“The miserable woman!” I cried, “what has become of her?”
“She will soon be with her brothers, I trust, in safety; they took her and her baby in the boat to Falmouth, but I was sent off with George the gardener, on horseback, as you see, for Truro. Poor George has suffered with the rest; his horse was frightened by the fire and threw him on the hill; let us go back and see if he is hurt.”
I with difficulty dissuaded her from delaying us by such a fruitless search, and represented my own miserable condition.
“Oh that the sky would clear,” she cried, “and show us how to go! there is a cottage somewhere near us where you can get dried. You will perish if you remain in wet clothes any longer—but can it be that you are all this time riding bare-headed?” and she drew up her horse, and pulling a handkerchief from her neck, tied it, yet warm from her bosom, round my cold temples and dank hair. Every touch of her fingers streamed a flood of warmth to my heart; my very brain derived new vigour from the comfortable cincture; and having kissed her gentle hands again and again, I recommenced to explore the road with indefatigable perseverance. At length, after a tedious ride over a bleak and almost impracticable track, we saw the low roof of the cottage rise between us and the sky. A feeble light struggled for a moment over the common as we approached, and then disappeared. Having with some searching found a stake to which to tie the horses, we advanced to the door; it opened, and we entered the cabin’s only apartment. In one corner, on a low truckle, lay an old man bedridden and doting. In the middle of the floor, a child of about eight years was lighting a candle at the embers of a wood fire; she screamed as we stood before her, and flew to the bedside of the cripple, who mumbled and moaned at the disturbance, but did not seem to comprehend its cause. The little girl’s large dark eyes bespoke terror and amazement till my companion addressed her, “My pretty Sally, do you not remember the lady who gave the gown to your mother, and the money?” The little thing then let go its hold of the old man’s quilt, and shading the candle from the open window, dropped a timid curtsy and said, “They are all gone down to see the burning at the Race, and they told me to keep the candle in the window till they would come back; but the draught blows it out, madam.”
“Lend me the candle, my dear, and we will kindle a nice fire which the draught will only make burn the brighter, and that will do far better,” said my companion, and began—beautiful being!—to pile up the wood and clean the hearthstone, with as prompt and housewife-like an alertness as though she had herself been a daughter of the carefullest cottager. The blaze soon crackled up through the grey smoke, and while I stretched myself along the earthen floor, and basked in the pleasant glow, she busied herself in the corner with the little girl—how, I could not imagine, till I heard a rustling of straw and the bleat of a goat. I looked round, and beheld her kneeling on the ground, and milking the poor ragged animal, with hands that took from their pious and charitable employment a loveliness far purer than ever the flowers of the green lane at Bromley had shed over them. She bore the milk warm in a wooden bowl to my lips as I lay; and the child brought me bread. I ate and drank, and blessed them, and tears gushed from my eyes.
“And now my pretty Sally,” said my sweet friend, patting the dark head of the little maiden, “does not your mother plait straw hats?”
“Oh!” cried the child, lifting up her tiny hands, “there is a beautiful one in the chest for Simon Jones, madam; but he has gone to be a soldier, and has got a hat now that shines like glass, and has lovely feathers in it.”
“Then give it to me for this gentleman, and I will give you all this money for your mother.” I had my own purse in my pocket, but felt that it would gratify her not to interfere, and did not. So, after a great deal of coaxing, she at length prevailed on the child to open the sacred box, and take out the hat with reverential hands, into which she put a sum that made the poor little creature hold them up even higher than at the mention of the admirable Simon Jones. I being thus refitted and refreshed, we prepared to take the road again, the less reluctantly, as we had already consumed the last log of wood in the house. So, after raking the embers together for fear of accident, and kissing our little benefactress, we remounted, and turned our horses’ heads along the road to Truro. Here we arrived before day, and having knocked up the people of an inn, got admitted with some difficulty. It was now my turn to take care of my companion, and I did my best to repay her kindness. I procured refreshments, saw to the horses, and bade her good-night, just as the morning dawn was breaking. I got two or three hours’ sleep, and had my clothes thoroughly cleansed and dried before the coach arrived in which we were to proceed, when I placed the horses at livery in the name of Mr Forrest’s executors, and took my seat beside all that was now dearest to me in the world. We were two days and a night on the road, for the proprietor of the coach would not permit it to run on the Sabbath, and we therefore spent all the second day, which was Sunday, in the little village where we stopped on the previous night. We went to church together, and after service wandered about the environs. That was the most delightful morning I had ever spent. It was then I persuaded her to promise that if Mr Blundell and her father refused to sanction our union, she would never marry another. I had little thought when exacting an engagement so important, of the heavy responsibility we both undertook. I thought only that the possession of so much goodness and beauty—I will not do injustice to my enthusiasm then, though I might add “riches” to the list, did this refer to any other day—would make me the happiest of living men; and I urged and entreated till I made as sure of the divine prize as ever man did in Courtship’s lottery, before the final certainty of marriage.
We arrived at Bromley Hall on the evening of Monday. I need not try to describe how my worthy friend stared when he saw us walk in together, whom he had sent little more than a week before, as widely asunder as east and west could separate. Nevertheless, he met his ward with open arms.
“Ellen, my darling child, welcome back to me!—but what the devil do you mean, sir?” cried he, with a ludicrous comminglement of anger and goodwill upon his face, while he seized my hand with the grasp of a thief-catcher, and held me at arm’s-length in the middle of the floor.