There & Back, George MacDonald [early reader chapter books .TXT] 📗

door of the carriage-and she disappeared in a whirlwind.

From the library sir Wilton saw her stormy exit and departure. "By Jove!" he said to himself, "that woman must be one of the right sort! She's what my Ruby might have been by this time if she'd been spared! A hundred to one, my lady was insolent to her!-said something cool about her mad-cap girl, probably! She's the right sort, by Jove, that little Bab! If only my Richard now, leathery fellow, would glue on to her! There's nothing left in this cursed world of the devil and all his angels that I should like half so well! I'll put him up to it, I will! Arthur and she indeed! As if a plate of porridge like Arthur would draw a fireflash like Bab! I'd give the whole litter of 'em, and throw in the dam, to call that plucky little robin my girl! I'd give my soul to have such a girl!"

It did not occur to him that his soul for Barbara would scarcely be fair barter.

"Dick's well enough," he went on, "but he's a man, and you've got to quarrel with him! I'm tired of quarrelling!"

The instant she reached home, Mrs. Wylder sent for her daughter, and demanded, fury still blazing in her eyes, what she had been doing to give that beast of a lady Ann a right to talk.

"Tell me first how she talked, mamma," returned Barbara, used to her mother's ways, and nowise annoyed at being so addressed. "I can't have been doing anything very bad, for she's been doing what she can to get me and keep me."

"She has?-And you never told me!"

"I didn't think it worth telling you.-She's been setting papa on to me too!"

"Oh! I see! And you wouldn't set him and me on each other! Dutiful child! You reckoned you'd had enough of that! But I'll have no buying and selling of my goods behind my back! If you speak one more civil word to that young jackanapes Lestrange, you shall hear it again on both your ears!"

"I will not speak an uncivil word to him, mamma; he has never given me occasion; but I shan't break my heart if I never see him again. If you like, I won't once go near the place. Theodora's the only one I care about-and she's as dull as she is good!"

"What did the kangaroo mean by saying you were sweet on somebody not worthy of you?"

"I know what she meant, mother; but the man is worthy of a far better woman than me-and I hope he'll get her some day!"

Thereupon little Bab burst into tears, half of rage, half of dread lest her good wish for Richard should be granted otherwise than she meant it. For she did not at the moment desire very keenly that he should get all he deserved, but thought she might herself just do, while she did hope to be a better woman before the day arrived.

"Come, come, child! None of that! I don't like it. I don't want to cry on the top of my rage. What is the man? Who is he? What does the woman know about him?"

At once Barbara began, and told her mother the whole story of Richard and herself. The mother listened. Old days and the memory of a lover, not high in the social scale, whom she had to give up to marry Mr. Wylder, came back upon her and her heart went with her daughter's before she knew what it was about; her daughter's love and her own seemed to mingle in one dusky shine, as if the daughter had inherited the mother's experience. The heart of the mother would not have her child like herself gather but weed-flowers of sorrow among the roses in the garden of love. She had learned this much, that the things the world prizes are of little good to still the hearts of women But when Barbara told her how lady Ann would have it that this same Richard, the bookbinder, was a natural son of sir Wilton, she started to her feet, crying,

"Then the natural bookbinder shall have her, and my lady's fool may go to the devil! You shall have my money, Bab, anyhow."

"But, mammy dear," said Barbara, "what will papa say?"

"Poof!" returned her mother. "I've known him too long to care what he says!"

"I don't like offending him," returned Barbara.

"Don't mention him again, child, or I'll turn him loose on your bookbinder. Am I to put my own ewe-lamb to the same torture I had to suffer by marrying him! God forbid I When you're happy with your husband, perhaps you'll think of me sometimes and say, 'My mother did it! She wasn't a good woman, but she loved her Bab!'"

A passionate embrace followed. Barbara left the room with a happy heart, and went-not to her own to brood on her love, but to her brother's, whose feeble voice she heard calling her. Upon him her gladness overflowed.


CHAPTER LV.


MISS BROWN .

The same evening Barbara rode to the smithy, in the hope of hearing some news of Richard from his grandfather. The old man was busy at the anvil when he heard Miss Brown's hoofs on the road. He dropped his hammer, flung the tongs on the forge, and leaving the iron to cool on the anvil, went to meet her.

"How do you do, grandfather?" said Barbara, with unconscious use of the appellation.

Simon was well pleased to be called grandfather, but too politic and too well bred to show his pleasure.

"As well as hard work can help me to. How are you yourself, my pretty?" returned Simon.

"As well as nothing to do-except nursing poor Mark-will let me," she answered. "Please can you tell me anything about Richard yet?"

"Can you keep a secret, honey?" rejoined Simon. "I ain't sure as I'm keeping strict within the law, but if I didn't think you fit, I shouldn't say a word."

"Don't tell me, if it be anything I ought to tell if I knew it."

"If you can show me you ought to tell any one, I will release you from your promise. But perhaps you feel you ought to tell everything to your mother?"

"No, not other people's secrets. But I think I won't have it. I don't like secrets. I'm frightened at them."

"Then I'll tell you at my own risk, for you're the right sort to trust, promise or no promise. I only hope you will not tell without letting me know first; because then I might have to do something else by way of-what do they call it when you take poison, and then take something to keep it from hurting you?-Richard's gone to college!"

Bab slid from Miss Brown's back, flung her arms, with the bridle on one of them, round the blacksmith's neck, and, heedless of Miss Brown's fright, jumped up, and kissed the old man for the good news.

"Miss! miss! your clean face!" cried the blacksmith.

"Oh Richard! Richard! you will be happy now!" she said, her voice trembling with buried tears. "-But will he ever shoe Miss Brown again, grandfather?"

"Many's the time, I trust!" answered Simon. "He'll be proud to do it. If not, he never was worth a smile from your sweet mouth."

"He'll be a great man some day!" she laughed, with a little quiver of the sweet mouth.

"He's a good man now, and I don't care," answered the smith. "As long as son of mine can look every man in the face, I don't care whether it be great or small he is."

"But, please, Mr. Armour," said Bab timidly, "wouldn't it be better still if he could look God in the face?"

"You're right there, my pretty dove!" replied the old man; "only a body can't say everything out in a breath!-But you're right, you are right!" he went on. "I remember well the time when I thought I had nothing to be ashamed of; but the time came when I was ashamed of many things, and I'd done nothing worse in the meantime either! When a man first gets a peep inside himself, he sees things he didn't look to see-and they stagger him a bit! Some horses have their hoofs so shrunk and cockled they take the queerest shoes to set them straight; an' them shoes is the troubles o' this life, I take it.-Now mind, I ain't told you what college he's gone to-nor whether it be at Oxford or at Cambridge, or away in Scotland or Germany-and you don't know! And if you don't feel bound to mention the name of the place, I'd be obliged to you not to. But I will let him know that I've told you what sort of a place he's at, because he couldn't tell you himself, being he's bound to hold his tongue."

Barbara went home happy: his grandfather recognized the bond between them! As to Richard, she had no fear of his forgetting her.

With more energy still, she went about her duties; and they seemed to grow as she did them. As the end of Mark's sickness approached, he became more and more dependent upon her, and only his mother could take her place with him. He loved his father dearly, but his father never staid more than a moment or two in the sick-chamber. Mark at length went away to find his twin; and his mother and Barbara wept, but not all in sorrow.

One morning, the week after Mark's death, Mr. Wylder desired Barbara to go with him to his study-where indeed about as much study went on as in a squirrel's nest-and there, after solemn prologue as to its having been right and natural while she was but a girl with a brother that she should be allowed a great deal of freedom, stated that now, circumstances being changed, such freedom could no longer be given her: she was now sole heiress, and must do as an heir would have had to do, namely, consult the interests of the family. In those interests, he continued, it was necessary he should strengthen as much as possible his influence in the county; it was time also that, for her own sake, she should marry; and better husband or fitter son-in-law than Mr. Lestrange could not be desired: he was both well behaved and good-looking, and when Mortgrange was one with Wylder, would have by far the finest estate in the county!

Filial obligation is a point upon which those parents lay the heaviest stress who have done the least to develop the relation between them and their children. The first duty is from the parent to the child: this unfulfilled, the duty of the child remains untaught.

"I am sorry to go against you, papa," said Barbara, "but I cannot marry Mr. Lestrange!"

"Stuff and nonsense! Why not?"

"Because I do not love him."

"Fiddlesticks! I did not love your mother when I married her!-You don't dislike him, I know!-Now don't tell me you do, for I shall not believe you!"

"He is always very kind to me, and I am sorry he should want what is not mine to give him."

"Not yours to give him! What do you mean by that? If it is not yours, it is mine! Have you not learned yet, that when I make up my mind to a thing, that thing is