Part 19 (1/2)

I have not a very poetical nature; but I think the scene by which we were surrounded aroused what little I had. The birds were finding their way to the hedgerows to seek rest for the night, ever and anon giving a faint chirp of content. The beetles went humming heedlessly by, the bees laden with honey returned to their hives, and all nature seemed to be at peace. The honeysuckle and the hedge flowers that grew in wild confusion perfumed the lane in which we walked; the nuts hung in thick cl.u.s.ters on the fences, blackberries everywhere abounded. One by one the stars came out of their obscurity until the heavens became glorious; and as we walked on, the evening became more still. The harvesters reached their homes, and we no longer heard the sound of their voices. The night wind served only to make delicious music as it played with the leaves on the trees and hedges or coquetted with the golden corn. Now and then we could hear the sea murmur its old, old song. To me it told of peace, and calm, and beauty.

And I was alone with the maiden whom I loved more dearly than my life.

I said that her kindness emboldened me, so with great trembling hands I took her bonnet from her head and wove a piece of honeysuckle amid her nut-brown hair.

Beautiful, beautiful Ruth! Yes, after the long stretch of weary years I still call her so; but that night she was to me more than beautiful, she was like an angel. I was young and unsophisticated, and--and I did not know what was coming.

For fully five minutes we did not speak. Slowly we walked side by side in the calm still eventide, until we emerged from the lane, and went towards Pentvargle Cove. Then the sight of the rugged cliffs seemed to alter my feelings, and the old jealous pa.s.sion returned. I could see the five great p.r.o.ngs of the ”Devil's Tooth” towering into the sky, and I could not help thinking of the time, years ago, when I had scaled its slippery precipitous sides to save the girl at my side. Again the old desire to know the worst came back to me. Did Ruth love my brother Wilfred?

”Do you see the 'Devil's Tooth' yonder, Ruth?” I said.

”Yes,” she said, ”how calm the sea is now. How different from when I saw it first. Then--but I cannot bear to think about it, can you?” and she shuddered as she spoke.

”Oh, yes,” I said. ”I like to think about it. Why, Ruth, I was able to save you, you know.”

She was silent, and again a bitter feeling crept into my heart.

”Don't you wish it had been Wilfred who saved you, instead of Roger?” I asked, a little bitterly.

”Why?” she said, quickly.

”Because you seem to think so much more about him. You like to be in his company, and you treasure every word that he says.”

I thought she looked confused, as she said hurriedly, ”Why should I not?”

At this answer I was as much the slave to my mad feelings as when we had commenced our walk. It was bitter hard for me. There, in sight of the very place where I had saved her, she admitted her preference for him who had done nothing for her.

”Why should you not?” I answered, boisterously, ”why not indeed. There is every reason why you should. No doubt you wish Wilfred were the elder son and I the younger. No doubt you wish he were Trewinion's heir, and that I were penniless.”

”No, Roger,” she said, ”were you penniless, and were your father to die, you would have no means of obtaining a livelihood. It is best as it is.”

Blunt and dull of perception as I was I could not help seeing the purport of this. She thought me too much of a fool to earn a living; that it was only by the money which I inherited as a birthright I was saved from starving.

”I see the point of your answer, Ruth,” I said. ”You think Wilfred far more fit for the position of Trewinion's heir than I, and that I am too ignorant a clown to get a living for myself.”

”I cannot help what conclusions you draw from my words, Roger,” she replied.

”There is only one conclusion to be drawn,” I answered. ”You think Wilfred better than I. You think he should be master, and not I. You think I am a brute, a savage.”

”I think no such thing,” she replied, ”but you must yourself feel the difference between you and him. He is kind, thoughtful, gentle; he is cultured and refined. He gives way to no fits of pa.s.sion, nor does he seek to hurt one's feelings.”

”Yes, yes,” I said, bitterly. ”He has been to Oxford, and has learnt tricks dear to a woman's heart, and, having learnt them, he knows how to practise them. He can quote poetry, and make soft speeches; he can please you with flattery. His face is pale and interesting, his hands are soft and white; and Ruth is very fond of him.”

”You are unkind, and you are unjust, Roger. If he has been fonder of study than you, and if he has learnt to govern his temper, don't be jealous or cruel. Better try and emulate him. You call yourself boorish and clownish. Try and improve yourself; and then, perhaps, you will not feel so much inferior to your brother.”

As I have said before, no one cares to hear another say what in self-disparaging moments he often says about himself. A dozen times in the last fortnight had I spoken of myself as inferior to my brother, but for another to say it was wormwood and gall to me.

”Copy my brother!” I said, savagely. ”Be a soft-fingered coward like him! To be afraid of my own shadow like him! Copy him! Why he is but a mere woman disgracing the clothes he wears. Had I been a puny thing like him I should have ran away just as he did, and left you to die on yon rocks. And yet you talk of my copying him. Why, he's just a soft-muscled contemptible coward.”

”I scarcely know which I like less,” she cried, ”a coward--although I don't admit that your brother is one--or one who boasts of his own bravery and taunts you with his own kind deeds. Roger, do you think because you cannot appreciate your brother's n.o.bleness that it does not exist?”

This silenced me. I had been answered. She had championed my brother.