When the squire came to know what had taken place, he made his first call on the curate. He said nothing about his wife, but plainly wished it understood that he bore him no ill will for what he had done.

12. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

— Twelve —

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The rector had often wished his wife could in some natural way get hold of Miss Wylder. He suspected something exceptionally fine in her—how else could she, with such a father and such a mother, have such a countenance?

She was not yet up to his teaching. She had to have other water to drink first. But a shepherd is none the less a true shepherd that he leaves plenty of liberty to the lamb to pick its own food. That its best instincts may not be to the taste either of its natural guardians or the public, is nothing against those instincts. Without appearing to their guardians both strange and headstrong, some sheep would never get near the food necessary to keep them alive.

Barbara was always glad to get away from home. While her father was paying his long-delayed visit to the curate, she was flying over hedge and ditch in a line for that gate of Mortgrange which Simon Armour and his grandson found open. Barbara had a key to it.

She went with swift, gliding step into the library. Richard was piecing together the broken cords of a great old folio—the more easily that they were double—in order to re-attach the loosened sheets and the hanging board, and so get the book ready for a new cover. She carried in her hand something yet more sorely in need of mending—a pigeon with a broken wing, which she had seen lying in the park, and had dismounted to see if she could help. It kept opening and shutting its eyes, and she knew that nothing could be done for it. But the mute appeal of the dying thing had gone to her heart, and she wanted sympathy, whether for it or for herself she could hardly have distinguished.

“Ah, poor thing,” said Richard. “I fear we can do nothing for it. But it will be at rest soon.”

“But where?” said Barbara, to whom that moment came the question for the first time.

“Nowhere, I suppose,” answered Richard.

“How can that be! Poor little thing! I won’t let you go nowhere!”

Richard saw that to say more at that moment would probably be to close the door between them. Therefore he took refuge in his genuine sympathy with suffering.