Innocent : her fancy and his fact Part 2

"Ah, no!" A look of the coldest scorn suddenly pa.s.sed over her features--"that's not possible. You could never MAKE me do anything!

And--it's rude of you to speak in such a way. Please let go my hand!"

He dropped it instantly, and sprang erect.

"All right! I'll leave you to yourself,--and Cupid!" Here he laughed rather bitterly. "What made you give that bird such a name?"

"I found it in a book," she answered,--"It's a name that was given to the G.o.d of Love when he was a little boy."

"I know that! Please don't teach me my A.B.C.," said Robin, half-sulkily.

She leaned back laughing, and singing softly:

"Love was once a little boy, Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho!

Then 'twas sweet with him to toy, Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho!"

Her eyes sparkled in the sun,--a tress of her hair, ruffled by the hay, escaped and flew like a little web of sunbeams against her cheek. He looked at her moodily.

"You might go on with the song," he said,--"'Love is now a little man--'"

"'And a very naughty one!'" she hummed, with a mischievous upward glance.

Despite his inward vexation, he smiled.

"Say what you like, Cupid is a ridiculous name for a dove," he said.

"It rhymes to stupid," she replied, demurely,--"And the rhyme expresses the nature of the bird and--the G.o.d!"

"Pooh! You think that clever!"

"I don't! I never said a clever thing in my life. I shouldn't know how.

Everything clever has been written over and over again by people in books."

"Hang books!" he exclaimed. "It's always books with you! I wish we had never found that old chest of musty volumes in the panelled room."

"Do you? Then you are sillier than I thought you were. The books taught me all I know,--about love!"

"About love! You don't know what love means!" he declared, trampling the hay he stood upon with impatience. "You read and read, and you get the queerest ideas into your head, and all the time the world goes on in ways that are quite different from what YOU are thinking about,--and lovers walk through the fields and lanes everywhere near us every year, and you never appear to see them or to envy them--"

"Envy them!" The girl opened her eyes wide. "Envy them! Oh, Cupid, hear! Envy them! Why should I envy them? Who could envy Mr. and Mrs.

Pettigrew?"

"What nonsense you talk!" he exclaimed,--"Mr. and Mrs. Pettigrew are married folk, not lovers!"

"But they were lovers once," she said,--"and only three years ago. I remember them, walking through the lanes and fields as you say, with arms round each other,--and Mrs. Pettigrew's hands were always dreadfully red, and Mr. Pettigrew's fingers were always dirty,--and they married very quickly,--and now they've got two dreadful babies that scream all day and all night, and Mrs. Pettigrew's hair is never tidy and Pettigrew himself--well, you know what he does!--"

"Gets drunk every night," interrupted Robin, crossly,--"I know! And I suppose you think I'm another Pettigrew?"

"Oh dear, no!" And she laughed with the heartiest merriment. "You never could, you never would be a Pettigrew! But it all comes to the same thing--love ends in marriage, doesn't it?"

"It ought to," said Robin, sententiously.

"And marriage ends--in Pettigrews!"

"Innocent!"

"Don't say 'Innocent' in that reproachful way! It makes me feel quite guilty! Now,--if you talk of names,--THERE'S a name to give a poor girl,--Innocent! n.o.body ever heard of such a name--"

"You're wrong. There were thirteen Popes named Innocent between the years 402 and 1724," said Robin, promptly,--"and one of them, Innocent the Eleventh, is a character in Browning's 'Ring and the Book.'"

"Dear me!" And her eyes flashed provocatively. "You astound me with your wisdom, Robin! But all the same, I don't believe any girl ever had such a name as Innocent, in spite of thirteen Popes. And perhaps the Thirteen had other names?"

"They had other baptismal names," he explained, with a learned air.

"For instance, Pope Innocent the Third was Cardinal Lothario before he became Pope, and he wrote a book called 'De Contemptu Mundi sive de Miseria Humanae Conditionis!'"

She looked at him as he uttered the sonorous sounding Latin, with a comically respectful air of attention, and then laughed like a child,--laughed till the tears came into her eyes.

"Oh Robin, Robin!" she cried--"You are simply delicious! The most enchanting boy! That crimson tie and that Latin! No wonder the village girls adore you! 'De,'--what is it? 'Contemptu Mundi,' and Misery Human Conditions! Poor Pope! He never sat on top of a hay-load in his life I'm sure! But you see his name was Lothario,--not Innocent."

"His baptismal name was Lothario," said Robin, severely.

She was suddenly silent.

"Well! I suppose _I_ was baptised?" she queried, after a pause.

"I suppose so."

"I wonder if I have any other name? I must ask Dad."

Robin looked at her curiously;--then his thoughts were diverted by the sight of a squat stout woman in a brown spotted print gown and white sunbonnet, who just then trotted briskly into the hay-field, calling at the top of her voice:

"Mister Jocelyn! Mister Jocelyn! You're wanted!"

"There's Priscilla calling Uncle in," he said, and making a hollow of his hands he shouted:

"Hullo, Priscilla! What is it?"

The sunbonnet gave an upward jerk in his direction and the wearer shrilled out:

"Doctor's come! Wantin' yer Uncle!"

The old man, who had been so long quietly seated on the upturned barrel, now rose stiffly, and knocking out the ashes of his pipe turned towards the farmhouse. But before he went he raised his straw hat again and stood for a moment bareheaded in the roseate glory of the sinking sun. Innocent sprang upright on the load of hay, and standing almost at the very edge of it, shaded her eyes with one hand from the strong light, and looked at him.

"Dad!" she called--"Dad, shall I come?"

He turned his head towards her.

"No, la.s.s, no! Stay where you are, with Robin."