It was indeed the worthy lodge-keeper who appeared at the gates. To him Ande consigned the animal that he was still leading and, receiving the thanks again of the girl, he turned and wended his way toward home. Within a short distance he paused and turned, watching the retreating forms of the girl and the lodge-keeper leading Queeny. Then, with a feeling he knew not what, he once more continued his journey.
CHAPTER IV
THE PRIMROSE COTTAGE AND TOM GLAZE
"Ande, laddie, thou art late to-day. Here it is almost one o'clock—and—why—what have you been doing? Hast been fighting? Why, your jacket has a rent of fully five inches and your trowsers look as if you had been rolling over in the dirt."
The scene was in the main living room of a little stone cottage. Indeed the cottage could only boast of having two rooms and an attic—but this room was the main living room. A primrose vine covered the house front and several roses that still retained their position, though late in the season, drooped on their stems over the small, diamond-shaped window panes, as if anxious to catch a glimpse of the speaker within. A fire of Cornish furze and sea coal was blazing brightly in a grate in the chimney. A tea-kettle, suspended from a crane o'er the fire, had been humming away for quite a time and mingling its tune with the steady tick-tick-tick of a great-grandfather clock standing in the angle of the stairs that led up to the attic. A harp, its gilded framework much tarnished with age, stood in the opposite corner near the dresser, a striking contrast to the humbleness of its surroundings. A few cheap prints of country scenes, one a scene of Wellington at the battle of Waterloo, and a picture in oils of a rugged soldier—an officer evidently—who had a striking resemblance to Ande, adorned the plain white-washed walls.
The room altogether presented a cosy appearance and just now was filled with the odour of steeping tea, fresh biscuit and a scrowled pilchard—most welcome indeed to a hungry boy.
A kind, motherly looking woman, who had not yet passed middle age, was busy laying a cloth on a small centre table. She had a pleasant, refined countenance, marred a little with care, a countenance classic with its profile and grey eyes. Hair, dark, mingled with a few grey streaks, fell down gracefully o'er the ears from a parting in the centre, lending a sweet, motherly appearance to the classic features. Though clad in an ordinary common house dress, a stranger gazing at her for the first time would say she must have occupied a higher station in life in her earlier years; and his estimate would be correct.
Mrs. Thomas Trembath, the mother of Ande, for it was she, was the daughter of William Borlase, a younger son of a young branch of that illustrious Cornish family. He had been a rising young barrister of Bodman town, and would have won fame in his profession had not death claimed the bright mind. His wife and child managed to live on a thousand pounds that constituted the bulk of his little fortune. It was to Bodman that Captain Thomas Trembath came, seven years after the war with the American colonies terminated. He had never married, partly because he had been engaged in the American war and had no time to think of matrimony; partly because one great thought absorbed his attention, the vindication of his family name; and partly, most potent reason of all, no doubt, he had found no lady of his rank willing to take upon herself a name so stained with treason as his own; and, as for marrying beneath him, he gave it not a thought. He was then approaching middle age and was thinking most seriously of the problem, when, meeting young Mistress Elizabeth Borlase, he mentally decided the question. For three years this soldier, who had the courage to face the American batteries and the charge of Washington's horse, attended the Borlase home before he had the courage to settle his doubts. The daughter accepted him, but when the consent of the widow was asked there was a stormy scene. She was much outspoken against it, alleging the difference in ages, the Captain being fully fifteen years older than his affianced bride. The truth of the matter was that the widow had resolved to secure the handsome middle-aged Captain as a mate for herself and was mortified to find it was the daughter and not herself he desired.
For ten years no children were born of this union. In the year 1805, however, a male child was born.
"We will call him Borlase Trembath," said the mother, "for he has the Borlase mouth; those lips are like his grandfather's. He will be a speaker and a good singer."