Sophia: A Romance

by Stanley John Weyman

"She'll believe me," Tom said. "So let us go."

"Do you go first, sir, if you please," Lady Betty cried pertly, intervening for the first time. She had stood a little apart to allow the brother and sister to be private. "I'm sure her ladyship's not fit to be seen. And I'm not much better," she added; and then, a sudden bubble of laughter rising to the surface, she buried her face in Sophia's skirts, and affected to be engaged in repairing the disorder. Tom saw his sister's face relax in a smile, and he eyed the maid suspiciously; but before he could speak, Sophia also begged him to go, and see what reception the old clergyman had secured for them. He turned and went.

At the gate he looked back, but a wealth of apple blossom intervened; he did not see that the girls had flown into one another's arms, nor did he hear them laughing, crying, asking, answering, all at once, and out of the fulness of thankful hearts. Tom's wholesome appetite began to cry cupboard. He turned briskly up the road, discovered the wicket-gate of the parsonage, and marching to it, found to his surprise that it was locked. The obstacle was not formidable to youth, but the welcome was cold at best; and where was his friend the parson? In wonder he rattled the gate, thinking some one would come; but no one came, and out of patience he vaulted over the post, and passing round a mass of rose bushes that grew in a tangle about the pot-herb garden, he saw the door of the house standing ajar before him.

One moment; the next and before he could reach it, a boy about twelve years old, with a shock of hair and sullen eyes, looked out, saw him, and hastened to slam the door in his face. The action was unmistakable, the meaning plain; Sir Tom stood, stared, and after a moment swore. Then in a rage he advanced and kicked the door. "What do you mean?" he cried. "Open, sirrah, do you hear? Are these your manners?"

For a few seconds there was silence in the sunny herb garden with its laden air and perfumed hedges. Then a casement above creaked open, and two heads peered cautiously over the window-ledge. "Do you hear?" Tom cried, quickly espying them. "Come down and open the door, or you'll get a whipping."

But the boys, the one he had seen at the door, and another, a year or two older, preserved a sulky silence; eyeing him with evident dread and at the same time with a kind of morbid curiosity. Tom threatened, stormed, even took up a stone; they answered nothing and it was only when he had begun to retreat, fuming, towards the gate that one of them found his voice.

"You'd better be gone!" he cried shrilly. "They are coming for you."

Sir Tom turned at the sound, and went back at a white heat. "What do you mean, you young cubs?" he cried, looking up. "Who are coming for me?"

But they were dumb again, staring at him over the ledge with sombre interest. Tom repeated his question, scolded, even raised his stone, but without effect. At last he turned his back on them, and in a rage flung out of the garden.

He went out as he had entered, by vaulting the gate. As he did so, he heard a woman's shrill voice raised in anger; and he looked in the direction whence it came. He saw a knot of people coming down the road. It consisted of three or four women, and a rough-looking labourer; but while he stood eyeing them a second party, largely made up of men and boys, came in sight, following the other; and tailing behind these again came a couple of women and last of all two or three lads. The women speaking loudly, with excited gestures, appeared to be scolding the men; those on the outside of each rank hurrying a step in advance of the others, and addressing them with turned heads. Tom watched them a moment, thinking that they might be a search party sent by Coke; then he reflected that the noise would alarm his sister, and turning in at the gate he crossed the orchard.