PISGAH

ZITA was standing in the room Drownlands called his office, in conversation with the master.

'What did you mean by that which you said to the magistrates—that you were tied here by frost, held by mud, and that when frost went and mud dried you would be free to go?'

'It is so.'

'You will leave me?'

'I would go as soon as the van could roll along the drove,' replied Zita, 'but that there are other difficulties than frost and mud, and how to get out of these I do not as yet see. I work at them in my head, but cannot find a way of escape.' She considered a while, with her hands folded and her eyes on the floor. 'You see, there is the stock. It seems sinful to let it lie idle—if it don't breed money, it will breed moths and rust. Father always said money was made to jump—just the same as frogs were so created. Here is all this store of goods doing nothing. Here is myself—born a Cheap Jack, and a Cheap Jack to my fingers' ends. I am not in my right place if not going about in my van to fairs and markets, selling my goods, and making the money jump, as it was ordained to.' Zita pursed her lips. 'That is on one side. On the other there are considerations also. In the first place, it is awkward for a young girl to be cheap-jacking over the country—it's awkward, and it's not respectable. She cannot manage by herself. As the gentleman said, a Jill must have a Jack. That was true, though I did not like to hear him say it. I could not manage the van and Jewel and the selling alone. I must have some man with me. And if I were to take a servant, he might set his head to make himself Jack and make me Jill. And to take a proper Jack,' pursued Zita,—'I mean, to have a husband,—why, I don't fancy it. I don't like the notion of it at all. There is my great difficulty.'

'Then stay at Prickwillow.'

'I don't know. If I were here, you would not leave me in peace and quietness. I do not desire to remain here, but I do not know where else to go. Now, you see, I am in a cleft stick.'

'Take me, and remain.'

'That, I have told you, can never be. If you ask that again, I will go. If you say nought about it, I will make shift to stay till something turns up.'

'Till you find a Jack?'

'I do not want a Jack. I said so. I want to remain free—Jack and Jill all in one.' Her expression suddenly changed as she asked, 'Have they taken Pip Beamish yet?'

'No; he has been seen, but he eluded capture. He is in the Fens. He has some hiding-place, but where it is we have not yet discovered. The constables are out and watching. He cannot leave the Fens.'

'Cannot? He escaped the dragoons. He has escaped the constables, as you tell me now.'

'Ah! the dragoons were not accustomed to fen ways. The constables will take him. They will form a ring and close in. There is a reward for whoever takes him, and I have added five guineas.'

'And I will give ten to any constable who lets him slip through his fingers. Publish that.'

'We have had enough of Ephraim Beamish,' said the master. 'We were speaking about ourselves. You have your difficulties and troubles, but I also have mine.'

Drownlands seated himself at the table, placed his arms on the board, and for a moment rested his head on his folded arms. Then he looked up and said—

'I have my distresses, but they are of other nature to yours, and different in degree. Do you know Scripture? Did your father ever read the Bible to you?'

'My father was a God-fearing man,' answered Zita, with warmth and pride. 'He made me learn passages by heart, and there was one tale he read over every Sunday, and never tired of it. It was how the Israelites borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver and gold, and spoiled the Egyptians, then went off and got the Egyptians drowned, and so were able to keep their borrowings. Father said there was the making of Cheap Jacks in them Israelites.'

'Did you ever read of Moses, how he went up the mountain to view the Promised Land,—the land flowing with milk and honey,—and he looked on it from afar, but was never allowed to set foot thereon? And he died there, in the mount. The wind came to him sweet with thyme, and he saw the green cattle pastures by the waters of comfort, but he might not drink of its milk or eat its honey. And he died there, looking at the land that was so near and yet so far, a land he might see, but never set foot on. He died there, for it broke his heart.'

Drownlands laid his head again on his folded arms. Zita remained in the same position. She had an inkling of his drift, and was uneasy, and cast about for some means of relief from a painful scene.

'I suppose,' she said, 'there were fine bargains to be driven in the Promised Land, and that the Canaanites were as soft-headed as the Egyptians. To a man of proper feeling it was vexing.'

Drownlands paid no attention to the remark. He continued—

'Do you remember why Moses was not suffered to go in and possess the Good Land? There was something betwixt him and it. He had done that which was against the law, therefore the Lord showed him the fields of Canaan, but said he must never lay his head in the dewy grass, never smell its upturned earth, never touch its fair flowers.'

'Yes, I remember something about it,' said Zita.

'What killed Moses was the seeing the land, and being told it never might be his,' continued Drownlands. 'But he could not go back from Pisgah into the wilderness. He could not turn his back on Canaan. He must sit among the rocks, and look on the pleasant land, till his heart broke, and he died.'

The girl fixed her eyes on the quivering face of Drownlands. She saw that he was in terrible earnest, and she did not see her way out of an embarrassing situation. He spoke again.

'Zita, do you think it would have been wise for Joshua to have come up into Pisgah when Moses was there? Would not Moses have sprung up and cried out, "This man will enter on what is denied me!" and have held him by the throat?' Drownlands was now on his feet, his hands extended before him, suiting his action to his words. 'He would have held him by the throat, have thrown him on a rock, put his knee to his chest, and bent his back so—and have broken his back.'

As he spoke, he hit and split and crushed down half the table. Then he drew a long inhalation, reseated himself, wiped his brow, and said—

'There is no Joshua. You swore to me there was none.'

'I think I can comprehend this roundabout talk,' said Zita. 'But if you mean that I am your Promised Land, you are mistaken. I never was promised to you.'

'No, that is true; you are the Loved Land, the Desired Land. No, you never were promised.'

'And it is quite certain that I am not for you.'

'I know it.'

'And I will trouble you to keep your Pisgah at a distance, and stick to it,' said Zita.

'You have told me that you never can be mine, and you have told me also why. My sin stands between us, as a sin stood between Moses and Canaan. And yet—I would do it again if I met him. You do not know how Runham wronged me; you have never learned what was my provocation. I pay the penalty of my sin, as did Moses. That very night I killed him—that very same night, not two minutes after the last bubbles came from his lips—I first saw you. The punishment followed on the crime faster than the thunder-clap after the lightning-flash. Well, then, so long as you remain before my eyes, that I can see your golden hair, and hear your lark-like voice, I am content. I have all I can expect. I will try to be content. But I could not endure to have a Joshua near me.'

'There is none—if you mean a Jack.'

'I trust your word. Mark Runham is nothing to you?'

'I am nothing to Mark,' said Zita, with slight evasion. 'He would not even look at me in court.'

'So long as you remain here, I will bear my burden, though it break my heart, bit by bit. But that is better than to lose you altogether. No'—he stood up again, went to the window, leaned his arm and head against the shattered casement, and let the wind blow in on him through the broken glass—'no, that I can bear—to have you here. But to lose you—to see you no more—I cannot even endure to think of that.'

Zita made a movement to escape. He heard her, and, without turning his head, made a sign to her with his hand to stay.

'Do not leave me. I have still something I must say. I want to strike a bargain with you.'

'A deal? I am ready.'

Zita resumed her place. Drownlands came slowly back to the table.

'Listen to me,' he said, with a thrill in his deep tones. 'I have made up my mind to this—that his blood lies between me and you, as a Dead Sea I may never cross. I must sit on my Pisgah and look at you as unapproachable. That is all I can hope for; that is all I demand; and in order to secure this, I am ready to make you an offer. I shall never marry—never. All the land round Prickwillow is mine, and I have money in the bank—many thousands of pounds. You know what money is worth. You can judge what this land brings in every year to heap the pile. It shall all be yours if you will stay with me till I die. I ask for nothing else but to have you here in this house, that I may hear you laugh, that I may see your smiling face. That is all. I will not open my mouth to ask for anything but that—just to see you and hear you every day; now and then to touch your hand; happy, if as you pass me your skirts brush me; glad for a day if you condescend to cast a word at me. That is all—the full, the sum of all. And for that I will pay away everything I have. Command me. Do with me what you please, only do not banish me. My money is at your disposal, and when I die everything that I have becomes yours. See here.' He went to his desk, unlocked it, and drew forth a paper. 'I have made my will, but it is not yet signed and attested. It could not be so till we had come to an arrangement together. If you will undertake to remain with me on the terms I propose, then you will be a wealthy woman some day when I am gone. And whilst I am here cumbering the place,'—his tone was bitter,—'you have but to ask and I will give you what you require. Agree with me, and this document shall be signed and attested forthwith. For a very slight concession on your part you will receive a rich repayment. As you said, you could not go about the country in your van, and you have no settled home to which you can go. Surely you will concede this to me.'

He placed the paper on the table before Zita.

She took up the will and read it through.

In few words, and to the point, Drownlands had constituted her sole heir and legatee to everything he possessed, on the one condition that she remained in his house through the rest of his life.

She put the paper down on the table again, without, however, releasing it from her hand, and stood considering.

'There is one thing,' she said, after a long pause, 'one thing I must stick out for whether I stay here for a short time or for long.'

'What is that?'

'That you board up the shed where my van is kept, so that the fowls may not roost on it.'

Then in at the door came Mrs. Tunkiss.

'There's Mark Runham come,' she said to the master, after looking suspiciously first at Zita, then at him. 'And he says he must speak with you on business.'

'Mark?—Mark again? Bring him here. I am not afraid of him now. Come, Zita, what say you to my offer?'

For a few moments she remained with her hand to her head, breathing hard, her eyes dim.

'Come, Zita—what answer?'

She looked at him with glazed eyes. She was in pain and sorrow. She would in one moment see Mark,—Mark, whom she loved,—and see him with the knowledge that she never could be his. But the demand made of her to surrender was not so great as it might have been had Mark loved and respected her. He liked, or had once liked her. Now he loved another. He despised her for some reason she could not understand. He held by Kainie, to whom he was bound by promise, and to whom, after a short wavering of his affections, he had returned.

'Come, Zita, what say you to my offer?'

In a whisper, with sunk head, her chin in her bosom, and with folded hands—

'I accept.'