“Di, my pet,” cried her father, seizing the willing child, and hoisting her on his shoulder. “Come, you shall go along with us. And you too, lassies, if you have no other business in hand.”
“Yes, we’ll go with you,” cried Bessy Mills. “May was just saying it was too soon to go home to supper.”
“Come along, then,” cried Adams, tossing his child in the air as he went. “My beauty, you’ll beat your mammy in looks yet, eh? an’ when you’re old enough we’ll tell you all about Rob—”
He checked himself abruptly, cleared his voice, and looked at Sally.
“Well, father,” said May Christian, quickly, “about Rob who?”
“Ahem! eh? well, yes, about Rob—ha, but we won’t talk about him just now, dear. Sally and I were havin’ some private conversation just now about Rob, though that isn’t the whole of his name neither, but we won’t make it public at present. You’ll hear about him time enough—eh, Sall?”
The girls were so little accustomed to anything approaching to mystery or secrecy in John Adams, that they looked at him in silent wonder. Then they glanced at Sally, whose suppressed smile and downcast eyes told eloquently that there was, as Adams would have said, “something in the wind,” and they tried to get her to reveal the secret, but Sall was immovable. She would not add a single syllable to the information given inadvertently by Adams, but she and he laughed a good deal in a quiet way, and made frequent references to Rob in the course of the walk.
Of course, when the mysterious word was pronounced in the village in the evening, and what had been said and hinted about it was repeated, curiosity was kindled into a violent flame; and when the entire colony was invited to a feast that night, the excitement was intense. From the oldest to the youngest, excluding the more recently arrived sprawlers, every eye was fixed on John Adams during the whole course of supper, except at the commencement, when the customary blessing was asked, at which point every eye was tightly closed.
Adams, conscious of increased importance, spoke little during the meal, and maintained an air of profounder gravity than usual until the dishes were cleared away. Then he looked round the assembled circle, and said, “Women an’ child’n, I’m goin’ to tell ’ee a story.”