A Country Sweetheart. Dora Russell
how on earth did Margaret Churchill pick up his acquaintance?” he asked himself, scowlingly. He felt savage at the very thought. He was a hot-tempered man, and had been brought up at home, and always had had very much his own way at Stourton Grange. And now he was master there, and had no small opinion of his own importance.
He knew that in point of family and position he was a good match for Margaret Churchill. Margaret’s father was a tenant farmer, and Tom Henderson a land-owner, and he quite appreciated the difference. But the beauty of the neighborhood apparently did not. She did not treat the young squire of Stourton as he expected to be treated, and perhaps this really only added to her attractions in his eyes.
At all events he felt very angry at seeing her with John Temple. He walked on with hasty steps, and never noticed that presently he was followed by a woman. By and by he came to a field of tall uncut corn, which was swaying in the summer breeze. Then she made haste to overtake him. She quickened her steps, she almost ran, and a few moments later she called out his name.
“Tom!” she cried, and young Henderson hearing her voice turned quickly round, and a dusky flush rose to his face as he did so.
“Well, Elsie,” he said, stopping and looking by no means well-pleased, “where have you cast up from?”
“Ah! I’ve followed you ever so far, Tom,” panted the girl; “I’ve been waiting about all the morning trying to see you.”
“That was wasting your time then, Elsie.”
“No, don’t say that, but I could not rest till I saw you. Why did you not come last night, Tom, as you promised?”
“I could not get away; some one came to the Grange.”
“Well I’ve got something to tell you; something that’s nearly driven me mad, though I know it’s nothing but lies—oh, yes, I know that, Tom.”
She looked up in his handsome face as she spoke—the half-averted face—and there was beseeching love and tenderness in her eyes.
“And what is this wonderful thing then, Elsie?” he asked.
“It was Elizabeth Jenkins, and she said—”
“Well, what did she say?”
“I know it’s all nonsense, and you mustn’t be angry, Tom—but she said you often went to Woodside Farm; that you—were running after Miss Churchill, in fact.”
The flush deepened on young Henderson’s face.
“Oh! that I was running after her, was I? Well, I haven’t caught her yet, Elsie,” he said, with an uneasy laugh.
“Oh, don’t jest about it, Tom, don’t laugh; it was a cruel thing to say—cruel to me.”
The young man did not speak; he cast his brown eyes down on the path; he moved the arm restlessly with which he was carrying his gun.
“Of course she just said it from spite—just because she knew—” continued the girl, hesitatingly.
Then Henderson looked up.
“What does she know, Elsie?” he said, glancing at the girl’s face.
Her lips quivered and her bosom heaved as he asked the question.
“What everyone must soon know, Tom,” she answered; “what you are and must be to me.”
An expression of great annoyance contracted Henderson’s features.
“And you mean to say you have talked to this woman?” he said, angrily.
“I have not said much,” she replied, half-sullenly, “but she knows.”
“Then you are a fool for your pains.”
He said this roughly enough, and a sudden rush of tears filled the poor girl’s eyes as he spoke.
“It can’t go on, Tom!” she cried, piteously, “your father’s dead now; you know you always promised to marry me when your father died.”
“This is folly,” muttered Henderson, under his thick mustache.
“What is folly?” asked the girl, sharply, looking up.
“This talk about our marriage—it’s an old story, Elsie, and we may as well drop it.”
The change in her expression was something terrible, as she listened to these heartless words. She grew deadly pale, and her whole frame trembled.
“Drop it—never!” she repeated, with passionate earnestness. “Tom, if you hate me now you must marry me; I will kill myself or you if you don’t.”
“It’s no good talking folly.”
“It’s not folly; it’s truth, as there is a God above us it is truth! What, after all, after all,” and she wrung her hands, “you would go back! But you shall not, Tom! You may think to throw me over because you are tired of me, and take up with another girl, but there are two words to that—I will go to Miss Churchill myself—”
“If you do,” interrupted Henderson, with a fierce oath, “I will strike you dead!”
“You can’t strike me worse than you’ve struck me now, but strike me or not, I’ll do what I say unless you keep your word.”
She stood there defying him, with her eyes gleaming and her hands clenched. She was a handsome woman, of a certain type, with a clear brown skin and thick, coarse black hair. She looked also determined and passionate, and perhaps Henderson was afraid to excite her further. At all events he moderated his tone.
“Well, don’t make any more row,” he said; “we can talk it over some other time.”
“But it must be settled, Tom; I can’t wait,” she answered.
An evil look came over Tom Henderson’s face.
“You are always worrying a man,” he said; “there’s no such wonderful hurry about it, and there’s my mother to consider.”
“There’s always something to consider; first it was your father, now your mother. But I am to be considered too, I—I and something besides.”
Henderson did not speak for a moment; he stood as though irresolute. Again he looked at the excited face before him; at the gleaming dark eyes and full quivering lips, and then he said more soothingly:
“Well, go home now, Elsie, and keep quiet, and we’ll see what can be done.”
“I am not going to be put off.”
“I must consider things, and see what I think best. If you go home now I’ll come and have a talk with you to-night at the old place about nine o’clock.”
“Will you be sure to come?”
“Yes, I’ll be sure. And now, good-by, Elsie; you go your way and I’ll go home.”
He nodded to her carelessly, and then turned away, and the girl stood looking after him as he went. And there was infinite pain in her expression, infinite distress.
“And he loved me once,” she muttered; “he loved me once.”
These words seemed like an epitaph on her life’s happiness. She knew it was all over, and that the young man to whom she had given so much was weary of her; weary of the frail bondage by which she held him.
And, in truth, never was man more weary. Young Henderson’s face was black as night as he strode on after he had left the girl he called Elsie. She was a chain around his neck, an intolerable burden, from which he could see no way to free himself.
And yet he must be free! Margaret Churchill’s lovely face rose before him as he passed down the fields of waving corn. He would not give her up,