Bristol Bells. Marshall Emma
would vex poor Bet if I did.'
'Well, it will vex me if you stay here. I'd give something to see you once a week, and if you stay here I sha'n't see you till next Whitsun'—p'r'aps not then.'
Bryda made no answer to this. She was leaning forward, and looking past Jack to the lovely landscape stretched before her, listening intently, her eyes full of wistful longing, her small hands clasped round her knees, and a pair of little feet, which the thick, clumsy shoes of the village shoemaker could not altogether disguise, crossed one over the other close to Jack Henderson's large hand.
'Hush.' she said, 'there are the bells, Bristol bells calling—they always seem to call me—but it's no use.'
Then, rallying, Bryda said—
'Tell me about that boy—you know who I mean.'
'Oh! the mad fellow at Lambert's, he is as mad as ever, writing and scribbling verses. But, all the same, he is not a bad sort of chap. Old Lambert hates him, but masters always hate their apprentices, just as Uncle Tom hates me.'
'Have you brought me any more poems, Jack?'
'No. You must come for 'em. I'll lay a wager Chatterton will give you a lot of stuff like the "Friar's Bridge" when he sees you.'
'You might send me Felix Farley's Journal when you go back to business.'
'Look here, Bryda, you must come for it. I shall be off in the cart next Monday morning. I'll wait at the turn by the church till you come. Only old Tim will know, and he is as blind as a mole and deaf as a post. Now, come, there's a good girl.'
'But Mrs. Lambert may not want me.'
'You are quick with your pen, write to the old lady and tell her you will come to be a grandchild to her, or what you like. Come, Bryda, say yes.'
But Bryda still hesitated.
The flight to Bristol was to the country-bred village maiden of a hundred and twenty years ago a serious matter. Just as she had seen the young swallows stretching their wings on the nests under the eaves, and fluttering and trembling before they followed their twittering parents, so did Bryda pause, before she could make up her mind to take this earnestly desired flight into the heart of the city from the heart of the hills.
Bryda had few books, for books, of which there were not many in those days, did not find their way to the Mendip villages. But the girl lived in her own world of romance, and peopled it with airy phantoms, as many a maiden has done before her. Her prosaic aunt and the two or three cronies who paid visits to Bishop's Farm were much more unreal to her than the creations of her own brain.
She loved Betty with the love that is born of dependence, for Betty exercised a half maternal care over the sister of whose beauty she was so proud, and who seemed to her simple soul so far superior to herself and to any of her neighbours.
That Bryda should have the best of everything was a recognised fact with Betty—the best clothes, the brightest ribbons, the choicest food.
Many a time had Betty stood as a shield between their Aunt Dorothy and the spoiled child, her sister, and skilfully covered any of Bryda's delinquencies by the garment which loving hands know so well how to throw over those who are dearest to them.
Betty was very pretty, but she had no acknowledged admirers, while there was not a young man in the district who did not show signs of adoration for Bryda—mute signs, perhaps, but not the less sincere—a flower presented as she passed under the porch of the village church, or a fairing brought from Bristol, left with no words on the stone seat under the porch.
But none had dared to make a formal declaration of love, except Jack Henderson, perhaps, who, on his not frequent visits to his old home at the Mendips, found Bryda more and more irresistible, and gave her reason to know, as at this time, that the sight of her was indispensable to his happiness. Poor Jack, he was to find out that the very temptation he put in Bryda's way—to take flight to the busy, toiling city, now lying at the distance of some miles below them, wrapt in the gathering blue haze of the May evening—was to widen and not lessen the distance between them.
'Well,' he said, drawing his huge ungainly form from the soft cushion of moss, where the daisies and golden cistus flowers had shut their eyes for the night, 'well, take my word for it, you'll find a lot of things you care for in Bristol, and I tell you, if I were you, I should write to Madam Lambert at once. You can send it by the carrier, tied up in brown paper. He baits his horse in Corn Street, close to Lambert's office, and he'll take it direct to Dowry Square. You'll get heaps of things you want. Books—why, bless you, Bristol is a mighty learned place. The folks there do nothing else than write histories, and read till they are blind. You'll get a lot of things there, and so you'll say when you are once there.'
'Bryda, Bryda,' it was Betty's voice calling in the orchard, 'Bryda, pray come; Aunt Dorothy is as cross as two sticks.'
'Is that anything new?' Bryda said, with a little laugh, as she sprang to her feet, waved her hand to Jack Henderson, and disappeared under the blossoming apple trees. He longed to follow her, but as she did not ask him to do so, he turned towards his home two miles away.
That night, when Betty was quietly sleeping in the white-curtained tent-bed which the sisters shared, Bryda went to the lattice and opened it gently, and looked out into the calm of the summer night. The old-fashioned garden below sent up from its bushes of lavender and rosemary, and sweet-scented thyme and wallflower, a dewy fragrance. A honeysuckle just coming into full flower clasped the mullion of the old stone framework by the lattice with clinging tendrils. Above, the stars looked down, giving the sense of the infinite and eternal, which will strike at times the dullest heart with awe and reverence. The sounds were subtle and scarcely defined. The rustle of a bird in the nest, where she was guarding her newly-fledged young ones, a whisper of the breeze faintly stirring the leaves of a silver birch, whose white trunk shone out in the dim twilight, for the days were nearing midsummer and May was just melting into June.
'Yes,' Bryda said, 'I might gain much, but should I not lose more? And yet there is life, life in the city, and here it is sameness, and life, real life, is scarce felt. I wonder how it will be.'
Bryda was about to close the lattice when her ear caught sounds more audible than the faint whisper of the breeze and the rustle of the leaves. Voices low and angry came from the kitchen, which was below her window.
The voices grew louder, then a door was sharply shut, and Flick, the big watch-dog, gave a low growl and the gate of the farmyard clicked again and again as it swung violently backwards and forwards before it finally closed.
The dwellers in farmhouses a hundred and twenty years ago on the height of the Mendips were early to bed and early to rise. It was therefore unusual to hear anyone coming or going between nine and ten o'clock.
'I wonder who it was?' Bryda thought. 'And there is grandfather coming up to bed. How slowly he comes, and—what can be the matter?'
For, as the heavy footsteps reached the landing by the girl's bedroom, there was a pause, and then a prolonged sigh, which was more like a groan.
Bryda stood transfixed, her hand on the latch of the door, which she had not courage to lift.
Another heavy sigh, and then the slow footsteps were heard getting fainter and fainter as the old man passed along the passage to his room.
Then all was quiet, and Bryda, still haunted with the fear of something unusual and strange, lay down by Betty's side and was soon asleep.
How often some cherished wish when fulfilled comes to us, not as the phantom of delight, as we pictured it, but with a grave and sober mien which makes us scarcely recognise that the desire which is granted is 'the tree of life,' for the fruit too often has a bitter taste, or ere we can grasp it is turned to dust and ashes. Bryda's longings were to be satisfied, but not as she had imagined. The way was to be made plain for her departure from Bishop's Farm; the home of her childhood and early girlhood was to be hers no longer.
Her grandfather went up to his bed that night a ruined