[CHAPTER XIV.]
JOHN TINCROFT'S BOLD STROKE.
HELPLESS widow Mark and poor Sarah were seated together one chilly evening in spring, some ten days after the funeral, by a poor fire in their brick-floored kitchen. They had no attendant now, for the tender-hearted Meg had been dismissed on the giving up of the farm, so that all the work, rough and smooth, of the house had fallen almost entirely on Sarah, who had no time now to sit at her ease, the sultana of the shabby parlour, with its knobby-seated chairs, even if she had wished to do so. And for all other purposes, the kitchen did as well.
They were sadly disconsolate, the two poor women, and they were very lonely. As was to be expected, little sympathy had been shown to them by their relatives, even in the first bouts of their bereavement; and that little had entirely ceased. Had they been of the labouring class, they would have fared better in this respect, for the poor, in a country village at least, do feel for one another, and help each other when in sorrow. But the Wilsons were above them, while those on their own level, or higher in station, "passed by on the other side."
The only one exception to this was found in our friend Mr. Rubric. Probably his position as parish clergyman laid a kind of obligation upon him to weep with those who wept. But besides this, he really and unofficially would have done the same thing if he had never worn a surplice nor had a bishop's hands laid on his head. We have seen how he had made friends of the mammon of unrighteousness on behalf of his destitute parishioners in the case of John Tincroft; and that, with a less satisfactory result, he had made the same efforts in other quarters.
It was owing to the assistance afforded by Mr. Rubric, backed up by John Tincroft's remittance, that the widow and her daughter were not already separated—the first taking her way to the parish "refuge for the destitute," the second to the situation of "maid of all work," which had been offered her in a neighbouring farmer's domicile. But the time of parting, though postponed, was inevitable; and this evening they were helplessly and sorrowfully bemoaning their hard lot, not altogether waiving mutual reproaches of each other, and joint censures against the dead and buried, forgetful, if they had ever heard of the charitable maxim, De mortuis nil nisi bonum.
A hesitating, timid knock at the door interrupted the painful talk, and on opening it, Sarah Wilson saw herself confronted by John Tincroft.
Her that impulse was to close the door in his face, and to run upstairs and hide herself under the bed, or elsewhere; and no wonder, perhaps, as she looked upon John as the cause of her irreconcilable quarrel with her cousin and lover. She thought better of this, however, on remembering John's recent kindness—reflecting likewise that, in the former case, it was not Mr. Tincroft so much as her mischief-making cousin Elizabeth who was really in fault. So when the awkward and unexpected visitor stammered out an apology for his intrusion, she offered him her hand in amity, and invited him to walk in and draw up to the fire.
There was a strange alteration in John since she saw him last, the maiden thought. He was pale and thin, and looked troubled. The same thought crossed Tincroft's mind as he looked at Sarah.