XXV

Whatever the feelings of John Walden were concerning the incidents that had led him to more or less give himself away, as the saying goes, into Maryllia’s hands, he remained happily unconscious of the fact that Lord Roxmouth had overheard his interview with her in the picture-gallery—­and being a man who never brooded over his own particular small vexations and annoyances, he had determined, as far as might be possible, to put the whole incident behind him, as it were, and try to forget it.  Of course he knew he never could forget it,—­he knew that the sweet look in Maryllia’s eyes—­the little appealing touch of her hand on his arm, would be perchance the most vivid impressions of his life till that life should be ended.  But it was useless to dwell with heart-aching persistence on her fascination, or on what he now called his own utter foolishness, and he was glad that he had arranged to visit his old friend Bishop Brent, as this enabled him to go away at once for three or four days.  And it was possible, so he argued with himself, that this three or four days’ break of the magnetic charm that had, against his own wish and will, enslaved his thoughts and senses, would restore him to that state of self-poise and philosophic tranquillity in which he had for so many years found an almost, if not quite, perfect happiness.  Bracing himself fully up to the determination that he would, at all hazards, make an effort to recover his lost peace, he made rapid preparations for his departure from St. Rest, and going the round of his parish, he let all whom it might concern know, that for the first time in a long ten years, he was about to take two or three days’ holiday.  The announcement was received by some with good-natured surprise—­by others with incredulity—­but by most, with the usual comfortable resignation to circumstances which is such a prevailing characteristic of the rustic mind.

“It’ll do ye good, Passon, that it will!” said Mrs. Frost, in her high acidulated voice, which by dint of constant scolding and screaming after her young family had become almost raspish—­“For you’re looking that white about the gills that it upsets my mind to see it.  I sez to Adam onny t’other day, ‘You’ll be diggin’ a grave for Passon presently—­see if you don’t—­for he’s runnin’ downhill as fast as a loaded barrow with naught ahint it.’  That’s what I said, Passon—­an’ its Gospel true!”

Walden smiled.

“You’re quite right, Mrs. Frost,”—­he said, patiently—­“I am certainly going downhill, as you say—­but I must try to put a little check on the wheels!  There’s one thing to be said about it, if Adam digs my grave, as it is likely he will, I know he will do it better than any other sexton in the county!  I shall sleep in it well, and securely!”

Mrs. Frost felt a certain sense of pride in this remark.

“You may say that, Passon—­you may say that and not be fur wrong,”—­ she said, complacently—­“Adam don’t do much, but what he doos is well done, an’ there’s no mistake about it.  If I ’adn’t a known ’im to be a ’andy man in his trade he wouldn’t ’a had me to wife, I do assure you!”