He is aware of the difference of rank—that social chasm between—being oft bitterly reminded of it; but, emboldened by Mary’s smiles, he has little fear but that he will yet be able to bridge it.
Favouring the programme thus traced out, there is, fortunately, no great strain on his resources by way of drawback; only the maintaining of his own mother, a frugal dame—thrifty besides—who, instead of adding to the current expenses, rather curtails them by the adroit handling of her needle. It would have been a distaff in the olden days.
Thus helped in his housekeeping, the young waterman is enabled to put away almost every shilling he earns by his oar, and this same summer all through till autumn, which it now is, has been more than usually profitable to him, by reason of his so often having Captain Ryecroft as his fare; for although the Hussar officer no longer goes salmon fishing—he has somehow been spoilt for that—there are other excursions upon which he requires the boat, and as ever generously, even lavishly, pays for it.
From one of these the young waterman has but returned; and, after carefully bestowing the Mary at her moorings, stepped inside the cottage. It is Saturday—within one hour of sundown—that same Saturday spoken of “at the Harvest Home.” But though Jack is just home, he shows no sign of an intention to stay there; instead, behaves as if he intended going out again, though not in his boat.
And he does so intend, for a purpose unsuspected by his mother, to keep that appointment, made hurriedly, and in a half whisper, amid the fracas of the fireworks.
The good dame had already set the table for tea, ready against his arrival, covered it with a cloth, snow-white of course. The tea-things superimposed, in addition a dining plate, knife and fork, these for a succulent beefsteak heard hissing on the gridiron almost as soon as the Mary made appearance at the mouth of the wash, and, soon as the boat was docked, done. It is now on the table, alongside the teapot; its savoury odour mingling with the fragrance of the freshly “drawn” tea, fills the cottage kitchen with a perfume to delight the gods.
For all, it gives no gratification to Jack Wingate the waterman. The appetising smell of the meat, and the more ethereal aroma of the Chinese shrub, are alike lost upon him. Appetite he has none, and his thoughts are elsewhere.
Less from observing his abstraction, than the slow, negligent movements of his knife and fork, the mother asks—
“What’s the matter with ye, Jack? Ye don’t eat!”
“I ain’t hungry, mother.”