside her, took up the reins.
CHAPTER VI.
After a little more jolting along the highroad they turned to the right up one less used, and soon came in full sight of the Abbey ruins. Just a jagged dark grey mass they looked by the murky light of this dull evening, with here and there a jutting point upwards, the outline of the broken walls softened by the snow.
Freda sat quite silent, awestruck by the circumstances of her arrival, and by the wild loneliness of the place. A little further, and they could see the grey sea and the high cliffs frowning above it. Barnabas glanced down at the grave little face, and made an effort to say something cheering.
“It bean’t all so loansome as what this is, ye know. Theer’s t’ town o’ t’other soide o’ t’ Abbey, at bottom of t’ hill. And from t’ windows o’ Capt’n Mulgrave’s home ye can see roight oop t’ river, as pretty a soight as can be, wi’ boats a-building, an’ red cottages.”
“Oh!” said Freda, in a very peaceful voice, “I don’t mind the loneliness. I like it best. And I have always lived by the sea, where you could hear the waves till you went to sleep.”
“Aye, an’ you’ll hear ’em here sometimes; fit to split t’ owd cliffs oop they cooms crashing in, an’ soonding like thoonder. Ye’ll have a foin toime here, lass, if ye’re fond of t’ soond o’ t’ weaves.”