The strange couple gazed earnestly at one another for a few moments, when the girl spoke huskily:
“You weren’t thinking of that, were you?”
“Thinking of what, my lass?” said Matt quietly.
“Going over?” said the girl, with almost a sob, and at the same moment catching his wrist and holding it with both hands tightly, as he tried to withdraw it, while her nostrils seemed to distend, and her breath came heavily as she held him firmly, fearing lest her words might prompt him to the desperate leap.
“No, no, my lass, no,” said Matt wearily, as he sank in a sitting posture upon the stone seat. “I have thought of such a thing—time back; but not lately. I have thought that it would be putting an end to a weary way when one gets very footsore, and that no one would miss a poor, worn-out fellow like me; but I’ve thought better of it, and I’ll wait till I’m called, my lass. I was only thinking a bit.”
“You looked as if you meant to,” said the girl, loosing his wrist, and kneeling upon the seat in the very attitude the old man had taken a short time before. “But one can’t help thinking of it sometimes, and almost feeling as if the river drew you like. It seems as if you’d go to sleep then, and wake no more. Not much to leave here, is there?” she added slowly.
Old Matt shook his head, and, leaning forward unseen by his companion, he took a firm hold of her dress, for the girl went on dreamily as she looked down on the black water.
“I saw one of our girls once; she went off Waterloo, and they got her out, and she looked so quiet and happy like. But there,” she added in a reckless, offhand way, “I sha’n’t do it, I haven’t the heart. There, you needn’t hold me, old man;” and she snatched her dress from his grasp.
A deep, hollow cough checked her for a few minutes; and Matt sat in the cold recess gazing on the slight, graceful form, as the well-dressed girl knelt upon the seat—frail, fair, and apparently not twenty.
“Lend me threepence, old man!” she exclaimed suddenly, as she turned to him.