Come Rack! Come Rope! | Page 4

arms,
and kissed her twice--first her hands and then her lips, for respect
should come first and ardour second.

"My love," said Robin, and threw off his hat with the pheasant's tail, for
coolness' sake.
* * * * *
It was a sweet room this which he already knew by heart; for it was
here that he had sat with Marjorie and her mother, silent and confused,
evening after evening, last autumn; it was here, too, that she had led
him last Christmas Eve, scarcely ten days ago, after he had kissed her
in the enclosed garden. But the low frosty sunlight lay in it now, upon
the blue painted wainscot that rose half up the walls, the tall presses
where the linen lay, the pieces of stuff, embroidered with pale lutes and
wreaths that Mistress Manners had bought in Derby, hanging now over
the plaster spaces. There was a chimney, too, newly built, that was
thought a great luxury; and in it burned an armful of logs, for the girl
was setting out new linen for the household, and the scents of lavender
and burning wood disputed the air between them.
"I thought it would be you," she said, "when I heard the dogs."
She piled the last rolls of linen in an ordered heap, and came to sit
beside him. Robin took one hand in his and sat silent.
She was of an age with him, perhaps a month the younger; and, as it
ought to be, was his very contrary in all respects. Where he was fair,
she was pale and dark; his eyes were blue, hers black; he was lusty and
showed promise of broadness, she was slender.
"And what news do you bring with you now?" she said presently.
He evaded this.
"Mistress Manners?" he asked.
"Mother has a megrim," she said; "she is in her chamber." And she
smiled at him again. For these two, as is the custom of young persons
who love one another, had said not a word on either side--neither he to
his father nor she to her parents. They believed, as young persons do,

that parents who bring children into the world, hold it as a chief danger
that these children should follow their example, and themselves be
married. Besides, there is something delicious in secrecy.
"Then I will kiss you again," he said, "while there is opportunity."
* * * * *
Making love is a very good way to pass the time, above all when that
same time presses and other disconcerting things should be spoken of
instead; and this device Robin now learned. He spoke of a hundred
things that were of no importance: of the dress that she wore--russet, as
it should be, for country girls, with the loose sleeves folded back above
her elbows that she might handle the linen; her apron of coarse linen,
her steel-buckled shoes. He told her that he loved her better in that than
in her costume of state--the ruff, the fardingale, the brocaded petticoat,
and all the rest--in which he had seen her once last summer at
Babington House. He talked then, when she would hear no more of that,
of Tuesday seven-night, when they would meet for hawking in the
lower chase of the Padley estates; and proceeded then to speak of
Agnes, whom he had left on the fist of the man who had taken his mare,
of her increasing infirmities and her crimes of crabbing; and all the
while he held her left hand in both of his, and fitted her fingers between
his, and kissed them again when he had no more to say on any one
point; and wondered why he could not speak of the matter on which he
had come, and how he should tell her. And then at last she drew it from
him.
"And now, my Robin," she said, "tell me what you have in your mind.
You have talked of this and that and Agnes and Jock, and Padley chase,
and you have not once looked me in the eyes since you first came in."
Now it was not shame that had held him from telling her, but rather a
kind of bewilderment. The affair might hold shame, indeed, or anger, or
sorrow, or complacence, but he did not know; and he wished, as young
men of decent birth should wish, to present the proper emotion on its
right occasion. He had pondered on the matter continually since his
father had spoken to him on Saint Stephen's night; and at one time it

seemed that his father was acting the part of a traitor and at another of a
philosopher. If it were indeed true, after all, that all men were turning
Protestant, and that there was not so much