Greta could not eat. She had no appetite for food. Another appetite--the appetite of curiosity--was eating at her heart. She laid down her knife. The parson could hide his concern no longer.
"Dear me, my lass, you and that braw lad of yours are like David and Jonathan, and" (with a stern wag of his white head) "I'm not so sure that I won't turn myself into Saul and fling my javelin at him for envy."
The parson certainly did not look too revengeful at that moment, with the mist gathering in his eyes.
"Talking of Saul," said little Jacob, "there's that story of the witch of Endor, and Saul seein' Sam'el when he was dead. I reckon as that's no'but another version of what happened at the fire a' Saturday neet."
Parson Christian glanced furtively at Greta's drooping head, and then meeting the tailor's eye, he put his finger to his lips.
When dinner was over the parson lifted from the shelf the huge tome, "made to view his life and actions in." He drew his chair to the fire and began to turn over the earliest leaves. Greta had thrown on her cloak and was fixing her hat.
"I'm going to see poor Mrs. Truesdale," she said. Then, coming behind the old man, and glancing over his shoulder at the book on his knees, "What are you looking for?" she asked, and smiled; "a prescription for envy?"
The parson shook his old head gravely. "You must know I met young Mr. Ritson this morning?"
"Yes; he was riding home from his iron pits, but stopped and asked me if I could tell him when his father, who is dead and gone, poor fellow, came first to these parts, and how old his brother Paul might be at that time."
"Nay, I scarce can say. I told him I could not tell without looking at my book. Let me see; it must be a matter of seven-and-twenty years ago. How old is your sweetheart, Greta?"
"And this is the year seventy-five. Twenty-eight from seventy-five--that's forty-seven. Paul was a wee toddle, I remember. I'll look for forty-seven. Eighteen forty-four, forty-five, forty-six--here it is--forty-seven. And, bless me, the very page! Look, here we have it."
Then the parson read this entry in his diary:
"'Nov. 18th.--Being promised to preach at John Skerton's church, at Ravenglass, I got ready to go thither. I took my mare and set forward and went direct to Thomas Storsacre's, where I was to lodge. It rained sore all the day, and I was wet, and took off my coat and let it run an hour. Then we supped and sat discoursing by the fire till near ten o'clock of one thing and another, and, among the rest, of one Allan Ritson, who had newly settled at Ravenglass. Thomas said Allan was fresh from Scotland, being Scottish born, and that his wife was Irish, and that they had a child, called Paul, only a few months old, and not yet walking.'