Mr. Torkingham and Swithin both hastened up to help the sufferer, who was a lovely little fellow with flaxen hair, which spread out in a frill of curls from beneath a quaint, close-fitting velvet cap that he wore. Swithin picked him up, while Mr. Torkingham wiped the sand from his lips and nose, and administered a few words of consolation, together with a few sweet-meats, which, somewhat to Swithin’s surprise, the parson produced as if by magic from his pocket. One half the comfort rendered would have sufficed to soothe such a disposition as the child’s. He ceased crying and ran away in delight to his unconscious nurse, who was reaching up for blackberries at a hedge some way off.
‘You know who he is, of course?’ said Mr. Torkingham, as they resumed their journey.
‘No,’ said Swithin.
‘Oh, I thought you did. Yet how should you? It is Lady Constantine’s boy—her only child. His fond mother little thinks he is so far away from home.’
‘Dear me!—Lady Constantine’s—ah, how interesting!’ Swithin paused abstractedly for a moment, then stepped back again to the stile, while he stood watching the little boy out of sight.
‘I can never venture out of doors now without sweets in my pocket,’ continued the good-natured vicar: ‘and the result is that I meet that young man more frequently on my rounds than any other of my parishioners.’
St. Cleeve was silent, and they turned into Welland Lane, where their paths presently diverged, and Swithin was left to pursue his way alone. He might have accompanied the vicar yet further, and gone straight to Welland House; but it would have been difficult to do so then without provoking inquiry. It was easy to go there now: by a cross path he could be at the mansion almost as soon as by the direct road. And yet Swithin did not turn; he felt an indescribable reluctance to see Viviette. He could not exactly say why. True, before he knew how the land lay it might be awkward to attempt to call: and this was a sufficient excuse for postponement.
In this mood he went on, following the direct way to his grandmother’s homestead. He reached the garden-gate, and, looking into the bosky basin where the old house stood, saw a graceful female form moving before the porch, bidding adieu to some one within the door.
He wondered what creature of that mould his grandmother could know, and went forward with some hesitation. At his approach the apparition turned, and he beheld, developed into blushing womanhood, one who had once been known to him as the village maiden Tabitha Lark. Seeing Swithin, and apparently from an instinct that her presence would not be desirable just then, she moved quickly round into the garden.
The returned traveller entered the house, where he found awaiting him poor old Mrs. Martin, to whose earthly course death stood rather as the asymptote than as the end. She was perceptibly smaller in form than when he had left her, and she could see less distinctly.