I am not very clear about the details of my journey homeward from the Nithbank Wood. Betty and Nathan were both out when I returned, doubtless making search for me; and as I was too fatigued to walk upstairs, I sat down in Nathan's easy-chair in the kitchen and fell asleep. I have no recollection of what followed; and, considering the state of Betty's pent-up feelings, it would, I feel, be rather imprudent of me to ask.
I have been feeling rather low in spirits these last two days. I cannot blame the weather, for the October sun, though waning in strength, is showing his face for long-continued spells, the air is brisk and invigorating, and the sparrows are chirping and sporting in the eaves above my little window as if it were the merry month of May. I am loath to attribute this depression to physical weakness; yet were I to make such acknowledgment to Dr Grierson, I know he would frankly and at once confirm it. That I have received a set-back is evident, and when I call to mind my exertions in the plantation I need not be surprised. Still, everything considered, if I had that afternoon to live over again I should do just exactly as I did then. I am truly sorry if what Betty calls my 'thochtless stravaigin'' has undone the doctor's work, sorry if Betty's loving care has been lavished in vain. But Time, with healing in his wings, will surely make everything right again. And then I must not forget that but for this 'thochtless stravaigin'' I should not have met my dream-lady face to face. Ah! this is the one consoling fact, a rich reward, though the penalty I pay may be great. It is the only bright spot in a drab, dreary outlook, and I shall nurse this secret joy in my heart, and count myself favoured indeed.
Betty, who has a jealous eye where I am concerned, has noticed my depression. Yesterday and to-day she has given me much of her company, and in our cracks she has done her utmost to divert my mind into agreeable channels. She talked much of a younger brother of Nathan's—Joe, a member of the Hebron family I had not heard of before. Joe, it turns out, is an old soldier, and on a slender pension, eked out by the proceeds of odd jobbing, he keeps up a modest one-roomed establishment somewhere in the purlieus of the Cuddy Lane. On the expiry of his army service he came to Thornhill—accompanied by a Cockney wife of whom Betty and Nathan had no previous knowledge—with a view to settling down among the scenes of his boyhood, which had haunted his dreams in far-away lands. But the quiet village life had no charms for Mrs Joseph, and after a month of protesting in which rural life was damned, and pleading in which London's charms were extravagantly extolled, she went away south on a holiday, from which she never returned. Thanks to his army training, which had perfected him in the art of looking after number one, Joe took to housekeeping on his own as a duck takes to water, and settled down to a state of grass-widowerhood with astonishing equanimity. Regularly, however, during July, August, September, and part of October, he disappears from the village; and Betty thinks, but is not quite sure—as Joe, like Nathan, is very reticent—that Mrs Joe runs a small boarding-house down south somewhere, and that Joe goes to give her a hand during the busy months. Betty is expecting his return any day now, and I shall be glad to meet him, as his history has interested me. With such gossipy news, interspersed with naïve by-remarks, Betty has done her level best to drive dull care away.
This afternoon, when she left me to make ready Nathan's supper, she promised to come back again with her knitting after the meal was over; but, finding her duties didn't permit of her immediately fulfilling her promise, she deputed Nathan to act the cheery host.
By very slow degrees Nathan is ridding himself of his reticence. When we meet he has more to say than formerly, and his long-drawn sighs instead of words are less frequent; but he has not yet ventured upstairs of his own free-will or without a message or excuse.
'There noo, Nathan,' I heard Betty say, after he had 'hoasted' satisfaction with his meal and scrieved his chair away from the table—'there noo, Nathan, gang away up like a man. Juist walk strecht into the room as if the hoose was your ain, an' for ony sake dinna gant an' sit quiet. The laddie's dull an' wearyin', so keep the crack cheery.'
Nathan's appearance is not calculated to inspire gaiety. He is too long and 'boss-looking,' his whiskers are too straight and wispy, and his blue eyes too vacant and far-away. But, as I have admitted, there is a 'composure' about him which is satisfying; and as he pushed my door ajar and came in, as it were bit by bit, I gladly laid aside my book and turned down my lamp.
I presumed he would be dying for his after-supper smoke, so I persuaded him to sit down in the basket chair at the foot of my bed, and 'fire his pipe,' as he terms it.
For a time he smoked in silence; then, suddenly remembering Betty's injunction, and looking through the uncurtained window and taking a long survey of the scudding clouds, he said, 'Imphm! the wind's changin', Maister Weelum, to the nor'-east. That means a bla' doon your lum, I'm thinkin', an' it's a maist by-ordinar' dirty, choky thing, is back reek.' Then breaking away at a tangent, and fixing his blue eyes on me, he said, 'Ay, man, an' ye're no' lookin' sae weel the nicht as I've seen ye.'
'Maybe not, Nathan,' I said. 'I haven't been up to the mark yesterday and to-day.'