But we must now leave her in her new habitation, and return with Barnaby to the families of Earlhall and Todburn. Lindsey went up the water every day fishing, as he had done formerly, but was astonished at observing, from day to day, that his fair Wool-gatherer’s cottage was locked, and no smoke issuing from it. At first he imagined that she might have gone on a visit, but at length began to suspect that some alteration had taken place in her circumstances; and the anxiety that he felt to have some intelligence, whether that change was favourable or the reverse, was such that he himself wondered at it. He could not account for it even to his own mind. It was certainly the child that so much interested him, else he could not account for it. Lindsey might easily have solved the difficulty had he acquiesced freely in the sentiments of his own heart, and acknowledged to himself that he was in love. But no!—all his reasoning, as he threw the line across the stream and brought it back again, went to disprove that. “That I can be in love with the girl is out of the question—there is no danger of such an event; for, in the first place, I would not wrong her, or abuse her affections, for the whole world; and in the next, I have a certain rank and estimation to uphold in society. I am a proprietor to a large extent—a freeholder of the county—come of a good family, at least by the father’s side, and that I should fall in love with and marry a poor vagrant Wool-gatherer, with a”——! He was going to pronounce a word, but it stuck, not in his throat, but in the very utmost perceptible avenues that lead to the heart. “It is a very fine child, however,—I wish I had him under my protection, then his mother might come and see him; but I care not for that, provided I had the child. I’ll have the child, and for that purpose I will enquire after the mother directly.”
He went boldly up to the cot, and peeped in at the little window. The hearth was cold, and the furniture neatly arranged. He examined the door, but the step and threshold had not been swept as they wont for many days, and the green grass was beginning to peep up around them. “There is something extremely melancholy in this!” said he to himself. “I could not endure the veriest wretch on my estate to be thus lost, without at least enquiring after him.”
He turned his eyes to the other cottages, and to the farm-house, but lacked the courage to go boldly up to any of them, and ask after the object of his thoughts. He returned to the fishing, but caught no fish, or if he did it was against his will.
On Barnaby’s return he made some sly enquiries about the causes that induced to Jane’s removal without effect, the farmer had kept all so snug. But haverel Meg, (as they called her for a nick-name,) his sister, knew, and though she was an excellent keeper of secrets among her own sex, yet she could not help blabbing them sometimes to the young fellows, which her brother always accounted a very ridiculous propensity;—whether or not it is a natural one among old maids, the relater of this tale does not pretend to decide; he is induced to think it is, but is not dogmatic on that side, not having bestowed due consideration on the subject.
One day, when Barnaby came home to his breakfast rather later than usual, and while he was sitting hewing away at a good stiff bicker of paritch, mixed with butter-milk, his excellent dog Nimrod all the time sitting with his head leaned on his master’s knee, watching the progress of every spoonful, thinking the latter was rather going near him that day in their wonted proportions—while Barnaby, I say, was thus delightfully and busily employed, in comes Meg, bare-footed, with a clean white wrapper and round-eared cap on. “Barny, will ye hae time to help me to the water wi’ a boucking o’ claes? Ye’ll just only hae to carry the tae end o’ the hand-barrow to the water, wait till I sinde up the sarks, an’ help me hame wi’ them again.”
“That I will, Miss Peggy, wi’ heart an’ hand.”
“Miss Peggy! Snuffs o’ tobacco! Meg’s good enough! Troth, I’m nane o’ your molloping, precise flegaries, that want to be miss’d an’ beckit, an’ bowed to—Na, sooth! Meg’s good enough—plain downright Meg o’ the Todburn.”
“Weel, weel; haud your tongue, I’ll do a’ that ye bid me, an’ mair, Meg, my bonny woman.”
“How war a’ your focks, Barny, when ye war ower seeing them?”
“Unco weel, an’ they’re muckle behadden to you for your kind speering.”