It was an innocent and careless speech, but it seemed to suddenly inspire him with a kind of wild wish.

"Ah," said he, regarding her, "if you, Judith, now, would but take some little gift from me--no matter what--that would be a day I should remember all my life."

"Will you not come into the house?" said she, quickly. "My grandam will be right glad to see you."

She would have led the way; but he hesitated.

"Nay, I will not trouble your grandmother, Judith," said he. "I doubt not but that she hath had enough of visitors since you came to stay with her."

"Since I came?" she said, good-naturedly--for she refused to accept the innuendo. "Why, let me consider, now. The day before yesterday my mother walked over to see how we did; and before that--I think the day before that--Mistress Wyse came in to tell us that they had taken a witch at Abbots Morton; and then yesterday Farmer Bowstead called to ask if his strayed horse had been seen anywhere about these lanes. There, now, three visitors since I have come to the cottage: 'tis not a mult.i.tude."

"There hath been none other?" said he, looking at her with some surprise.

"Not another foot hath crossed the threshold to my knowledge," said she, simply, and as if it were a matter of small concern.

But this intelligence seemed to produce a very sudden and marked alteration in his manner. Not only would he accompany her into the house, but he immediately became most solicitous about her hand.

"I pray you be careful, Judith," said he, almost as if he would again take hold of her wrist.

"'Tis but a scratch," she said.

"Nay, now, if there be but a touch of rust, it might work mischief,"

said he, anxiously. "I pray you be careful; and I would bathe it frequently, and keep on the bandage until you are sure that all is well.

Nay, I tell you this, Judith: there are more than you think of that would liefer lose a finger than that you should have the smallest hurt."

And in-doors, moreover, he was most amiable and gentle and anxious to please, and bore some rather sharp sayings of the old dame with great good-nature; and whatever Judith said, or suggested, or approved of, that was right, once and for all. She wished to hear more of the riding-whip also. Where was the handle carved? Had her father expressed any desire for such ornamentation?

"Truly 'twas but a small return for his kindness to us the other day,"

said the young man, who was half bewildered with delight at finding Judith's eyes once more regarding him in the old frank and friendly fashion, and was desperately anxious that they should continue so to regard him (with no chilling shadow of the parson intervening). "For Cornelius Greene being minded to make one or two more catches," he continued--and still addressing those eyes that were at once so gentle and so clear and so kind--"he would have me go to your father and beg him to give us words for these, out of any books he might know of. Not that we thought of asking him to write the words himself--far from that--but to choose them for us; and right willingly he did so. In truth, I have them with me," he added, searching for and producing a paper with some written lines on it. "Shall I read them to you, Judith?"

He did not notice the slight touch of indifference with which she a.s.sented; for when once she had heard that these compositions (whatever they might be) were not her father's writing, she was not anxious to become acquainted with them. But his concern, on the other hand, was to keep her interested and amused and friendly; and Cornelius Greene and his doings were at least something to talk about.

"The first one we think of calling 'Fortune's Wheel,'" said he; "and thus it goes:

'Trust not too much, if prosperous times do smile, Nor yet despair of rising, if thou fall: The Fatal Lady mingleth one with th' other, And lets not fortune stay, but round turns all.'

And the other one--I know not how to call it yet--but Cornelius takes it to be the better of the two for his purpose; thus it is:

'Merrily sang the Ely monks When rowed thereby Canute the King.

"Row near, my Knights, row near the land, That we may hear the good monks sing."'

See you now how well it will go, Judith--_Merrily sang--merrily sang--the Ely monks--the Ely monks--when rowed thereby_--CANUTE THE KING!" said he, in a manner suggesting the air. "'Twill go excellent well for four voices, and Cornelius is already begun. In truth, 'twill be something new at our merry-meetings----"

"Ay, and what have you to say of your business, good Master Quiney?" the old dame interrupted, sharply. "Be you so busy with your tavern catches and your merry-makings that you have no thought of that?"

"Indeed, I have enough regard for that, good Mistress Hathaway," said he, in perfect good-humor; "and it goes forward safely enough. But methinks you remind me that I have tarried here as long as I ought; so now I will get me back to the town."

He half expected that Judith would go to the door with him; and when she had gone so far, he said,

"Will you not come a brief way across the meadows, Judith?--'tis not well you should always be shut up in the cottage--you that are so fond of out-of-doors."

He had no cause for believing that she was too much within-doors; but she did not stay to raise the question; she good-naturedly went down the little garden path with him, and across the road, and so into the fields. She had been busy at work all the morning; twenty minutes'

idleness would do no harm.

Then, when they were quite by themselves, he said seriously:

"I pray you take heed, Judith, that you let not the blood flow too much to your hand, lest it inflame the wound, however slight you may deem it.

See, now, if you would but hold it so, 'twould rest on mine, and be a relief to you."

He did not ask her to take his arm, but merely that she should rest her hand on his; and this seemed easy to do, and natural (so long as he was not tired). But also it seemed very much like the time when they used to go through those very meadows as boy and girl together, the tips of their fingers intertwined: and so she spoke in a gentle and friendly kind of fashion to him.

"And how is it with your business, in good sooth?" she asked. "I hope there be no more of these junketings, and dancings, and brawls."

"Dear Judith," said he, "I know not who carries such tales of me to you.

If you knew but the truth, I am never in a brawl of mine own making or seeking; but one must hold one's own, and the more that is done, the less are any likely to interfere. Nay," he continued, with a modest laugh, "I think I am safe for quiet now with any in Warwickshire; 'tis only a strange lad now and again that may come among us and seek cause of quarrel; and surely 'tis better to have it over and done with, and either he or we to know our place? I seek no fighting for the love of it; my life on that; but you would not have any stranger come into Stratford a-swaggering, and biting his thumb at us, and calling us rogues of fiddlers?"

"Mercy on us, then," she cried, "are you champion for the town--or perchance for all of Warwickshire? A goodly life to look forward to! And what give they their watch-dog? Truly they must reward him that keeps such guard, and will do battle for them all?"

"Nay, I am none such, Judith," said he; "I but take my chance like the others."

He shifted her hand on his, that it might rest the more securely, and his touch was gentle.

"And your merchandise--pray you, who is so kind as to look after that when you are engaged in those pastimes?" she asked.

"I have no fault to find with my merchandise, Judith," said he. "That I look after myself. I would I had more inducement to attend to it, and to provide for the future. But it goes well; indeed it does."

"And Daniel Hutt?"

"He has left the country now."

"And his vagabond crew--have they all made their fortunes?"

"Why, Judith, they cannot have reached America yet," said he.

"I am glad that you have not gone," she remarked, simply.

"Well," he said, "why should I strive to push my fortunes there more than here? To what end? There be none that I could serve either way."

And then it seemed to him that it was an ungracious speech; and he was anxious to stand well with her, seeing that she was disposed to be friendly.

"Judith," he said, suddenly, "surely you will not remain over at Shottery to-morrow, with all the merriment of the fair going on in the town? Nay, but you must come over--I could fetch you, at any hour that you named, if it so pleased you. There is a famous juggler come into the town, as I hear, that can do the most rare and wonderful tricks, and hath a dog as cunning as himself; and you will hear the new ballads, to judge which you would have; and the peddlers would show you their stores. Now, in good sooth, Judith, may not I come for you? Why, all the others have someone to go about with them; and she will choose this or that posy or ribbon, and wear it for the jest of the day; but I have no one to walk through the crowd with me, and see the people, and hear the bargainings and the music. I pray you, Judith, let me come for you. It cannot be well for you always to live in such dulness as is over there at Shottery."

"If I were to go to the fair with you," said she, and not unkindly, "methinks the people would stare, would they not? We have not been such intimate friends of late."

"You asked me not to go to America, Judith," said he.

"Well, yes," she admitted. "Truly I did so. Why should you go away with those desperate and broken men? Surely 'tis better you should stay among your own people."

"I stayed because you bade me, Judith," said he.