Perhaps it's a lie. People are such liars here! Anyway, it's truth (the boys themselves confess that), when John came to the farm, he came with a first-rate character. The old father here isn't easy to please; and he pleased the old father. Yes, that's so. Mr. Meadowcroft don't like my countrymen in general. He's like his sons--English, bitter English, to the marrow of his bones. Somehow, in spite of that, John Jago got round him; maybe because John does certainly know his business. Oh yes! Cattle and crops, John knows his business. Since he's been overlooker, things have prospered as they didn't prosper in the time of the boys. Ambrose owned as much to me himself. Still, sir, it's hard to be set aside for a stranger; isn't it? John gives the orders now. The boys do their work; but they have no voice in it when John and the old man put their heads together over the business of the farm. I have been long in telling you of it, sir, but now you know how the envy and the hatred grew among the men before my time. Since I have been here, things seem to get worse and worse. There's hardly a day goes by that hard words don't pass between the boys and John, or the boys and their father. The old man has an aggravating way, Mr. Lefrank--a nasty way, as we do call it--of taking John Jago's part. Do speak to him about it when you get the chance. The main blame of the quarrel between Silas and John the other day lies at his door, as I think. I don't want to excuse Silas, either. It was brutal of him--though he is Ambrose's brother--to strike John, who is the smaller and weaker man of the two. But it was worse than brutal in John, sir, to out with his knife and try to stab Silas. Oh, he did it! If Silas had not caught the knife in his hand (his hand's awfully cut, I can tell you; I dressed it myself), it might have ended, for anything I know, in murder--"
She stopped as the word passed her lips, looked back over her shoulder, and started violently.
I looked where my companion was looking. The dark figure of a man was standing, watching us, in the shadow of the elm-tree. I rose directly to approach him. Naomi recovered her self-possession, and checked me before I could interfere.
"Who are you?" she asked, turning sharply toward the stranger. "What do you want there?"
The man stepped out from the shadow into the moonlight, and stood revealed to us as John Jago.
"I hope I am not intruding?" he said, looking hard at me.
"What do you want?" Naomi repeated.
"I don't wish to disturb you, or to disturb this gentleman," he proceeded. "When you are quite at leisure, Miss Naomi, you would be doing me a favor if you would permit me to say a few words to you in private."
He spoke with the most scrupulous politeness; trying, and trying vainly, to conceal some strong agitation which was in possession of him. His wild brown eyes--wilder than ever in the moonlight--rested entreatingly, with a strange underlying expression of despair, on Naomi's face. His hands, clasped lightly in front of him, trembled incessantly. Little as I liked the man, he did really impress me as a pitiable object at that moment.
"Do you mean that you want to speak to me to-night?" Naomi asked, in undisguised surprise.
"Yes, miss, if you please, at your leisure and at Mr. Lefrank's."
Naomi hesitated.
"Won't it keep till to-morrow?" she said.
"I shall be away on farm business to-morrow, miss, for the whole day. Please to give me a few minutes this evening." He advanced a step toward her; his voice faltered, and dropped timidly to a whisper. "I really have something to say to you, Miss Naomi. It would be a kindness on your part--a very, very great kindness--if you will let me say it before I rest to-night."
I rose again to resign my place to him. Once more Naomi checked me.
"No," she said. "Don't stir." She addressed John Jago very reluctantly: "If you are so much in earnest about it, Mr. John, I suppose it must be. I can't guess what you can possibly have to say to me which cannot be said before a third person. However, it wouldn't be civil, I suppose, to say 'No' in my place. You know it's my business to wind up the hall-clock at ten every night. If you choose to come and help me, the chances are that we shall have the hall to ourselves. Will that do?"
"Not in the hall, miss, if you will excuse me."
"Not in the hall!"
"And not in the house either, if I may make so bold."
"What do you mean?" She turned impatiently, and appealed to me. "Do you understand him?"
John Jago signed to me imploringly to let him answer for himself.
"Bear with me, Miss Naomi," he said. "I think I can make you understand me. There are eyes on the watch, and ears on the watch, in the house; and there are some footsteps--I won't say whose--so soft, that no person can hear them."
The last allusion evidently made itself understood. Naomi stopped him before he could say more.
"Well, where is it to be?" she asked, resignedly. "Will the garden do, Mr. John?"
"Thank you kindly, miss; the garden will do." He pointed to a gravel-walk beyond us, bathed in the full flood of the moonlight. "There," he said, "where we can see all round us, and be sure that nobody is listening. At ten o'clock." He paused, and addressed himself to me. "I beg to apologize, sir, for intruding myself on your conversation. Please to excuse me."
His eyes rested with a last anxious, pleading look on Naomi's face. He bowed to us, and melted away into the shadow of the tree. The distant sound of a door closed softly came to us through the stillness of the night. John Jago had re-entered the house.
Now that he was out of hearing, Naomi spoke to me very earnestly:
"Don't suppose, sir, I have any secrets with him," she said. "I know no more than you do what he wants with me. I have half a mind not to keep the appointment when ten o'clock comes. What would you do in my place?"
"Having made the appointment," I answered, "it seems to be due to yourself to keep it. If you feel the slightest alarm, I will wait in another part of the garden, so that I can hear if you call me."
She received my proposal with a saucy toss of the head, and a smile of pity for my ignorance.