Who has stolen it, papa? asked Barbara.
Look there! he cried; Jasper Babb was bringing me the money, and when he fell from his horse, it was stolen.
Neither Barbara nor Eve spoke.
Now, continued Mr. Jordan, he has offered himself as my hind to look after the farm for me, and promises, if I give him time
Father, you have refused! interrupted Barbara.
On the contrary, I have accepted.
It cannot, it must not be! exclaimed Barbara vehemently. Father, you do not know what you have done.
This is strange language to be addressed by a child to a father, said Mr. Jordan in a tone of irritation. Was there ever so unreasonable a girl before? This morning you pressed me to engage a bailiff, and now that Mr. Jasper Babb has volunteered, and I have accepted him, you turn round and wont have him.
No, she said, with quick-drawn breath, I will not. Take anyone but him. I entreat you, papa. If you have any regard for my opinion, let him go. For pitys sake do not allow him to remain here!
I have accepted him, said her father coldly. Pray what weighty reasons have you got to induce me to alter my resolve?
Miss Jordan stood thinking; the colour mounted to her forehead, then her brows contracted. I have none to give, she said in a low tone, greatly confused, with her eyes on the ground. Then, in a moment, she recovered her self-possession and looked Jasper full in the face, but without speaking, steadily, sternly. In fact, her heart was beating so fast, and her breath coming so quick, that she could not speak. Mr. Jasper, she said at length, controlling her emotions by a strong effort of will, I entreat you go.
He was silent.
I have nursed you; I have given my nights and days to you. You confessed that I had saved your life. If you have any gratitude in your heart, if you have any respect for the house that has sheltered you go!
Barbara, said her father, you are a perverse girl. He shall not go. I insist on his fulfilling his engagement. If he leaves I shall take legal proceedings against his father to recover the money.
Do that rather than retain him.
Miss Jordan, said Jasper, slowly, and with sadness in his voice, it is true that you have saved my life. Your kind hand drew me from the brink of the grave whither I was descending. I thank you with all my heart, but I cannot go from my engagement to your father. Through my fault the money was lost, and I must make what amends I may for my negligence.
Go back to your father.
That I cannot do.
She considered with her hand over her lips to hide her agitation. No, she said, I understand that. Of course you cannot go back to your native place and to your home; but you need not stay here. Then suddenly, in a burst of passion, she extended her hands to her father, Papa! then to the young man, Mr. Jasper! Papa, send him away! Mr. Jasper, do not remain!
The young man was hardly less agitated than herself. He took a couple of steps towards the door.
Stuff and fiddlesticks! shouted Mr. Jordan. He shall not go. I forbid him.
Jasper turned. Miss Barbara, he said, humbly, you are labouring under a mistake which I must not explain. Forgive me. I stay.
She looked at him with moody anger, and muttered, Knowing what you do that I am not blind that you should dare to settle here under this honourable roof. It is unjust! it is ungrateful! it is wicked! God help us! I have done what I could.
CHAPTER XII.
CALLED AWAY
Jasper was installed in Morwell as bailiff in spite of the remonstrances of Barbara. He was given a room near the gatehouse, and was attended by Mrs. Davy, but he came for his dinner to the table of the Jordans. Barbara had done what she could to prevent his becoming an inmate of the house. She might not tell her father her real reasons for objecting to the arrangement.
She was rendered more uneasy a day or two after by receiving news that an aunt, a sister of her mother, who lived beyond Dartmoor, was dying, and she was summoned to receive her last sigh. She must leave Morwell, leave her father and sister in the house with a man whom she thoroughly mistrusted. Her only comfort was that Jasper was not sufficiently strong and well to be dangerous. What was he? Was there any truth in that story he had told her father? She could not believe it, because it would not fit in with what she already knew. What place had the convicts garb in that tale? She turned the narrative about in her mind, and rejected it. She was inclined to disbelieve in Jasper being the son of old Mr. Babb. He had assumed the name and invented the story to deceive her father, and form an excuse for remaining in the house.
She hardly spoke to Jasper when they met. She was cold and haughty, she did not look at him; and he made no advances to gain her goodwill.
When she received the summons to her aunts deathbed, knowing that she must go, she asked where Mr. Babb was, and, hearing that he was in the barn, went thither with the letter in her hand.
He had been examining the horse-turned winnowing machine, which was out of order. As she came to the door he looked up and removed his hat, making a formal salute. The day was hot; he had been taking the machine to pieces, and was warm, so he had removed his coat. He at once drew it on his back again.
Barbara had a curt, almost rough, manner at times. She was vexed now, and angry with him, so she spoke shortly, I am summoned to Ashburton. That is close to Buckfastleigh, where, you say, you lived, to make my father believe it is your home.
Yes, Miss Jordan, that is true.
You have not written to your home since you have been with us. At least she hesitated, and slightly coloured you have sent no letter by our boy. Perhaps you were afraid to have it known where you are. No doubt you were right. It is essential to you that your presence here should not be known to anyone but your father. A letter might be opened, or let lie about, and so your whereabouts be discovered. Supposing your story to be true, that is how I account for your silence. If it be false
It is not false, Miss Jordan.
I am going to Ashburton, I will assure myself of it there. If it be false I shall break my promise to you, and tell my father everything. I give you fair warning. If it be true
It is true, dear young lady.
Do not be afraid of my disclosing your secret, and putting you in peril.
I am sure you cannot do that, he said, with a smile that was sad. If you go to Buckfastleigh, Miss Jordan, I shall venture to send word by you to my father where I am, that the money is lost, and what I have undertaken.
Barbara tossed her head, and flashed an indignant glance at him out of her brown eyes.
I cannot, I will not be a porter of lies.
What lies?
You did not lose the money. Why deceive me? I know your object in lurking here, in the most out-of-the-way nook of England you could find. You think that here you are safe from pursuit. You made up the story to impose on my father, and induce him to engage you. O, you are very honourable! discharging a debt! I hate crime, but I hate falsehood even more.
You are mistaken, Miss Jordan. The story is true.
You have told the whole honest truth?
I do not profess to have told the whole truth. What I have told has been true, though I have not told all.
A pinch of truth is often more false than a bushel of lies. It deceives, the other does not.
A pinch of truth is often more false than a bushel of lies. It deceives, the other does not.
It is true that I lost the money confided to me. If you are going to Ashburton, I ask you, as a matter of kindness I know how kind you can be, alas, and I know also how cruel to see my father.
She laughed haughtily. This is a fine proposition. The servant sends the mistress to do his dirty work. I thank you for the honour. She turned angrily away.
Miss Barbara, said Jasper, you are indeed cruel.
Am I cruel? She turned and faced him again, with a threatening brow. I have reason to be just. Cruel I am not.
You were all gentleness at one time, when I was ill. Now
I will not dispute with you. Do you expect to be fed with a spoon still? When you were ill I treated you as a patient, not more kindly than I would have treated my deadliest enemy. I acted as duty prompted. There was no one else to take care of you, that was my motive my only motive.
When I think of your kindness then, I wish I were sick again.
A mean and wicked wish. Tired already, I suppose, of doing honest work.
Miss Barbara, he said, pray let me speak.
Cruel, she recurred to what he had said before, without listening to his entreaty, It is you who are cruel coming here you, with the ugly stain on your life, coming here to hide it in this innocent household. Would it not be cruel in a man with the plague poison in him to steal into a home of harmless women and children, and give them all the pestilence? Had I suspected that you intended making Morwell your retreat and skulking den, I would never have passed my promise to keep silence. I would have taken the hateful evidence of what you are in my hand, and gone to the first constable and bid him arrest you in your bed.
No, said Jasper, you would not have done it. I know you better than you know yourself. Are you lost to all humanity? Surely you feel pity in your gentle bosom, notwithstanding your bitter words.
No, she answered, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, no, I have pity only for myself, because I was weak enough to take pains to save your worthless life.
Miss Jordan, he said, looking sorrowfully at her and her eyes fell surely I have a right to ask some pity of you. Have you considered what the temptations must be that beset a young man who has been roughly handled at home, maltreated by his father, reared without love a young man with a soul bounding with hopes, ambition, love of life, with a heart for pleasure, all which are beaten back and trampled down by the man who ought to direct them? Can you not understand how a lad who has been thwarted in every way, without a mother to soothe him in trouble, and encourage him in good, driven desperate by a fathers harshness, may break away and transgress? Consider the case of one who has been taught that everything beautiful laughter, delight in music, in art, in nature, a merry gambol, a joyous warble is sinful; is it not likely that the outlines of right and wrong would be so blurred in his conscience, that he might lapse into crime without criminal intent?
Are you speaking of yourself, or are you excusing another?
I am putting a case.
Barbara sighed involuntarily. Her own father had been unsympathetic. He had never been actually severe, he had been indifferent.
I can see that there were temptations to one so situated to leave his home, she answered, but this is not a case of truancy, but of crime.
You judge without knowing the circumstances.
Then tell me all, that I may form a more equitable judgment.
I cannot do that now. You shall be told later.
Then I must judge by what I know
By what you guess, he said, correcting her.
As you will. Her eyes were on the ground. A white spar was there. She turned it over with her foot, and turned it again.
She hesitated what to say.
Should you favour me so far as to visit my father, said Jasper, I beg of you one thing most earnestly. Do not mention the name of my companion Martin.
Why not?
He may suspect him of having robbed me. My father is an energetic, resolute man. He might pursue him, and I alone am to blame. I lost the money.
Who was that Martin?
He told you that I was nothing to him.
Then why do you seek to screen him?
Can I say that he took the money? If my father gets him arrested I shall be found.
Barbara laughed bitterly.
Of course, the innocent must not be brought into suspicion because he has ridden an hour alongside of the guilty. No! I will say nothing of Martin.
She was still turning over the piece of spar with her foot. It sparkled in the sun.
How are you going to Ashburton, Miss Jordan?
I ride, and little John Ostler rides with me, conveying my portmanteau.
Then she trifled with the spar again. There was some peacock copper on it that glistened with all the colours of the rainbow. Abruptly, at length, she turned away and went indoors.
Next morning early she came in her habit to the gate where the boy who was to accompany her held the horses. She had not seen Jasper that morning, but she knew where he was. He had gone along the lane toward the common to set the men to repair fences and hedges, as the cattle that strayed on the waste-land had broken into the wheat field.
She rode along the lane in meditative mood. She saw Jasper awaiting her on the down, near an old quarry, the rubble heap from which was now blazing with gorse in full bloom. She drew rein, and said, I am going to Ashburton. I will take your message, not because you asked me, but because I doubt the truth of your story.
Very well, Miss Jordan, he said respectfully; I thank you, whatever your motive may be.
I expect and desire no thanks, she answered, and whipped her horse, that started forward.
I wish you a favourable journey, he said. Good-bye.
She did not turn her head or respond. She was very angry with him. She stooped over her pommel and buckled the strap of the little pocket in the leather for her kerchief. But, before she had ridden far, an intervening gorse bush forced her to bend her horse aside, and then she looked back, without appearing to look, looked back out of her eye-corners. Jasper stood where she had left him, with his hat in his hand.
CHAPTER XIII.
MR. BABB AT HOME
A lovely July day in the fresh air of Dartmoor, that seems to sparkle as it enters the lungs: fresh, but given a sharpness of salt: pure, but tinged with the sweetness of heather bloom and the honey of gorse. Human spirits bound in this air. The scenery of Dartmoor, if bare of trees, is wildly picturesque with granite masses and bold mountain peaks. Barbara could not shake off the anxiety that enveloped her spirits like the haze of a valley till she rose up a long ascent of three miles from the wooded valley of the Tavy to the bald, rock-strewn expanse of Dartmoor. She rode on, attended by her little groom, till she reached Princes Town, the highest point attained by the road, where, in a desolate plain of bog, but little below the crests of some of the granite tors, stands a prison surrounded by a few mean houses. From Princes Town Barbara would have a rough moor-path, not a good road, before her; and, as the horses were exhausted with their long climb, she halted at the little inn, and ordered some dinner for herself, and required that the boy and the horses should be attended to.