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Page 10
"To be sure. Is Ducie willing?"
"Poor lass! She never names Steve's father. He'd no business in her
life, and he very soon went out of it. Stray souls will get into
families they have no business in, sometimes. They make a deal of
unhappiness when they do."
Sandal sat listening with a sympathetic face. He hoped Latrigg was going
to tell him something definite about his daughter's trouble; but the old
man puffed, puffed, in silence a few minutes, and then turned the
conversation. However, Sandal had been touched on a point where he was
exceedingly sensitive; and he rose with a sigh, and said, "Well, well,
Latrigg, good-by. I'll go down the fell now. Come, Charlotte."
Unconsciously he spoke with an authority not usual to him, and the
parting was a little silent and hurried; for Ducie was in the throng of
her festival, and rather impatient for Stephen's help. Only Latrigg
walked to the gate with them. He looked after Sandal and his daughter
with a grave, but not unhappy wistfulness; and when a belt of larches
hid them from his view, he turned towards the house, saying softly,--
"It is like to be my last shearing. Very soon this life will _have
been_, but through Christ's mercy I have the over-hand of the future."
It was almost as hard to go down the fell as to come up it, for the road
was very steep and stony. The squire took it leisurely, carrying his
straw hat in his hand, and often standing still to look around him. The
day had been very warm; and limpid vapors hung over the mountains, like
something far finer than mist,--like air made visible,--giving them an
appearance of inconceivable remoteness, full of grandeur; for there is a
sublimity of distance, as well as a sublimity of height. He made
Charlotte notice them. "Maybe, many a year after this, you'll see the
hills look just that way, dearie; then think on this evening and on me."
She did not speak, but she looked into his face, and clasped his hand
tightly. She was troubled with her own mood. Try as she would, it was
impossible to prevent herself drifting into most unusual silences.
Stephen's words and looks filled her heart; she had only half heard the
things her father had been saying. Never before had she found an hour in
her life when she wished for solitude in preference to his
society,--her good, tender father. She put Stephen out of her mind, and
tried again to feel all her old interest in his plans for their
amusement. Alas, alas! The first secret, especially if it be a
love-secret, makes a break in that sweet, confidential intercourse
between a parent and child which nothing restores. The squire hardly
comprehended that there might be a secret. Charlotte was unthoughtful of
wrong; but still there was a repression, a something undefinable between
them, impalpable, but positive as a breath of polar air. She noticed the
mountains, for he made her do so; but the birds sang sleepy songs to her
unheeded, and the yellow asphodels made a kind of sunshine at her feet
that she never saw; and even her father's voice disturbed the dreamy
charm of thoughts that touched a deeper, sweeter joy than moor or
mountain, bird or flower, had ever given her.
Before they reached home, the squire had also become silent. He came
into the hall with the face of one dissatisfied and unhappy. The feeling
spread through the house, as a drop of ink spreads itself through a
glass of water. It almost suited Sophia's mood, and Mrs. Sandal was not
inclined to discuss it until the squire was alone with her. Then she
asked the question of all questions the most irritating, "What is the
matter with you, squire?"
"What is the matter, indeed? Love-making. That is the matter, Alice."
"Charlotte?"
"Yes."
"And Stephen Latrigg?"
"Yes."
"I thought as much. Opportunity is a dangerous thing."
"My word! To hear you talk, one would think it was matterless how our
girls married."
"It is never matterless how any girl marries, squire; and our
Charlotte"--
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