Then he slipped out by another door, and closing it quickly after him, told the foreman and waiting-men that the business of the day was done. They had better all go home at once; and he would see to the fastenings. Of course they were only too glad to go;but I wondered at his sending them, with at least two hours of daylight left.
However, that was no business of mine, and I waited, and pondered whether fair Ruth ever came into this dirty room, and if so, how she kept her hands from it.
For Annie would have had it upside down in about two minutes, and scrubbed, and brushed, and dusted, until it looked quite another place; and yet all this done without scolding and crossness; which are the curse of clean women, and ten times worse than the dustiest dust.
Uncle Ben came reeling in, not from any power of liquor, but because he was stiff from horseback, and weak from work and worry.
'Let me be, John, let me be,' he said, as I went to help him; 'this is an unkind dreary place; but many a hundred of good gold Carolus has been turned in this place, John.'
'Not a doubt about it, sir,' I answered in my loud and cheerful manner; 'and many another hundred, sir; and may you long enjoy them!'
'My boy, do you wish me to die?' he asked, coming up close to my stool, and regarding me with a shrewd though blear-eyed gaze; 'many do. Do you, John?'
'Come,' said I, 'don't ask such nonsense. You know better than that, Uncle Ben. Or else, I am sorry for you. I want you to live as long as possible, for the sake of--' Here I stopped.
'For the sake of what, John? I knew it is not for my own sake. For the sake of what, my boy?'
'For the sake of Ruth,' I answered; 'if you must have all the truth. Who is to mind her when you are gone?'
'But if you knew that I had gold, or a manner of getting gold, far more than ever the sailors got out of the Spanish galleons, far more than ever was heard of;and the secret was to be yours, John; yours after me and no other soul's--then you would wish me dead, John.' Here he eyed me as if a speck of dust in my eyes should not escape him.
'You are wrong, Uncle Ben; altogether wrong. For all the gold ever heard or dreamed of, not a wish would cross my heart to rob you of one day of life.'
At last he moved his eyes from mine; but without any word, or sign, to show whether he believed, or disbelieved. Then he went to a chair, and sat with his chin upon the ledger-desk; as if the effort of probing me had been too much for his weary brain. 'Dreamed of! All the gold ever dreamed of! As if it were but a dream!' he muttered; and then he closed his eyes to think.
'Good Uncle Reuben,' I said to him, 'you have been a long way to-day, sir. Let me go and get you a glass of good wine. Cousin Ruth knows where to find it.'
'How do you know how far I have been?' he asked, with a vicious look at me. 'And Cousin Ruth! You are very pat with my granddaughter's name, young man!'
'It would be hard upon me, sir, not to know my own cousin's name.'
'Very well. Let that go by. You have behaved very badly to Ruth. She loves you; and you love her not.'
At this I was so wholly amazed--not at the thing itself, I mean, but at his knowledge of it--that Icould not say a single word; but looked, no doubt, very foolish.
'You may well be ashamed, young man,' he cried, with some triumph over me, 'you are the biggest of all fools, as well as a conceited coxcomb. What can you want more than Ruth? She is a little damsel, truly;but finer men than you, John Ridd, with all your boasted strength and wrestling, have wedded smaller maidens. And as for quality, and value--bots! one inch of Ruth is worth all your seven feet put together.'
Now I am not seven feet high; nor ever was six feet eight inches, in my very prime of life; and nothing vexes me so much as to make me out a giant, and above human sympathy, and human scale of weakness. It cost me hard to hold my tongue; which luckily is not in proportion to my stature. And only for Ruth's sake Iheld it. But Uncle Ben (being old and worn) was vexed by not having any answer, almost as much as a woman is.
'You want me to go on,' he continued, with a look of spite at me, 'about my poor Ruth's love for you, to feed your cursed vanity. Because a set of asses call you the finest man in England; there is no maid (Isuppose) who is not in love with you. I believe you are as deep as you are long, John Ridd. Shall I ever get to the bottom of your character?'
This was a little too much for me. Any insult I could take (with goodwill) from a white-haired man, and one who was my relative; unless it touched my love for Lorna, or my conscious modesty. Now both of these were touched to the quick by the sentences of the old gentleman. Therefore, without a word, I went; only making a bow to him.
But women who are (beyond all doubt) the mothers of all mischief, also nurse that babe to sleep, when he is too noisy. And there was Ruth, as I took my horse (with a trunk of frippery on him), poor little Ruth was at the bridle, and rusting all the knops of our town-going harness with tears.
'Good-bye dear,' I said, as she bent her head away from me; 'shall I put you up on the saddle, dear?'
'Cousin Ridd, you may take it lightly,' said Ruth, turning full upon me, 'and very likely you are right, according to your nature'--this was the only cutting thing the little soul ever said to me--'but oh, Cousin Ridd, you have no idea of the pain you will leave behind you.'
'How can that be so, Ruth, when I am as good as ordered to be off the premises?'
'In the first place, Cousin Ridd, grandfather will be angry with himself, for having so ill-used you. And now he is so weak and poorly, that he is always repenting. In the next place I shall scold him first, until he admits his sorrow; and when he has admitted it, I shall scold myself for scolding him. And then he will come round again, and think that I was hard on him; and end perhaps by hating you--for he is like a woman now, John.'