chapter xx.

the time was coming near when joyce was to come home, and i had done positively nothing in the matter in which i had promised to fight her battle. it is true that she had begged me not to fight her battle, but i wanted to fight it, and i was vexed with myself that i had so allowed the matter to slide. in the one tussle that i had had with mother, i had been so worsted that i felt, with mortification, my later silence must look like a confession of defeat.

the fact is that i had been thinking of other things. trayton harrod and i had had a great many things to think of. he had started a new scheme for the laying on of water.

our village abounded in wells; they, too, were the remnants of the affluence of the town in by-gone days, but they were all at the foot of the hill.

trayton harrod wanted to bring the water from the spring at the top of croft's hill, in pipes through the valley, and up our own hill again. he wanted to form a co-operation among the inhabitants for the enterprise. if this was impossible, he wanted father to do it as a private undertaking, and to repay himself by charging a rental[155] to those people who would have it brought to their houses. but he met with opposition at every turn. the inhabitants of marshlands were a stubborn lot; they did not believe in the possibility of the thing; they did not care for innovations; they had done very well all these years with carts that brought the water up the hill and stored it in wells in their gardens, and why not now? he had not gained his point yet, either in one way or in the other, and i had been very busy fighting it for him; that was how it had come to pass that i had forgotten joyce's business.

mother and i sat in the low window-seat of the parlor straining our eyes over the mending of the family socks and stockings by the waning light of the june evening. mother had missed joyce very much. i had not been all that a daughter should have been to her since i had been in sole charge; i had been preoccupied, and she had missed joyce much more, i knew very well, than she chose to confess. knowing this as i did, i thought the moment would be well chosen to speak of what should affect joyce's happiness; i thought her heart would be soft to her. but on this point i was mistaken. mother did not alter her opinion because her heart was soft. she could be very tender, but she was most certainly also very obstinate.

i opened the conversation by alluding to the letter which father had had from captain forrester.

"that scheme of his for poor children doesn't seem to be able to get started as easily as he hoped," i said. "i'm sorry. it would have been a beautiful thing, and father will break his heart if it falls through."

"he seems to think the young man hasn't gone the right way to work," said mother. "i could have told him he wasn't the right sort for the job."

i tried to keep my temper, and it was with a laugh that i said, "well, if anything could be done i'm sure he would do it, if it was only for the sake of pleasing joyce."

mother said nothing. she prided herself upon her darning, and she was intent upon a very elaborate piece of lattice-work.

"he would do anything to please joyce. i never saw a man so much in love with a girl," i said.

"have you had great experience of that matter?" asked mother, in her coolest manner. "because if you have, i should like to hear of it; girls of nineteen don't generally have much experience in such matters."

[156]

"i can see that he is in love well enough," said i, biting my lip. then warming suddenly, i added: "i don't see why, mother, you should set your face so against the young man? you want joyce to be happy, don't you?"

"yes," said mother, quietly. "i want her to be happy."

"well, it won't make her happy never to see the man she loves," cried i; "no, nor yet to have to wait all that time before she can marry him. i've always heard that long engagements were dreadfully bad things for girls."

mother smiled. "i waited three years for your father," she said, "and i'm a hearty woman of my years."

"perhaps you were different," suggested i.

"maybe," assented mother. "women weren't so forward-coming in my time, to be sure."

"i don't see that joyce is forward," cried i.

"no, joyce is seemly behaved if she is let alone. she'll bide her time, i've no doubt," said mother.

i felt the hidden thrust, and it was the more sharply that i replied, "you're so fond of joyce, i should have thought you wouldn't care to make her suffer."

mother gave a little sigh. she took no notice of my rude taunt.

"the lord knows it's hard to know what's best," said she. "but i'd sooner see her pine a bit now than spend her whole life in misery, and there's no misery like that of a home where the love hasn't lasted out."

the earnestness of this speech made me ashamed of my vexation, and it was gently that i said: "but, mother, i don't see why you should think a man must needs be fickle because he falls in love at first sight. i don't see how people who have known one another all their lives think of falling in love. when do they begin?"

"i don't know as i understand this mighty thing that you young folk call 'falling in love,'" said mother. "i was quite sure what i was about when i married your father."

"well, now, mother, i don't see how you can have been quite sure beforehand," argued i, obstinately. "you have been lucky, that's all."

"nay, it's not all luck," said mother. "it isn't all plain sailing over fifty or sixty years of rubbing up and down; and they'd best have something stouter than a mere fancy to stand upon who want to make a good job of it."

"i don't see what they are to have stouter than love to stand upon," said i. "and i always thought love was a thing that came[157] whether you would or not, and had nothing to do with the merits of people."

it was all a great puzzle. did mother make too little of love, and did i make too much?

"that's not love," said mother; "that's a fancy. i misdoubt people who undertake to show patience and steadiness in one thing, before they have learned it in anything else."

"what has frank forrester done, i should like to know?" asked i, feeling that she was too hard on him.

"nothing, my dear," answered mother, laconically.

and i sighed. it was very evident there would be no convincing mother, and that if there was to be any relaxation in the hardness of the verdict for joyce, it must come through father, and not through her.

she rose and moved away, for the light had waned, and we could not see to work.

"if i loved a man i'd take my chance," was my parting shot.

"then, my dear, it's to be hoped you won't love a man just yet," said mother, as she went out of the room.

and that was all that i got by my endeavor to further my sister's cause with mother. i think, however, i soon forgot the annoyance that my failure caused me; it was driven out of my head by other and more engrossing interests.

mother and i had been up at "the elms" that very day getting things in order for mr. harrod. we had found a tidy widow woman to wait on him, and mother had put up fresh white dimity curtains from her own store to brighten up his little parlor. when he came in to supper he was full of quiet delight. i forget what he said; he was not a man of many words; he was always wrapped up in his business; but i recollect that, however few they were, they were words of affectionate gratitude to mother for a kind of care which he seemed never to have known before, and i know that i was grateful to him for them—so sensitively responsible is one for the actions of another who is slowly creeping near to one's heart.

harrod sat some time with mother on the lawn discussing the qualities of cows; she wanted father to give her a new one, and she wanted harrod to find her one as good as daisy, if such a thing were possible. he listened with great patience to her reminiscences of past favorites, and promised to do his best; but i could see that there was something on his mind.

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i fell to wondering what it was. i fell to wondering whether trayton harrod ever thought of anything else but the work he had to do, the dumb creatures that came his way in the doing of it, and the fair or lowering face of the world in which he did it. i soon learned what it was. it was something that had been discussed many times, but it had never been discussed as it was discussed that evening.

father came out with his pipe a-light; his rugged old face wore its most dreamy and contented expression. he had evidently been thinking of something that had given him pleasure; but i do not think it had to do with the farm. but mr. harrod went to meet him, and they strolled down the garden together, and stood for about ten minutes talking hard by the bed where the golden gillyflowers and the purple iris bloomed side by side.

"well, you know what i have told you, mr. maliphant," said harrod. "you never can make the farm pay so long as you hold these theories. your men work shorter hours and receive higher wages than anybody else's; and, added to that, you absolutely refuse to have any machinery used. it'll take you twice as long to get in your hay and your wheat as it will take the other farmers. how can you possibly compete with them?"

"i don't want to compete with them," said father—"not in the sense of getting the better of them. i merely want the farm to yield me sufficient for a modest living; i don't need riches."

"well, and you won't do it in the way you are going on," said harrod, calmly. "you won't do so, unless you allow me to stock the farm with the proper machines, and to get the proper return of labor out of the men."

"what is the proper return?" asked father, his eye lighting up. "that i should get three times the profit the laborer gets? i'm not sure of it. my capital must be remunerated, of course; but i am not sure that that is the right proportion." his heavy brows were knit, his hair was more aggressive than ever, his lower lip trembled.

harrod stared. he had not yet heard father give vent to his theories, and he stared.

"and as for machines," continued father, "i don't choose to have them used, because i consider it unjust that hands should be thrown out of work in order that i may make money the faster. my notions may be quixotic, but they are mine, and the land is mine, and i choose to have it worked according to my wish."

[159]

"certainly, sir," answered harrod, stiffly. "only, as i'm afraid i could not possibly make the farm succeed under these conditions, i would prefer to throw up my situation."

"very good," said father; "that is as you wish." and he moved on into the house.

mother looked at mr. harrod a moment as though she were about to beg him to take no notice, and to recall his hasty resignation. her eyes had almost a supplicating look; but apparently she seemed to think that her appeal would be best made to father, for she hurried after him through the open door.

trayton harrod and i were left alone on the terrace. his mouth was set in a hard curve that was all the more apparent for his clean-shaven chin; his eyes seemed to have grown quite small. i was almost afraid to speak to him. he stood there a moment, with his hands in his pockets, looking out across the marsh where the coming twilight was already beginning to spread brown shades, although there was still a reflection of the distant sunset upon the clouds overhead. he looked a moment, and then he turned to go; but i could not let him go like that.

my heart had gone down with a sudden, sick feeling when he had said he must leave knellestone. i can remember it now. i did not ask myself what it meant. i suppose i thought, if i thought at all, that it was anxiety for the welfare of the farm; but i remember very well how it felt.

"oh, mr. harrod, you don't really mean that!" said i, hurriedly.

"mean what?" answered he, without relaxing a muscle of his face.

"that you will give up your work here."

"indeed i do," answered he, with a little hard laugh, showing those white teeth of his. "a man must do his work his own way, or not at all."

i did not know what more to say. but he did not offer to go now; he stood there, with his hands in his pockets and his back half turned to me.

"do you think so?" said i, at last, doubtfully.

"well, if i can't do my work here so that it should be to your father's advantage, i'm cheating him, miss maliphant—that's evident, isn't it? and i have a particular wish to be an honest man." there was bitterness in his voice.

"i see that," said i. "only, if you go away the work will be done much less to father's advantage than if you stay—even though you can't do it just as you wish."

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"that has nothing to do with me," answered harrod, in his hardest voice. "i should harm my reputation by remaining here."

a wave of bitterness swept over me too at that.

"i see," i replied, coldly. "you are considering your own interest only. well, we have no right to expect any more. you have only known us a short time."

he did not speak, and i walked forward to the palisade that hedged the garden, and leaned my arms upon it, looking out to the sea. after a little while he came to my side.

"well, you see," said he, in a softer voice, "a man is bound to consider his own interests to that extent at least—so far as doing his work honestly is concerned. i consider a man a thief who doesn't do what he has to do to the best of his lights."

"i quite understand that," answered i. "i quite understand that it would be more comfortable for you to go away."

"i should be very sorry to go away," replied he, simply. "i like the place, and i like the work, and i like the people."

"then why do you go?" asked i, bluntly.

"a man must have his convictions," repeated he, doggedly.

i looked up at him now.

"yes," i said, firmly. "father has his convictions too. they are not your convictions, but he cares just as much about them. you ought to make allowances for that."

"i make every allowance for it," answered he; "only, i don't see how the two lots can mix together."

"you said just now that a man must do his work his own way, or not at all," i went on, without heeding him. "but i don't see that."

this time mr. harrod did more than smile, he laughed outright. i suppose even in the short time that we had been friends he had learned to know me well enough to see something amusing in my finding fault with any one for obstinacy. but i was not annoyed with the laugh; on the contrary, it restored my good-temper.

"well, i don't see why you shouldn't go a little way to meet father," insisted i, boldly. "of course he won't give in to you about everything; it isn't likely he should. but you might do a great many things that he wouldn't mind, which would make the farm better; and then, when he saw they made it better, and that the laborers went on just as well, maybe he would let you do a few more. i can't discuss it," added i, seeing that harrod was about to speak,[161] "because i can't understand it. but i see one thing plain, and that is that folk think the farm wants doing something with that father doesn't do—and if so, you're the man to do it."

i paused. had i not followed the squire's instructions well? had i not done my very best to "smooth over difficulties?"

"i don't think that i am the only man who could do it, by any means," answered harrod. but he said it doubtfully—pleasantly doubtfully.

it made me bold to retort with greater determination: "well, i think so, then. and if you say you are comfortable here, if you say you like the place—and the people," added i, hurriedly, "why don't you try, at least, to stay on and help us?"

he did not reply. we stood there what must have been a considerable time looking before us silently. the wane of the day had fallen into dusk, the brown had settled into gray, now that the gold of the sunset reflections had faded; the marsh-land was very still and sweet, the sheep were not even white blots upon it, so entirely did the tender pall harmonize all degrees of hue, so that the kine seemed no longer as living beings, but as mysterious shapes bred of the very land itself; even the old castle, so grand and solid in the day-time, was now like some phantom thing in the solitude—every curve and every circle defined more clearly than in sunlight, yet the whole transparent in the transparent gloaming of the air.

the most solid thing in all this varied uniformity, this intangible harmony, was a clump of trees in the near distance that told a shade blacker than anything else; for the turrets of the distant town lay only as a faint mass of purple upon the land, the little lights that twinkled in it here and there alone betraying its nature; long, living lines of strange clouds, that were neither violet nor gray nor white, lay along the blue where sea and sky were one.

"before you came," said i, at last, in a low voice, "i used to think that i could help father as well as any man. i thought that i understood very nearly as much about farming as he did. i thought i could do much better than a stranger, who would not understand the land or the people. but now i think differently. i see how much more you know than i had dreamed of. you have made me feel very foolish."

"i am sorry for that," said he. "it was far from my intentions—very far from my thoughts."

he said no more, neither did i. perhaps, to tell the truth, i was half sorry for what i had said, half ashamed of even feeling my in[162]feriority, more than half ashamed of having confessed it to any one. ashamed, sorry—and yet—

mother called us to go in-doors.

"if your father asks me to remain, i will remain, and do my best," said trayton harrod, as we walked slowly up the lawn.

and the glow that was upon my heart deepened. it was a concession, and wherefore was it made?