Poor old Beckey Barnicott used to get out into the garden by help of a long wand, with which she felt her way, and she had learned to know every part of the garden, and could feel the rosemary and lavender plants, and used to sit in the sun in the rude porch and bask herself; and when it was too hot, she took her place under a great elder tree, which hung from a high bank on the far side of the garden, where a seat was placed. There she used to knit diligently, for she could knit without her sight wonderfully; and there for many a long hour she used to think about old times, when her husband was full of health and strength, and used to keep the mill up above spinning round like a great giant, beckoning all the country round to come up and see something wonderful. And when Tom Smith and he used to read the "Nottingham Review," and all about Bonaparte, and Wellington, and Lord Nelson, and talked over the affairs of the country. And then her thoughts would turn on poor little Luke, as she called him, and her heart clung to his memory with a wonderful tenderness; for he seemed to have been misunderstood, and so cruelly used. She remembered many things that he had done for her, and how he used to bring her heaps of nuts and blackberries and mushrooms, and catch sparrows in winter to make nice dumplings, and she thought to herself, "Ay, poor thing, he wasna so bad after all! It was, Mrs. Widdiwicket always said, only his spirit; he wanted more room for his life than he got here, and should have been a soldier or a traveller, or something or another where he would always be moving." She had often dreamt of her husband, who appeared to her and said he was waiting for her in a very pleasant place; but he never mentioned little Luke, and she never dreamed of him except as racing before Welland and his giant wife, or plunging into Hillmarton dam, all amongst the dark weeds and deep, slimy mud.
It was a fine breezy summer's day, Mrs. Barnicott was sitting under the great hanging elder, and her knitting-needles were going very fast for so old a woman. She was stooping and wrinkled and lean, but there was a quick motion in her darkened eyes and their twinkling lids, and there was a motion about her withered mouth, and she gave every now and then deep sighs as she shifted her needles, and seemed to look down at her knitting, which she could not see, and then paused awhile, let her work fall on her knee upon her check-apron, and raised her sightless eyes towards the sky and seemed to think. Just then she heard an active step as if a young man came along the brick pavement along the garden to the house-door. There was a knock, and she heard a young man's voice—she was sure it was a young man—ask if Mrs. Barnicott was at home. Amy Beckumshire said, "Ay, there she sits, sir, knitting under the elder." The young man advanced, and old Beckey rose up in wonder who it could be.
"Good day to you, Mrs. Barnicott," said the young man. "You don't know me, but I have heard of you some years ago, and being in this part of the country, I thought I should like to see you."
"You're very good, sir, to come to see an old blind woman like me!" She guessed that it was all about the sad business of her husband and grandson that the gentleman had heard. "Pray you, sit down, sir," she added, "there's room on the bench."
"Thank you," said the young man. There was a little silence, and then the young man said, "I've often heard of this neighbourhood, and I always thought it must be very pleasant, and really I find it so. Why, I seem to know all about it, as if I had seen it. The old windmill, and the pool below here, and the Marlpool above, and the old church tower of Monnycrofts."
Beckey was silent and pondering. "And pray," she said, after a time, "where might you hear all this about this country place?"
"Well, it was very far from here. You must know Mrs. Barnicott, that I have been a sailor, and have sailed nearly all over the world; and we sailors make acquaintance in different ships with men from all parts. I was on board the Swallow, bound for Pernambuco, in South America, for a cargo of cotton and coffee, and I had a mate there that I took a great fancy to; he came from some part of this country, Cosser or Hawsworth, or some such place."
"Ay, ay," said Beckey, "these are places not far off; you may see 'em from th' mill up yonder. But it's many a year sin I seed 'em."
"Ay, more's the pity!" said the young man; "but you can hear, and I think I can tell you some good news."
"What good news?" said old Beckey, suddenly giving a start, and turning her blind eyes fixedly on him. "What good news can come to a poor old creature like me?"