第20章

"Babie," said her mistress, "offer some bread and honey to the Lord Keeper and Miss Ashton; they will excuse your awkwardness if you use cleanliness and despatch."Babie performed her mistress's command with the grace which was naturally to have been expected, moving to and fro with a lobster-like gesture, her feet and legs tending one way, while her head, turned in a different direction, was fixed in wonder upon the laird, who was more frequently heard of than seen by his tenants and dependants. The bread and honey, however, deposited on a plantain leaf, was offered and accepted in all due courtesy.

The Lord Keeper, still retaining the place which he had occupied on the decayed trunk of a fallen tree, looked as if he wished to prolong the interview, but was at a loss how to introduce a suitable subject.

"You have been long a resident on this property?" he said, after a pause.

"It is now nearly sixty years since I first knew Ravenswood," answered the old dame, whose conversation, though perfectly civil and respectful, seemed cautiously limited to the unavoidable and necessary task of replying to Sir William.

"You are not, I should judge by your accent, of this country originally?" said the Lord Keeper, in continuation.

"No; I am by birth an Englishwoman."

"Yet you seem attached to this country as if it were your own.""It is here," replied the blind woman, "that I have drank the cup of joy and of sorrow which Heaven destined for me. I was here the wife of an upright and affectionate husband for more than twenty years; I was here the mother of six promising children; it was here that God deprived me of all these blessings; it was here they died, and yonder, by yon ruined chapel, they lie all buried. I had no ocuntry but theirs while they lived; I have none but theirs now they are no more.""But your house," said the Lord Keeper, looking at it, "is miserably ruinous?""Do, my dear father," said Lucy, eagerly, yet bashfully, catching at the hint, "give orders to make it better; that is, if you think it proper.""It will last my time, my dear Miss Lucy," said the blind woman;"I would not have my lord give himself the least trouble about it.""But," said Lucy, "you once had a much better house, and were rich, and now in your old age to live in this hovel!""It is as good as I deserve, Miss Lucy; if my heart has not broke with what I have suffered, and seen others suffer, it must have been strong enough, adn the rest of this old frame has no right to call itself weaker.""You have probably witnessed many changes," said the Lord Keeper; "but your experience must have taught you to expect them.""It has taught me to endure them, my lord," was the reply.

"Yet you knew that they must needs arrive in the course of years?" said the statesman.