"Why, now, should such things happen only in Bohemia?" she said, gayly, to the gentle and puzzled Prudence, "Soon our shearing will begin, for the weather has been warm, and I hear the hurdles are already fixed. And there will be somewhat of a merry-making, no doubt; and—and the road from Evesham hither is a fair and goodly road, that a handsome young stranger might well come riding along. What then, good mouse? If one were to meet him in the lane that crosses to Shottery—and to bid him to the feast—what then?"
"Oh, Judith, surely you are not still thinking of that dangerous man!" the other exclaimed.
But Judith merely regarded her for a second, with the clear-shining eyes now become quite demure and inscrutable.
CHAPTER XI.
A REMONSTRANCE.
Next morning was Sunday; and Judith, having got through her few domestic duties at an early hour, and being dressed in an especially pretty costume in honor of the holy day, thought she need no longer remain within-doors, but would walk along to the church-yard, where she expected to find Prudence. The latter very often went thither on a Sunday morning, partly for quiet reverie and recalling of this one and the other of her departed but not forgotten friends whose names were carven on the tombstones, and partly—if this may be forgiven her—to see how the generous mother earth had responded to her week-day labors in the planting and tending of the graves. But when Judith, idly and carelessly as was her wont, reached the church-yard, she found the wide, silent space quite empty; so she concluded that Prudence had probably been detained by a visit to some one fallen sick; and she thought she might as well wait for her; and with that view—or perhaps out of mere thoughtlessness—she went along to the river-side, and sat down on the low wall there, having before her the slowly moving yellow stream and the fair, far-stretching landscape beyond.
There had been some rain during the night; the roads she had come along were miry; and here the grass in the church-yard was dripping with the wet; but there was a kind of suffused rich light abroad that bespoke the gradual breaking through of the sun; and there was a warmth in the moist atmosphere that seemed to call forth all kinds of sweet odors from the surrounding plants and flowers. Not that she needed these, for she had fixed in her bosom a little nosegay of yellow-leaved mint, that was quite sufficient to sweeten the scarcely moving air. And as she sat there in the silence it seemed to her as if all the world were awake—and had been awake for hours—but that all the human beings were gone out of it. The rooks were cawing in the elms above her; the bees hummed as they flew by into the open light over the stream; and far away she could hear the lowing of the cattle on the farms; but there was no sound of any human voice, nor any glimpse of any human creature in the wide landscape. And she grew to wonder what it would be like if she were left alone in the world, all the people gone from it, her own relatives and friends no longer here and around her, but away in the strange region where Hamnet was, and perhaps, on such a morning as this, regarding her not without pity, and even, it might be, with some touch of half-recalled affection. Which of them all should she regret the most? Which of them all would this solitary creature—left alone in Stratford, in an empty town—most crave for, and feel the want of? Well, she went over these friends and neighbors and companions and would-be lovers; and she tried to imagine what, in such circumstances, she might think of this one and that; and which of them she would most desire to have back on the earth and living with her. But right well she knew in her heart that all this balancing and choosing was but a pretence. There was but the one; the one whose briefest approval was a kind of heaven to her, and the object of her secret and constant desire; the one who turned aside her affection with a jest; who brought her silks and scents from London as if her mind were set on no other things than these. And she was beginning to wonder whether, in those imagined circumstances, he might come to think differently of her and to understand her somewhat; and indeed she was already picturing to herself the life they might lead—these two, father and daughter, together in the empty and silent but sun-lit and sufficiently cheerful town—when her idle reverie was interrupted. There was a sound of talking behind her; doubtless the first of the people were now coming to church; for the doors were already open.
She looked round, and saw that this was Master Walter Blaise who had just come through the little swinging gate, and that he was accompanied by two little girls, one at each side of him, and holding his hand. Instantly she turned her head away, pretending not to have seen him.
"Bless the man!" she said to herself, "what does he here of a Sunday morning? Why is so diligent a pastor not in charge of his own flock?"