"Oh! my child! my child! have you come at last?" and he drew her towards him, and kissed her passionately, while the tears streamed down his cheeks.
"I couldn't come before, you know," the child said, "because I didn't know about you; and grampa, that's my other grandpapa," she nodded confidentially, "did not know you wanted me. But now he knows, he sent me to you. He told me I was to come because you were lonely.
"But you can't be more lonely than he is," she said, with a quiver in her voice. "Oh! he will be lonely, now!"
"But where do you come from, my dear? and how did you get here? and what have you been doing, all these years?"
"Grampa brought me here," the child said. "I call him grampa, you know, because I did when I was little, and I have always kept to it; but I know, of course, it ought to be grandpapa. He brought me here, and Johnat least he called him Johnbrought me in. And I have been living, for two years, with Mrs. Walsham down in the town, and I used to see you in church, but I did not know that you were my grandpapa."
The squire, who was holding her close to him while she spoke, got up and rang the bell; and John opened the door, with a quickness that showed that he had been waiting close to it, anxiously waiting a summons.
"John Petersham," the squire said, "give me your hand. This is the happiest day of my life."
The two men wrung each other's hands. They had been friends ever since John Petersham, who was twelve years the senior of the two, first came to the house, a young fellow of eighteen, to assist his father, who had held the same post before him.
"God be thanked, squire!" he said huskily.
"God be thanked, indeed, John!" the squire rejoined, reverently. "So this was the reason, old friend, why your hand shook as you poured out my wine. How could you keep the secret from me?"
"I did not know how to begin to tell you, but I was pretty nigh letting it out, and only the thought that it was better the little lady should tell you herself, as we had agreed, kept it in. Only to think, squire, after all these years! But I never quite gave her up. I always thought, somehow, as she would come just like this."
"Did you, John? I gave up hope years ago. How did it come about, John?"
"Mrs. Walsham told me, as I came out of church today, as she wanted to speak to me. So I went down, and she told me all about it, and then I saw him" John hesitated at the name, for he knew that, perhaps, the only man in the world against whom his master cherished a bitter resentment, was the father of his son's wife. "It seems he never saw your advertisements, never knew as you wanted to hear anything of the child, so he took her away and kept her. He has been here, off and on, all these years. I heard tell of him, often and often, when I had been down into Sidmouth, but never dreamt as it was him. He went about the country with a box on wheels with glassesa peep show as they calls it."
The squire winced.
"He is well spoken of, squire," John said, "and I am bound to say as he doesn't seem the sort of man we took him for, at all, not by no means. He did not know you wanted to have her, but he thought it his duty to give her the chance, and so he put her with Mrs. Walsham, and never told her, till yesterday, who she was. Mrs. Walsham was quite grieved at parting with her, for she says she is wonderfully quick at her lessons, and has been like a daughter with her, for the last two years."
The child had sat quietly down in a chair, and was looking into the fire while the two men were speaking. She had done what she was told to do, and was waiting quietly for what was to come next. Her quick ear, however, caught, in the tones of John Petersham, an apologetic tone when speaking of her grandfather, and she was moved to instant anger.
"Why do you speak like that of my grampa?" she said, rising to her feet, and standing indignantly before him. "He is the best man in the world, and the kindest and the nicest, and if you don't like him, I can go away to him again. I don't want to stay here, not one minute.
"You may be my grandpapa," she went on, turning to the squire, "and you may be lonely, but he is lonely, too, and you have got a great house, and all sorts of nice things; and you can do better without me than he can, for he has got nothing to love but me, poor grampa!"
And her eyes filled with sudden tears, as she thought of him tramping on his lonely walks over the hills.
"We do not mean to speak unkindly of your grandfather, my dear," the squire said gently. "I have never seen him, you know, and John has never seen him but once. I have thought, all these years, bitterly of him; but perhaps I have been mistaken. He has ever been kind and good to you, and, above all, he has given you back to me, and that will make me think differently of him, in future. We all make mistakes, you know, and I have made terrible mistakes, and have been terribly punished for them. I daresay I have made a mistake here; but whether or no, you shall never hear a word, from me, against the man who has been so kind to you."
"And you will let me see him sometimes, grandpapa?" the child said, taking his hand pleadingly. "He said, if you said no, I must do as you told me; because somehow you are nearer to me than he is, though I don't know how that can be. But you won't say that, will you? For, oh! I know he is so lonely without me, and I should never be happy, thinking of him all alone, not if you were to be ever so kind to me, and to give me all sorts of grand things."
"No, my dear, I certainly shall not say so. You shall see him as often as you like."
"Oh, thank you, grandpapa!" she exclaimed joyfully, and she held up her face to kiss him.
The squire lifted her in his arms, and held her closely to him.
"John," he said, "you must tell Mrs. Morcombe to get a room ready for my granddaughter, at once, and you had better bring the tea in here, and then we will think of other things. I feel quite bewildered, at present."
When John returned with the tea, Aggie was sitting on the squire's knee. She was perfectly at home, now, and had been chattering to him of her life with her grandfather, and had just related the incident of her narrow escape from drowning.
"Do you hear that, John?" the squire said. "She was nearly drowned here, within sight of our home, and I might never have known anything about it. It seems that lad of Dr. Walsham's saved her life. He is a fine lad. He was her champion, you know, in that affair with my nephew. How strange that the two boys should have quarrelled over my granddaughter!"
"Yes, squire, and young Walsham came well out of it!" John said heartily; for to him, only, did the squire mention the circumstances of the case, and he chuckled now to himself, as he thought that Richard Horton had made an even greater mistake in that matter than he thought of, for John detested the boy with all his heart, and had only abstained from reporting his conduct, to the squire, from fear of giving his master pain.
The squire's brow clouded a little at the allusion.
"It will make a difference to him, John," he said, "for, of course, now my granddaughter will take his place."
"And a good thing, too!" John said heartily. "I have never said a word before, squire, because, as you had chosen him as your heir, there was no use in setting you against him; but a more hatefuller lad than Richard Horton I never comed across, and so said everyone here. You did not see much of him, squire, and natural thought well of him, for he was a good-looking boy, and could speak fair enough when he liked. I thought well of him, myself, when he first came, but I larned better, afterwards."
"There are many excuses to be made for him, John," the squire said, "and I have had good reports of him, since. Of course, I shall see that, although he can no longer be regarded as my heir here, he shall be well provided for. But there will be plenty of time to think of this."