Читать книгу Knock at a Venture - Eden Phillpotts - Страница 8

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Before the snows melted and the first month of the new year had passed by, John Aggett and his master’s son were friends no more.

Of Timothy it may be recorded that he fought fiercely, then with waning strength, and finally succumbed and lost his battle. By slow degrees his intimacy with Sarah grew. Neither sought the other; but love dragged them together. The man hid it from his small world, or fancied that he did so; the girl blushed in secret and knew that what she had mistaken for love was mere attachment—an emotion as far removed from her affection for Timothy as the bloodless moonbeams from the flush of a rosy sunrise. A time came, and that quickly, when she could deceive herself no longer, and she knew that her life hung on her lover, while the other man was no more than a sad cloud upon the horizon of the future.

Frosts temporarily retarded the thaw, and Timothy and Sarah walked together at evening time in a great pine wood. A footpath, ribbed and fretted with snakelike roots, extended here, and moving along it they sighed, while the breath of the great trees bore their suspirations aloft into the scented silence. One band of orange light hung across the west and the evening star twinkled diamond-bright upon it, while perpendicularly against the splendour sprang the lines of pine trunks, dimmed aloft with network of broken and naked boughs, merging above into a sombre crown of accumulated foliage. Cushions of dead needles were crisp under foot and the whisper of growing ice tinkled on the ear.

“’Tis vain to lie—at least to you an’ to myself. I love ’e, Tim; I love ’e wi’ all my poor heart—all—all of it.”

Her breath left her red lips in a little cloud and she hung her head hopelessly down.

“God can tell why such cruel things happen, dearest. Yet you loved him too—poor chap.”

“Never. ’Tis the difference ’tween thinkin’ an’ knowin’—a difference wide as the Moor. I never knowed love; I never knowed as theer was such a—but this be wicked talk. You’ve winned the solemn truth out o’ me; an’ that must content ’e. I never could ax un to give me up—him so gude an’ workin’ that terrible hard to make a home for me.”

“What will the home be when you’ve got it? Some might think it was better that one should suffer instead of two.”

“I couldn’t leave him, out of pity.”

“You must think of yourself, too, Sarah—if not of me. I hate saying so, but when your life’s salvation hangs on it, who can be dumb? John Aggett’s a big-hearted, honest man; yet he hasn’t our deep feelings; it isn’t in him to tear his heart to tatters over one woman as I should.”

“Us can’t say what deeps a man may have got hid in him.”

“Yes, but we can—in a great measure. John’s not subtle. He’s made of hard stuff and sensible stuff. I’ll fathom him at any rate. It must be done. He shall know. God forgive me—and yet I don’t blame myself very much. I was not free—never since you came into my life and filled it up to the brim. He saw the danger. I confess that. He warned me, an’ I bade him fear nothing. I was strong in my own conceit. Then this happened. The thing is meant to be; I know it at the bottom of my being. It was planned at creation and we cannot alter it if we would.”

“’Tis well to say that; but I reckon poor Jan thought the same?”

“I’ll see him; I’ll speak with him man to man. He must give you up. Oh, if I could change places with him and find myself a labourer just toiling to make a home for you, I’d thank the Lord on my knees!”

“I wish I’d never seen either of ’e, for I’ve awnly made the both of ’e wretched men. Better I’d never drawed breath than bring this gert load of sorrow upon you an’ him.”

“You can’t help it; you’re innocent, and the punishment must not fall upon your shoulders. You love me better than Aggett; and that he must know in justice to himself—and us.”

“Then his life be ruined an’ his cup bitter for all time.”

“I don’t think so, Sarah. You misjudge him. And even if this must be so, it is only Fate. I will speak to him to-night.”

“Leave it a little while. I’m fearful to trembling when I think of it. ’Tis I must tell him, not you. ’Tis I must tell him I’m not faithful an’ beg for forgiveness from him. An’ if he struck me down an’ hurted me—if he killed me—I’d say ’twas awnly fair punishment.”