Do I ever catch you reading of your Bible? But you seem to know so much about it, perhaps you have met some of them?”
“How can I tell, mother, when you won’t tell me?”
“I tell you, indeed! It is your place to tell me, I think. And what is more, I insist at once upon knowing all about it. What makes you go on in the way that you are doing? Do you take me for a drumledore, you foolish child? On Tuesday afternoon I saw you sewing with a double thread. Your father had potato-eyes upon his plate on Sunday; and which way did I see you trying to hang up a dish-cover? But that is nothing; fifty things you go wandering about in; and always out, on some pretense, as if the roof you were born under was not big enough for you. And then your eyes—I have seen your eyes flash up, as if you were fighting; and the bosom of your Sunday frock was loose in church two buttons; it was not hot at all to speak of, and there was a wasp next pew. All these things make me unhappy, Mary. My darling, tell me what it is.”
Mary listened with great amazement to this catalogue of crimes. At the time of their commission she had never even thought of them, although she was vexed with herself when she saw one eye—for in verity that was all—of a potato upon her father’s plate. Now she blushed when she heard of the buttons of her frock—which was only done because of tightness, and showed how long she must have worn it; but as to the double thread, she was sure that nothing of that sort could have happened.
“Why, mother dear,” she said, quite softly, coming up in her coaxing way, which nobody could resist, because it was true and gentle lovingness, “you know a hundred times more than I do. I have never known of any of the sad mistakes you speak of, except about the potato-eye, and then I had a round-pointed knife. But I want to make no excuses, mother; and there is nothing the matter with me. Tell me what you mean about the wolves.”
“My child,” said her mother, whose face she was kissing, while they both went on with talking, “it is no good trying to get over me. Either you have something on your mind, or you have not—which is it?”
“Mother, what can I have on my mind? I have never hurt any one, and never mean to do it. Every one is kind to me, and everybody likes me, and of course I like them all again. And I always have plenty to do, in and out, as you take very good care, dear mother. My father loves me, and so do you, a great deal more than I deserve, perhaps. I am happy in a Sunday frock that wants more stuff to button; and I have only one trouble in all the world. When I think of the other girls I see—”
“Never mind them, my dear. What is your one trouble?”
“Mother, as if you could help knowing! About my dear brother Jack, of course. Jack was so wonderfully good to me! I would walk on my hands and knees all the way to York to get a single glimpse of him.”
“You would never get as far as the rick-yard hedge. You children talk such nonsense. Jack ran away of his own free-will, and out of downright contrariness. He has repented of it only once, I dare say, and that has been ever since he did it, and every time he thought of it. I wish he was home again, with all my heart, for I can not bear to lose my children. And Jack was as good a boy as need be, when he got everything his own way. Mary, is that your only trouble? Stand where I can see you plainly, and tell me every word the truth. Put your hair back from your eyes now, like the catechism.”
“If I were saying fifty catechisms, what more could I do than speak the truth?” Mary asked this with some little vexation, while she stood up proudly before her mother, and clasped her hands behind her back. “I have told you everything I know, except one little thing, which I am not sure about.”
“What little thing, if you please? and how can you help being sure about it, positive as you are about everything?”
“Mother, I mean that I have not been sure whether I ought to tell you; and I meant to tell my father first, when there could be no mischief.”
“Mary, I can scarcely believe my ears. To tell your father before your mother, and not even him until nothing could be done to stop it, which you call ‘mischief!’ I insist upon knowing at once what it is. I have felt that you were hiding something. How very unlike you, how unlike a child of mine!”
“You need not disturb yourself, mother dear. It is nothing of any importance to me, though to other people it might be. And that is the reason why I kept it to myself.”
“Oh, we shall come to something by-and-by! One would really think you were older than your mother. Now, miss, if you please, let us judge of your discretion. What is it that you have been hiding so long?”
Mary’s face grew crimson now, but with anger rather than with shame; she had never thought twice about Robin Lyth with anything warmer than pity, but this was the very way to drive her into dwelling in a mischievous manner upon him.
“What I have been hiding,” she said, most distinctly, and steadfastly looking at her mother, “is only that I have had two talks with the great free-trader Robin Lyth.”
“That arrant smuggler! That leader of all outlaws! You have been meeting him on the sly!”
“Certainly not. But I met him once by chance; and then, as a matter of business, I was forced to meet him again, dear mother.”
“These things are too much for me,” Mrs. Anerley said, decisively. “When matters have come to such a pass, I must beg your dear father to see to them.”
“Very well, mother; I would rather have it so. May I go now and make an end of my gardening?”
“Certainly—as soon as you have made an end of me, as you must quite have laid your plans to do. I have seen too much to be astonished any more. But to think that a child of mine, my one and only daughter, who looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, should be hand in glove with the wickedest smuggler of the age, the rogue everybody shoots at—but can not hit him, because he was born to be hanged–the by-name, the by-word, the by-blow, Robin Lyth!” Mrs. Anerley covered her face with both hands.
“How would you like your own second cousin,” said Mary, plucking up her spirit, “your own second cousin, Mistress Cockscroft, to hear you speak so of the man that supports them at the risk of his life, every hour of it? He may be doing wrong—it is not for me to say—but he does it very well, and he does it nobly. And what did you show me in your drawer, dear mother? And what did you wear when that very cruel man, Captain Carroway, came here to dine on Sunday?”
“You wicked, undutiful child! Go away! I wish to have nothing more to say to you.”
“No, I will not go away,” cried Mary, with her resolute spirit in her eyes and brow; “when false and cruel charges are brought against me, I have the right to speak, and I will use it. I am not hand in glove with Robin Lyth, or any other Robin. I think a little more of myself than that. If I have done any wrong, I will meet it, and be sorry, and submit to any punishment. I ought to have told you before, perhaps; that is the worst you can say of it. But I never attached much importance to it; and when a man is hunted so, was I to join his enemies? I have only seen him twice: the first time by purest accident, and the second time to give him back a piece of his own property. And I took my brother with me; but he ran away, as usual.”
“Of course, of course. Every one to blame but you, miss. However, we shall see what your father has to say. You have very nearly taken all my breath away; but I shall expect the whole sky to tumble in upon us if Captain Anerley approves of Robin Lyth as a sweetheart for his daughter.”
“I never thought of Captain Lyth; and Captain Lyth never thought of me. But I can tell you one thing, mother—if you wanted to make me think of him, you could not do it better than by speaking so unjustly.”
“After that perhaps you will go back to your flowers. I have heard that they grow very fine ones in Holland. Perhaps you have got some smuggled tulips, my dear.”
Mary did not condescend to answer, but said to herself, as she went to work again, “Tulips in August! That is like the rest of it. However, I am not going to be put out, when I feel that I have not done a single bit of harm.” And she tried to be happy with her flowers, but could not enter into them as before.
Mistress Anerley was as good as her word,