“Lucy,—forgive me for calling you by the old familiar name—I cannot get any other from my lips. I believe my love for you was a childish thing, for it was born in childhood’s days. But it has grown with my growth and strengthened with my strength, and the one dearest wish of my soul is that the ‘little sweetheart’ of old times would be my sweetheart now! Lucy, my darling”——
“Mr. Fuller!” interposed Lucy, “I must not, will not hear you any further. I will not appear to misunderstand you. I will not for a moment wrong you with the thought that you mean anything but what is true and honourable; but I must ask you, nay, command you, never again to speak to me like this. What you hint at can never, never be. The one thing for you to do is to leave me alone, now and ever, and let me go my way while you go yours. All the old times are over now—and you must forget that they have ever been.”
Poor Lucy found it hard work to get that last expression out, but she was not given to half measures where duty was involved, and she meant all she said.
“Don’t be cruel,” he pleaded. “I can never forget, and I will never, never give up the hope”——
But Lucy had sprung from him, for, seeing Old Adam Olliver jogging along on his lowly steed, she instantly resolved to instal him as her escort to the village. The old man had seen the sudden departure, had recognised the young squire, and, reading Lucy’s flushed cheek and excited tone, came to his own conclusions, the nature of which we shall understand by-and-bye. Very little was said on their homeward way, and on arriving at the forge Lucy wished the old man “good evening.”
“Good-neet, mah bairn,” said Adam. “Ah’s waint an’ glad ah met wi’ yo’. Ah wadn’t be oot varry leeat if ah were you. There’s them aboot ’at’s up te neea good.” With this enigmatical utterance he rode off, leaving Lucy to wonder what he meant, and how much he knew.
No sooner had the old hedger stabled his steed and sat down to his supper than he opened his mind to his dear “aud woman,” who was in truth as well as name a helpmeet for him, his loving and trusted wife for forty years.
“Judy, my lass, I isn’t ower an’ aboon satisfied aboot that young slip ov a squire.”
“What, Master Philip, d’ye meean? What’s matter wiv ’im, Adam?”