CHAPTER III.
MAUDLIN SWEETAPPLE.
"Marry! and so here you be at last, child!" said a half-glad, half-chiding, cracked, treble voice, as a brown withered hand unfastened the door from within. "Have you seen your father?"
"Let me come in, Maudlin, dear. Quick!" was all Ruth's response as she hurriedly slipped inside; and then, carefully closing the postern, she seized Maudlin by the elbow, and dragged her along the gravel path till they stood under a groined arch, in whose recesses two stout nail-studded oaken doors faced each other.
Pushing open the one to the right, which stood ajar and yielded at once to her touch, Ruth lifted a curtain of tapestry hanging on its inner side, and entered a spacious oak-wainscoted chamber, whose handsome but old-fashioned and well-worn furniture showed dimly in the light of the log-fire burning on the hearth.
"Yes," she said, at last answering the old woman's question. "He was down by the bridge."
"That's well," said Maudlin, heaving a sigh of relief, as she sank into a big comfortable armed chair beside the hearth, "for he seemed main put about that you tarried so late. Tho', as I said to him: 'Tis but once in our lives we're young, Master Rumbold,' I said. And have you had a good time of it, dear heart? Marry! you've been as blithe as a cricket, I'll warrant; and Master Lee, did he row thee along home in his boat, lady-bird?"
"Of course he did," replied Ruth, stooping down over the hearth, and busying herself with mending the fire with the stray bits of smouldering log.
"Of course he did," mimicked Maudlin, her little bead-black eyes twinkling merrily. "Marry, come up! Hark at that now! And left Madam Lee, poor lady, to entertain her company as she might! That's what comes o being Queen o' May. Heigho! When douce King Jamie, as his own Scots folk used to call him, sat on his gold throne," went on Maudlin, spreading her withered hands out in the brightening blaze and looking hard into it, "they made May Queen o' me. Well, well, and Master Lawrence is gone home again now—eh, child?"
"No," said Ruth, with a slight start. "Oh, yes—I mean no—I mean—that is, how should I know?"
"How should you know?" echoed Maudlin testily; "because you've got eyes and ears, I suppose. Is the child gone silly?"