“What does the young man say to it?”
“Why, he says, like a man, he can work for her as well’s the mill, and he’s ready, if she is.”
“I am very glad to hear such a good account of him. I shall look in, and have a little chat with him. I always liked the look of him. Good morning, Mrs. Rogers.”
“I’ll see you across the stream, sir,” said the old man, following me out of the house.
“You see, sir,” he resumed, as soon as we were outside, “I’m always afeard of taking things out of the Lord’s hands. It’s the right way, surely, that when a man loves a woman, and has told her so, he should act like a man, and do as is right. And isn’t that the Lord’s way? And can’t He give them what’s good for them. Mayhap they won’t love each other the less in the end if Dick has a little bit of the hard work that many a man that the Lord loved none the less has had before him. I wouldn’t like to anger the old gentleman, as my wife says; but if I was Dick, I know what I would do. But don’t ’e think hard of my wife, sir, for I believe there’s a bit of pride in it. She’s afeard of bein’ supposed to catch at Richard Brownrigg, because he’s above us, you know, sir. And I can’t altogether blame her, only we ain’t got to do with the look o’ things, but with the things themselves.”
“I understand you quite, and I’m very much of your mind. You can trust me to have a little chat with him, can’t you?”
“That I can, sir.”
Here we had come to the boundary of his garden—the busy stream that ran away, as if it was scared at the labour it had been compelled to go through, and was now making the best of its speed back to its mother-ocean, to tell sad tales of a world where every little brook must do some work ere it gets back to its rest. I bade him good day, jumped across it, and went into the mill, where Richard was tying the mouth of a sack, as gloomily as the brothers of Joseph must have tied their sacks after his silver cup had been found.
“Why did you turn away from me, as I passed half-an-hour ago, Richard?” I said, cheerily.
“I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t think you saw me.”