"Jane, I have a strong belief that Lord Neville has reached Edinburgh;" and Jane smiled brightly back as she answered, "I have the same assurance, mother." And this pulse of prescience, this flash and flow of thought and feeling was no marvel at all to their faithful souls.
"I did not fear for him, he is not a man to miss his mark," said Mrs. Swaffham.
"And we must remember this, also, mother, that God takes hands with good men."
"To be sure, Jane, it is all right; and now I must look after the house a little." So saying she went away softly repeating a verse from her favourite Psalm, thus suffusing with serene and sacred glow the plainest duties of her daily life.
After this visit, it was cold winter weather, and Cluny Neville came no more until the pale windy spring was over the land. And this visit was so short that Mrs. Swaffham, who had gone to Ely, did not see him at all. For he merely rested while a fresh horse was prepared for him, eating a little bread and meat almost from Jane's hand as he waited. Yet in that half-hour's stress and hurry, Love overleaped a space that had not been taken without it; for as he stood with one hand on his saddle, ready to leap into it, Jane trembling and pale at his side, he saw unshed tears in her eyes and felt the unspoken love on her lips, and as he clasped her hand his heart sprang to his tongue, and he said with a passionate tenderness,
"Farewell, Jane! Darling Jane!"--then, afraid of his own temerity, he was away ere he could see the wonder and joy called into her face by the sweet familiar words.
[Illustration: "When he came again it was harvest time."]
When he came again, it was harvest time; the reapers were in the wheat-fields, and as he neared Swaffham he saw Jane standing among the bound sheaves, serving the men and women with meat and drink. For though the day was nearly over, the full moon had risen, and the labourers were going to finish their work by its light. He tied his horse at the gate and went to her side, and oh, how fair and sweet he found her! Never had she looked, never had any woman looked in his eyes, so enthralling. In her simple dress with its snow-white lawn bodice and apron, surrounded by the reapers whom she was serving, she looked like some rural goddess, though Neville thought rather of some Judean damsel in the fields of Bethlehem. Her little white hood had fallen backwards, and the twilight and the moonlight upon her gathered tresses made of them a kind of glory. The charm of the quiet moon was over all; there was no noise, indeed rather a pastoral melancholy with a gentle ripple of talk threading it about ploughing and sowing and rural affairs.