The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

For Mary Thornton adored him. The rest of the village disliked and mistrusted him; but she, with a strange perversity, loved him with her whole heart and soul. After a few words, the lovers were whispering in the window.

Presently the gate goes again, and another footfall is heard approaching.

That is James Stockbridge. I should know that step in a thousand. As he entered the parlour, John's face grew bright, and he held out his hand to him; but he got rather a cool reception from the pair at the window.

Old John and he were as father and son, and sat there before the cheerful blaze smoking their pipes.

"How are your Southdowns looking, Jim?" says the vicar. "How is Scapegrace Hamlyn?"

"He is very well, sir. He and I are thinking of selling up and going to New South Wales."

The vicar was "knocked all of a heap" at Jim's announcement; but, recovering a little, said, "You hear him? He is going to sell his estate--250 acres of the best land in Devon--and go and live among the convicts. And who is going with him? Hamlyn, the wise! Oh, dear me! And what is he going for?"

That was a question apparently hard to answer. Yet I think the real cause was standing there, with a look of unbounded astonishment upon her pretty face.

"Going to leave us, James!" she cried. "Why, whatever shall I do without you?"

"Yes, Miss Mary," said James huskily. "I think I may say we've settled to go. Hamlyn has got a letter from a cousin of his, who is making a fortune; and besides, I've got tired of the old place somehow lately."

Time went on, and May was well advanced. That had at last reached the vicar's ears which had driven him to risk a quarrel with his daughter and forbid George Hawker the house.

George went home one evening and found Madge, the gipsy woman who had brought him up, sitting before the kitchen fire.

"Well, old woman, where's the old man?"

"Away at Colyton fair," she answered.

"I hope he'll have the sense to stay there to-night He'll fall off his horse, coming home drunk one night, and be found dead in a ditch."

"Good thing for you if he was."

"Maybe," said George; "but I'd be sorry for him, too."

"He's been a good father to you, George, and I like you for speaking up for him. He's an awful old rascal, my boy, but you'll be a worse if you live."

"Now stop that, Madge! I want your help, old girl."

"Ay, and you'll get it, my pretty boy. Bend over the fire, and whisper in my ear, lad."

"Madge, old girl," he whispered, "I've wrote the old man's name where I oughtn't to have done."

"What, again!" she answered. "Three times! For God's sake, George, mind what you're at! Why, you must be mad! What's this last?"

"Why, the five hundred. I only did it twice."

"You mustn't do it again, George. He likes you best of anything next his money, and sometimes I think he wouldn't spare you if he knew he'd been robbed. You might make yourself safe for any storm if you liked."

"How?"

"Marry that little doll Thornton, and get her money."

"Well," said George, "I am pushing that on. The old man won't come round, and I want her to go off with me; but she can't get up her courage yet."

But in a few days Mary had consented. They had left the village at midnight, and were married in London. Within a year George Hawker had spent all his wife's money, and had told her to her face he was tired of her. He fell from bad to worse, and finally becoming the ally of a coiner, was arrested and transported for life.

Mary Hawker, with a baby, tramped her way home to the village she had left.

II.--A General Exodus

The vicar had only slowly recovered from the fit in which he had fallen on the morning of Mary's departure, to find himself hopelessly paralytic. When Mary's letter, written just after her marriage, came, it was a great relief. They had kept from him all knowledge of George Hawker's forgery, which had been communicated to them by Major Buckley, old John Thornton's very good friend and near neighbour.

But George' Hawker burnt the loving letters they wrote in reply, and Mary remained under the impression that they had cast her off. So when, one bright Sunday morning, old Miss Thornton found a poor woman sitting on the doorstep, Mary rose, prepared to ask forgiveness. Her aunt rushed forward wildly, and hugged her to her honest heart.

When they were quieted, Miss Thornton went up to tell the vicar. The poor old man was far gone beyond feeling joy or grief to any great extent. Mary, looking in, saw he was so altered she hardly knew him.

The good news soon got up to Major Buckley's, and he was seen striding up the path, leading the pony carrying his wife and child. While they were still busy welcoming Mary came a ring at the door. Who but her cousin, Tom Troubridge? Who else was there to raise her four good feet from the floor and call her his darling little sister?

This was her welcome home--to the home she had dreaded to come to, where she had meant to come only as a penitent, to leave her child and go forth to die.

After dinner, Mrs. Buckley told Mary all the news, how her husband had heard from Stockbridge, how he and Hamlyn were so flourishing, and had written such an account of the country that Major Buckley, half persuaded before, had now made up his mind to go there himself, and Tom Troubridge was much inclined to go too. Mary was sad to think of losing them all so soon, but Mrs. Buckley pointed out her father's state gently to her, and asked her to think what she would do when he was gone. Miss Thornton said she had made up her mind to go wherever Mary went, if it were to the other end of the earth.