Joan Haste | Page 5

to the weather, and adorned with almond-shaped nails that any lady might have envied. These hands were never still; moreover, there was something furtive and unpleasant about them, capable as they were of the strangest contortions. Mr. Rock's garments suggested a compromise between the dress affected by Dissenters who are pillars of their local chapel and anxious to proclaim the fact, and those worn by the ordinary farmer, consisting as they did of a long-tailed black coat rather the worse for wear, a black felt wide-awake, and a pair of cord breeches and stout riding boots.
"How do you do, Miss Haste?" said Samuel Rock, in his soft, melodious voice, but not offering to shake hands, perhaps because his fingers were engaged in nervously crushing the crown of his hat.
"How do you do?" answered Joan, starting violently. "How did you----" ("find me here," she was about to add; then, remembering that such a remark would show a guilty knowledge of being sought after, substituted) "get here?"
"I--I walked, Miss Haste," he replied, looking at his legs and blushing, as though there were something improper about the fact; then added, "You are quite close to my house, Moor Farm, you know, and I was told that--I thought that I should find you here."
"I suppose you mean that you asked my aunt, and she sent you after me?" said Joan bluntly.
Samuel smiled evasively, but made no other reply to this remark.
Then came a pause, while, with a growing irritation, Joan watched the long white fingers squeezing at the black wide-awake.
"You had better put your hat on, or you will catch cold," she suggested, presently.
"Thank you, Miss Haste, it is not what I am liable to--not but what I take it kindly that you should think of my health;" and he carefully replaced the hat upon his head in such a fashion that the long brown hair showed beneath it in a ragged fringe.
"Oh, please don't thank me," said Joan rudely, dreading lest her remark should be taken as a sign of encouragement.
Then came another pause, while Samuel searched the heavens with his wandering blue eyes, as though to find inspiration there.
"You are very fond of graves, Miss Haste," he said at length.
"Yes, Mr. Rock; they are comfortable to sit on--and I don't doubt very good beds to sleep in," she added, with a touch of grim humour.
Samuel gave a slight but perceptible shiver. He was a highly strung man, and, his piety notwithstanding, he did not appreciate the allusion. When you wish to make love to a young woman, to say the least of it, it is disagreeable if she begins to talk of that place whither no earthly love can follow.
"You shouldn't think of such things at your age--you should not indeed, Miss Haste," he replied; "there are many things you have got to think of before you think of them."
"What things?" asked Joan rashly.
Again Samuel blushed.
"Well--husbands, and--cradles and such-like," he answered vaguely.
"Thank you, I prefer graves," Joan replied with tartness.
By this time it had dawned upon Samuel that he was "getting no forwarder." For a moment he thought of retreat; then the native determination that underlay his soft voice and timid manner came to his aid.
"Miss Haste--Joan," he said huskily, "I want to speak to you."
Joan felt that the hour of trial had come, but still sought a feeble refuge in flippancy.
"You have been doing that for the last five minutes, Mr. Rock," she said; "and I should like to go home."
"No, no, not yet--not till you have heard what I have to say." And he made a quick movement as though to cut off her retreat.
"Well, be quick then," she answered, in a voice in which vexation and fear struggled for the mastery.
Twice Samuel strove to speak, and twice words failed him, for his agitation was very real. At last they came.
"I love you," he said, in an intense whisper. "By the God above you, and the dead beneath your feet, I love you, Joan, as you have never been loved before and never will be loved again!"
She threw her head back and looked at him, frightened by his passion. The realities of his declaration were worse than she had anticipated. His thin face was fierce with emotion, his sensitive lips quivered, and the long lithe fingers of his right hand played with his beard as though he were plaiting it. Joan grew seriously alarmed: she had never seen Samuel Rock look like this before.
"I am sorry," she murmured.
"Don't be sorry," he broke in; "why should you be sorry? It is a great thing to be loved as I love you, Joan, a thing that does not often come in the way of a woman, as you will find out before you die. Look here: do you suppose that I have