PRISCILLA OF THE GOOD INTENT

A ROMANCE OF THE GREY FELLS.

BY HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE.

CHAPTER III.

SPRING was abroad indeed these days. Garth village, good to see even in grey winter-time, grew to the likeness of a well-kept garden. The winding street-white at one time, then glisteninggrey when the sun shone on it through April rain-moved lazily between the cottages and the yeomen's square, substantial houses. And always, between the house-front and the highway, there was a garden, big or little. Sometimes-when the cottage was so small in itself that there seemed no room for a garden-space-there would be a strip, no more than two feet wide, fenced round to guard it from the wandering ducks and geese and dogs of Garth. Sometimes a bigger house would shrink, with disdainful pride, from too close a rubbing of shoulders with the street; and its garden would be wide and guarded by a grey stone wall, with a white-painted gate in the middle of the wall.

But always, right and left of the good street of Garth, there were gardens, and, whatever their size or shape might be, the same flowers bloomed in all. Crocuses still glowed yellow when the sun came out to waken them; but these were of the older generation, and daffodils were nodding already high above them with the effrontery of youth. Auriculas were budding fast, showing the white miller's-dust about their buds; the ladslove bushes pushed out green, fragrant spikes into this unexpected weather; primroses caught the laughter of the spring, and celandines looked humbly at the sunlight.

Priscilla of the Good Intent, as she came down the street, was no way out of keeping-so the kindly gossips said, standing each at her sunlit door-with the gardens and the weather. For it was true that not men only, but women, were reminded always of a

Copyright, 1908, by Halliwell Sutcliffe, in the United States of America.

flower when their eyes fell on Priscilla; and each was apt to choose his own favourite flower as Cilla's namesake.

The village parliament, made up of men and women both, is seldom wrong when it passes judgment on a neighbour; and there was none in Garth who would deny off-hand that Priscilla of the Good Intent was rightly named, thanks to the title of the farm on which her father, and his fathers before him, had laboured thankfully.

'There goes slim Miss Good Intent,' said one cottager to another, across the quickset hedge that parted them.

'Ay! Sunshine all along the street,' the other answered. Trust she'll fall into a good man's hands; for into some hands she'll fall soon, or else a lad will just reach up and pluck her.'

Priscilla had smiled and nodded to them as she passed-nodded and smiled, indeed, the length of Garth Street, as if she were the lady of the village. She was no less, indeed, for she had that simple pride which knows its station and disdains no greeting on life's high road. Unspoiled as a primrose opening to the warmth of spring was Priscilla ; and it seemed the pity of life that she should ever have to meet contrary winds.

Billy the Fool, at the extreme end of Garth, was passing the time of day with David the Smith, as his wont was; for the two were rather like an elder and a younger brother, and sought each other out by instinct. It was two weeks and a day since Billy had dropped his victim into a bed of growing nettles, and neither he nor David had spoken of the matter since the blacksmith, because he was too fastidious, in a rough fashion, when a rival was in case; the natural, because he forgot such trifles until the season for remembrance came. Reuben Gaunt, for his part, had kept silence, and had thanked heaven, in his own random way, that the jest of his sitting down among the nettles was not common gossip now in Garth. For Reuben hated to be laughed at, as the half and between men of this world always shrink from the laughter of their neighbours.

The birds are all a-mating and a-building, David the Smith, said Billy. 'Cannot ye hear the throstles calling to the hen-birds? ' Ay,' growled David, a sudden anger coming to him; but ye and me are no way mated, Billy the Fool. What ails us, lad?'

'Life ails us,' said Billy unexpectedly. 'We're over-slow and over-pleasant, David. Chase 'em and have 'em, David the Smith-that's how I've seen the bird-folk go a-wooing. Te-he, there's Miss Priscilla !' he broke off, and seemed about to run and

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greet her, in his friendly, dog-like way, when a second figure came into the street from the bridle-track that led to Thorlburn.

The natural stopped, suddenly as if he had been indeed a dog and his master had whistled him down.

'Garth Street is not what it used to be, David,' he observed, dispassionately. 'More muckiness about the roads, though why I know not, seeing they're smooth and silver at this moment.'

David said nothing for awhile; but he saw Reuben Gaunt lift his cap to Priscilla, with that indescribable air of over-doing the matter which always roused the blacksmith's temper. He saw, too, that they stayed and chatted-Priscilla laughing—and afterwards went up the Thorlburn bridle-way, which led to a field-track winding at long last to Good Intent.

Come in, Billy,' said the smith-his voice came suddenly, and was half-brother to a sob-' come away in and play at blowing the bellows, while I fire the ends of those posts that Farmer Hirst is wanting.'

'What does he want 'em for, like?' asked the natural, curious at all times.

To make a pen for his rambling turkeys, Billy the Fool. The hens will go wandering after the cock-bird, and they're laying all in the hedge-bottoms, and over t'other side the beck, and Lord knows where. 'Tisn't the hens I blame, Billy; 'tis the ruffling master-bird, with his tail spread like a silly peacock's. Pen him in we will, Billy-and, if he breaks his neck in the wire-netting, so much the better for all sides.'

It was rarely that David allowed himself so stormy an outbreak. Had he taken his wooing in this fashion two weeks and a day ago in the farmyard of Good Intent, breaking down the barriers of diffidence-Priscilla's and his own-there might have been a different life-tale for David the Smith.

'Te-he!' chuckled Billy the Fool, shambling toward the smithy. "Twould be a rare game to pen in the turkey-cock. Gobble-gobble di-gobble he goes, whenever he comes across the likes o' me, and his wattle goes red as the floor, David, when a man's been killing a cow. Ay, I'll blow the bellows for ye, David the Smith, if so ye're going to prison-up yond old, prideful devil.'

Soothes a body's temper,' muttered David, after he had been at work for half-an-hour-thrusting the pine-posts into the blaze, turning them about, taking them away when the pointed ends were charred sufficiently, while Billy the Fool played contentedly and

hard with the bellows.

'God knows I'd like to see Priscilla happy, with me or another man; but Reuben Gaunt sticks in my gizzard like a fish-bone.' He laughed quietly, for he always sought from humour an antidote against the storm-winds of life. Suits me, seemingly,' he said to himself, to be fair mad with a man ; for work takes the tetchy humours out of ye, and work pays ye afterwards.'

Could David have left his forge more often, in order to seek Priscilla's company-and he was well-found already in the breadand-cheese of life, and knew that there were savings of the years behind him-could David have understood that a maid, if you love her and she chances to love you, needs wooing with a desperate seriousness and a desperate gaiety-he would have been less interested to-day in the making of charred posts wherewith to furnish forth John Hirst's turkey-pen.

Priscilla, meanwhile, was wandering up the bridle-track with Reuben Gaunt, and the little, plain-featured man with the wild eyes was talking to her-talk being his prime work in life-and telling her of the countries he had seen, the busy streets, the things remote from Garth's quiet high road, and Garth's quiet hill-slopes where the work of farming life was done.

Like cloud-land drifting before a merry wind, the old life went receding from Priscilla of the Good Intent. The street of Garth grew dull; the singing of a farm-hand, as he strode up the hilly field in front of them, was so much noise in a rustic bauble-shop. Reuben Gaunt's plain face, his little body, receded too, and only his wild eyes were left the eyes that looked into hers and reflected, so she thought, the world beyond Garth village.

Billy the Fool, had he been in this quiet lane, would have been finding the first wild strawberry bloom, or another blackbird's nest; but Priscilla, who had loved such things aforetime, was looking far beyond them now.

"You had seen so many countries, and there were more to see. Yet you return to Garth,' said Priscilla suddenly.

They had halted at the gate that opened on the field-track to Good Intent, and the girl was leaning with her arms upon the topmost bar. The long and quiet glance she gave her companion was childish in its wonderment.

'Yes-to stay, I doubt. 'Tis free and pleasant to go roaming; but a man grows tired of earning his bread as best he can. I've been a jockey, a trainer, a gold-miner-a publican, Lord help

me, for one whole year-and all seemed to leave me as poor as it found me, Priscilla.'

It was a little sign of the new days, but a clear one, that the girl's pride was content with his half-tender, half-easy use of her She did not call him Mr. Gaunt, but avoided any name when speaking to him.

name.

But you had the life-the life.' Her voice was almost passionate. 'You did not see the same hills every day, and churn the butter whenever Thursday came, and milk the cattle o' nights and mornings, from winter's end to spring's beginning."

'No, Cilla-yet, somehow, when the old folk died and left me Marshlands, and word came to me that the snug property was mine, I longed for the home-fields-longed to settle down.'

Reuben was sincere in this, so far as his temperament allowed him to be sincere in anything. He was glad to be home again, glad to revisit nooks and corners which he had known in boyhood. Even the wanderers need their rest sometimes, and this man with the queer, wild eyes was fonder of Garth village than he had ever known. 'I must take a wife, Priscilla, now that I have something to keep her on,' he went on, leaning against the gate-post and stroking his upper lip. Marshlands will never thrive unless it has a mistress.'

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Priscilla looked straight in front of her, with a heedlessness that angered Gaunt. Keen-witted as he was, he should have known that Yeoman Hirst's daughter was not one to be wooed at the end of two weeks and a day.

'Yes, 'twill need a mistress,' she said, indifferently.

Her thoughts were all of the new lands that Gaunt had opened to her fancy, and she would have answered, had she been asked the reason of her interest in Reuben, that he was the bringer of stirring news, and heartsome news, into the round of her life at Garth.

Gaunt was silent for awhile; wooing had sped so easily with him in times past that contempt or opposition made him churlish, and he was ridding himself of his anger as best he might.

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'Suppose you choose my wife for me, Cilla?' he said, with would-be playfulness. Fair or dark is she, and can she manage a dairy and a roomy house?'

'I had not thought of it,' said Priscilla, turning her candid eyes on him again. "Tis for you to settle such grave questions,

I should think.'

Her laughter hurt him afresh; and, while he was seeking for a