"Why, what mischief can there be?" the girl demanded, her colour coming and going quickly—"And why should he have listened? It's a mean trick to spy upon others!"
He smiled indulgently.
"Of course it's a mean trick, child!—but there's a good many men—and women too—who are just made up of mean tricks and nothing more. They spend their lives in spying upon their neighbours and interfering in everybody's business. You'd soon find that out, my girl, if you lived in the big world that lies outside Briar Farm! Ay!—and that reminds me—" Here he came from the door back into the room again, and going to a quaint old upright oaken press that stood in one corner, he unlocked it and took out a roll of bank-notes. These he counted carefully over to himself, and folding them up put them away in his breast pocket. "Now I'm ready!" he said—"Ready for all I've got to do! Good-bye, my wilding!" He approached her, and lifting her small face between his hands, kissed it tenderly. "Bless thee! No child of my own could be dearer than thou art! All I want now is to leave thee in safe and gentle keeping when I die. Think of this and be good to Robin!"
She trembled under his caress, and her heart was full of speechless sorrow. She longed to yield to his wishes,—she knew that if she did so she would give him happiness and greater resignation to the death which confronted him; and she also knew that if she could make up her mind to marry Robin Clifford she would have the best and the tenderest of husbands. And Briar Farm,—the beloved old home—would be hers!—her very own! Her children would inherit it and play about the fair and fruitful fields as she had done—they, too, could be taught to love the memory of the old knight, the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin—ah!—but surely it was the spirit of the Sieur Amadis himself that held her back and prevented her from doing his name and memory grievous wrong! She was not of his blood or race—she was nameless and illegitimate,—no good could come of her engrafting herself like a weed upon a branch of the old noble stock—the farm would cease to prosper.
So she thought and so she felt, in her dreamy imaginative way, and though she allowed old Hugo to leave her without vexing him by any decided opposition to his plans, she was more than ever firmly resolved to abide by her own interior sense of what was right and fitting. She heard the wheels of the dog-cart grating the gravel outside the garden gate, and an affectionate impulse moved her to go and see her "Dad" off. As she made her appearance under the rose-covered porch of the farm-house door, she perceived Landon, who at once pulled off his cap with an elaborate and exaggerated show of respect.
"Good-morning, Miss Jocelyn!"
He emphasized the surname with a touch of malice. She coloured, but replied "Good-morning" with a sweet composure. He eyed her askance, but had no opportunity for more words, as old Hugo just then clambered up into the dog-cart, and took the reins of the rather skittish young mare which was harnessed to it.
"Come on, Landon!" he shouted, impatiently—"No time for farewells!" Then, as Landon jumped up beside him, he smiled, seeing the soft, wistful face of the girl watching him from beneath a canopy of roses.
"Take care of the house while I'm gone!" he called to her;—"You'll find Robin in the orchard."
He laid the lightest flick of the whip on the mare's ears, and she trotted rapidly away.