"The worst of it is, I shall be so far-away that it won't be possible for us to see each other till the two years are gone; but you won't forget me, love?"
"Forget you? Oh, Walter!"
"I know you won't: you are such a darling, you know, to remember. And then, when the two years are past and gone—"
"It is a long time to look forward to, Walter," sighed the young lady. "I shall be quite an old woman by that time."
"An old woman of twenty! What shall I be then? But we won't make a trouble of that: only say that you'll try to keep up a good heart. Courage, my pet, and all will turn out well in the end. And as to this move, I don't know that it isn't the best thing that could have happened. Farming isn't much without plenty of money to carry it on; and if a fellow like me hasn't got money, his knowing how to work on a farm doesn't help him much. He is nothing better than a day-labourer. So, Sarah dear, give me a kiss, and say 'tis all right."
And so the lovers parted that evening.
The next morning, Walter was travelling far-away—every mile widening the distance between him and all that his heart held dear.
Walter Wilson was not a hero exactly; but he had some good stuff in him, for all that. He was, at any rate, sturdy, honest, persevering, and affectionate. All that is necessary to say for him in this chapter, however, is that he reached his destination in due course, joined his friend Ralph, and entered with a good deal of energy on his new line of life. Here, for the present, we leave him.
Poor Sarah, his cousin and affianced wife, had a more trying ordeal to pass through. Her home was not a happy one. Her father was now as often in liquor as sober, and, in whichever state, he was dissatisfied and quarrelsome.
Her mother had never been very managing as a farmer's wife, and what qualifications she once possessed, had long since been abandoned. The cloud that hung over her household was so dark and threatening that she could see no light breaking through it, and she had become hopeless. Worse than this, the habit which had ruined the husband in health and circumstances was insensibly gaining ground upon the wife. She drank secretly, and was for days together incapable of conducting her family affairs. Then, waking up to a sense of her degradation, she made feeble and unsuccessful efforts to "set things to rights."