Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard (open ebook TXT) 📗

tall and shapely lady who had ripened early to her full grace and sweetness, and so it came about that though we were almost of an age, yet in her presence I felt always as though I were the younger. Thus in my love for her was mingled some touch of reverence.

“Oh! it is you, Thomas,” she said, blushing as she spoke. “I thought you were not—I mean that I am going home as it grows late. But say, why do you run so fast, and what has happened to you, Thomas, that your arm is bloody and you carry a sword in your hand?”

“I have no breath to speak yet,” I answered. “Come back to the hawthorns and I will tell you.”

“No, I must be wending homewards. I have been among the trees for more than an hour, and there is little bloom upon them.”

“I could not come before, Lily. I was kept, and in a strange manner. Also I saw bloom as I ran.”

“Indeed, I never thought that you would come, Thomas,” she answered, looking down, “who have other things to do than to go out maying like a girl. But I wish to hear your story, if it is short, and I will walk a little way with you.”

So we turned and walked side by side towards the great pollard oaks, and by the time that we reached them, I had told her the tale of the Spaniard, and how he strove to kill me, and how I had beaten him with my staff. Now Lily listened eagerly enough, and sighed with fear when she learned how close I had been to death.

“But you are wounded, Thomas,” she broke in; “see, the blood runs fast from your arm. Is the thrust deep?”

“I have not looked to see. I have had no time to look.”

“Take off your coat, Thomas, that I may dress the wound. Nay, I will have it so.”

So I drew off the garment, not without pain, and rolled up the shirt beneath, and there was the hurt, a clean thrust through the fleshy part of the lower arm. Lily washed it with water from the brook, and bound it with her kerchief, murmuring words of pity all the while. To say truth, I would have suffered a worse harm gladly, if only I could find her to tend it. Indeed, her gentle care broke down the fence of my doubts and gave me a courage that otherwise might have failed me in her presence. At first, indeed, I could find no words, but as she bound my wound, I bent down and kissed her ministering hand. She flushed red as the evening sky, the flood of crimson losing itself at last beneath her auburn hair, but it burned deepest upon the white hand which I had kissed.

“Why did you do that, Thomas?” she said, in a low voice.

Then I spoke. “I did it because I love you, Lily, and do not know how to begin the telling of my love. I love you, dear, and have always loved as I always shall love you.”

“Are you so sure of that, Thomas?” she said, again.

“There is nothing else in the world of which I am so sure, Lily. What I wish to be as sure of is that you love me as I love you.”

For a moment she stood quiet, her head sunk almost to her breast, then she lifted it and her eyes shone as I had never seen them shine before.

“Can you doubt it, Thomas?” she said.

And now I took her in my arms and kissed her on the lips, and the memory of that kiss has gone with me through my long life, and is with me yet, when, old and withered, I stand upon the borders of the grave. It was the greatest joy that has been given to me in all my days. Too soon, alas! it was done, that first pure kiss of youthful love—and I spoke again somewhat aimlessly.

“It seems then that you do love me who love you so well.”

“If you doubted it before, can you doubt it now?” she answered very softly. “But listen, Thomas. It is well that we should love each other, for we were born to it, and have no help in the matter, even if we wished to find it. Still, though love be sweet and holy, it is not all, for there is duty to be thought of, and what will my father say to this, Thomas?”

“I do not know, Lily, and yet I can guess. I am sure, sweet, that he wishes you to take my brother Geoffrey, and leave me on one side.”

“Then his wishes are not mine, Thomas. Also, though duty be strong, it is not strong enough to force a woman to a marriage for which she has no liking. Yet it may prove strong enough to keep a woman from a marriage for which her heart pleads—perhaps, also, it should have been strong enough to hold me back from the telling of my love.”

“No, Lily, the love itself is much, and though it should bring no fruit, still it is something to have won it for ever and a day.”

“You are very young to talk thus, Thomas. I am also young, I know, but we women ripen quicker. Perhaps all this is but a boy’s fancy, to pass with boyhood.”

“It will never pass, Lily. They say that our first loves are the longest, and that which is sown in youth will flourish in our age. Listen, Lily; I have my place to make in the world, and it may take a time in the making, and I ask one promise of you, though perhaps it is a selfish thing to seek. I ask of you that you will be faithful to me, and come fair weather or foul, will wed no other man till you know me dead.”

“It is something to promise, Thomas, for with time come changes. Still I am so sure of myself that I promise—nay I swear it. Of you I cannot be sure, but things are so with us women that we must risk all upon a throw, and if we lose, good-bye to happiness.”

Then we talked on, and I cannot remember what we said, though these words that I have written down remain in my mind, partly because of their own weight, and in part because of all that came about in the after years.

And at last I knew that I must go, though we were sad enough at parting. So I took her in my arms and kissed her so closely that some blood from my wound ran down her white attire. But as we embraced I chanced to look up, and saw a sight that frightened me enough. For there, not five paces from us, stood Squire Bozard, Lily’s father, watching all, and his face wore no smile.

He had been riding by a bridle-path to the watering ford, and seeing a couple trespassing beneath the oaks, dismounted from his horse to hunt them away. Not till he was quite near did he know whom he came to hunt, and then he stood still in astonishment. Lily and I drew slowly apart and looked at him. He was a short stout man, with a red face and stern grey eyes, that seemed to be starting from his head with anger. For a while he could not speak, but when he began at length the words came fast enough. All that he said I forget, but the upshot of it was that he desired to know what my business was with his daughter. I waited till he was out of breath, then answered him that Lily and I loved each other well, and were plighting our troth.

“Is this so, daughter?” he asked.

“It is so, my father,” she answered boldly.

Then he broke out swearing. “You light minx,” he said, “you shall be whipped and kept cool on bread and water in your chamber. And for you, my half-bred Spanish cockerel, know once and for all that this maid is for your betters. How dare you come wooing my daughter, you empty pill-box, who have not two silver pennies to rattle in your pouch! Go win fortune and a name before you dare to look up to such as she.”

“That is my desire, and I will do it, sir,” I answered.

“So, you apothecary’s drudge, you will win name and place, will you! Well, long before that deed is done the maid shall be safely wedded to one who has them and who is not unknown to you. Daughter, say now that you have finished with him.”

“I cannot say that, father,” she replied, plucking at her robe. “If it is not your will that I should marry Thomas here, my duty is plain and I may not wed him. But I am my own and no duty can make me marry where I will not. While Thomas lives I am sworn to him and to no other man.”

“At the least you have courage, hussey,” said her father. “But listen now, either you will marry where and when I wish, or tramp it for your bread. Ungrateful girl, did I breed you to flaunt me to my face? Now for you, pill-box. I will teach you to come kissing honest men’s daughters without their leave,” and with a curse he rushed at me, stick aloft, to thrash me.

Then for the second time that day my quick blood boiled in me, and snatching up the Spaniard’s sword that lay upon the grass beside me, I held it at the point, for the game was changed, and I who had fought with cudgel against sword, must now fight with sword against cudgel. And had it not been that Lily with a quick cry of fear struck my arm from beneath, causing the point of the sword to pass over his shoulder, I believe truly that I should then and there have pierced her father through, and ended my days early with a noose about my neck.

“Are you mad?” she cried. “And do you think to win me by slaying my father? Throw down that sword, Thomas.”

“As for winning you, it seems that there is small chance of it;” I answered hotly, “but I tell you this, not for the sake of all the maids upon the earth will I stand to be beaten with a stick like a scullion.”

“And there I do not blame you, lad,” said her father, more kindly. “I see that you also have courage which may serve you in good stead, and it was unworthy of me to call you ‘pill-box’ in my anger. Still, as I have said, the girl is not for you, so be gone and forget her as best you may, and if you value your life, never let me find you two kissing again. And know that to-morrow I will have a word with your father on this matter.”

“I will go since I must go,” I answered, “but, sir, I still hope to live to call your daughter wife. Lily, farewell till these storms are overpast.”

“Farewell, Thomas,” she said weeping. “Forget me not and I will never forget my oath to you.”

Then taking Lily by the arm her father led her away.

I also went away—sad, but not altogether ill-pleased. For now I knew that if I had won the father’s anger, I had also won the daughter’s unalterable love, and love lasts longer than wrath, and here or hereafter will win its way at length. When I had gone a little distance I remembered the Spaniard, who had been clean forgotten by me in all this love and war, and I turned to seek him and drag him to the stocks, the which I should have done with joy, and been glad to find some one on whom to wreak my wrongs. But when I came to the spot where I had left him, I found that fate had befriended him by the hand of a fool, for there was no Spaniard but only the village idiot, Billy Minns by name, who stood staring first at the tree to which the foreigner had been made fast, and then at a piece of silver in his hand.

“Where is the man who was tied here, Billy?” I asked.

“I know not, Master Thomas,” he answered in his Norfolk talk which I will not set down. “Half-way to wheresoever he was going I should say, measured by the pace at which he left when once I had set him upon his horse.”

“You set him on his horse, fool? How long was that