第64章 THE GREAT NORTH ROAD(6)

'D'ye think I mind for Mr.Archer?'he cried shrilly,with a clack of laughter;and then he came close up to her,stooped down with his two palms upon his knees,and looked her in the eyes,with a strange hard expression,something like a smile.

'Do I mind for God,my girl?'he said;'that's what it's come to be now,do I mind for God?'

'Uncle Jonathan,'she said,getting up and taking him by the arm;'you sit down again,where you were sitting.There,sit still;I'll have no more of this;you'll do yourself a mischief.Come,take a drink of this good ale,and I'll warm a tankard for you.La,we'll pull through,you'll see.I'm young,as you say,and it's my turn to carry the bundle;and don't you worry your bile,or we'll have sickness,too,as well as sorrow.'

'D'ye think that I'd forgotten you?'said Jonathan,with something like a groan;and thereupon his teeth clicked to,and he sat silent with the tankard in his hand and staring straight before him.

'Why,'says Nance,setting on the ale to mull,'men are always children,they say,however old;and if ever I heard a thing like this,to set to and make yourself sick,just when the money's failing.Keep a good heart up;you haven't kept a good heart these seventy years,nigh hand,to break down about a pound or two.Here's this Mr.Archer come to lodge,that you disliked so much.Well,now you see it was a clear Providence.Come,let's think upon our mercies.And here is the ale mulling lovely;smell of it;I'll take a drop myself,it smells so sweet.And,Uncle Jonathan,you let me say one word.You've lost more than money before now;you lost my aunt,and bore it like a man.Bear this.'

His face once more contracted;his fist doubled,and shot forth into the air,and trembled.'Let them look out!'he shouted.'Here,I warn all men;I've done with this foul kennel of knaves.Let them look out!'

'Hush,hush!for pity's sake,'cried Nance.

And then all of a sudden he dropped his face into his hands,and broke out with a great hiccoughing dry sob that was horrible to hear.'O,'he cried,'my God,if my son hadn't left me,if my Dick was here!'and the sobs shook him;Nance sitting still and watching him,with distress.'O,if he were here to help his father!'he went on again.'If I had a son like other fathers,he would save me now,when all is breaking down;O,he would save me!Ay,but where is he?

Raking taverns,a thief perhaps.My curse be on him!'he added,rising again into wrath.

'Hush!'cried Nance,springing to her feet:'your boy,your dead wife's boy -Aunt Susan's baby that she loved -would you curse him?O,God forbid!'

The energy of her address surprised him from his mood.He looked upon her,tearless and confused.'Let me go to my bed,'he said at last,and he rose,and,shaking as with ague,but quite silent,lighted his candle,and left the kitchen.

Poor Nance!the pleasant current of her dreams was all diverted.She beheld a golden city,where she aspired to dwell;she had spoken with a deity,and had told herself that she might rise to be his equal;and now the earthly ligaments that bound her down had been tightened.She was like a tree looking skyward,her roots were in the ground.It seemed to her a thing so coarse,so rustic,to be thus concerned about a loss in money;when Mr.Archer,fallen from the sky-level of counts and nobles,faced his changed destiny with so immovable a courage.To weary of honesty;that,at least,no one could do,but even to name it was already a disgrace;and she beheld in fancy her uncle,and the young lad,all laced and feathered,hand upon hip,bestriding his small horse.

The opposition seemed to perpetuate itself from generation to generation;one side still doomed to the clumsy and the servile,the other born to beauty.

She thought of the golden zones in which gentlemen were bred,and figured with so excellent a grace;zones in which wisdom and smooth words,white linen and slim hands,were the mark of the desired inhabitants;where low temptations were unknown,and honesty no virtue,but a thing as natural as breathing.

IV -MINGLING THREADS

IT was nearly seven before Mr.Archer left his apartment.On the landing he found another door beside his own opening on a roofless corridor,and presently he was walking on the top of the ruins.On one hand he could look down a good depth into the green court-yard;on the other his eye roved along the downward course of the river,the wet woods all smoking,the shadows long and blue,the mists golden and rosy in the sun,here and there the water flashing across an obstacle.His heart expanded and softened to a grateful melancholy,and with his eye fixed upon the distance,and no thought of present danger,he continued to stroll along the elevated and treacherous promenade.

A terror-stricken cry rose to him from the courtyard.He looked down,and saw in a glimpse Nance standing below with hands clasped in horror and his own foot trembling on the margin of a gulf.He recoiled and leant against a pillar,quaking from head to foot,and covering his face with his hands;and Nance had time to run round by the stair and rejoin him where he stood before he had changed a line of his position.

'Ah!'he cried,and clutched her wrist;'don't leave me.The place rocks;I have no head for altitudes.'

'Sit down against that pillar,'said Nance.'Don't you be afraid;I won't leave you,and don't look up or down:look straight at me.How white you are!'

'The gulf,'he said,and closed his eyes again and shuddered.

'Why,'said Nance,'what a poor climber you must be!That was where my cousin Dick used to get out of the castle after Uncle Jonathan had shut the gate.I've been down there myself with him helping me.I wouldn't try with you,'she said,and laughed merrily.