When he had made it quite clear to her that he was able and willing to give her anything she should ask, she thought of his words a while, and then answered—­

‘I thank ye, sir, but there’s nowt ye can do o’ that sort, fur if there was I’d take it from Johnnie an’ none other.  But there’s one thing I’ll ask, sir, an’ wi’ all yer kind offers ye can’t but agree to it, fur it’s not much.  Ye’ve found out this tale o’ my life; there’s none else as knows it, save mother lying dead, an’ Johnnie I telled fur love’s sake, an’ him as lies palsied i’ Yarm—­God A’mighty only knows, sir, what Dan’el McGair could tell on’t—­but this I ask, sir,—­that ye’ll keep all ye knows an’ say nowt.  I did Dan’el a great wrong, for I smiled on him whiles for the sake o’ power; not but what he did me a worse wrong, so far worse that whiles I think no woman has so sore a life as me; but I did do him wrong, sir, and fur that reason I’ll not ha’ his name blazed abroad, hanging on to a tale as ‘ud buzz i’ the ears o’ all.  To tell it ’ud not make my life worse but better, fur now them as sees this thing says dark things, an’ speaks o’ the devil an’ worse.  The times ha’ been when I cursed God an’ prayed to die, but, thank Heaven, when I learned what love was, I learned as God A’mighty can love us in spite o’ our wrong-doing, an’ the pain it brings.  Th’ use o’ such sore pain as mine, sir, isna fur us to say, or to think great things to bear it patient; but the use o’ life, sir, to my thinking, is to keep all His creatures from pain if we can, an’ to take God’s love like the sunshine, an’ be thankful.  So I’ll ask ye to keep what ye knows o’ this tale an’ not speak on’t, an’ go no more to Yarm; an’ if ye’ll give me yer hand on that, sir, I’ll thank ye kindly.’

So he gave her his hand on it, and went away.

XII

A FREAK OF CUPID

CHAPTER I

The earth was white, the firmament was white, the plumage of the wind was white.  The wind flew between curling drift and falling cloud, brushing all comers with its feathers of light dry snow.  At the sides of the road the posts and bars of log-fences stood above the drifts; on the side of the hill the naked maple trees formed a soft brush of grey; just in sight, and no more, the white tin roof and grey walls of a huge church and a small village were visible; all else was unbroken snow.  The surface of an ice-covered lake, the sloping fields, the long straight road between the fences, were as pure, in their far-reaching whiteness, as the upper levels of some cloud in shadeless air.

A young Englishman was travelling alone through this region.  He had set out from the village and was about to cross the lake.  A shaggy pony, a small sleigh, a couple of buffalo-robes and a portmanteau formed his whole equipment.  The snow was light and dry; the pony trotted, although the road was soft; the young man, wrapped in his fur-lined coat, had little to do in driving.