Part 128 (1/2)

But one day, as if tired with his importuning, she turned on him, and said with a look and accent, I should in vain try to convey--

”Find me my boy's father!”

CHAPTER Lx.x.xIV

”MISTRESS, they all say he is dead.”

”Not so. They feed me still with hopes.”

”Ay, to your face, but behind your back they all say he is dead.”

At this revelation Margaret's tears began to flow.

Luke whimpered for company. He had the body of a man, but the heart of a girl.

”Prithee, weep not so, sweet mistress,” said he. ”I'd bring him back to life, an' I could, rather than see thee weep so sore.”

Margaret said she thought she was weeping because they were so double-tongued with her.

She recovered herself, and laying her hand on his shoulder, said solemnly, ”Luke, he is not dead. Dying men are known to have a strange sight. And listen, Luke! My poor father, when he was a-dying, and I, simple fool, was so happy, thinking he was going to get well altogether, he said to mother and me--he was sitting in that very chair where you are now, and mother was as might be here, and I was yonder making a sleeve--said he, 'I see him! I see him!' Just so. Not like a failing man at all, but all o' fire. 'Sore disfigured--on a great river--coming this way.'

”Ah, Luke, if you were a woman, and had the feeling for me you think you have, you would pity me, and find him for me. Take a thought! The father of my child!”

”Alack, I would, if I knew how,” said Luke. ”But how can I?”

”Nay, of course you cannot. I am mad to think it. But, oh, if any one really cared for me, they _would_; that is all I know.”

Luke reflected in silence for some time.

”The old folk all say dying men can see more than living wights. Let me think: for my mind cannot gallop like thine. On a great river? Well, the Maas is a great river.” He pondered on.

”Coming this way? Then if it 'twas the Maas, he would have been here by this time, so 'tis not the Maas. The Rhine is a great river, greater than the Maas; and very long. I think it will be the Rhine.”

”And so do I, Luke; for Denys bade him come down the Rhine. But even if it is, he may turn off before he comes anigh his birthplace. He does not pine for me as I for him; that is clear. Luke, do you not think he has deserted me?” She wanted him to contradict her; but he said ”It looks very like it; what a fool he must be!”

”What do we know?” objected Margaret, imploringly.

”Let me think again,” said Luke. ”I cannot gallop.”

The result of this meditation was this. He knew a station about sixty miles up the Rhine, where all the public boats put in; and he would go to that station, and try and cut the truant off. To be sure he did not even know him by sight; but as each boat came in he would mingle with the pa.s.sengers, and ask if one Gerard was there. ”And, mistress, if you were to give me a bit of a letter to him; for, with us being strangers, mayhap a won't believe a word I say.”

”Good, kind, thoughtful Luke, I will (how I have undervalued thee!). But give me till supper-time to get it writ.” At supper she put a letter into his hand with a blush: it was a long letter tied round with silk after the fas.h.i.+on of the day, and sealed over the knot.

Luke weighed it in his hand, with a shade of discontent, and said to her very gravely, ”Say your father was not dreaming, and say I have the luck to fall in with this man, and say he should turn out a better bit of stuff than I think him, and come home to you then and there--what is to become o' me?”

Margaret coloured to her very brow. ”Oh, Luke, Heaven will reward thee.

And I shall fall on my knees and bless thee; and I shall love thee all my days, sweet Luke; as a mother does her son. I am so old by thee: trouble ages the heart. Thou shalt not go: 'tis not fair of me; Love maketh us to be all self.”