“Father, that will do,” interrupted Barbara; “Maggie, ye may go.”
The girl turned and went; speechless, Samuel regarded his wife.
“Father,” she continued gently, “I broke it an’ I hid it. I was—mixin’ oat-cake in the bowl an’ the bowl was on my knee, an’ suddenly it slipped an’ fell on to the flaggin’s an’ broke. Then I hid it ’cause,”—the quiet voice faltered,—”’cause—why ’cause, of course, father, I thought ye’d be troubled over it if ye saw it, an’ ye’d not miss it if ye didn’t.”
“Alack, mother!” There was genuine astonishment in the husband’s exclamation. “Barbara! to think we’d be livin’ together forty-five years an’ ye deceivin’ me at the last like this. I’ve just one thing the more to say to ye. There’s no cause for makin’ a duck-pond out’n the kitchen floor an’ if——”
“But, father,” interrupted Barbara, wiping her eyes with her apron, “father dear, the lads was just foolin’ a little an’ they spilt a bit of water on the flaggin’s, an’ before Maggie could mop it up ye came in.”
“Tell them an’ such as them to go live with the pigs!” And Samuel, pushing back his chair, rose hastily to his feet, and left the room.
“Father, father dear!” called Barbara.
There was no answer, and she was alone.
“Oh, father, if ye but loved me as ye used to! There were never any words then. Oh, lad, lad!”
There was no reproach, no bitterness in her voice, only longing; she loved him so, and their time at best was short, and she couldn’t manage to please him in anything. And perhaps this was their one chance—a few years at best, perhaps a few weeks, and it might be only days. She cried patiently as if she had lost something irrecoverable, an ideal, a hope, a child. Their past, the past of their youth, lay before her now, in its human romance and young love, like something perished; and, wistful, she dwelt in its memories, on its common human beauty. Suddenly she ceased crying.