“Hush, lad; milk is little to the like of him; but that’s good, for I have it here for—a sick person. Take something, take something, young gentleman. You can trust them that have broken bread in your presence, and sat at your table. Well, if you will have the milk, though it costs but little, it’s good too; I would not give my brown cow for ne’er a one in the dales; and eat a bit of the wheaten bread,—it’s baker’s bread, like what you eat at your own grand house. I would not be so mean as to set you down, a gentleman like you, to what’s good and good enough for us. The griddle-cake! no, but you’ll not eat that, my young lord, not that; it’s o’er homely for the like of you.”
“I am not hungry,” said Geoff, “and I came here, you know, not to eat and drink, but to hear something you had to tell me, Mrs. Bampfylde—”
“My name is ’Lizabeth—nobody says mistress to me.”
“Well; but you have something to tell me. I left home without any explanation, and I wish to get back soon, that they—that my mother,” said Geoff, half-ashamed, yet too proud to omit the apparently (he thought) childish excuse, since it was true, “may not be uneasy.”
“Your mother? forgive me that did not mind your mother! Oh, you’re a good lad; you’re worthy a woman’s trust that thinks of your mother, and dares to say it! Ay, ay—there’s plenty to tell; if I can make up my mind to it—if I can make up my mind!”
“Was not your mind made up then,” said Geoff with some impatience, “when in this way, in the night, you sent for me?”
“Oh lad!” cried ’Lizabeth, wringing her hands. “How was I to know you would come, the like of you to the like of me? I put it on Providence that has been often contrairy—oh, aye contrairy, to mine and me. I shouldn’t have tempted God. I said to myself, if he comes it will be the hand of Heaven. But who was to think you would come? You a lord, and a fine young gentleman, and me a poor old woman, old as your grandmother. I thought my heart would have sunk to my shoes when I saw he had come after a’!”
“I told you he would come,” said Bampfylde, who stood leaning against the mantelpiece. He had taken his bread and cheese from the table, and was eating it where he stood.
“Of course I would come,” said Geoff. “I could not suppose you would send for me for nothing. I knew it must be something important. Tell me now, for here I am.”
’Lizabeth sat down, dropping into a wooden arm-chair at the end of the table with a kind of despair, and throwing her apron over her head, fell a-crying feebly. “What am I to do? what am I to do?” she said, sobbing. “I have tempted Providence—Oh, but I forgot what was written, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’”