Prudence knew what led me to lend him my father's play; and where was the harm of it? I thought not that she would go and make trouble out of so small a thing."

By this time the good parson had come to see pretty clearly how matters stood--what with Prudence's explanations and Judith's present confessions; and he made no doubt that this stranger--whether from idleness, or for amus.e.m.e.nt, or with some more sinister purpose, he had no means of knowing--had copied the play when he had taken the sheets home with him to the farm; while as to the appearance in London of the copy so taken, it was sufficiently obvious that Judith was in complete ignorance, and could afford no information whatever. So that now the first part of his mission was accomplished. He asked her a few more questions, and easily discovered that she knew nothing whatever about the young man's position in life, or whether he had gone straight from the farm to London, or whether he was in London now. As to his being in possession, or having been in possession, of a copy of her father's play, it was abundantly evident that she had never dreamed of any such thing.

And now he came to the more personal part of his mission, that was for him much more serious.

"Judith," said he, "'tis not like you should know what sad and grievous consequences may spring from errors apparently small. How should you?

You will take no heed or caution. The advice of those who would be nearest and dearest to you is of no account with you. You will go your own way--as if one of your years and experience could know the pitfalls that lie in a young maiden's path. The whole of life is but a jest to you--a tale without meaning--something to pa.s.s the hour withal. And think you that such blindness and wilfulness bring no penalty? Nay, sooner or later the hour strikes; you look back and see what you have done--and the offers of safe guidance that you have neglected or thrust aside."

"I pray you, sir, what is it now?" she said, indifferently (and with a distinct wish that he would go away and release her, and let her get out into the light again). "Methought I had filled up the measure of my iniquities."

"Thus it is--thus it will be always," said he, with a kind of hopelessness, "so long as you harden your heart and have no thought but for the vanities of the moment." And then he addressed her more pointedly. "But even now methinks I can tell you what will startle you out of your moral sloth, which is an offence in the eyes of the Lord, as it is a cause for pity and almost despair to all who know you. It was a light matter, you think, that you should hold this secret commerce with a stranger; careless of the respect due to your father's house; careless of the opinion and the anxious wishes of your friends; careless, even, of your good name----"

"My good name?" said she, quickly and sharply. "I pray you, sir, have heed what you say."

"Have heed to what I have to tell you, Judith," said he, sternly. "Ay, and take warning by it. Think you that I have pleasure in being the bearer of evil tidings?"

"But what now, sir? What now? Heaven's mercy on us, let us get to the end of the dreadful deeds I have done!" she exclaimed, with some anger and impatience.

"I would spare you, but may not," said he, calmly. "And, now, what if I were to tell you that this young man whom you encouraged into secret conversation--whose manners seemed to have had so much charm for you--was a rascal, thief, and villain? How would your pride bear it if I told you that he had cozened you with some foolish semblance of a wizard?"

"Good sir, I know it," she retorted. "He himself told me as much."

"Perchance. Perchance 'twas part of his courteous manners to tell you as much!" was the scornful rejoinder. "But he did not tell you all--he did not tell you that he had copied out every one of those sheets of your father's writing; that he was about to carry that stolen copy to London, like the knave and thief that he was; that he was to offer it for money to the booksellers. He did not tell you that soon your father and his a.s.sociates in the theatre would be astounded by learning that a copy of the new play had been obtained, in some dark fashion, and sold; that it was out of their power to recover it; that their interests would be seriously affected by this vile conspiracy; or that they would by and by discover that this purloined play, which was like to cause them so much grievous loss and vexation of mind, had been obtained here--in this very neighborhood--and by the aid of no other than your father's daughter."

"Who--told--you--this?" she asked in a strange, stunned way: her eyes were terror-stricken, her hands all trembling.

"A good authority," said he--"your father. A letter is but now come from London."

She uttered a low, shuddering cry; it was a moan almost.

"See you now," said he (for he knew that all her bravery was struck down, and she entirely at his mercy), "what must ever come of your wilfulness and your scorn of those who would aid and guide you? Loving counsel and protection are offered you--the natural shield of a woman; but you must needs go your own way alone. And to what ends? Think you that this is all? Not so. For the woman who makes to herself her own rule of conduct must be prepared for calumnious tongues. And bethink you what your father must have thought of you--the only daughter of his household now--when he learned the story of this young man coming into Warwickshire, and befooling you with his wizard's tricks, and meeting you secretly, and cozening you of the sheets of your father's play.

These deeds that are done in the dark soon reach to daylight; and can you wonder, when your father found your name abroad in London--the heroine of a common jest--a byword--that his vexation and anger should overmaster him? What marvel that he should forthwith send to Stratford, demanding to know what further could be learned of the matter--perchance fondly trusting, who knows, to find that rumor had lied? But there is no such hope for him--nor for you. What must your mother say in reply? What excuse can she offer? Or how make reparation to those a.s.sociates of your father who suffer with him? And how get back your good name, that is being bandied about the town as the heroine of a foolish jest? Your father may regain possession of his property--I know not whether that be possible or no--but can he withdraw the name of his daughter from the ribald wit of the taverns? And I know which he valueth the more highly, if his own daughter know it not."

He had struck hard; he knew not how hard.

"My father wrote thus?" she said; and her head was bent, and her hands covering her face.

"I read the letter no more than an hour ago," said he. "Your mother and sister would have me come over to see whether such a story could be true; but Prudence had already admitted as much----"

"And my father is angered?" she said, in that low, strange voice.

"Can you wonder at it?" he said.

Again there came an almost inarticulate moan, like that of an animal stricken to death.

As for him, he had now the opportunity of pouring forth the discourse to her that he had in a measure prepared as he came along the highway. He knew right well that she would be sorely wounded by this terrible disclosure; that the proud spirit would be in the dust; that she would be in a very bewilderment of grief. And he thought that now she might consent to gentle leading, and would trust herself to the only one (himself, to wit) capable of guiding her through her sorrows; and he had many texts and ill.u.s.trations apposite. She heard not one word. She was as motionless as one dead; and the vision that rose before her burning brain was the face of her father as she had seen it for a moment in the garden, on the morning of his departure. That terrible swift look of anger toward old Matthew she had never forgotten--the sudden lowering of the brows, the flash in the eyes, the strange contraction of the mouth; and that was what she saw now--that was how he was regarding her--and that, she knew, would be the look that would meet her always and always as she lay and thought of him in the long, wakeful nights. She could not go to him. London was far away. She could not go to him and throw herself at his feet, and beg and pray with outstretched and trembling hands for but one word of pity. The good parson had struck hard.

And yet in a kind of way he was trying to administer consolation--at all events, counsel. He was enlarging on the efficacy of prayer. And he said that if the Canaanitish woman of old had power to intercede for her daughter, and win succor for her, surely that would not be denied to such an one as Judith's mother, if she sought, for her daughter, strength and fort.i.tude in trouble where alone these could be found.

"The Canaanitish woman," said he, "had but the one saving grace, but that an all-powerful one, of faith; and even when the disciples would have her sent away, she followed worshipping, and saying 'Lord, help me.' And the Lord himself answered and said, 'It is not good to take the children's bread, and to cast it to whelps.' But she said, 'Truth, Lord; yet indeed the whelps eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table.' Then our Lord answered, and said, 'O woman, great is thy faith; be it to thee as thou desirest.' And her daughter was made whole at that hour."

Judith started up; she had not heard a single word.

"I pray you, pardon me, good sir," she said, for she was in a half-frantic state of misery and despair; "my--my grandmother will speak with you--I--I pray you pardon me----"

She got up into her own little chamber--she scarce knew how. She sat down on the bed. There were no tears in her eyes, but there was a terrible weight on her chest that seemed to stifle her; and she was breathless, and could not think aright, and her trembling hands were clinched. Sometimes she wildly thought she wanted Prudence to come to her; and then a kind of shudder possessed her--and a wish to go away--she cared not where--and be seen no more. That crushing weight increased, choking her; she could not rest; she rose, and went quickly down the stair, and through the garden into the road.

"Judith, wench!" called her grandmother, who was talking to the parson.

She took no heed. She went blindly on; and all these familiar things seemed so different now. How could the children laugh so? She got into the Bidford road; she did not turn her eyes toward any whom she met, to see whether she knew them or no--there was enough within her own brain for her to think of. She made her way to the summit of Bardon Hill, and there she looked over the wide landscape; but it was toward London that she looked, and with a strange and trembling fear. And then she seemed anxious to hide away from being seen, and went down by hedge-rows and field-paths, and at last she was by the river. She regarded it, flowing so stealthily by, in the sad and monotonous silence. Here was an easy means of slipping away from all this dread thing that seemed to surround her and overwhelm her--to glide away as noiselessly and peacefully as the river itself to any unknown sh.o.r.e, she cared not what. And then she sat down, still looking vaguely and absently at the water, and began to think of all that had happened to her on the banks of this stream; and she looked at these visionary pictures and at herself in them as if they were apart and separated from her, and she never to be like that again.

Was it possible that she ever could have been so careless and so happy, with no weight at all resting on her heart, but singing out of mere thoughtlessness, and teaching Willie Hart the figures of dances, herself laughing the while? It seemed a long time ago now, and that he was cut off from her too, and all of them, and that there was to be no expiation for evermore for this that she had done.

How long she sat there she knew not. Everything was a blank to her but this crushing consciousness that what had happened could never be recalled; that her father and she were forever separated now--and his face regarding her with the terrible look she had seen in the garden; that all the happy past was cut away from her, and she an outcast, and a byword, and a disgrace to all that knew her. And then she thought, in the very weariness of her misery, that if she could only walk away anywhere--anywhere alone, so that no one should meet her or question her--until she was broken and exhausted with fatigue, she would then go back to her own small room, and lie down on the bed, and try if sleep would procure some brief spell of forgetfulness, some relief from her aching head and far heavier heart. But when she rose she found that she was trembling from weakness, and a kind of shiver as of cold went through her, though the autumn day was warm enough. She walked slowly, and almost dragged herself, all the way home. Her hand shook so that she could scarce undo the latch of the gate. She heard her grandmother in the inner apartment, but she managed to creep noiselessly up-stairs into her own little chamber, and there she sank down on the bed, and lay in a kind of stupor, pressing her hands on her throbbing brow.

It was some two hours afterward that her grandmother, who did not know that Judith had returned, was walking along the little pa.s.sage, and was startled by hearing a low moaning above--a kind of dull cry of pain--so slight that she had to listen again ere she could be sure that it was not mere fancy. Instantly she went up the few wooden steps and opened the door. Judith was lying on the bed, with all her things on, just as she had seen her go forth. And then--perhaps the noise of the opening of the door had wakened her--she started up, and looked at her grandmother in a wild and dazed kind of way, as if she had just shaken off some terrible dream.

"Oh, grandmother," she said, springing to her, and clinging to her like a child, "it is not true--it is not true--it cannot be true!"

But then she fell to crying--crying as if her heart would break. The whole weight of her misery came back upon her, and the hopelessness of it, and her despair.

"Why, good la.s.s," said her grandmother, smoothing the sun-brown hair that was buried in her bosom, and trying to calm the violence of the girl's sobbing, "thou must not take on so. Thy father may be angered, 'tis true, but there will come brighter days for thee. Nay, take not on so, good la.s.s!"

"Oh, grandmother, you cannot understand!" she said, and her whole form was shaken with sobs. "You cannot understand. Grandmother, grandmother, there was--there was but the one rose--in my garden--and that is gone now."

CHAPTER x.x.x.

IN TIME OF NEED.

Late that night, in the apartment below, Tom Quiney was seated by the big fireplace, staring moodily into the chips and logs that had been lit there, the evenings having grown somewhat chill now. There was a little parcel lying unopened and unheeded on the table. He had not had patience to wait for the fair of the morrow; he had ridden all the way to Warwick to purchase something worthy of Judith's acceptance, and he had come over to the cottage in high hopes of her being still in that kindly mood that reminded him of other days. Then came the good dame's story of what had befallen; and how that the parson had been over, bringing with him these terrible tidings; and how that since then Judith would not hear of any one being sent for, and would take no food, but was now lying there, alone in the dark, moaning to herself at times. And the good dame--as this tall young fellow sat there listening to her, with his fists clinched, and the look on his face ever growing darker--went on to express her fear that the parson had been over-hard with her grandchild; that probably he could not understand how her father had been the very idol of her life-long worship; that the one thing she was ever thinking of was how to win his approval--to be rewarded by even a nod of encouragement.

"Nay, I liked not the manner of his speaking, when he wur come to me in the garden," the old dame continued. "I liked it not. He be sharp of tongue, the young pahrson, and there were too much to my mind of discipline, and chastening of proud spirits, and the like o' that. To my mind he have not years enough to be placed in such authority."

"The Church is behind him," said this young fellow, almost to himself, and his eyes were burning darkly as he spoke. "I may not put hand on him. The Church is behind him. Marry, 'tis a goodly shelter for men that be of the woman kind."

Then he looked up quickly, and his words were savage.--"What think you, good grandmother, were one to seize him by the neck and heel and break his back on the rail of Clopton's bridge? Were it not well done? By my life I think it were well done!"

"Nay, nay, now," said she, quickly, for she was somewhat alarmed, seeing his face set hard with pa.s.sion and his eyes afire. "I would have no brawling. There be plenty of harm done already. Perchance the good pahrson hath not spoken so harshly after all. In good sooth, now, none but her own people can understand how the wench hath ever looked up to her father--for a word or a nod commending her, as I say--and when she be told now that she hath wrought mischief, and caused herself to be talked about, and her father vexed, and all the rest of the tale, why 'tis like to drive her out of her mind. And now this be all her cry--that she may see no one of her people any more, she would bide with me here; 'Grandmother, grandmother,' she saith, 'I will bide with you, if you will suffer me. I will show myself in Stratford no more; they shall have no shame through me.' Nay, but the wench be half out of her senses, as I think, and saith wild things--that she would go and sell herself to be a slave in the Indies, could she restore the money to her father or bring him back this that he hath lost. 'Tis a terrible plight for the poor wench; and always she saith, 'Grandmother, grandmother, let me bide with you; I will never go back to New Place; grandmother, I can work as well as any, and you will let me bide with you.' Poor la.s.s--poor la.s.s!"

"But how came the parson to interfere?" Quiney said, hotly. "I'll be sworn Judith's father did not write to him. How came he to be preaching his discipline and chastis.e.m.e.nt? How came he to be intrusted with the task of abusing her and crushing the too proud spirit? By heavens, now, there may be occasion erelong to tame some one's proud spirit, but not the spirit of a defenceless young maid--marry, that is work fit only for parsons. Man to man is the better way--and it will come erelong."

"Nay, softly, softly, good Master Quiney," said the old dame in her gentlest tones. "Would you mar all the good opinion that Judith hath of you? Why, to-day, now, just ere the parson came, I wur in the garden, putting things straight a bit, and as she came through she says to me, quite pleasant-like, I have just been across the fields, grandmother, with Master Quiney--or Tom Quiney, as she said, being friendly and pleasant-like--and I hear less now of his quarrelling and fighting among the young men; and his business goeth on well; and to-morrow, grandmother, he is going to buy me something at the fair."

"Said she all that?" he asked, quickly, and with a flush of color rushing to his face.

"Marry did she, and looked pleased; for 'tis a right friendly wench, and good-natured withal," the old dame said, glad to see that these words had for the moment scattered his wrath to the winds; and she went on for some little time talking to him in her garrulous easy fashion about Judith's frank and honest qualities, and her goodhearted ways, and the pretty daintinesses of her coaxing when she was so inclined. It was a story he was not loath to listen to, and yet it seemed so strange; they were talking of her almost as of one pa.s.sed away--as if the girl lying there in that darkened room, instead of torturing her brain with incessant and lightning-like visions of all the harm she had caused in London, were now far removed from all such troubles, and hushed in the calm of death.