For the moment I was hurt;then I could not but respect the honest pride which thus intimated that he knew his own position,and wished neither to ignore nor to alter it;all advances between us must evidently come from my side.So,having made his salutation,he was driving on,when I called after him,"John!John!""Yes,sir.I am so glad you're better again.""Stop one minute till I come out to you."And I crawled on my crutches to the front door,forgetting everything but the pleasure of meeting him--forgetting even my terror of Jael.What could she say?even though she held nominally the Friends'doctrine--obeyed in the letter at least,'Call no man your master'--what would Jael say if she found me,Phineas Fletcher,talking in front of my father's respectable mansion with the vagabond lad who drove my father's cart of skins?
But I braved her,and opened the door."John,where are you?""Here"(he stood at the foot of the steps,with the reins on his arm);"did you want me?""Yes.Come up here;never mind the cart."
But that was not John's way.He led the refractory horse,settled him comfortably under a tree,and gave him in charge to a small boy.
Then he bounded back across the road,and was up the steps to my side in a single leap.
"I had no notion of seeing you.They said you were in bed yesterday."(Then he HAD been inquiring for me!)"Ought you to be standing at the door this cold day?""It's quite warm,"I said,looking up at the sunshine,and shivering.
"Please go in."
"If you'll come too."
He nodded,then put his arm round mine,and helped me in,as if he had been a big elder brother,and I a little ailing child.Well nursed and carefully guarded as I had always been,it was the first time in my life I ever knew the meaning of that rare thing,tenderness.A quality different from kindliness,affectionateness,or benevolence;a quality which can exist only in strong,deep,and undemonstrative natures,and therefore in its perfection is oftenest found in men.John Halifax had it more than any one,woman or man,that I ever knew.
"I'm glad you're better,"he said,and said no more.But one look of his expressed as much as half-a-dozen sympathetic sentences of other people.
"And how have you been,John?How do you like the tan-yard?Tell me frankly."He pulled a wry face,though comical withal,and said,cheerily,"Everybody must like what brings them their daily bread.It's a grand thing for me not to have been hungry for nearly thirty days.""Poor John!"I put my hand on his wrist--his strong,brawny wrist.
Perhaps the contrast involuntarily struck us both with the truth--good for both to learn--that Heaven's ways are not so unequal as we sometimes fancy they seem.
"I have so often wanted to see you,John.Couldn't you come in now?"He shook his head,and pointed to the cart.That minute,through the open hall-door,I perceived Jael sauntering leisurely home from market.
Now,if I was a coward,it was not for myself this time.The avalanche of ill-words I knew must fall--but it should not fall on him,if I could help it.
"Jump up on your cart,John.Let me see how well you can drive.
There--good-bye,for the present.Are you going to the tan-yard?""Yes--for the rest of the day."And he made a face as if he did not quite revel in that delightful prospect.No wonder!
"I'll come and see you there this afternoon.""No?"--with a look of delighted surprise."But you must not--you ought not.""But I WILL!"And I laughed to hear myself actually using that phrase.What would Jael have said?
What--as she arrived just in time to receive a half-malicious,half-ceremonious bow from John,as he drove off--what that excellent woman did say I have not the slightest recollection.I only remember that it did not frighten and grieve me as such attacks used to do;that,in her own vernacular,it all "went in at one ear,and out at t'other;"that I persisted in looking out until the last glimmer of the bright curls had disappeared down the sunshiny road--then shut the front door,and crept in,content.
Between that time and dinner I sat quiet enough even to please Jael.
I was thinking over the beautiful old Bible story,which latterly had so vividly impressed itself on my mind;thinking of Jonathan,as he walked "by the stone Ezel,"with the shepherd-lad,who was to be king of Israel.I wondered whether he would have loved him,and seen the same future perfection in him,had Jonathan,the king's son,met the poor David keeping his sheep among the folds of Bethlehem.
When my father came home he found me waiting in my place at table.
He only said,"Thee art better then,my son?"But I knew how glad he was to see me.He gave token of this by being remarkably conversible over our meal--though,as usual,his conversation had a sternly moral tone,adapted to the improvement of what he persisted in considering my "infant"mind.It had reference to an anecdote Dr.Jessop had just been telling him--about a little girl,one of our doctor's patients,who in some passionate struggle had hurt herself very much with a knife.
"Let this be a warning to thee,my son,not to give way to violent passions."(My good father,thought I,there is little fear.)"For,this child--I remember her father well,for he lived at Kingswell here;he was violent too,and much given to evil ways before he went abroad--Phineas,this child,this miserable child,will bear the mark of the wound all her life.""Poor thing!"said I,absently.
"No need to pity her;her spirit is not half broken yet.Thomas Jessop said to me,'That little Ursula--'""Is her name Ursula?"And I called to mind the little girl who had tried to give some bread to the hungry John Halifax,and whose cry of pain we heard as the door shut upon her.Poor little lady!how sorry I was.I knew John would be so infinitely sorry too--and all to no purpose--that I determined not to tell him anything about it.The next time I saw Dr.Jessop I asked him after the child,and learned she had been taken away somewhere,I forgot where;and then the whole affair slipped from my memory.