“Good-night, mother,” said the lad.
He turned his head away, but she bent over him and kissed his hot cheek. “I will tell your father he is not to say anything. And I will leave you, since you want me. But you will take the advice of your best friends to-morrow, Wat.”
“Good-night, mother,” he said again, and turned his flushed and shamefaced cheek to respond, since it was in the dark, to her kiss.
“Wat, there is nobody in the world can love you as we do. God bless you, my dear,” she said.
And listening in the dark, he heard the faint sound of her soft footsteps receding, passing away into the depths of the silent house, leaving him not silent, not quiet, as he said, but with a wild world of intentions and impulses whirling within him, all agitation, commotion, revolution to his finger-ends.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
POOR WALTER!
When Walter, in ungovernable excitement, trouble, and impatience, rushed out of the house in the morning, leaving old Crockford to make he knew not what revelations to his father, he had no idea either what he was going to do, or how long it might be before he returned home. It might have been that he was leaving the Hook—his birthplace, the only home he had ever known—for years. He might never see all these familiar things again—the pale river winding round the garden, the poplar-tree, thin and naked, in the wind, the little multitude in the dining-room making a hum and murmur of voices as he darted past. In his imagination he saw so clearly that breakfast-table—his mother dividing to each of the children their proper share, Ally and Anne, and little Molly, with her spoon, making flourishes, and calling, “Fader, fader!” He saw them all with the distinctness of inward vision as he darted away, though his mind was full of another image. The pang with which, even in the heat of his flight, he realized that he was going away, lay in the background of his heart, as that picture was in the background of his imagination; foremost was the idea of seeing her at once, of telling her that all was over here, and that he was ready to fly to the end of the world if she would but come with him, and that all should be as she pleased. He had forgotten the suggestion of last night about the oath which he would have to take as to his age. Nothing was apparent to him except that his secret was betrayed, that all was over, that she alone remained to him, and that nothing now stood between him and her. He rushed up the hill to the cottage, feeling that reserves and concealments were no longer necessary, that the moment of decision was come, and that there must be no more delay. He would not wait any longer patrolling about the house till she should see him from a window or hear his signal. He went up to the cottage door and knocked loudly. He must see her, and that without a moment’s delay.
It seemed to Walter that he stood a long time knocking at the cottage door. He heard the sound of many goings and comings within, so that it was not because they were absent that he was not admitted. At last the door was opened suddenly by old Mrs. Crockford, who was deaf, and who made no answer to his demand except by shaking her head and repeating the quite unnecessary explanation that she was hard of hearing, backed by many courtesies and inquiries for the family.
“My master’s out, Mr. Walter—Crockford’s not in, sir; he’s gone to work, as he allays does. Shall I send him, sir, to the ’ouse when he comes in to ’is dinner?” she said, with many bobs and hopes as how her ladyship and all the family were well.
Whether this was all she knew, or whether the old woman was astute, and brought her infirmity to the aid of her wits, he could not tell.