Into the Highways and Hedges Part 29

As for Meg, she never hesitated at all. For the last month she had been beset by doubts and uncertainties; had been wearying herself in trying to discover an end by which she might unwind the very tangled skein of her life, growing a little morbid the while in her endeavours, and more perplexed day by day. Now her doubts were at an end; her heart spoke a decided, undeniable _must_. If her father was ill, she would go to him.

All the preachers in the world should not prevent her.

Meg dipped her face in cold water, and poured out a tumblerful and drank. Her throat ached with the dull ache that means anxiety and unshed tears. She could not cry, and there was no time to, but her eyes felt hot.

"Your father seems to be seriously ill. If I were in your place I should come." The words, in Mr. Sauls' thick upright handwriting, kept swimming before her.

Should she ask Tom to help her? He was angry with her just now; but, somehow, that silly, vulgar misunderstanding seemed to fade into nothing, and she knew instinctively that Tom was to be depended on in an emergency.

Barnabas might listen to reason from him. He was fonder of his brother than of any one in the world, except--(and a sudden hot blush rose to Meg's cheek)--except herself. No! she wouldn't ask Tom. If she chose to disobey Barnabas, that was between him and her, and _she_ would tell him. She owed him that, at least.

The preacher's letter was in her pocket. She tore the envelope open and wrote inside it in pencil: "I am going to Lupcombe to see my father. I shall put Molly in the cart and drive myself to N----town. I know that you told me not to, and that you will all be very angry with me. I will come back to-night, I promise." Meg's pencil stood still for a moment; then she underlined the promise. She had room only to think of her father now, but she knew that she should dread returning. She would bind the coward in her to come back.

"And then you can say anything you like, and be angry all the rest of my life," she wrote. It sounded a little desperate, but there was not time to consider overmuch; besides, she never made excuses.

She folded the sc.r.a.p of paper, and ran up to the attic her husband slept in, and put her note on a chair.

His knapsack lay on the floor; mechanically she picked it up and hung it on the nail; it brought back to her mind their strange honeymoon--the extraordinary experiences of her first months with him.

Barnabas had been very good to her then, and, indeed, always till to-day; and Meg, at the bottom of her heart, understood a little what to-day's sudden gust of pa.s.sion meant.

"He feels as if he were pulling one way, and father, backed by the world and the devil, I suppose, the other," she said to herself. Well, after this she would merge her interests in his entirely; there should be no more serving two masters. Perhaps, if she saw her father once, only this once more, he would forgive her, and she would be more at peace.

This one day she would be her own self, her father's Meg; and Margaret Thorpe for ever afterwards. "But I hope the 'ever afterwards' won't be very long," she thought.

CHAPTER VII.

And who shall inherit treasure, If the measure with which we measure Is meted to us again?

Tom had taught Meg to drive a little; she managed to harness Molly with some difficulty, and started on the long, lonely road across the marshes, without any fears. She was never afraid of bodily danger.

She was not a good driver, her wrists were too weak; they ached painfully before she was a quarter of the way to N----town, and Molly began to feel them "give," and pulled the harder, recognising that the person at the other end of the reins had not so tight a hand as Tom.

Another hour pa.s.sed; Meg bit her lips hard, and grew rather pale with the effort she was making to remain mistress of the situation. Molly seemed bent on pulling her arms out. The reins cut her fingers; but what did that matter, when every minute was a minute nearer her father? The road was level and unfrequented, which was fortunate, for she could not possibly have managed the mare downhill.

This last reflection had just occurred to her, when the pace decreased, giving her a momentary sense of relief, followed, however, by the horrible discovery that Molly was going very lame.

A huge, sharp-pointed flint had lodged in the horse's shoe; and what to do now the poor driver really didn't know. The cart was high, and Molly was bad at standing; but Meg pulled up in desperation at last, tied the reins to the seat, and sprang down from the wheel.

Molly actually did condescend to stop for a minute, though she eyed Meg very suspiciously, with her ears well back. Meg picked up an old bit of iron and advanced cautiously.

"Good horse! so then--quiet there!" she said, with a keen sense of her inadequacy, and of Molly's entire and contemptuous consciousness of it.

She knelt on the road, and very softly took hold of Molly's fore-leg.

Molly snorted, and stamped impatiently. "Tom lifts her foot right up with his left hand, and knocks the stone out with his right," Meg said to herself; "but if Molly won't move that foot, what is one to do?" She pulled gently, making what were meant to be encouraging and rea.s.suring noises, when, at the critical moment, a loud guffaw burst from behind the low mud bank on her left. Molly, started, made a dash forward; and Meg found herself sitting in the very middle of the dusty high road, watching horse and cart disappearing in the distance.

She rubbed her eyes, which were sore with the dust (it was wonderful that she had not been hurt), and mechanically straightened her bonnet; then, becoming aware that one of the farm men, "Long John" by name, was standing staring at her, the ludicrous side of the situation struck her forcibly, and she began to laugh, though with a laughter that was perilously near tears.

"Eh, ma'am, I be main sorry," said Long John. "I doan't knaw how I came to be such a darned fool. It was hearin' yo' talkin' to Molly so soft, like as if she wur a Christian, as set me off smilin'; but I didn't think as she'd ha' tuk to her heels like that, and Maister Tummas he wull be in a takin'!"

"Oh, if you will only catch her!" cried Meg. "Do you think that she has upset the cart? Let us go after her directly."

She got up, and began to run, Long John following with huge strides and muttered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns.

Luckily, Molly had not gone far. They found her about half a mile on.

"I wonder whether she will let you take the stone out?" said Meg; whereat John smiled again, but grew grave when he had examined the foot.

"You've been and gone and done it! It's a bad job; she'll not be fit to use for the next month at best. Lord now! to think o' Maister Tummas trustin' ye wi' Molly!"

"What had better be done?" said Meg. She leaned against the cart, out of breath with running, while the sun beat down on them, and Molly munched contentedly, and John entered into an endless disquisition, in which he conclusively proved that if they drove Molly the twelve miles back to the farm now, she would be probably lamed for life, and "Maister Tummas"

would never get over it; and he, John, wouldn't be the one to do it! And if they took her on the three remaining miles to N----town, and put her up there for a night's rest, there would be keep and stabling to pay for, and he would not take the responsibility; and, if they stayed where they were, they were just losing time, when the "poor crittur" ought to be looked to at once, and nothing could be "worserer nor that".

"Then we are sure to be doing wrong anyhow, and there doesn't seem to be a right way?" said the preacher's wife.

"I wouldn't say as there wur, but there be two bad ways, an' it's for yo' to choose, ma'am."

Long John resented the "we," and was determined not to be implicated.

"I wouldn't ha' ye take my word, nor I'd not ha' Maister Tummas suppose as I had aught to do wi' it. It's for yo' to say."

"I am going on, whatever happens," said she; and on they went.

John took Molly at a foot's pace, and Meg walked at his side.

He had begun a long story, to which her ears gave a sort of mechanical attention, while her heart kept urging her to walk faster towards the goal.

"It wur your a-layin' hold of her leg as set the mare off," John was saying. "You wouldn't go fur to say as it wur anyways my fault, would 'ee, ma'am? for Maister Tummas he be fond o' her, and, if I wur to lose th' place now, wi' my missus lookin' to be i' th' straw come Michaelmas, it 'ud go hard wi' us surely."

"It was no one's fault but mine," said Meg. "Oh, when shall we get there?--You seem very much afraid of Mr. Thomas, John; I thought he was supposed to be such a good master."

"Oh, so he be, so he be," said John. "The Thorpes be good maisters, good friends, an' good enemies. They stick to a mon, they do; not one belongin' to 'em has been let die i' th' union without it wur his own fault; but Maister Tummas he doan't use many words when he's angry, and he ain't often; but I'd not care to face him if I'd lamed Molly, for last time I broke th' pony's knees he says to me, 'Next time ye'll go, John!' And he means what he says. And he did near drown me then! So he did! and I did think o' havin' the law o' him, but he advised me not, and Maister Tummas' advice is allus good; he's precious sharp.

"It wur through bein' a bit overtook at Mary's funeral. I come whoam late, and I doan't mind rightly just how it wur, but I lost the pony on the road, and all of a suddent I found mysel' under th' pump i' th'

yard; and Maister Tummas wur turnin' the water on, and another mon wur holdin' me under. Eh, I thought he _had_ murdered me! afore he let me go, I can tell thee, I hollered out loud, wheniver my mouth was clear o'

th' watter, and he says, 'Naw, naw, doan't let him off too soon; when he's swallowed as much water as he did rum, happen he'll remember it'. I tell 'ee, I walked back whoam straight; he scared me sober, but it wur a cowd winter's mornin', and I wur wet through and through, as if I'd been in th' river an hour, an' I think he near drownt me. I'd ha' sworn he wur within an inch o' it. And th' next mornin' I thinks it ower, and I goes to him and says I, 'Maister, I wur a bit overtook last neet, but ye'd no right to do that, if I wur; for I bain't no slave, I be a free Briton as much as thaesel''. And Maister Tummas looks at me so as I had to keep tellin' mysel' I wur bigger nor he, fur th' way he looks do mak'

a mon feel growin' small; an' says he, 'So ye be, John! Free to be as drunk as a lord all th' day long, if 'ee likes!' An' says I, 'I'm thinkin' I'll ha' th' law on ye, Maister Tummas;' and says he, 'Then ye'll be a bigger fool nor ye look'.

"'Yo're cruel hard on a mon as has been buryin' his child,' says I; and Maister Tummas laughs. 'I suppose ye think she's so well off, ye'll be sendin' the other to join her?' says he. 'What do 'ee mean?' I asks. 'I never heard as childer con live on gra.s.s,' says he, turnin' round serious like; 'nor as bread cud be got for naught; it doan't grow i' th'

fields hereabouts, ready baked! If I'd gi'en ye the sack i'ste'd o' the pump, where 'ud they be, eh? Look 'ee here, if ye be a wise mon, ye'll go to work wi'out more words; an' if ye be a fool, ye con go an' spout about free Britons i' the public; but, if 'ee do that, doan't talk to me about your childer, for I shan't tak' 'ee back, an' your big words won't fill their empty stomachs.' So I went back, an' Maister Tummas an' I war quits; for he doan't niver cast a thing up when he's done wi' it.

Clemmin' ain't pleasant, an' I hadn't much hankerin' for it arter all.

Howsumever, I doan't drink when I've got his horses now. Naw, naw; I saves up for Sunday; an' I bain't sure as it ain't th' best way all round, to tak' one's fill on th' right day. One gets a more thorough satisfaction out o' one big drink, than i' sips all th' week; doan't 'ee think so, ma'am?"

"I daresay," said Meg absently. A pa.s.sing wonder as to what Barnabas would have said to this definition of Sunday as pre-eminently "th' right day for drink" floated through her mind--with also a faint disgust at the flavour of brutality in the story about Tom; but they were nearing N----town by this time. In two more hours she might be at Lupcombe!

It was market day, and the streets were crowded. Meg accompanied Long John to the stables of the "Pig and Whistle," and saw Molly comfortably housed. Having lamed her, it was the least she could do. Then she proceeded to a p.a.w.nbroker's. She had the preacher's savings in her pocket, but she could not touch them. It might be a straining of gnats; but she wouldn't use his money in an enterprise he objected to.