Tiddy does not like pies."
"Not like pies! that very odd--Mr. Hobbs likes pies--perhaps you don't have the crust made thick eno'. How somever, you can make it up to him with a pudding. A wife should always study her husband's tastes--what is a man's home without love? Still a husband ought not to be aggravating, and dislike pie on a Saturday!"
"Holla! I say, ma, do you see that 'ere gipsy? I shall go and have my fortune told."
"And I--and I!"
"Lor, if there ben't a tramper!" cried Mr. Hobbs, rising indignantly; "what can the parish be about?"
The object of these latter remarks, filial and paternal, was a young woman in a worn, threadbare cloak, with her face pressed to the openwork of the gate, and looking wistfully--oh, how wistfully!--within. The children eagerly ran up to her, but they involuntarily slackened their steps when they drew near, for she was evidently not what they had taken her for. No gipsy hues darkened the pale, thin, delicate cheek--no gipsy leer lurked in those large blue and streaming eyes--no gipsy effrontery bronzed that candid and childish brow. As she thus pressed her countenance with convulsive eagerness against the cold bars, the young people caught the contagion of inexpressible and half-fearful sadness--they approached almost respectfully--"Do you want anything here?" said the eldest and boldest of the boys.
"I--I--surely this is Dale Cottage?"
"It was Dale Cottage, it is Hobbs' Lodge now; can't you read?" said the heir of the Hobbs's honours, losing, in contempt at the girl's ignorance, his first impression of sympathy.
"And--and--Mr. Butler, is he gone too?"
Poor child! she spoke as if the cottage was gone, not improved; the Ionic portico had no charm for her!
"Butler!--no such person lives here. Pa, do you know where Mr. Butler lives?"
Pa was now moving up to the place of conference the slow artillery of his fair round belly and portly calves. "Butler, no--I know nothing of such a name--no Mr. Butler lives here. Go along with you--ain't you ashamed to beg?"
"No Mr. Butler!" said the girl, gasping for breath, and clinging to the gate for support. "Are you sure, sir?"
"Sure, yes!--what do you want with him?"
"Oh, papa, she looks faint!" said one of the /girls/ deprecatingly--"do let her have something to eat; I'm sure she's hungry."
Mr. Hobbs looked angry; he had often been taken in, and no rich man likes beggars. Generally speaking, the rich man is in the right. But then Mr. Hobbs turned to the suspected tramper's sorrowful face and then to his fair pretty child--and his good angel whispered something to Mr. Hobbs's heart--and he said, after a pause, "Heaven forbid that we should not feel for a poor fellow-creature not so well to do as ourselves. Come in, my lass, and have a morsel to eat."
The girl did not seem to hear him, and he repeated the invitation, approaching to unlock the gate.
"No, sir," said she, then; "no, I thank you. I could not come in now. I could not eat here. But tell me, sir, I implore you, can you not even guess where I may find Mr. Butler?"
"Butler!" said Mrs. Hobbs, whom curiosity had now drawn to the spot. "I remember that was the name of the gentleman who hired the place, and was robbed."
"Robbed!" said Mr. Hobbs, falling back and relocking the gate--"and the new tea-pot just come home," he muttered inly. "Come, be off, child--be off; we know nothing of your Mr. Butlers."
The young woman looked wildly in his face, cast a hurried glance over the altered spot, and then, with a kind of shiver, as if the wind had smitten her delicate form too rudely, she drew her cloak more closely round her shoulders, and without saying another word, moved away. The party looked after her as, with trembling steps, she passed down the road, and all felt that pang of shame which is common to the human heart at the sight of a distress it has not sought to soothe. But this feeling vanished at once from the breast of Mrs. and Mr. Hobbs, when they saw the girl stop where a turn of the road brought the gate before her eyes; and for the first time, they perceived, what the worn cloak had hitherto concealed, that the poor young thing bore an infant in her arms. She halted, she gazed fondly back. Even at that instant the despair of her eyes was visible; and then, as she pressed her lips to the infant's brow, they heard a convulsive sob--they saw her turn away, and she was gone!
"Well, I declare!" said Mrs. Hobbs.
"News for the parish," said Mr. Hobbs; "and she so young too!--what a shame!"
"The girls about here are very bad nowadays, Jenny," said the mother to the bride.
"I see now why she wanted Mr. Butler," quoth Hobbs, with a knowing wink--"the slut has come to swear!"
And it was for this that Alice had supported her strength--her courage-during the sharp pangs of childbirth; during a severe and crushing illness, which for months after her confinement had stretched her upon a peasant's bed (the object of the rude but kindly charity of an Irish shealing)--for this, day after day, she had whispered to herself, "I shall get well, and I will beg my way to the cottage, and find him there still, and put my little one into his arms, and all will be bright again;"--for this, as soon as she could walk without aid, had she set out on foot from the distant land; for this, almost with a dog's instinct (for she knew not what way to turn--what county the cottage was placed in; she only knew the name of the neighbouring town; and that, populous as it was, sounded strange to the ears of those she asked; and she had often and often been directed wrong),--for this, I say, almost with a dog's faithful instinct, had she, in cold and heat, in hunger and in thirst, tracked to her old master's home her desolate and lonely way! And thrice had she over-fatigued herself--and thrice again been indebted to humble pity for a bed whereon to lay a feverish and broken frame. And once, too, her baby--her darling, her life of life, had been ill--had been near unto death, and she could not stir till the infant (it was a girl) was well again, and could smile in her face and crow. And thus many, many months had elapsed, since the day she set out on her pilgrimage, to that on which she found its goal.