“Yes, I know enough of that; and I am frightened
greatly, all the time, when I do not look at you.”
She was too young to answer me in the style some maidens
would have used; the manner, I mean, which now we
call from a foreign word “coquettish.”
And more than that, she was trembling from real fear
of violence, lest strong hands might be laid on me,
and a miserable end of it. And to tell the truth,
I grew afraid; perhaps from a kind of sympathy, and
because I knew that evil comes more readily than good
to us.
Therefore, without more ado, or taking any advantage—although
I would have been glad at heart, if needs had been,
to kiss her (without any thought of rudeness)—it
struck me that I had better go, and have no more to
say to her until next time of coming. So would
she look the more for me and think the more about
me, and not grow weary of my words and the want of
change there is in me. For, of course, I knew
what a churl I was compared to her birth and appearance;
but meanwhile I might improve myself and learn a musical
instrument. “The wind hath a draw after
flying straw” is a saying we have in Devonshire,
made, peradventure, by somebody who had seen the ways
of women.
“Mistress Lorna, I will depart”—mark
you, I thought that a powerful word—“in
fear of causing disquiet. If any rogue shot me
it would grieve you; I make bold to say it, and it
would be the death of mother. Few mothers have
such a son as me. Try to think of me now and then,
and I will bring you some new-laid eggs, for our young
blue hen is beginning.”
“I thank you heartily,” said Lorna; “but
you need not come to see me. You can put them
in my little bower, where I am almost always—I
mean whither daily I repair to read and to be away
from them.”
“Only show me where it is. Thrice a day
I will come and stop—”
“Nay, Master Ridd, I would never show thee—never,
because of peril—only that so happens it
thou hast found the way already.”
And she smiled with a light that made me care to cry
out for no other way, except to her dear heart.
But only to myself I cried for anything at all, having
enough of man in me to be bashful with young maidens.
So I touched her white hand softly when she gave it
to me, and (fancying that she had sighed) was touched
at heart about it, and resolved to yield her all my
goods, although my mother was living; and then grew
angry with myself (for a mile or more of walking) to
think she would condescend so; and then, for the rest
of the homeward road, was mad with every man in the
world who would dare to think of having her.
[Illustration: 136.jpg Tailpiece]
JOHN IS BEWITCHED
[Illustration: 137.jpg Illustrated Capital]
