Late that night, in the apartment below, Tom Quiney was seated by the big fireplace, staring moodily into the chips and logs that had been lit there, the evenings having grown somewhat chill now. There was a little parcel lying unopened and unheeded on the table. He had not had patience to wait for the fair of the morrow; he had ridden all the way to Warwick to purchase something worthy of Judith's acceptance, and he had come over to the cottage in high hopes of her being still in that kindly mood that reminded him of other days. Then came the good dame's story of what had befallen; and how that the parson had been over, bringing with him these terrible tidings; and how that since then Judith would not hear of any one being sent for, and would take no food, but was now lying there, alone in the dark, moaning to herself at times. And the good dame—as this tall young fellow sat there listening to her, with his fists clinched, and the look on his face ever growing darker—went on to express her fear that the parson had been over-hard with her grandchild; that probably he could not understand how her father had been the very idol of her life-long worship; that the one thing she was ever thinking of was how to win his approval—to be rewarded by even a nod of encouragement.
"Nay, I liked not the manner of his speaking, when he wur come to me in the garden," the old dame continued. "I liked it not. He be sharp of tongue, the young pahrson, and there were too much to my mind of discipline, and chastening of proud spirits, and the like o' that. To my mind he have not years enough to be placed in such authority."
"The Church is behind him," said this young fellow, almost to himself, and his eyes were burning darkly as he spoke. "I may not put hand on him. The Church is behind him. Marry, 'tis a goodly shelter for men that be of the woman kind."
Then he looked up quickly, and his words were savage.—"What think you, good grandmother, were one to seize him by the neck and heel and break his back on the rail of Clopton's bridge? Were it not well done? By my life I think it were well done!"
"Nay, nay, now," said she, quickly, for she was somewhat alarmed, seeing his face set hard with passion and his eyes afire. "I would have no brawling. There be plenty of harm done already. Perchance the good pahrson hath not spoken so harshly after all. In good sooth, now, none but her own people can understand how the wench hath ever looked up to her father—for a word or a nod commending her, as I say—and when she be told now that she hath wrought mischief, and caused herself to be talked about, and her father vexed, and all the rest of the tale, why 'tis like to drive her out of her mind. And now this be all her cry—that she may see no one of her people any more, she would bide with me here; 'Grandmother, grandmother,' she saith, 'I will bide with you, if you will suffer me. I will show myself in Stratford no more; they shall have no shame through me.' Nay, but the wench be half out of her senses, as I think, and saith wild things—that she would go and sell herself to be a slave in the Indies, could she restore the money to her father or bring him back this that he hath lost. 'Tis a terrible plight for the poor wench; and always she saith, 'Grandmother, grandmother, let me bide with you; I will never go back to New Place; grandmother, I can work as well as any, and you will let me bide with you.' Poor lass—poor lass!"
"But how came the parson to interfere?" Quiney said, hotly. "I'll be sworn Judith's father did not write to him. How came he to be preaching his discipline and chastisement? How came he to be intrusted with the task of abusing her and crushing the too proud spirit? By heavens, now, there may be occasion erelong to tame some one's proud spirit, but not the spirit of a defenceless young maid—marry, that is work fit only for parsons. Man to man is the better way—and it will come erelong."
"Nay, softly, softly, good Master Quiney," said the old dame in her gentlest tones. "Would you mar all the good opinion that Judith hath of you? Why, to-day, now, just ere the parson came, I wur in the garden, putting things straight a bit, and as she came through she says to me, quite pleasant-like, I have just been across the fields, grandmother, with Master Quiney—or Tom Quiney, as she said, being friendly and pleasant-like—and I hear less now of his quarrelling and fighting among the young men; and his business goeth on well; and to-morrow, grandmother, he is going to buy me something at the fair."
"Said she all that?" he asked, quickly, and with a flush of color rushing to his face.
"Marry did she, and looked pleased; for 'tis a right friendly wench, and good-natured withal," the old dame said, glad to see that these words had for the moment scattered his wrath to the winds; and she went on for some little time talking to him in her garrulous easy fashion about Judith's frank and honest qualities, and her goodhearted ways, and the pretty daintinesses of her coaxing when she was so inclined. It was a story he was not loath to listen to, and yet it seemed so strange; they were talking of her almost as of one passed away—as if the girl lying there in that darkened room, instead of torturing her brain with incessant and lightning-like visions of all the harm she had caused in London, were now far removed from all such troubles, and hushed in the calm of death.
He went to the table and opened the box, and took out the little present he had brought for Judith. It was a pair of lace cuffs, with a slender silver circle at the wrist, the lace going back from that in a succession of widening leaves. It was not only a pretty present, it was also (in proportion to his means) a costly one, as the old dame's sharp eyes instantly saw.