Ande Trembath: A Tale of Old Cornwall England

by Matthew Stanley Kemp

"And is St. George welcomed by fair Sabra, the King of Egypt's daughter?" he said, as he sat himself near her.

In those weeks intervening between the squire's repa ration and the Christmas period, Ande had been a frequent visitor at the Manor. The squire could not easily forget his prejudice against the name stained with treason, but he was generous enough to smother it in the light of the youth's brave conduct in the runaway, and wished also to make some amends for the injustice of placing him in the stocks.

So the lad was found frequently in the neighbourhood of the Manor. The Manor walks were familiar to him. He had often assisted Mistress Alice in her garden work in her own favourite plot, and a warm and strong attachment had grown up between them. The old squire occasionally nodded to him and smiled, but beyond that there was little friendly conversation between them.

But to the squire's daughter how useful he became. Was there any work that would soil her dainty fingers? Ande must perform it. Was there any task that seemed too hard for her? Ande was in requisition. Once she had hurt her finger over a rose bush. It was Ande who heard the faint exclamation of pain and who flew instantly to her side, and how tenderly and with what a vague thrill, as if he himself were hurt, did he proceed to extract the jagged thorn. It was his own handkerchief that bound up the wound, and with what gallantry he had requested her to keep it as a remembrance of him. He knew not that that piece of linen was stored up among Mistress Alice's special treasures. She knew that her womanly intuition at the gate of the Primrose Cottage was true. This youth did love her, and it was not displeasing to her; but she knew something else. She was gradually knowing her own feelings, that she cherished a deeper sentiment than friendship for this brave youth who had saved her life. The thought of this sentiment would send the crimson waves o'er her countenance when she dwelt upon it, for a moment, in her own pretty rooms. She would not have him suspect such a thing—not for the world. She knew her father's hatred for treason, his strong loyal sentiments. No, she dare not think of it too often. Her father had revealed his plans for her future—the marriage with young Richard Lanyan. But she had neither acquiesced nor refused. Master Lanyan was a welcome visitor to the Manor, and she treated him well as her father's guest.

Lanyan and Ande had met once in her presence at the Manor. There was a gleam of hatred in each eye. This was the son of the hated family that had deprived the Trembaths of their rightful possessions, and now Ande could perceive the marked favour with which he was greeted by the old squire, and had a dim consciousness of the squire's hopes. It was as much as Mistress Alice could do to so conduct herself as to offend neither. Lanyan, after the first quick, sharp glance at Trembath, paid little heed to him. Calmly and tranquilly he ignored him and devoted his attention to Mistress Alice, taking the conversation into such scholarly, Etonian themes that Ande, finding himself out of his depths, was constrained to silence and soon moved homeward with bitter feelings within him.

He had not come near the Manor for a week after that, and somehow or other Mistress Alice had a foreboding that something was wrong. Did it pain her? She would not acknowledge that it did, even to herself. But how graciously she treated him when he did return. So had affairs been before the Christmastide, and on account of it there was not that strangeness between them that existed at the first.

With the remark above mentioned, the Knight, St. George, seated himself near Alice. She smiled pleasantly and responded:

"I am afraid fair Sabra and the King of Egypt are too far remote from our locality and times to be mixed up with us. I must congratulate you, Ande, for your able impersonation of St. George. By the way, who is that Turk that so murders the king's English?"

"Thomas Puckinharn, one of the village lads. He is a good fighter, but a blow or two harder than usual saps his courage. I had hard ado to make him fight at all," and he related their practice upon the village road and the strategy of allowing Tommy a squire as a balm to heal his wounded feelings. She laughed at his droll manner of reciting it, and her laugh seemed to be music to his soul and to quicken the beating of his heart within.