“You shall have it, my gel. Now come into the house, and I’ll get yer a cup of tea. ’Ow did yer come to me, Jill? And how did you find my bit of a shanty?”
“It were this way,” said Jill. “I found last night, quite late last night, that the lost money must be gived back to—And I thought of you, and I ’membered how real kind you were. It worn’t that I loved you, Silas Lynn. I’ll try to in future, but it wornt with any thought of love that I ’membered you last night. But as I sat all in desolation, I see your face, kind and smiling, and tender-like, a-looking at me, and I said I’ll go to Silas, and he’ll save me fro’ my misery.”
“That wor right—that wor a good thought,” interposed the man.
“I went out then, and I came to a shop just close to the market, where I guessed as they’d know ’bout you. It wor a flower-shop; the man’s name is Thomson. And Thomson said, as good luck ’ud have it, he were just starting an empty waggon back into Kent, to be ready for a load of strawberries for Monday’s market. And ef I liked, he said, I could have a lift in it.
“So I spent the night in the waggon, Silas, and in the morning the waggon set me down nigh upon four miles off, and I walked the rest of the way.
“That’s all,” continued Jill, heaving a sigh, and sinking down into the old straw chair which had remained empty in Silas’s house since his mother’s death.
“There you be,” said Silas, clasping his hands in ecstasy. “You mind me o’ the lavender, as well as t’other and gayer flowers. There’s something wondrous subtle and sweet about yer—mignonette, too, you take arter, and I shouldn’t be a bit surprised ef I found cherry-pie flavour in yer before long. Verbeny and sweet-briar you air, and no mistake. But there, I must see and get yer a cup o’ tea, for you’re sore spent, my poor little cuttin’, and you won’t strike into this yere honest breast, ef I don’t see arter the watering.”
The members of the Wesleyan chapel to which Silas belonged would scarcely have known him this morning. The fact that he was expected to lead their choir was absolutely obliterated from his mind. It is very much to be doubted if he even remembered that the day on which Jill came to him was Sunday.
Jonathan, his factotum, and one servant, appeared presently on the scene, and nearly jumped when he saw his rough, fierce-looking master tenderly offering tea, minus milk and sugar, to the prettiest picture of a girl Jonathan’s eyes had ever rested on.