Part 1 (2/2)
”None that I've heard,” replied the man, going to the hearth and turning his broad back to the fire. ”'Tis a still night, still and frosty, but no sound of the horn or wheels reached me though I stood a-listening at the cross-roads. Then I turned down here an' saw how grandly thou had'st lit the house up to welcome Darby. My faith! I'll be glad to see him, for 'tis an age since he was home, Master Thornbury, an' he comes now in high feather. Not every lad hath wit and good looks enough to turn the head o' London after him. The stage is a great place for bringing a man out. Egad! I'm half minded to try it myself.”
”I doubt not thou wilt, Nick, sooner or later; thou art a jack-o'-all-trades,” answered Thornbury, in surly tones.
Nicholas Berwick laughed and shrugged his well-set shoulders, as he bent over and touched the child sleeping sweetly in old Sevenoakes'
arms.
”What was't I heard thee saying o' the baby as I came in; he is not ailing, surely?”
”Not he!” answered Sevenoakes, stroking the moist yellow curls. ”He's l.u.s.ty as a year-old robin, an' as chirpy when he's awake; but he's in the land o' nod now, though his will was good to wait up for Darby like the rest of us.”
”He's a rarely beautiful little lad,” said Berwick. ”I've asked Deb about him often, but she will tell me naught.”
”I warrant she will na,” piped up old Ned Saddler, in his reedy voice.
”I warrant she will na; 'tis no tale for a young maid's repeating.
Beshrew me! but the coach be late,” he wound up irrelevantly.
”How came the child here?” persisted the young fellow, knocking back a red log with his foot. ”An' it be such a tale as you hint, Saddler, I doubt not it's hard to keep it from slipping off thy tongue.”
”'Tis a tale that slips off some tongue whenever this time o' year comes,” answered Thornbury. ”I desire no more Christmas Eves like that one four years back--please G.o.d! We were around the hearth as it might be now, and a grand yule log we had burning, I mind me; the room was trimmed gay an' fine with holly an' mistletoe as 'tis to-night.
Saddler was there, Sevenoakes just where he be now, an' Deb sitting a-dreaming on the black oak settle yonder, the way she often sits, her chin on her hand--you mind, Nick!”
”Ay!” said the man, smiling.
”She wore her hair down then,” went on Thornbury, ”an' a sight it were to see.”
”'Twere red as fox-fire,” interrupted Saddler, aggrieved that the tale-telling had been taken from him. ”When thou start'st off on Deb, Thornbury, thou know'st not where to bring up.”
”An' Deb was sitting yonder on the oak settle,” continued the innkeeper calmly.
”An' she had not lit the house up scandalously that year as 'tis now--for Darby was home,” put in Saddler again.
”Ay! Darby was home--an' thou away, Nick--but the lad was worriting to try his luck on the stage in London, an' all on account o' a play little Judith Shakespeare lent him. I mind me 'twas rightly named, 'The Pleasant History o' the Taming o' a Shrew,' for most of it he read aloud to us. Ay, Darby was home, an' we were sitting here as it might be now, when the door burst open an' in come my lad carrying a bit of a baby m.u.f.fled top an' toe in a shepherd's plaid. 'Twas crying pitiful and hoa.r.s.e, as it had been long in the night wind.”
”'Quick, Dad!' called Darby, 'Quick,' handing the bundle to Deb, 'there be a woman perished of cold not thirty yards from the house.'
”I tramped out after him saying naught. 'Twas a bitter night an' the road rang like metal under our feet. The country was silver-white with snow, an' the sky was sown thick with stars. Darby'd hastened on ahead an' lifted the wench in his arms, but I just took her from him an'
carried her in myself. Marry! she were not much more weight than a child.
”We laid her near the fire and forced her to drink some hot sherry sack. Then she opened her eyes wild, raised herself and looked around in a sort o' terror, while she cried out for the baby. Deb brought it, an' the la.s.s seemed content, for she smiled an' fell back on the pillow holding a bit of the shepherd's plaid tight in her small fingers.
”She was dressed in fas.h.i.+on of the Puritans, with kirtle of sad-coloured homespun. The only bright thing about her was her hair, and that curled out of the white coif she wore, golden as ripe corn.
”Well-a-day! I sent quickly for Mother Durley, she who only comes to a house when there be a birth or a death. I knew how 'twould end, for there was a look on the little wench's face that comes but once. She lived till break o' day and part o' the time she raved, an' then 'twas all o' London an' one she would go to find there; but, again she just lay quiet, staring open-eyed. At the last she came to herself, so said Mother Durley, an' there was the light of reason on her face. 'Twas then she beckoned Deb, who was sitting by, to bend down close, and she whispered something to her, though what 'twas we never knew, for my girl said naught--and even as she spoke the end came.
”Soul o' me! but we were at our wits' end to know what to do. Where she came from and who she was there was no telling, an' Deb raised such a storm when I spoke o' her being buried by the parish, that 'twas not to be thought of. One an' another came in to gaze at the little creature till the inn was nigh full. I bethought me 'twould mayhap serve to discover whom she might be. And so it fell. A lumbering yeoman pa.s.sing through to Oxford stood looking at her a moment as she lay dressed the way we found her in the sad-coloured gown an' white coif.
”'Why! Od's pitikins!' he cried. 'Marry an' Amen! This be none but Nell Quinten! Old Makepeace Quinten's daughter from near Kenilworth.
<script>