His simplicity had worked wonders, too, in the rough, garden-robbing neighbourhood in the midst of which he dwelt, inasmuch as though no steel-trap and spring-gun warnings were set up on his premises, the apples in his orchard generally hung secure till they were plucked by his own hands, while those of the law and fury breathing country squire and J.P. on the rising ground a quarter of a mile off, though surrounded by a high brick wall, regularly received more than one annual (or seasonal) nocturnal visit. On one occasion, truly, John's exposed orchard was robbed; but such an outcry of shame followed upon it from the whole country-side round that the daring yet easily enough executed deed was never repeated:
"For all agreed the rogues were mad,
To rob so good a man."
Above all things, John's simplicity had worked wonders in winning the respect and esteem of the woman he had so many years before married to rescue from reproach and poverty, that he might protect and provide for her. Of course it was very simple to do this, when he might have made a much better match if he had only waited till he came into his property. Everybody who knew anything about it had said this over and over again. Richard Grigson had said this, and so had Tom Grigson; so also had Mr. Rubric, and also Mr. Roundhand. But all these loved him for it. But Sarah had not yet loved him for it. How could she love (with woman's love) a man whom she had begun by despising and laughing at, and ridiculing and making jokes about? All in a silly, flirting, coquettish sort of way, to be sure; but still she had done it. I ask, how could she love such a one, though, in desperation, she had taken him for her husband?
Well, his simplicity had not wrought this wonder yet; but it had done more, it had made her regard him with veneration.
"Because he is so good, you know," she had said to herself, over and over again, any time within those twenty years which had passed and gone; while, at the same time, she might have been—and no doubt was—vexed with him for being so learned, such a clever fool, in fact; and with herself for being such an unclever one.
But, in the month which had now passed away since that letter came to Tincroft House, a new light had broken in upon Sarah's feeble mind. How kind John was, and how forgiving! What could be the meaning of it? To think of how he had read all that letter, which she did not dare read herself when she found out who it was from; and, instead of being in a great angry rage, as most of the men would have been—so Sarah thought and believed and argued—and of visiting it home upon the weaker vessel, how he had not had a word to say that was not good and kind to her, and about Walter!
And then to think that such preparations were being made to receive her cousin! I don't know whether Sarah most longed for or dreaded the meeting with Walter. If it was the first feeling, it was not because there was one particle of guilty love in her composition. Nothing of the old ideal of her cousin Walter as her lover remained in her mind. It had not lasted long—it was not the sort of affection to last long under any circumstances, perhaps.
But seeing that they had parted, never to meet again, as they thought, and in anger with each other, and seeing that Walter had gone his way, and married a wife (not Sarah) so many years ago, and that she (Sarah) had also gone her way, and married a husband (not Walter) so many years ago, there was not any danger of harm arising, in thought or word, from their meeting. Besides, was not Walter so ill as to be doubtful whether he should live to reach England at all? All this passed, though I have no doubt in a confused sort of way, through Sarah's mind as she thought of what was to be. No doubt she would like to see Walter again, and to be friends with him.
Wasn't he her cousin before he had ever thought of being her husband, or it had been put into her little head to be his wife? And now that her resentment of his treatment of her had long since faded away, carrying with it her dreams of what might have been, but was never to be, her cousinly regard still remained. And, though she dreaded the meeting—she did not exactly know why—she should like to see him again, and was glad it would be in her power to comfort him, in her small way of comfort-giving, in his sorrow, and to nurse him in his sickness.
But it was when she thought of the young Helen that Sarah's feelings expanded to such an extent as to overflow her full heart. There was no danger in indulging these womanly out-goings of affection and sympathy for the motherless girl.