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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3056-0.txt b/3056-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..76fe23b --- /dev/null +++ b/3056-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9500 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wessex Tales, by Thomas Hardy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Wessex Tales + +Author: Thomas Hardy + +Release Date: February, 2002 [eBook #3056] +[Most recently updated: February 4, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Price + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WESSEX TALES *** + + + + +Wessex Tales + +by Thomas Hardy + + +Contents + + Preface + An Imaginative Woman + The Three Strangers + The Withered Arm + Fellow-Townsmen + Interlopers at the Knap + The Distracted Preacher + + + + +PREFACE + + +An apology is perhaps needed for the neglect of contrast which is shown +by presenting two consecutive stories of hangmen in such a small +collection as the following. But in the neighbourhood of county-towns +tales of executions used to form a large proportion of the local +traditions; and though never personally acquainted with any chief +operator at such scenes, the writer of these pages had as a boy the +privilege of being on speaking terms with a man who applied for the +office, and who sank into an incurable melancholy because he failed to +get it, some slight mitigation of his grief being to dwell upon +striking episodes in the lives of those happier ones who had held it +with success and renown. His tale of disappointment used to cause some +wonder why his ambition should have taken such an unfortunate form, but +its nobleness was never questioned. In those days, too, there was still +living an old woman who, for the cure of some eating disease, had been +taken in her youth to have her ‘blood turned’ by a convict’s corpse, in +the manner described in ‘The Withered Arm.’ + +Since writing this story some years ago I have been reminded by an aged +friend who knew ‘Rhoda Brook’ that, in relating her dream, my +forgetfulness has weakened the facts out of which the tale grew. In +reality it was while lying down on a hot afternoon that the incubus +oppressed her and she flung it off, with the results upon the body of +the original as described. To my mind the occurrence of such a vision +in the daytime is more impressive than if it had happened in a midnight +dream. Readers are therefore asked to correct the misrelation, which +affords an instance of how our imperfect memories insensibly formalize +the fresh originality of living fact—from whose shape they slowly +depart, as machine-made castings depart by degrees from the sharp +hand-work of the mould. + +Among the many devices for concealing smuggled goods in caves and pits +of the earth, that of planting an apple-tree in a tray or box which was +placed over the mouth of the pit is, I believe, unique, and it is +detailed in one of the tales precisely as described by an old carrier +of ‘tubs’—a man who was afterwards in my father’s employ for over +thirty years. I never gathered from his reminiscences what means were +adopted for lifting the tree, which, with its roots, earth, and +receptacle, must have been of considerable weight. There is no doubt, +however, that the thing was done through many years. My informant often +spoke, too, of the horribly suffocating sensation produced by the pair +of spirit-tubs slung upon the chest and back, after stumbling with the +burden of them for several miles inland over a rough country and in +darkness. He said that though years of his youth and young manhood were +spent in this irregular business, his profits from the same, taken all +together, did not average the wages he might have earned in a steady +employment, whilst the fatigues and risks were excessive. + +I may add that the first story in the series turns upon a physical +possibility that may attach to women of imaginative temperament, and +that is well supported by the experiences of medical men and other +observers of such manifestations. + +T. H. + +_April_ 1896. + + + + +AN IMAGINATIVE WOMAN + + +When William Marchmill had finished his inquiries for lodgings at a +well-known watering-place in Upper Wessex, he returned to the hotel to +find his wife. She, with the children, had rambled along the shore, and +Marchmill followed in the direction indicated by the military-looking +hall-porter + +‘By Jove, how far you’ve gone! I am quite out of breath,’ Marchmill +said, rather impatiently, when he came up with his wife, who was +reading as she walked, the three children being considerably further +ahead with the nurse. + +Mrs. Marchmill started out of the reverie into which the book had +thrown her. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you’ve been such a long time. I was tired +of staying in that dreary hotel. But I am sorry if you have wanted me, +Will?’ + +‘Well, I have had trouble to suit myself. When you see the airy and +comfortable rooms heard of, you find they are stuffy and uncomfortable. +Will you come and see if what I’ve fixed on will do? There is not much +room, I am afraid; hut I can light on nothing better. The town is +rather full.’ + +The pair left the children and nurse to continue their ramble, and went +back together. + +In age well-balanced, in personal appearance fairly matched, and in +domestic requirements conformable, in temper this couple differed, +though even here they did not often clash, he being equable, if not +lymphatic, and she decidedly nervous and sanguine. It was to their +tastes and fancies, those smallest, greatest particulars, that no +common denominator could be applied. Marchmill considered his wife’s +likes and inclinations somewhat silly; she considered his sordid and +material. The husband’s business was that of a gunmaker in a thriving +city northwards, and his soul was in that business always; the lady was +best characterized by that superannuated phrase of elegance ‘a votary +of the muse.’ An impressionable, palpitating creature was Ella, +shrinking humanely from detailed knowledge of her husband’s trade +whenever she reflected that everything he manufactured had for its +purpose the destruction of life. She could only recover her equanimity +by assuring herself that some, at least, of his weapons were sooner or +later used for the extermination of horrid vermin and animals almost as +cruel to their inferiors in species as human beings were to theirs. + +She had never antecedently regarded this occupation of his as any +objection to having him for a husband. Indeed, the necessity of getting +life-leased at all cost, a cardinal virtue which all good mothers +teach, kept her from thinking of it at all till she had closed with +William, had passed the honeymoon, and reached the reflecting stage. +Then, like a person who has stumbled upon some object in the dark, she +wondered what she had got; mentally walked round it, estimated it; +whether it were rare or common; contained gold, silver, or lead; were a +clog or a pedestal, everything to her or nothing. + +She came to some vague conclusions, and since then had kept her heart +alive by pitying her proprietor’s obtuseness and want of refinement, +pitying herself, and letting off her delicate and ethereal emotions in +imaginative occupations, day-dreams, and night-sighs, which perhaps +would not much have disturbed William if he had known of them. + +Her figure was small, elegant, and slight in build, tripping, or rather +bounding, in movement. She was dark-eyed, and had that marvellously +bright and liquid sparkle in each pupil which characterizes persons of +Ella’s cast of soul, and is too often a cause of heartache to the +possessor’s male friends, ultimately sometimes to herself. Her husband +was a tall, long-featured man, with a brown beard; he had a pondering +regard; and was, it must be added, usually kind and tolerant to her. He +spoke in squarely shaped sentences, and was supremely satisfied with a +condition of sublunary things which made weapons a necessity. + +Husband and wife walked till they had reached the house they were in +search of, which stood in a terrace facing the sea, and was fronted by +a small garden of wind-proof and salt-proof evergreens, stone steps +leading up to the porch. It had its number in the row, but, being +rather larger than the rest, was in addition sedulously distinguished +as Coburg House by its landlady, though everybody else called it +‘Thirteen, New Parade.’ The spot was bright and lively now; but in +winter it became necessary to place sandbags against the door, and to +stuff up the keyhole against the wind and rain, which had worn the +paint so thin that the priming and knotting showed through. + +The householder, who had been watching for the gentleman’s return, met +them in the passage, and showed the rooms. She informed them that she +was a professional man’s widow, left in needy circumstances by the +rather sudden death of her husband, and she spoke anxiously of the +conveniences of the establishment. + +Mrs. Marchmill said that she liked the situation and the house; but, it +being small, there would not be accommodation enough, unless she could +have all the rooms. + +The landlady mused with an air of disappointment. She wanted the +visitors to be her tenants very badly, she said, with obvious honesty. +But unfortunately two of the rooms were occupied permanently by a +bachelor gentleman. He did not pay season prices, it was true; but as +he kept on his apartments all the year round, and was an extremely nice +and interesting young man, who gave no trouble, she did not like to +turn him out for a month’s ‘let,’ even at a high figure. ‘Perhaps, +however,’ she added, ‘he might offer to go for a time.’ + +They would not hear of this, and went back to the hotel, intending to +proceed to the agent’s to inquire further. Hardly had they sat down to +tea when the landlady called. Her gentleman, she said, had been so +obliging as to offer to give up his rooms for three or four weeks +rather than drive the new-comers away. + +‘It is very kind, but we won’t inconvenience him in that way,’ said the +Marchmills. + +‘O, it won’t inconvenience him, I assure you!’ said the landlady +eloquently. ‘You see, he’s a different sort of young man from +most—dreamy, solitary, rather melancholy—and he cares more to be here +when the south-westerly gales are beating against the door, and the sea +washes over the Parade, and there’s not a soul in the place, than he +does now in the season. He’d just as soon be where, in fact, he’s going +temporarily, to a little cottage on the Island opposite, for a change.’ +She hoped therefore that they would come. + +The Marchmill family accordingly took possession of the house next day, +and it seemed to suit them very well. After luncheon Mr. Marchmill +strolled out towards the pier, and Mrs. Marchmill, having despatched +the children to their outdoor amusements on the sands, settled herself +in more completely, examining this and that article, and testing the +reflecting powers of the mirror in the wardrobe door. + +In the small back sitting-room, which had been the young bachelor’s, +she found furniture of a more personal nature than in the rest. Shabby +books, of correct rather than rare editions, were piled up in a queerly +reserved manner in corners, as if the previous occupant had not +conceived the possibility that any incoming person of the season’s +bringing could care to look inside them. The landlady hovered on the +threshold to rectify anything that Mrs. Marchmill might not find to her +satisfaction. + +‘I’ll make this my own little room,’ said the latter, ‘because the +books are here. By the way, the person who has left seems to have a +good many. He won’t mind my reading some of them, Mrs. Hooper, I hope?’ + +‘O dear no, ma’am. Yes, he has a good many. You see, he is in the +literary line himself somewhat. He is a poet—yes, really a poet—and he +has a little income of his own, which is enough to write verses on, but +not enough for cutting a figure, even if he cared to.’ + +‘A poet! O, I did not know that.’ + +Mrs. Marchmill opened one of the books, and saw the owner’s name +written on the title-page. ‘Dear me!’ she continued; ‘I know his name +very well—Robert Trewe—of course I do; and his writings! And it is +_his_ rooms we have taken, and _him_ we have turned out of his home?’ + +Ella Marchmill, sitting down alone a few minutes later, thought with +interested surprise of Robert Trewe. Her own latter history will best +explain that interest. Herself the only daughter of a struggling man of +letters, she had during the last year or two taken to writing poems, in +an endeavour to find a congenial channel in which to let flow her +painfully embayed emotions, whose former limpidity and sparkle seemed +departing in the stagnation caused by the routine of a practical +household and the gloom of bearing children to a commonplace father. +These poems, subscribed with a masculine pseudonym, had appeared in +various obscure magazines, and in two cases in rather prominent ones. +In the second of the latter the page which bore her effusion at the +bottom, in smallish print, bore at the top, in large print, a few +verses on the same subject by this very man, Robert Trewe. Both of them +had, in fact, been struck by a tragic incident reported in the daily +papers, and had used it simultaneously as an inspiration, the editor +remarking in a note upon the coincidence, and that the excellence of +both poems prompted him to give them together. + +After that event Ella, otherwise ‘John Ivy,’ had watched with much +attention the appearance anywhere in print of verse bearing the +signature of Robert Trewe, who, with a man’s unsusceptibility on the +question of sex, had never once thought of passing himself off as a +woman. To be sure, Mrs. Marchmill had satisfied herself with a sort of +reason for doing the contrary in her case; that nobody might believe in +her inspiration if they found that the sentiments came from a pushing +tradesman’s wife, from the mother of three children by a matter-of-fact +small-arms manufacturer. + +Trewe’s verse contrasted with that of the rank and file of recent minor +poets in being impassioned rather than ingenious, luxuriant rather than +finished. Neither _symboliste_ nor _décadent_, he was a pessimist in so +far as that character applies to a man who looks at the worst +contingencies as well as the best in the human condition. Being little +attracted by excellences of form and rhythm apart from content, he +sometimes, when feeling outran his artistic speed, perpetrated sonnets +in the loosely rhymed Elizabethan fashion, which every right-minded +reviewer said he ought not to have done. + +With sad and hopeless envy, Ella Marchmill had often and often scanned +the rival poet’s work, so much stronger as it always was than her own +feeble lines. She had imitated him, and her inability to touch his +level would send her into fits of despondency. Months passed away thus, +till she observed from the publishers’ list that Trewe had collected +his fugitive pieces into a volume, which was duly issued, and was much +or little praised according to chance, and had a sale quite sufficient +to pay for the printing. + +This step onward had suggested to John Ivy the idea of collecting her +pieces also, or at any rate of making up a book of her rhymes by adding +many in manuscript to the few that had seen the light, for she had been +able to get no great number into print. A ruinous charge was made for +costs of publication; a few reviews noticed her poor little volume; but +nobody talked of it, nobody bought it, and it fell dead in a +fortnight—if it had ever been alive. + +The author’s thoughts were diverted to another groove just then by the +discovery that she was going to have a third child, and the collapse of +her poetical venture had perhaps less effect upon her mind than it +might have done if she had been domestically unoccupied. Her husband +had paid the publisher’s bill with the doctor’s, and there it all had +ended for the time. But, though less than a poet of her century, Ella +was more than a mere multiplier of her kind, and latterly she had begun +to feel the old afflatus once more. And now by an odd conjunction she +found herself in the rooms of Robert Trewe. + +She thoughtfully rose from her chair and searched the apartment with +the interest of a fellow-tradesman. Yes, the volume of his own verse +was among the rest. Though quite familiar with its contents, she read +it here as if it spoke aloud to her, then called up Mrs. Hooper, the +landlady, for some trivial service, and inquired again about the young +man. + +‘Well, I’m sure you’d be interested in him, ma’am, if you could see +him, only he’s so shy that I don’t suppose you will.’ Mrs. Hooper +seemed nothing loth to minister to her tenant’s curiosity about her +predecessor. ‘Lived here long? Yes, nearly two years. He keeps on his +rooms even when he’s not here: the soft air of this place suits his +chest, and he likes to be able to come back at any time. He is mostly +writing or reading, and doesn’t see many people, though, for the matter +of that, he is such a good, kind young fellow that folks would only be +too glad to be friendly with him if they knew him. You don’t meet +kind-hearted people every day.’ + +‘Ah, he’s kind-hearted . . . and good.’ + +‘Yes; he’ll oblige me in anything if I ask him. “Mr. Trewe,” I say to +him sometimes, “you are rather out of spirits.” “Well, I am, Mrs. +Hooper,” he’ll say, “though I don’t know how you should find it out.” +“Why not take a little change?” I ask. Then in a day or two he’ll say +that he will take a trip to Paris, or Norway, or somewhere; and I +assure you he comes back all the better for it.’ + +‘Ah, indeed! His is a sensitive nature, no doubt.’ + +‘Yes. Still he’s odd in some things. Once when he had finished a poem +of his composition late at night he walked up and down the room +rehearsing it; and the floors being so thin—jerry-built houses, you +know, though I say it myself—he kept me awake up above him till I +wished him further . . . But we get on very well.’ + +This was but the beginning of a series of conversations about the +rising poet as the days went on. On one of these occasions Mrs. Hooper +drew Ella’s attention to what she had not noticed before: minute +scribblings in pencil on the wall-paper behind the curtains at the head +of the bed. + +‘O! let me look,’ said Mrs. Marchmill, unable to conceal a rush of +tender curiosity as she bent her pretty face close to the wall. + +‘These,’ said Mrs. Hooper, with the manner of a woman who knew things, +‘are the very beginnings and first thoughts of his verses. He has tried +to rub most of them out, but you can read them still. My belief is that +he wakes up in the night, you know, with some rhyme in his head, and +jots it down there on the wall lest he should forget it by the morning. +Some of these very lines you see here I have seen afterwards in print +in the magazines. Some are newer; indeed, I have not seen that one +before. It must have been done only a few days ago.’ + +‘O yes! . . . ’ + +Ella Marchmill flushed without knowing why, and suddenly wished her +companion would go away, now that the information was imparted. An +indescribable consciousness of personal interest rather than literary +made her anxious to read the inscription alone; and she accordingly +waited till she could do so, with a sense that a great store of emotion +would be enjoyed in the act. + +Perhaps because the sea was choppy outside the Island, Ella’s husband +found it much pleasanter to go sailing and steaming about without his +wife, who was a bad sailor, than with her. He did not disdain to go +thus alone on board the steamboats of the cheap-trippers, where there +was dancing by moonlight, and where the couples would come suddenly +down with a lurch into each other’s arms; for, as he blandly told her, +the company was too mixed for him to take her amid such scenes. Thus, +while this thriving manufacturer got a great deal of change and sea-air +out of his sojourn here, the life, external at least, of Ella was +monotonous enough, and mainly consisted in passing a certain number of +hours each day in bathing and walking up and down a stretch of shore. +But the poetic impulse having again waxed strong, she was possessed by +an inner flame which left her hardly conscious of what was proceeding +around her. + +She had read till she knew by heart Trewe’s last little volume of +verses, and spent a great deal of time in vainly attempting to rival +some of them, till, in her failure, she burst into tears. The personal +element in the magnetic attraction exercised by this circumambient, +unapproachable master of hers was so much stronger than the +intellectual and abstract that she could not understand it. To be sure, +she was surrounded noon and night by his customary environment, which +literally whispered of him to her at every moment; but he was a man she +had never seen, and that all that moved her was the instinct to +specialize a waiting emotion on the first fit thing that came to hand +did not, of course, suggest itself to Ella. + +In the natural way of passion under the too practical conditions which +civilization has devised for its fruition, her husband’s love for her +had not survived, except in the form of fitful friendship, any more +than, or even so much as, her own for him; and, being a woman of very +living ardours, that required sustenance of some sort, they were +beginning to feed on this chancing material, which was, indeed, of a +quality far better than chance usually offers. + +One day the children had been playing hide-and-seek in a closet, +whence, in their excitement, they pulled out some clothing. Mrs. Hooper +explained that it belonged to Mr. Trewe, and hung it up in the closet +again. Possessed of her fantasy, Ella went later in the afternoon, when +nobody was in that part of the house, opened the closet, unhitched one +of the articles, a mackintosh, and put it on, with the waterproof cap +belonging to it. + +‘The mantle of Elijah!’ she said. ‘Would it might inspire me to rival +him, glorious genius that he is!’ + +Her eyes always grew wet when she thought like that, and she turned to +look at herself in the glass. _His_ heart had beat inside that coat, +and _his_ brain had worked under that hat at levels of thought she +would never reach. The consciousness of her weakness beside him made +her feel quite sick. Before she had got the things off her the door +opened, and her husband entered the room. + +‘What the devil—’ + +She blushed, and removed them + +‘I found them in the closet here,’ she said, ‘and put them on in a +freak. What have I else to do? You are always away!’ + +‘Always away? Well . . . ’ + +That evening she had a further talk with the landlady, who might +herself have nourished a half-tender regard for the poet, so ready was +she to discourse ardently about him. + +‘You are interested in Mr. Trewe, I know, ma’am,’ she said; ‘and he has +just sent to say that he is going to call to-morrow afternoon to look +up some books of his that he wants, if I’ll be in, and he may select +them from your room?’ + +‘O yes!’ + +‘You could very well meet Mr Trewe then, if you’d like to be in the +way!’ + +She promised with secret delight, and went to bed musing of him. + +Next morning her husband observed: ‘I’ve been thinking of what you +said, Ell: that I have gone about a good deal and left you without much +to amuse you. Perhaps it’s true. To-day, as there’s not much sea, I’ll +take you with me on board the yacht.’ + +For the first time in her experience of such an offer Ella was not +glad. But she accepted it for the moment. The time for setting out drew +near, and she went to get ready. She stood reflecting. The longing to +see the poet she was now distinctly in love with overpowered all other +considerations. + +‘I don’t want to go,’ she said to herself. ‘I can’t bear to be away! +And I won’t go.’ + +She told her husband that she had changed her mind about wishing to +sail. He was indifferent, and went his way. + +For the rest of the day the house was quiet, the children having gone +out upon the sands. The blinds waved in the sunshine to the soft, +steady stroke of the sea beyond the wall; and the notes of the Green +Silesian band, a troop of foreign gentlemen hired for the season, had +drawn almost all the residents and promenaders away from the vicinity +of Coburg House. A knock was audible at the door. + +Mrs. Marchmill did not hear any servant go to answer it, and she became +impatient. The books were in the room where she sat; but nobody came +up. She rang the bell. + +‘There is some person waiting at the door,’ she said. + +‘O no, ma’am! He’s gone long ago. I answered it.’ + +Mrs. Hooper came in herself. + +‘So disappointing!’ she said. ‘Mr. Trewe not coming after all!’ + +‘But I heard him knock, I fancy!’ + +‘No; that was somebody inquiring for lodgings who came to the wrong +house. I forgot to tell you that Mr. Trewe sent a note just before +lunch to say I needn’t get any tea for him, as he should not require +the books, and wouldn’t come to select them.’ + +Ella was miserable, and for a long time could not even re-read his +mournful ballad on ‘Severed Lives,’ so aching was her erratic little +heart, and so tearful her eyes. When the children came in with wet +stockings, and ran up to her to tell her of their adventures, she could +not feel that she cared about them half as much as usual. + + +‘Mrs. Hooper, have you a photograph of—the gentleman who lived here?’ +She was getting to be curiously shy in mentioning his name. + +‘Why, yes. It’s in the ornamental frame on the mantelpiece in your own +bedroom, ma’am.’ + +‘No; the Royal Duke and Duchess are in that.’ + +‘Yes, so they are; but he’s behind them. He belongs rightly to that +frame, which I bought on purpose; but as he went away he said: “Cover +me up from those strangers that are coming, for God’s sake. I don’t +want them staring at me, and I am sure they won’t want me staring at +them.” So I slipped in the Duke and Duchess temporarily in front of +him, as they had no frame, and Royalties are more suitable for letting +furnished than a private young man. If you take ’em out you’ll see him +under. Lord, ma’am, he wouldn’t mind if he knew it! He didn’t think the +next tenant would be such an attractive lady as you, or he wouldn’t +have thought of hiding himself; perhaps.’ + +‘Is he handsome?’ she asked timidly. + +‘_I_ call him so. Some, perhaps, wouldn’t.’ + +‘Should I?’ she asked, with eagerness. + +‘I think you would, though some would say he’s more striking than +handsome; a large-eyed thoughtful fellow, you know, with a very +electric flash in his eye when he looks round quickly, such as you’d +expect a poet to be who doesn’t get his living by it.’ + +‘How old is he?’ + +‘Several years older than yourself, ma’am; about thirty-one or two, I +think.’ + +Ella was, as a matter of fact, a few months over thirty herself; but +she did not look nearly so much. Though so immature in nature, she was +entering on that tract of life in which emotional women begin to +suspect that last love may be stronger than first love; and she would +soon, alas, enter on the still more melancholy tract when at least the +vainer ones of her sex shrink from receiving a male visitor otherwise +than with their backs to the window or the blinds half down. She +reflected on Mrs. Hooper’s remark, and said no more about age. + +Just then a telegram was brought up. It came from her husband, who had +gone down the Channel as far as Budmouth with his friends in the yacht, +and would not be able to get back till next day. + +After her light dinner Ella idled about the shore with the children +till dusk, thinking of the yet uncovered photograph in her room, with a +serene sense of something ecstatic to come. For, with the subtle +luxuriousness of fancy in which this young woman was an adept, on +learning that her husband was to be absent that night she had refrained +from incontinently rushing upstairs and opening the picture-frame, +preferring to reserve the inspection till she could be alone, and a +more romantic tinge be imparted to the occasion by silence, candles, +solemn sea and stars outside, than was afforded by the garish afternoon +sunlight. + +The children had been sent to bed, and Ella soon followed, though it +was not yet ten o’clock. To gratify her passionate curiosity she now +made her preparations, first getting rid of superfluous garments and +putting on her dressing-gown, then arranging a chair in front of the +table and reading several pages of Trewe’s tenderest utterances. Then +she fetched the portrait-frame to the light, opened the back, took out +the likeness, and set it up before her. + +It was a striking countenance to look upon. The poet wore a luxuriant +black moustache and imperial, and a slouched hat which shaded the +forehead. The large dark eyes, described by the landlady, showed an +unlimited capacity for misery; they looked out from beneath well-shaped +brows as if they were reading the universe in the microcosm of the +confronter’s face, and were not altogether overjoyed at what the +spectacle portended. + +Ella murmured in her lowest, richest, tenderest tone: ‘And it’s _you_ +who’ve so cruelly eclipsed me these many times!’ + +As she gazed long at the portrait she fell into thought, till her eyes +filled with tears, and she touched the cardboard with her lips. Then +she laughed with a nervous lightness, and wiped her eyes. + +She thought how wicked she was, a woman having a husband and three +children, to let her mind stray to a stranger in this unconscionable +manner. No, he was not a stranger! She knew his thoughts and feelings +as well as she knew her own; they were, in fact, the self-same thoughts +and feelings as hers, which her husband distinctly lacked; perhaps +luckily for himself; considering that he had to provide for family +expenses. + +‘He’s nearer my real self, he’s more intimate with the real me than +Will is, after all, even though I’ve never seen him,’ she said. + +She laid his book and picture on the table at the bedside, and when she +was reclining on the pillow she re-read those of Robert Trewe’s verses +which she had marked from time to time as most touching and true. +Putting these aside, she set up the photograph on its edge upon the +coverlet, and contemplated it as she lay. Then she scanned again by the +light of the candle the half-obliterated pencillings on the wall-paper +beside her head. There they were—phrases, couplets, _bouts-rimés_, +beginnings and middles of lines, ideas in the rough, like Shelley’s +scraps, and the least of them so intense, so sweet, so palpitating, +that it seemed as if his very breath, warm and loving, fanned her +cheeks from those walls, walls that had surrounded his head times and +times as they surrounded her own now. He must often have put up his +hand so—with the pencil in it. Yes, the writing was sideways, as it +would be if executed by one who extended his arm thus. + +These inscribed shapes of the poet’s world, + +‘Forms more real than living man, +Nurslings of immortality,’ + + +were, no doubt, the thoughts and spirit-strivings which had come to him +in the dead of night, when he could let himself go and have no fear of +the frost of criticism. No doubt they had often been written up hastily +by the light of the moon, the rays of the lamp, in the blue-grey dawn, +in full daylight perhaps never. And now her hair was dragging where his +arm had lain when he secured the fugitive fancies; she was sleeping on +a poet’s lips, immersed in the very essence of him, permeated by his +spirit as by an ether. + +While she was dreaming the minutes away thus, a footstep came upon the +stairs, and in a moment she heard her husband’s heavy step on the +landing immediately without. + +‘Ell, where are you?’ + +What possessed her she could not have described, but, with an +instinctive objection to let her husband know what she had been doing, +she slipped the photograph under the pillow just as he flung open the +door, with the air of a man who had dined not badly. + +‘O, I beg pardon,’ said William Marchmill. ‘Have you a headache? I am +afraid I have disturbed you.’ + +‘No, I’ve not got a headache,’ said she. ‘How is it you’ve come?’ + +‘Well, we found we could get back in very good time after all, and I +didn’t want to make another day of it, because of going somewhere else +to-morrow.’ + +‘Shall I come down again?’ + +‘O no. I’m as tired as a dog. I’ve had a good feed, and I shall turn in +straight off. I want to get out at six o’clock to-morrow if I can . . . +I shan’t disturb you by my getting up; it will be long before you are +awake.’ And he came forward into the room. + +While her eyes followed his movements, Ella softly pushed the +photograph further out of sight. + +‘Sure you’re not ill?’ he asked, bending over her. + +‘No, only wicked!’ + +‘Never mind that.’ And he stooped and kissed her. + +Next morning Marchmill was called at six o’clock; and in waking and +yawning she heard him muttering to himself: ‘What the deuce is this +that’s been crackling under me so?’ Imagining her asleep he searched +round him and withdrew something. Through her half-opened eyes she +perceived it to be Mr. Trewe. + +‘Well, I’m damned!’ her husband exclaimed. + +‘What, dear?’ said she. + +‘O, you are awake? Ha! ha!’ + +‘What _do_ you mean?’ + +‘Some bloke’s photograph—a friend of our landlady’s, I suppose. I +wonder how it came here; whisked off the table by accident perhaps when +they were making the bed.’ + +‘I was looking at it yesterday, and it must have dropped in then.’ + +‘O, he’s a friend of yours? Bless his picturesque heart!’ + +Ella’s loyalty to the object of her admiration could not endure to hear +him ridiculed. ‘He’s a clever man!’ she said, with a tremor in her +gentle voice which she herself felt to be absurdly uncalled for. + +‘He is a rising poet—the gentleman who occupied two of these rooms +before we came, though I’ve never seen him.’ + +‘How do you know, if you’ve never seen him?’ + +‘Mrs. Hooper told me when she showed me the photograph.’ + +‘O; well, I must up and be off. I shall be home rather early. Sorry I +can’t take you to-day, dear. Mind the children don’t go getting +drowned.’ + +That day Mrs. Marchmill inquired if Mr. Trewe were likely to call at +any other time. + +‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Hooper. ‘He’s coming this day week to stay with a +friend near here till you leave. He’ll be sure to call.’ + +Marchmill did return quite early in the afternoon; and, opening some +letters which had arrived in his absence, declared suddenly that he and +his family would have to leave a week earlier than they had expected to +do—in short, in three days. + +‘Surely we can stay a week longer?’ she pleaded. ‘I like it here.’ + +‘I don’t. It is getting rather slow.’ + +‘Then you might leave me and the children!’ + +‘How perverse you are, Ell! What’s the use? And have to come to fetch +you! No: we’ll all return together; and we’ll make out our time in +North Wales or Brighton a little later on. Besides, you’ve three days +longer yet.’ + +It seemed to be her doom not to meet the man for whose rival talent she +had a despairing admiration, and to whose person she was now absolutely +attached. Yet she determined to make a last effort; and having gathered +from her landlady that Trewe was living in a lonely spot not far from +the fashionable town on the Island opposite, she crossed over in the +packet from the neighbouring pier the following afternoon. + +What a useless journey it was! Ella knew but vaguely where the house +stood, and when she fancied she had found it, and ventured to inquire +of a pedestrian if he lived there, the answer returned by the man was +that he did not know. And if he did live there, how could she call upon +him? Some women might have the assurance to do it, but she had not. How +crazy he would think her. She might have asked him to call upon her, +perhaps; but she had not the courage for that, either. She lingered +mournfully about the picturesque seaside eminence till it was time to +return to the town and enter the steamer for recrossing, reaching home +for dinner without having been greatly missed. + +At the last moment, unexpectedly enough, her husband said that he +should have no objection to letting her and the children stay on till +the end of the week, since she wished to do so, if she felt herself +able to get home without him. She concealed the pleasure this extension +of time gave her; and Marchmill went off the next morning alone. + +But the week passed, and Trewe did not call. + +On Saturday morning the remaining members of the Marchmill family +departed from the place which had been productive of so much fervour in +her. The dreary, dreary train; the sun shining in moted beams upon the +hot cushions; the dusty permanent way; the mean rows of wire—these +things were her accompaniment: while out of the window the deep blue +sea-levels disappeared from her gaze, and with them her poet’s home. +Heavy-hearted, she tried to read, and wept instead. + +Mr. Marchmill was in a thriving way of business, and he and his family +lived in a large new house, which stood in rather extensive grounds a +few miles outside the city wherein he carried on his trade. Ella’s life +was lonely here, as the suburban life is apt to be, particularly at +certain seasons; and she had ample time to indulge her taste for lyric +and elegiac composition. She had hardly got back when she encountered a +piece by Robert Trewe in the new number of her favourite magazine, +which must have been written almost immediately before her visit to +Solentsea, for it contained the very couplet she had seen pencilled on +the wallpaper by the bed, and Mrs. Hooper had declared to be recent. +Ella could resist no longer, but seizing a pen impulsively, wrote to +him as a brother-poet, using the name of John Ivy, congratulating him +in her letter on his triumphant executions in metre and rhythm of +thoughts that moved his soul, as compared with her own brow-beaten +efforts in the same pathetic trade. + +To this address there came a response in a few days, little as she had +dared to hope for it—a civil and brief note, in which the young poet +stated that, though he was not well acquainted with Mr. Ivy’s verse, he +recalled the name as being one he had seen attached to some very +promising pieces; that he was glad to gain Mr. Ivy’s acquaintance by +letter, and should certainly look with much interest for his +productions in the future. + +There must have been something juvenile or timid in her own epistle, as +one ostensibly coming from a man, she declared to herself; for Trewe +quite adopted the tone of an elder and superior in this reply. But what +did it matter? he had replied; he had written to her with his own hand +from that very room she knew so well, for he was now back again in his +quarters. + +The correspondence thus begun was continued for two months or more, +Ella Marchmill sending him from time to time some that she considered +to be the best of her pieces, which he very kindly accepted, though he +did not say he sedulously read them, nor did he send her any of his own +in return. Ella would have been more hurt at this than she was if she +had not known that Trewe laboured under the impression that she was one +of his own sex. + +Yet the situation was unsatisfactory. A flattering little voice told +her that, were he only to see her, matters would be otherwise. No doubt +she would have helped on this by making a frank confession of +womanhood, to begin with, if something had not happened, to her +delight, to render it unnecessary. A friend of her husband’s, the +editor of the most important newspaper in the city and county, who was +dining with them one day, observed during their conversation about the +poet that his (the editor’s) brother the landscape-painter was a friend +of Mr. Trewe’s, and that the two men were at that very moment in Wales +together. + +Ella was slightly acquainted with the editor’s brother. The next +morning down she sat and wrote, inviting him to stay at her house for a +short time on his way back, and requesting him to bring with him, if +practicable, his companion Mr. Trewe, whose acquaintance she was +anxious to make. The answer arrived after some few days. Her +correspondent and his friend Trewe would have much satisfaction in +accepting her invitation on their way southward, which would be on such +and such a day in the following week. + +Ella was blithe and buoyant. Her scheme had succeeded; her beloved +though as yet unseen one was coming. “Behold, he standeth behind our +wall; he looked forth at the windows, showing himself through the +lattice,” she thought ecstatically. “And, lo, the winter is past, the +rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the +singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our +land.” + +But it was necessary to consider the details of lodging and feeding +him. This she did most solicitously, and awaited the pregnant day and +hour. + +It was about five in the afternoon when she heard a ring at the door +and the editor’s brother’s voice in the hall. Poetess as she was, or as +she thought herself, she had not been too sublime that day to dress +with infinite trouble in a fashionable robe of rich material, having a +faint resemblance to the _chiton_ of the Greeks, a style just then in +vogue among ladies of an artistic and romantic turn, which had been +obtained by Ella of her Bond Street dressmaker when she was last in +London. Her visitor entered the drawing-room. She looked towards his +rear; nobody else came through the door. Where, in the name of the God +of Love, was Robert Trewe? + +‘O, I’m sorry,’ said the painter, after their introductory words had +been spoken. ‘Trewe is a curious fellow, you know, Mrs. Marchmill. He +said he’d come; then he said he couldn’t. He’s rather dusty. We’ve been +doing a few miles with knapsacks, you know; and he wanted to get on +home.’ + +‘He—he’s not coming?’ + +‘He’s not; and he asked me to make his apologies.’ + +‘When did you p-p-part from him?’ she asked, her nether lip starting +off quivering so much that it was like a _tremolo_-stop opened in her +speech. She longed to run away from this dreadful bore and cry her eyes +out. + +‘Just now, in the turnpike road yonder there.’ + +‘What! he has actually gone past my gates?’ + +‘Yes. When we got to them—handsome gates they are, too, the finest bit +of modern wrought-iron work I have seen—when we came to them we +stopped, talking there a little while, and then he wished me good-bye +and went on. The truth is, he’s a little bit depressed just now, and +doesn’t want to see anybody. He’s a very good fellow, and a warm +friend, but a little uncertain and gloomy sometimes; he thinks too much +of things. His poetry is rather too erotic and passionate, you know, +for some tastes; and he has just come in for a terrible slating from +the —— _Review_ that was published yesterday; he saw a copy of it at +the station by accident. Perhaps you’ve read it?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘So much the better. O, it is not worth thinking of; just one of those +articles written to order, to please the narrow-minded set of +subscribers upon whom the circulation depends. But he’s upset by it. He +says it is the misrepresentation that hurts him so; that, though he can +stand a fair attack, he can’t stand lies that he’s powerless to refute +and stop from spreading. That’s just Trewe’s weak point. He lives so +much by himself that these things affect him much more than they would +if he were in the bustle of fashionable or commercial life. So he +wouldn’t come here, making the excuse that it all looked so new and +monied—if you’ll pardon—’ + +‘But—he must have known—there was sympathy here! Has he never said +anything about getting letters from this address?’ + +‘Yes, yes, he has, from John Ivy—perhaps a relative of yours, he +thought, visiting here at the time?’ + +‘Did he—like Ivy, did he say?’ + +‘Well, I don’t know that he took any great interest in Ivy.’ + +‘Or in his poems?’ + +‘Or in his poems—so far as I know, that is.’ + +Robert Trewe took no interest in her house, in her poems, or in their +writer. As soon as she could get away she went into the nursery and +tried to let off her emotion by unnecessarily kissing the children, +till she had a sudden sense of disgust at being reminded how +plain-looking they were, like their father. + +The obtuse and single-minded landscape-painter never once perceived +from her conversation that it was only Trewe she wanted, and not +himself. He made the best of his visit, seeming to enjoy the society of +Ella’s husband, who also took a great fancy to him, and showed him +everywhere about the neighbourhood, neither of them noticing Ella’s +mood. + +The painter had been gone only a day or two when, while sitting +upstairs alone one morning, she glanced over the London paper just +arrived, and read the following paragraph:- + +‘SUICIDE OF A POET + + +‘Mr. Robert Trewe, who has been favourably known for some years as one +of our rising lyrists, committed suicide at his lodgings at Solentsea +on Saturday evening last by shooting himself in the right temple with a +revolver. Readers hardly need to be reminded that Mr. Trewe has +recently attracted the attention of a much wider public than had +hitherto known him, by his new volume of verse, mostly of an +impassioned kind, entitled “Lyrics to a Woman Unknown,” which has been +already favourably noticed in these pages for the extraordinary gamut +of feeling it traverses, and which has been made the subject of a +severe, if not ferocious, criticism in the —— Review. It is supposed, +though not certainly known, that the article may have partially +conduced to the sad act, as a copy of the review in question was found +on his writing-table; and he has been observed to be in a somewhat +depressed state of mind since the critique appeared.’ + + +Then came the report of the inquest, at which the following letter was +read, it having been addressed to a friend at a distance:- + +‘DEAR ——,—Before these lines reach your hands I shall be delivered from +the inconveniences of seeing, hearing, and knowing more of the things +around me. I will not trouble you by giving my reasons for the step I +have taken, though I can assure you they were sound and logical. +Perhaps had I been blessed with a mother, or a sister, or a female +friend of another sort tenderly devoted to me, I might have thought it +worth while to continue my present existence. I have long dreamt of +such an unattainable creature, as you know, and she, this +undiscoverable, elusive one, inspired my last volume; the imaginary +woman alone, for, in spite of what has been said in some quarters, +there is no real woman behind the title. She has continued to the last +unrevealed, unmet, unwon. I think it desirable to mention this in order +that no blame may attach to any real woman as having been the cause of +my decease by cruel or cavalier treatment of me. Tell my landlady that +I am sorry to have caused her this unpleasantness; but my occupancy of +the rooms will soon be forgotten. There are ample funds in my name at +the bank to pay all expenses. R. TREWE.’ + + +Ella sat for a while as if stunned, then rushed into the adjoining +chamber and flung herself upon her face on the bed. + +Her grief and distraction shook her to pieces; and she lay in this +frenzy of sorrow for more than an hour. Broken words came every now and +then from her quivering lips: ‘O, if he had only known of me—known of +me—me! . . . O, if I had only once met him—only once; and put my hand +upon his hot forehead—kissed him—let him know how I loved him—that I +would have suffered shame and scorn, would have lived and died, for +him! Perhaps it would have saved his dear life! . . . But no—it was not +allowed! God is a jealous God; and that happiness was not for him and +me!’ + +All possibilities were over; the meeting was stultified. Yet it was +almost visible to her in her fantasy even now, though it could never be +substantiated— + +‘The hour which might have been, yet might not be, +Which man’s and woman’s heart conceived and bore, +Yet whereof life was barren.’ + +She wrote to the landlady at Solentsea in the third person, in as +subdued a style as she could command, enclosing a postal order for a +sovereign, and informing Mrs. Hooper that Mrs. Marchmill had seen in +the papers the sad account of the poet’s death, and having been, as +Mrs. Hooper was aware, much interested in Mr. Trewe during her stay at +Coburg House, she would be obliged if Mrs. Hooper could obtain a small +portion of his hair before his coffin was closed down, and send it her +as a memorial of him, as also the photograph that was in the frame. + +By the return-post a letter arrived containing what had been requested. +Ella wept over the portrait and secured it in her private drawer; the +lock of hair she tied with white ribbon and put in her bosom, whence +she drew it and kissed it every now and then in some unobserved nook. + +‘What’s the matter?’ said her husband, looking up from his newspaper on +one of these occasions. ‘Crying over something? A lock of hair? Whose +is it?’ + +‘He’s dead!’ she murmured. + +‘Who?’ + +‘I don’t want to tell you, Will, just now, unless you insist!’ she +said, a sob hanging heavy in her voice. + +‘O, all right.’ + +‘Do you mind my refusing? I will tell you some day.’ + +‘It doesn’t matter in the least, of course.’ + +He walked away whistling a few bars of no tune in particular; and when +he had got down to his factory in the city the subject came into +Marchmill’s head again. + +He, too, was aware that a suicide had taken place recently at the house +they had occupied at Solentsea. Having seen the volume of poems in his +wife’s hand of late, and heard fragments of the landlady’s conversation +about Trewe when they were her tenants, he all at once said to himself; +‘Why of course it’s he! How the devil did she get to know him? What sly +animals women are!’ + +Then he placidly dismissed the matter, and went on with his daily +affairs. By this time Ella at home had come to a determination. Mrs. +Hooper, in sending the hair and photograph, had informed her of the day +of the funeral; and as the morning and noon wore on an overpowering +wish to know where they were laying him took possession of the +sympathetic woman. Caring very little now what her husband or any one +else might think of her eccentricities; she wrote Marchmill a brief +note, stating that she was called away for the afternoon and evening, +but would return on the following morning. This she left on his desk, +and having given the same information to the servants, went out of the +house on foot. + +When Mr. Marchmill reached home early in the afternoon the servants +looked anxious. The nurse took him privately aside, and hinted that her +mistress’s sadness during the past few days had been such that she +feared she had gone out to drown herself. Marchmill reflected. Upon the +whole he thought that she had not done that. Without saying whither he +was bound he also started off, telling them not to sit up for him. He +drove to the railway-station, and took a ticket for Solentsea. + +It was dark when he reached the place, though he had come by a fast +train, and he knew that if his wife had preceded him thither it could +only have been by a slower train, arriving not a great while before his +own. The season at Solentsea was now past: the parade was gloomy, and +the flys were few and cheap. He asked the way to the Cemetery, and soon +reached it. The gate was locked, but the keeper let him in, declaring, +however, that there was nobody within the precincts. Although it was +not late, the autumnal darkness had now become intense; and he found +some difficulty in keeping to the serpentine path which led to the +quarter where, as the man had told him, the one or two interments for +the day had taken place. He stepped upon the grass, and, stumbling over +some pegs, stooped now and then to discern if possible a figure against +the sky. + +He could see none; but lighting on a spot where the soil was trodden, +beheld a crouching object beside a newly made grave. She heard him, and +sprang up. + +‘Ell, how silly this is!’ he said indignantly. ‘Running away from +home—I never heard such a thing! Of course I am not jealous of this +unfortunate man; but it is too ridiculous that you, a married woman +with three children and a fourth coming, should go losing your head +like this over a dead lover! . . . Do you know you were locked in? You +might not have been able to get out all night.’ + +She did not answer. + +‘I hope it didn’t go far between you and him, for your own sake.’ + +‘Don’t insult me, Will.’ + +‘Mind, I won’t have any more of this sort of thing; do you hear?’ + +‘Very well,’ she said. + +He drew her arm within his own, and conducted her out of the Cemetery. +It was impossible to get back that night; and not wishing to be +recognized in their present sorry condition, he took her to a miserable +little coffee-house close to the station, whence they departed early in +the morning, travelling almost without speaking, under the sense that +it was one of those dreary situations occurring in married life which +words could not mend, and reaching their own door at noon. + +The months passed, and neither of the twain ever ventured to start a +conversation upon this episode. Ella seemed to be only too frequently +in a sad and listless mood, which might almost have been called pining. +The time was approaching when she would have to undergo the stress of +childbirth for a fourth time, and that apparently did not tend to raise +her spirits. + +‘I don’t think I shall get over it this time!’ she said one day. + +‘Pooh! what childish foreboding! Why shouldn’t it be as well now as +ever?’ + +She shook her head. ‘I feel almost sure I am going to die; and I should +be glad, if it were not for Nelly, and Frank, and Tiny.’ + +‘And me!’ + +‘You’ll soon find somebody to fill my place,’ she murmured, with a sad +smile. ‘And you’ll have a perfect right to; I assure you of that.’ + +‘Ell, you are not thinking still about that—poetical friend of yours?’ + +She neither admitted nor denied the charge. ‘I am not going to get over +my illness this time,’ she reiterated. ‘Something tells me I shan’t.’ + +This view of things was rather a bad beginning, as it usually is; and, +in fact, six weeks later, in the month of May, she was lying in her +room, pulseless and bloodless, with hardly strength enough left to +follow up one feeble breath with another, the infant for whose +unnecessary life she was slowly parting with her own being fat and +well. Just before her death she spoke to Marchmill softly:- + +‘Will, I want to confess to you the entire circumstances of that—about +you know what—that time we visited Solentsea. I can’t tell what +possessed me—how I could forget you so, my husband! But I had got into +a morbid state: I thought you had been unkind; that you had neglected +me; that you weren’t up to my intellectual level, while he was, and far +above it. I wanted a fuller appreciator, perhaps, rather than another +lover—’ + +She could get no further then for very exhaustion; and she went off in +sudden collapse a few hours later, without having said anything more to +her husband on the subject of her love for the poet. William Marchmill, +in truth, like most husbands of several years’ standing, was little +disturbed by retrospective jealousies, and had not shown the least +anxiety to press her for confessions concerning a man dead and gone +beyond any power of inconveniencing him more. + +But when she had been buried a couple of years it chanced one day that, +in turning over some forgotten papers that he wished to destroy before +his second wife entered the house, he lighted on a lock of hair in an +envelope, with the photograph of the deceased poet, a date being +written on the back in his late wife’s hand. It was that of the time +they spent at Solentsea. + +Marchmill looked long and musingly at the hair and portrait, for +something struck him. Fetching the little boy who had been the death of +his mother, now a noisy toddler, he took him on his knee, held the lock +of hair against the child’s head, and set up the photograph on the +table behind, so that he could closely compare the features each +countenance presented. There were undoubtedly strong traces of +resemblance; the dreamy and peculiar expression of the poet’s face sat, +as the transmitted idea, upon the child’s, and the hair was of the same +hue. + +‘I’m damned if I didn’t think so!’ murmured Marchmill. ‘Then she _did_ +play me false with that fellow at the lodgings! Let me see: the +dates—the second week in August . . . the third week in May . . . Yes . +. . yes . . . Get away, you poor little brat! You are nothing to me!’ + +1893. + + + + +THE THREE STRANGERS + + +Among the few features of agricultural England which retain an +appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries, may be +reckoned the high, grassy and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as +they are indifferently called, that fill a large area of certain +counties in the south and south-west. If any mark of human occupation +is met with hereon, it usually takes the form of the solitary cottage +of some shepherd. + +Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down, and may +possibly be standing there now. In spite of its loneliness, however, +the spot, by actual measurement, was not more than five miles from a +county-town. Yet that affected it little. Five miles of irregular +upland, during the long inimical seasons, with their sleets, snows, +rains, and mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon or +a Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please that less +repellent tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, and others who +‘conceive and meditate of pleasant things.’ + +Some old earthen camp or barrow, some clump of trees, at least some +starved fragment of ancient hedge is usually taken advantage of in the +erection of these forlorn dwellings. But, in the present case, such a +kind of shelter had been disregarded. Higher Crowstairs, as the house +was called, stood quite detached and undefended. The only reason for +its precise situation seemed to be the crossing of two footpaths at +right angles hard by, which may have crossed there and thus for a good +five hundred years. Hence the house was exposed to the elements on all +sides. But, though the wind up here blew unmistakably when it did blow, +and the rain hit hard whenever it fell, the various weathers of the +winter season were not quite so formidable on the coomb as they were +imagined to be by dwellers on low ground. The raw rimes were not so +pernicious as in the hollows, and the frosts were scarcely so severe. +When the shepherd and his family who tenanted the house were pitied for +their sufferings from the exposure, they said that upon the whole they +were less inconvenienced by ‘wuzzes and flames’ (hoarses and phlegms) +than when they had lived by the stream of a snug neighbouring valley. + +The night of March 28, 182-, was precisely one of the nights that were +wont to call forth these expressions of commiseration. The level +rainstorm smote walls, slopes, and hedges like the clothyard shafts of +Senlac and Crecy. Such sheep and outdoor animals as had no shelter +stood with their buttocks to the winds; while the tails of little birds +trying to roost on some scraggy thorn were blown inside-out like +umbrellas. The gable-end of the cottage was stained with wet, and the +eavesdroppings flapped against the wall. Yet never was commiseration +for the shepherd more misplaced. For that cheerful rustic was +entertaining a large party in glorification of the christening of his +second girl. + +The guests had arrived before the rain began to fall, and they were all +now assembled in the chief or living room of the dwelling. A glance +into the apartment at eight o’clock on this eventful evening would have +resulted in the opinion that it was as cosy and comfortable a nook as +could be wished for in boisterous weather. The calling of its +inhabitant was proclaimed by a number of highly-polished sheep-crooks +without stems that were hung ornamentally over the fireplace, the curl +of each shining crook varying from the antiquated type engraved in the +patriarchal pictures of old family Bibles to the most approved fashion +of the last local sheep-fair. The room was lighted by half-a-dozen +candles, having wicks only a trifle smaller than the grease which +enveloped them, in candlesticks that were never used but at high-days, +holy-days, and family feasts. The lights were scattered about the room, +two of them standing on the chimney-piece. This position of candles was +in itself significant. Candles on the chimney-piece always meant a +party. + +On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a +fire of thorns, that crackled ‘like the laughter of the fool.’ + +Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing +gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy +and not shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake +the hedge-carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a +neighbouring dairyman, the shepherd’s father-in-law, lolled in the +settle; a young man and maid, who were blushing over tentative +_pourparlers_ on a life-companionship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; +and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about +from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. +Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being +unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each +other’s good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of +manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the +majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they +wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing +thing whatever—which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and +_bonhomie_ of all except the two extremes of the social scale. + +Shepherd Fennel had married well, his wife being a dairyman’s daughter +from a vale at a distance, who brought fifty guineas in her pocket—and +kept them there, till they should be required for ministering to the +needs of a coming family. This frugal woman had been somewhat exercised +as to the character that should be given to the gathering. A sit-still +party had its advantages; but an undisturbed position of ease in chairs +and settles was apt to lead on the men to such an unconscionable deal +of toping that they would sometimes fairly drink the house dry. A +dancing-party was the alternative; but this, while avoiding the +foregoing objection on the score of good drink, had a counterbalancing +disadvantage in the matter of good victuals, the ravenous appetites +engendered by the exercise causing immense havoc in the buttery. +Shepherdess Fennel fell back upon the intermediate plan of mingling +short dances with short periods of talk and singing, so as to hinder +any ungovernable rage in either. But this scheme was entirely confined +to her own gentle mind: the shepherd himself was in the mood to exhibit +the most reckless phases of hospitality. + +The fiddler was a boy of those parts, about twelve years of age, who +had a wonderful dexterity in jigs and reels, though his fingers were so +small and short as to necessitate a constant shifting for the high +notes, from which he scrambled back to the first position with sounds +not of unmixed purity of tone. At seven the shrill tweedle-dee of this +youngster had begun, accompanied by a booming ground-bass from Elijah +New, the parish-clerk, who had thoughtfully brought with him his +favourite musical instrument, the serpent. Dancing was instantaneous, +Mrs. Fennel privately enjoining the players on no account to let the +dance exceed the length of a quarter of an hour. + +But Elijah and the boy, in the excitement of their position, quite +forgot the injunction. Moreover, Oliver Giles, a man of seventeen, one +of the dancers, who was enamoured of his partner, a fair girl of +thirty-three rolling years, had recklessly handed a new crown-piece to +the musicians, as a bribe to keep going as long as they had muscle and +wind. Mrs. Fennel, seeing the steam begin to generate on the +countenances of her guests, crossed over and touched the fiddler’s +elbow and put her hand on the serpent’s mouth. But they took no notice, +and fearing she might lose her character of genial hostess if she were +to interfere too markedly, she retired and sat down helpless. And so +the dance whizzed on with cumulative fury, the performers moving in +their planet-like courses, direct and retrograde, from apogee to +perigee, till the hand of the well-kicked clock at the bottom of the +room had travelled over the circumference of an hour. + +While these cheerful events were in course of enactment within Fennel’s +pastoral dwelling, an incident having considerable bearing on the party +had occurred in the gloomy night without. Mrs. Fennel’s concern about +the growing fierceness of the dance corresponded in point of time with +the ascent of a human figure to the solitary hill of Higher Crowstairs +from the direction of the distant town. This personage strode on +through the rain without a pause, following the little-worn path which, +further on in its course, skirted the shepherd’s cottage. + +It was nearly the time of full moon, and on this account, though the +sky was lined with a uniform sheet of dripping cloud, ordinary objects +out of doors were readily visible. The sad wan light revealed the +lonely pedestrian to be a man of supple frame; his gait suggested that +he had somewhat passed the period of perfect and instinctive agility, +though not so far as to be otherwise than rapid of motion when occasion +required. At a rough guess, he might have been about forty years of +age. He appeared tall, but a recruiting sergeant, or other person +accustomed to the judging of men’s heights by the eye, would have +discerned that this was chiefly owing to his gauntness, and that he was +not more than five-feet-eight or nine. + +Notwithstanding the regularity of his tread, there was caution in it, +as in that of one who mentally feels his way; and despite the fact that +it was not a black coat nor a dark garment of any sort that he wore, +there was something about him which suggested that he naturally +belonged to the black-coated tribes of men. His clothes were of +fustian, and his boots hobnailed, yet in his progress he showed not the +mud-accustomed bearing of hobnailed and fustianed peasantry. + +By the time that he had arrived abreast of the shepherd’s premises the +rain came down, or rather came along, with yet more determined +violence. The outskirts of the little settlement partially broke the +force of wind and rain, and this induced him to stand still. The most +salient of the shepherd’s domestic erections was an empty sty at the +forward corner of his hedgeless garden, for in these latitudes the +principle of masking the homelier features of your establishment by a +conventional frontage was unknown. The traveller’s eye was attracted to +this small building by the pallid shine of the wet slates that covered +it. He turned aside, and, finding it empty, stood under the pent-roof +for shelter. + +While he stood, the boom of the serpent within the adjacent house, and +the lesser strains of the fiddler, reached the spot as an accompaniment +to the surging hiss of the flying rain on the sod, its louder beating +on the cabbage-leaves of the garden, on the eight or ten beehives just +discernible by the path, and its dripping from the eaves into a row of +buckets and pans that had been placed under the walls of the cottage. +For at Higher Crowstairs, as at all such elevated domiciles, the grand +difficulty of housekeeping was an insufficiency of water; and a casual +rainfall was utilized by turning out, as catchers, every utensil that +the house contained. Some queer stories might be told of the +contrivances for economy in suds and dish-waters that are absolutely +necessitated in upland habitations during the droughts of summer. But +at this season there were no such exigencies; a mere acceptance of what +the skies bestowed was sufficient for an abundant store. + +At last the notes of the serpent ceased and the house was silent. This +cessation of activity aroused the solitary pedestrian from the reverie +into which he had lapsed, and, emerging from the shed, with an +apparently new intention, he walked up the path to the house-door. +Arrived here, his first act was to kneel down on a large stone beside +the row of vessels, and to drink a copious draught from one of them. +Having quenched his thirst he rose and lifted his hand to knock, but +paused with his eye upon the panel. Since the dark surface of the wood +revealed absolutely nothing, it was evident that he must be mentally +looking through the door, as if he wished to measure thereby all the +possibilities that a house of this sort might include, and how they +might bear upon the question of his entry. + +In his indecision he turned and surveyed the scene around. Not a soul +was anywhere visible. The garden-path stretched downward from his feet, +gleaming like the track of a snail; the roof of the little well (mostly +dry), the well-cover, the top rail of the garden-gate, were varnished +with the same dull liquid glaze; while, far away in the vale, a faint +whiteness of more than usual extent showed that the rivers were high in +the meads. Beyond all this winked a few bleared lamplights through the +beating drops—lights that denoted the situation of the county-town from +which he had appeared to come. The absence of all notes of life in that +direction seemed to clinch his intentions, and he knocked at the door. + +Within, a desultory chat had taken the place of movement and musical +sound. The hedge-carpenter was suggesting a song to the company, which +nobody just then was inclined to undertake, so that the knock afforded +a not unwelcome diversion. + +‘Walk in!’ said the shepherd promptly. + +The latch clicked upward, and out of the night our pedestrian appeared +upon the door-mat. The shepherd arose, snuffed two of the nearest +candles, and turned to look at him. + +Their light disclosed that the stranger was dark in complexion and not +unprepossessing as to feature. His hat, which for a moment he did not +remove, hung low over his eyes, without concealing that they were +large, open, and determined, moving with a flash rather than a glance +round the room. He seemed pleased with his survey, and, baring his +shaggy head, said, in a rich deep voice, ‘The rain is so heavy, +friends, that I ask leave to come in and rest awhile.’ + +‘To be sure, stranger,’ said the shepherd. ‘And faith, you’ve been +lucky in choosing your time, for we are having a bit of a fling for a +glad cause—though, to be sure, a man could hardly wish that glad cause +to happen more than once a year.’ + +‘Nor less,’ spoke up a woman. ‘For ’tis best to get your family over +and done with, as soon as you can, so as to be all the earlier out of +the fag o’t.’ + +‘And what may be this glad cause?’ asked the stranger. + +‘A birth and christening,’ said the shepherd. + +The stranger hoped his host might not be made unhappy either by too +many or too few of such episodes, and being invited by a gesture to a +pull at the mug, he readily acquiesced. His manner, which, before +entering, had been so dubious, was now altogether that of a careless +and candid man. + +‘Late to be traipsing athwart this coomb—hey?’ said the engaged man of +fifty. + +‘Late it is, master, as you say.—I’ll take a seat in the +chimney-corner, if you have nothing to urge against it, ma’am; for I am +a little moist on the side that was next the rain.’ + +Mrs. Shepherd Fennel assented, and made room for the self-invited +comer, who, having got completely inside the chimney-corner, stretched +out his legs and his arms with the expansiveness of a person quite at +home. + +‘Yes, I am rather cracked in the vamp,’ he said freely, seeing that the +eyes of the shepherd’s wife fell upon his boots, ‘and I am not well +fitted either. I have had some rough times lately, and have been forced +to pick up what I can get in the way of wearing, but I must find a suit +better fit for working-days when I reach home.’ + +‘One of hereabouts?’ she inquired. + +‘Not quite that—further up the country.’ + +‘I thought so. And so be I; and by your tongue you come from my +neighbourhood.’ + +‘But you would hardly have heard of me,’ he said quickly. ‘My time +would be long before yours, ma’am, you see.’ + +This testimony to the youthfulness of his hostess had the effect of +stopping her cross-examination. + +‘There is only one thing more wanted to make me happy,’ continued the +new-comer. ‘And that is a little baccy, which I am sorry to say I am +out of.’ + +‘I’ll fill your pipe,’ said the shepherd. + +‘I must ask you to lend me a pipe likewise.’ + +‘A smoker, and no pipe about ‘ee?’ + +‘I have dropped it somewhere on the road.’ + +The shepherd filled and handed him a new clay pipe, saying, as he did +so, ‘Hand me your baccy-box—I’ll fill that too, now I am about it.’ + +The man went through the movement of searching his pockets. + +‘Lost that too?’ said his entertainer, with some surprise. + +‘I am afraid so,’ said the man with some confusion. ‘Give it to me in a +screw of paper.’ Lighting his pipe at the candle with a suction that +drew the whole flame into the bowl, he resettled himself in the corner +and bent his looks upon the faint steam from his damp legs, as if he +wished to say no more. + +Meanwhile the general body of guests had been taking little notice of +this visitor by reason of an absorbing discussion in which they were +engaged with the band about a tune for the next dance. The matter being +settled, they were about to stand up when an interruption came in the +shape of another knock at the door. + +At sound of the same the man in the chimney-corner took up the poker +and began stirring the brands as if doing it thoroughly were the one +aim of his existence; and a second time the shepherd said, ‘Walk in!’ +In a moment another man stood upon the straw-woven door-mat. He too was +a stranger. + +This individual was one of a type radically different from the first. +There was more of the commonplace in his manner, and a certain jovial +cosmopolitanism sat upon his features. He was several years older than +the first arrival, his hair being slightly frosted, his eyebrows +bristly, and his whiskers cut back from his cheeks. His face was rather +full and flabby, and yet it was not altogether a face without power. A +few grog-blossoms marked the neighbourhood of his nose. He flung back +his long drab greatcoat, revealing that beneath it he wore a suit of +cinder-gray shade throughout, large heavy seals, of some metal or other +that would take a polish, dangling from his fob as his only personal +ornament. Shaking the water-drops from his low-crowned glazed hat, he +said, ‘I must ask for a few minutes’ shelter, comrades, or I shall be +wetted to my skin before I get to Casterbridge.’ + +‘Make yourself at home, master,’ said the shepherd, perhaps a trifle +less heartily than on the first occasion. Not that Fennel had the least +tinge of niggardliness in his composition; but the room was far from +large, spare chairs were not numerous, and damp companions were not +altogether desirable at close quarters for the women and girls in their +bright-coloured gowns. + +However, the second comer, after taking off his greatcoat, and hanging +his hat on a nail in one of the ceiling-beams as if he had been +specially invited to put it there, advanced and sat down at the table. +This had been pushed so closely into the chimney-corner, to give all +available room to the dancers, that its inner edge grazed the elbow of +the man who had ensconced himself by the fire; and thus the two +strangers were brought into close companionship. They nodded to each +other by way of breaking the ice of unacquaintance, and the first +stranger handed his neighbour the family mug—a huge vessel of brown +ware, having its upper edge worn away like a threshold by the rub of +whole generations of thirsty lips that had gone the way of all flesh, +and bearing the following inscription burnt upon its rotund side in +yellow letters + +THERE IS NO FUN +UNTiLL i CUM. + + +The other man, nothing loth, raised the mug to his lips, and drank on, +and on, and on—till a curious blueness overspread the countenance of +the shepherd’s wife, who had regarded with no little surprise the first +stranger’s free offer to the second of what did not belong to him to +dispense. + +‘I knew it!’ said the toper to the shepherd with much satisfaction. +‘When I walked up your garden before coming in, and saw the hives all +of a row, I said to myself; “Where there’s bees there’s honey, and +where there’s honey there’s mead.” But mead of such a truly comfortable +sort as this I really didn’t expect to meet in my older days.’ He took +yet another pull at the mug, till it assumed an ominous elevation. + +‘Glad you enjoy it!’ said the shepherd warmly. + +‘It is goodish mead,’ assented Mrs. Fennel, with an absence of +enthusiasm which seemed to say that it was possible to buy praise for +one’s cellar at too heavy a price. ‘It is trouble enough to make—and +really I hardly think we shall make any more. For honey sells well, and +we ourselves can make shift with a drop o’ small mead and metheglin for +common use from the comb-washings.’ + +‘O, but you’ll never have the heart!’ reproachfully cried the stranger +in cinder-gray, after taking up the mug a third time and setting it +down empty. ‘I love mead, when ’tis old like this, as I love to go to +church o’ Sundays, or to relieve the needy any day of the week.’ + +‘Ha, ha, ha!’ said the man in the chimney-corner, who, in spite of the +taciturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, could not or would not +refrain from this slight testimony to his comrade’s humour. + +Now the old mead of those days, brewed of the purest first-year or +maiden honey, four pounds to the gallon—with its due complement of +white of eggs, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, rosemary, yeast, and +processes of working, bottling, and cellaring—tasted remarkably strong; +but it did not taste so strong as it actually was. Hence, presently, +the stranger in cinder-gray at the table, moved by its creeping +influence, unbuttoned his waistcoat, threw himself back in his chair, +spread his legs, and made his presence felt in various ways. + +‘Well, well, as I say,’ he resumed, ‘I am going to Casterbridge, and to +Casterbridge I must go. I should have been almost there by this time; +but the rain drove me into your dwelling, and I’m not sorry for it.’ + +‘You don’t live in Casterbridge?’ said the shepherd. + +‘Not as yet; though I shortly mean to move there.’ + +‘Going to set up in trade, perhaps?’ + +‘No, no,’ said the shepherd’s wife. ‘It is easy to see that the +gentleman is rich, and don’t want to work at anything.’ + +The cinder-gray stranger paused, as if to consider whether he would +accept that definition of himself. He presently rejected it by +answering, ‘Rich is not quite the word for me, dame. I do work, and I +must work. And even if I only get to Casterbridge by midnight I must +begin work there at eight to-morrow morning. Yes, het or wet, blow or +snow, famine or sword, my day’s work to-morrow must be done.’ + +‘Poor man! Then, in spite o’ seeming, you be worse off than we?’ +replied the shepherd’s wife. + +‘’Tis the nature of my trade, men and maidens. ’Tis the nature of my +trade more than my poverty . . . But really and truly I must up and +off, or I shan’t get a lodging in the town.’ However, the speaker did +not move, and directly added, ‘There’s time for one more draught of +friendship before I go; and I’d perform it at once if the mug were not +dry.’ + +‘Here’s a mug o’ small,’ said Mrs. Fennel. ‘Small, we call it, though +to be sure ’tis only the first wash o’ the combs.’ + +‘No,’ said the stranger disdainfully. ‘I won’t spoil your first +kindness by partaking o’ your second.’ + +‘Certainly not,’ broke in Fennel. ‘We don’t increase and multiply every +day, and I’ll fill the mug again.’ He went away to the dark place under +the stairs where the barrel stood. The shepherdess followed him. + +‘Why should you do this?’ she said reproachfully, as soon as they were +alone. ‘He’s emptied it once, though it held enough for ten people; and +now he’s not contented wi’ the small, but must needs call for more o’ +the strong! And a stranger unbeknown to any of us. For my part, I don’t +like the look o’ the man at all.’ + +‘But he’s in the house, my honey; and ’tis a wet night, and a +christening. Daze it, what’s a cup of mead more or less? There’ll be +plenty more next bee-burning.’ + +‘Very well—this time, then,’ she answered, looking wistfully at the +barrel. ‘But what is the man’s calling, and where is he one of; that he +should come in and join us like this?’ + +‘I don’t know. I’ll ask him again.’ + +The catastrophe of having the mug drained dry at one pull by the +stranger in cinder-gray was effectually guarded against this time by +Mrs. Fennel. She poured out his allowance in a small cup, keeping the +large one at a discreet distance from him. When he had tossed off his +portion the shepherd renewed his inquiry about the stranger’s +occupation. + +The latter did not immediately reply, and the man in the +chimney-corner, with sudden demonstrativeness, said, ‘Anybody may know +my trade—I’m a wheelwright.’ + +‘A very good trade for these parts,’ said the shepherd. + +‘And anybody may know mine—if they’ve the sense to find it out,’ said +the stranger in cinder-gray. + +‘You may generally tell what a man is by his claws,’ observed the +hedge-carpenter, looking at his own hands. ‘My fingers be as full of +thorns as an old pin-cushion is of pins.’ + +The hands of the man in the chimney-corner instinctively sought the +shade, and he gazed into the fire as he resumed his pipe. The man at +the table took up the hedge-carpenter’s remark, and added smartly, +‘True; but the oddity of my trade is that, instead of setting a mark +upon me, it sets a mark upon my customers.’ + +No observation being offered by anybody in elucidation of this enigma, +the shepherd’s wife once more called for a song. The same obstacles +presented themselves as at the former time—one had no voice, another +had forgotten the first verse. The stranger at the table, whose soul +had now risen to a good working temperature, relieved the difficulty by +exclaiming that, to start the company, he would sing himself. Thrusting +one thumb into the arm-hole of his waistcoat, he waved the other hand +in the air, and, with an extemporizing gaze at the shining sheep-crooks +above the mantelpiece, began:— + +‘O my trade it is the rarest one, +Simple shepherds all— +My trade is a sight to see; +For my customers I tie, and take them up on high, +And waft ’em to a far countree!’ + + +The room was silent when he had finished the verse—with one exception, +that of the man in the chimney-corner, who, at the singer’s word, +‘Chorus! ‘joined him in a deep bass voice of musical relish— + +‘And waft ’em to a far countree!’ + + +Oliver Giles, John Pitcher the dairyman, the parish-clerk, the engaged +man of fifty, the row of young women against the wall, seemed lost in +thought not of the gayest kind. The shepherd looked meditatively on the +ground, the shepherdess gazed keenly at the singer, and with some +suspicion; she was doubting whether this stranger were merely singing +an old song from recollection, or was composing one there and then for +the occasion. All were as perplexed at the obscure revelation as the +guests at Belshazzar’s Feast, except the man in the chimney-corner, who +quietly said, ‘Second verse, stranger,’ and smoked on. + +The singer thoroughly moistened himself from his lips inwards, and went +on with the next stanza as requested:- + +My tools are but common ones, +Simple shepherds all— +My tools are no sight to see: +A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing, +Are implements enough for me!’ + + +Shepherd Fennel glanced round. There was no longer any doubt that the +stranger was answering his question rhythmically. The guests one and +all started back with suppressed exclamations. The young woman engaged +to the man of fifty fainted half-way, and would have proceeded, but +finding him wanting in alacrity for catching her she sat down +trembling. + +‘O, he’s the—!’ whispered the people in the background, mentioning the +name of an ominous public officer. ‘He’s come to do it! ’Tis to be at +Casterbridge jail to-morrow—the man for sheep-stealing—the poor +clock-maker we heard of; who used to live away at Shottsford and had no +work to do—Timothy Summers, whose family were a-starving, and so he +went out of Shottsford by the high-road, and took a sheep in open +daylight, defying the farmer and the farmer’s wife and the farmer’s +lad, and every man jack among ’em. He’ (and they nodded towards the +stranger of the deadly trade) ‘is come from up the country to do it +because there’s not enough to do in his own county-town, and he’s got +the place here now our own county man’s dead; he’s going to live in the +same cottage under the prison wall.’ + +The stranger in cinder-gray took no notice of this whispered string of +observations, but again wetted his lips. Seeing that his friend in the +chimney-corner was the only one who reciprocated his joviality in any +way, he held out his cup towards that appreciative comrade, who also +held out his own. They clinked together, the eyes of the rest of the +room hanging upon the singer’s actions. He parted his lips for the +third verse; but at that moment another knock was audible upon the +door. This time the knock was faint and hesitating. + +The company seemed scared; the shepherd looked with consternation +towards the entrance, and it was with some effort that he resisted his +alarmed wife’s deprecatory glance, and uttered for the third time the +welcoming words, ‘Walk in!’ + +The door was gently opened, and another man stood upon the mat. He, +like those who had preceded him, was a stranger. This time it was a +short, small personage, of fair complexion, and dressed in a decent +suit of dark clothes. + +‘Can you tell me the way to—?’ he began: when, gazing round the room to +observe the nature of the company amongst whom he had fallen, his eyes +lighted on the stranger in cinder-gray. It was just at the instant when +the latter, who had thrown his mind into his song with such a will that +he scarcely heeded the interruption, silenced all whispers and +inquiries by bursting into his third verse:- + +To-morrow is my working day, +Simple shepherds all— +To-morrow is a working day for me: +For the farmer’s sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta’en, +And on his soul may God ha’ merc-y!’ + + +The stranger in the chimney-corner, waving cups with the singer so +heartily that his mead splashed over on the hearth, repeated in his +bass voice as before:- + +‘And on his soul may God ha’ merc-y!’ + + +All this time the third stranger had been standing in the doorway. +Finding now that he did not come forward or go on speaking, the guests +particularly regarded him. They noticed to their surprise that he stood +before them the picture of abject terror—his knees trembling, his hand +shaking so violently that the door-latch by which he supported himself +rattled audibly: his white lips were parted, and his eyes fixed on the +merry officer of justice in the middle of the room. A moment more and +he had turned, closed the door, and fled. + +‘What a man can it be?’ said the shepherd. + +The rest, between the awfulness of their late discovery and the odd +conduct of this third visitor, looked as if they knew not what to +think, and said nothing. Instinctively they withdrew further and +further from the grim gentleman in their midst, whom some of them +seemed to take for the Prince of Darkness himself; till they formed a +remote circle, an empty space of floor being left between them and him— + +‘ . . . circulus, cujus centrum diabolus.’ + + +The room was so silent—though there were more than twenty people in +it—that nothing could be heard but the patter of the rain against the +window-shutters, accompanied by the occasional hiss of a stray drop +that fell down the chimney into the fire, and the steady puffing of the +man in the corner, who had now resumed his pipe of long clay. + +The stillness was unexpectedly broken. The distant sound of a gun +reverberated through the air—apparently from the direction of the +county-town. + +‘Be jiggered!’ cried the stranger who had sung the song, jumping up. + +‘What does that mean?’ asked several. + +‘A prisoner escaped from the jail—that’s what it means.’ + +All listened. The sound was repeated, and none of them spoke but the +man in the chimney-corner, who said quietly, ‘I’ve often been told that +in this county they fire a gun at such times; but I never heard it till +now.’ + +‘I wonder if it is _my_ man?’ murmured the personage in cinder-gray. + +‘Surely it is!’ said the shepherd involuntarily. ‘And surely we’ve zeed +him! That little man who looked in at the door by now, and quivered +like a leaf when he zeed ye and heard your song!’ + +‘His teeth chattered, and the breath went out of his body,’ said the +dairyman. + +‘And his heart seemed to sink within him like a stone,’ said Oliver +Giles. + +‘And he bolted as if he’d been shot at,’ said the hedge-carpenter. + +‘True—his teeth chattered, and his heart seemed to sink; and he bolted +as if he’d been shot at,’ slowly summed up the man in the +chimney-corner. + +‘I didn’t notice it,’ remarked the hangman. + +‘We were all a-wondering what made him run off in such a fright,’ +faltered one of the women against the wall, ‘and now ’tis explained!’ + +The firing of the alarm-gun went on at intervals, low and sullenly, and +their suspicions became a certainty. The sinister gentleman in +cinder-gray roused himself. ‘Is there a constable here?’ he asked, in +thick tones. ‘If so, let him step forward.’ + +The engaged man of fifty stepped quavering out from the wall, his +betrothed beginning to sob on the back of the chair. + +‘You are a sworn constable?’ + +‘I be, sir.’ + +‘Then pursue the criminal at once, with assistance, and bring him back +here. He can’t have gone far.’ + +‘I will, sir, I will—when I’ve got my staff. I’ll go home and get it, +and come sharp here, and start in a body.’ + +‘Staff!—never mind your staff; the man’ll be gone!’ + +‘But I can’t do nothing without my staff—can I, William, and John, and +Charles Jake? No; for there’s the king’s royal crown a painted on en in +yaller and gold, and the lion and the unicorn, so as when I raise en up +and hit my prisoner, ’tis made a lawful blow thereby. I wouldn’t ‘tempt +to take up a man without my staff—no, not I. If I hadn’t the law to gie +me courage, why, instead o’ my taking up him he might take up me!’ + +‘Now, I’m a king’s man myself; and can give you authority enough for +this,’ said the formidable officer in gray. ‘Now then, all of ye, be +ready. Have ye any lanterns?’ + +‘Yes—have ye any lanterns?—I demand it!’ said the constable. + +‘And the rest of you able-bodied—’ + +‘Able-bodied men—yes—the rest of ye!’ said the constable. + +‘Have you some good stout staves and pitch-forks—’ + +‘Staves and pitchforks—in the name o’ the law! And take ’em in yer +hands and go in quest, and do as we in authority tell ye!’ + +Thus aroused, the men prepared to give chase. The evidence was, indeed, +though circumstantial, so convincing, that but little argument was +needed to show the shepherd’s guests that after what they had seen it +would look very much like connivance if they did not instantly pursue +the unhappy third stranger, who could not as yet have gone more than a +few hundred yards over such uneven country. + +A shepherd is always well provided with lanterns; and, lighting these +hastily, and with hurdle-staves in their hands, they poured out of the +door, taking a direction along the crest of the hill, away from the +town, the rain having fortunately a little abated. + +Disturbed by the noise, or possibly by unpleasant dreams of her +baptism, the child who had been christened began to cry heart-brokenly +in the room overhead. These notes of grief came down through the chinks +of the floor to the ears of the women below, who jumped up one by one, +and seemed glad of the excuse to ascend and comfort the baby, for the +incidents of the last half-hour greatly oppressed them. Thus in the +space of two or three minutes the room on the ground-floor was deserted +quite. + +But it was not for long. Hardly had the sound of footsteps died away +when a man returned round the corner of the house from the direction +the pursuers had taken. Peeping in at the door, and seeing nobody +there, he entered leisurely. It was the stranger of the chimney-corner, +who had gone out with the rest. The motive of his return was shown by +his helping himself to a cut piece of skimmer-cake that lay on a ledge +beside where he had sat, and which he had apparently forgotten to take +with him. He also poured out half a cup more mead from the quantity +that remained, ravenously eating and drinking these as he stood. He had +not finished when another figure came in just as quietly—his friend in +cinder-gray. + +‘O—you here?’ said the latter, smiling. ‘I thought you had gone to help +in the capture.’ And this speaker also revealed the object of his +return by looking solicitously round for the fascinating mug of old +mead. + +‘And I thought you had gone,’ said the other, continuing his +skimmer-cake with some effort. + +‘Well, on second thoughts, I felt there were enough without me,’ said +the first confidentially, ‘and such a night as it is, too. Besides, +’tis the business o’ the Government to take care of its criminals—not +mine.’ + +‘True; so it is. And I felt as you did, that there were enough without +me.’ + +‘I don’t want to break my limbs running over the humps and hollows of +this wild country.’ + +‘Nor I neither, between you and me.’ + +‘These shepherd-people are used to it—simple-minded souls, you know, +stirred up to anything in a moment. They’ll have him ready for me +before the morning, and no trouble to me at all.’ + +‘They’ll have him, and we shall have saved ourselves all labour in the +matter.’ + +‘True, true. Well, my way is to Casterbridge; and ’tis as much as my +legs will do to take me that far. Going the same way?’ + +‘No, I am sorry to say! I have to get home over there’ (he nodded +indefinitely to the right), ‘and I feel as you do, that it is quite +enough for my legs to do before bedtime.’ + +The other had by this time finished the mead in the mug, after which, +shaking hands heartily at the door, and wishing each other well, they +went their several ways. + +In the meantime the company of pursuers had reached the end of the +hog’s-back elevation which dominated this part of the down. They had +decided on no particular plan of action; and, finding that the man of +the baleful trade was no longer in their company, they seemed quite +unable to form any such plan now. They descended in all directions down +the hill, and straightway several of the party fell into the snare set +by Nature for all misguided midnight ramblers over this part of the +cretaceous formation. The ‘lanchets,’ or flint slopes, which belted the +escarpment at intervals of a dozen yards, took the less cautious ones +unawares, and losing their footing on the rubbly steep they slid +sharply downwards, the lanterns rolling from their hands to the bottom, +and there lying on their sides till the horn was scorched through. + +When they had again gathered themselves together, the shepherd, as the +man who knew the country best, took the lead, and guided them round +these treacherous inclines. The lanterns, which seemed rather to dazzle +their eyes and warn the fugitive than to assist them in the +exploration, were extinguished, due silence was observed; and in this +more rational order they plunged into the vale. It was a grassy, +briery, moist defile, affording some shelter to any person who had +sought it; but the party perambulated it in vain, and ascended on the +other side. Here they wandered apart, and after an interval closed +together again to report progress. + +At the second time of closing in they found themselves near a lonely +ash, the single tree on this part of the coomb, probably sown there by +a passing bird some fifty years before. And here, standing a little to +one side of the trunk, as motionless as the trunk itself; appeared the +man they were in quest of; his outline being well defined against the +sky beyond. The band noiselessly drew up and faced him. + +‘Your money or your life!’ said the constable sternly to the still +figure. + +‘No, no,’ whispered John Pitcher. ‘’Tisn’t our side ought to say that. +That’s the doctrine of vagabonds like him, and we be on the side of the +law.’ + +‘Well, well,’ replied the constable impatiently; ‘I must say something, +mustn’t I? and if you had all the weight o’ this undertaking upon your +mind, perhaps you’d say the wrong thing too!—Prisoner at the bar, +surrender, in the name of the Father—the Crown, I mane!’ + +The man under the tree seemed now to notice them for the first time, +and, giving them no opportunity whatever for exhibiting their courage, +he strolled slowly towards them. He was, indeed, the little man, the +third stranger; but his trepidation had in a great measure gone. + +‘Well, travellers,’ he said, ‘did I hear ye speak to me?’ + +‘You did: you’ve got to come and be our prisoner at once!’ said the +constable. ‘We arrest ‘ee on the charge of not biding in Casterbridge +jail in a decent proper manner to be hung to-morrow morning. +Neighbours, do your duty, and seize the culpet!’ + +On hearing the charge, the man seemed enlightened, and, saying not +another word, resigned himself with preternatural civility to the +search-party, who, with their staves in their hands, surrounded him on +all sides, and marched him back towards the shepherd’s cottage. + +It was eleven o’clock by the time they arrived. The light shining from +the open door, a sound of men’s voices within, proclaimed to them as +they approached the house that some new events had arisen in their +absence. On entering they discovered the shepherd’s living room to be +invaded by two officers from Casterbridge jail, and a well-known +magistrate who lived at the nearest country-seat, intelligence of the +escape having become generally circulated. + +‘Gentlemen,’ said the constable, ‘I have brought back your man—not +without risk and danger; but every one must do his duty! He is inside +this circle of able-bodied persons, who have lent me useful aid, +considering their ignorance of Crown work. Men, bring forward your +prisoner!’ And the third stranger was led to the light. + +‘Who is this?’ said one of the officials. + +‘The man,’ said the constable. + +‘Certainly not,’ said the turnkey; and the first corroborated his +statement. + +‘But how can it be otherwise?’ asked the constable. ‘Or why was he so +terrified at sight o’ the singing instrument of the law who sat there?’ +Here he related the strange behaviour of the third stranger on entering +the house during the hangman’s song. + +‘Can’t understand it,’ said the officer coolly. ‘All I know is that it +is not the condemned man. He’s quite a different character from this +one; a gauntish fellow, with dark hair and eyes, rather good-looking, +and with a musical bass voice that if you heard it once you’d never +mistake as long as you lived.’ + +‘Why, souls—’twas the man in the chimney-corner!’ + +‘Hey—what?’ said the magistrate, coming forward after inquiring +particulars from the shepherd in the background. ‘Haven’t you got the +man after all?’ + +‘Well, sir,’ said the constable, ‘he’s the man we were in search of, +that’s true; and yet he’s not the man we were in search of. For the man +we were in search of was not the man we wanted, sir, if you understand +my everyday way; for ’twas the man in the chimney-corner!’ + +‘A pretty kettle of fish altogether!’ said the magistrate. ‘You had +better start for the other man at once.’ + +The prisoner now spoke for the first time. The mention of the man in +the chimney-corner seemed to have moved him as nothing else could do. +‘Sir,’ he said, stepping forward to the magistrate, ‘take no more +trouble about me. The time is come when I may as well speak. I have +done nothing; my crime is that the condemned man is my brother. Early +this afternoon I left home at Shottsford to tramp it all the way to +Casterbridge jail to bid him farewell. I was benighted, and called here +to rest and ask the way. When I opened the door I saw before me the +very man, my brother, that I thought to see in the condemned cell at +Casterbridge. He was in this chimney-corner; and jammed close to him, +so that he could not have got out if he had tried, was the executioner +who’d come to take his life, singing a song about it and not knowing +that it was his victim who was close by, joining in to save +appearances. My brother looked a glance of agony at me, and I knew he +meant, “Don’t reveal what you see; my life depends on it.” I was so +terror-struck that I could hardly stand, and, not knowing what I did, I +turned and hurried away.’ + +The narrator’s manner and tone had the stamp of truth, and his story +made a great impression on all around. ‘And do you know where your +brother is at the present time?’ asked the magistrate. + +‘I do not. I have never seen him since I closed this door.’ + +‘I can testify to that, for we’ve been between ye ever since,’ said the +constable. + +‘Where does he think to fly to?—what is his occupation?’ + +‘He’s a watch-and-clock-maker, sir.’ + +‘’A said ’a was a wheelwright—a wicked rogue,’ said the constable. + +‘The wheels of clocks and watches he meant, no doubt,’ said Shepherd +Fennel. ‘I thought his hands were palish for’s trade.’ + +‘Well, it appears to me that nothing can be gained by retaining this +poor man in custody,’ said the magistrate; ‘your business lies with the +other, unquestionably.’ + +And so the little man was released off-hand; but he looked nothing the +less sad on that account, it being beyond the power of magistrate or +constable to raze out the written troubles in his brain, for they +concerned another whom he regarded with more solicitude than himself. +When this was done, and the man had gone his way, the night was found +to be so far advanced that it was deemed useless to renew the search +before the next morning. + +Next day, accordingly, the quest for the clever sheep-stealer became +general and keen, to all appearance at least. But the intended +punishment was cruelly disproportioned to the transgression, and the +sympathy of a great many country-folk in that district was strongly on +the side of the fugitive. Moreover, his marvellous coolness and daring +in hob-and-nobbing with the hangman, under the unprecedented +circumstances of the shepherd’s party, won their admiration. So that it +may be questioned if all those who ostensibly made themselves so busy +in exploring woods and fields and lanes were quite so thorough when it +came to the private examination of their own lofts and outhouses. +Stories were afloat of a mysterious figure being occasionally seen in +some old overgrown trackway or other, remote from turnpike roads; but +when a search was instituted in any of these suspected quarters nobody +was found. Thus the days and weeks passed without tidings. + +In brief; the bass-voiced man of the chimney-corner was never +recaptured. Some said that he went across the sea, others that he did +not, but buried himself in the depths of a populous city. At any rate, +the gentleman in cinder-gray never did his morning’s work at +Casterbridge, nor met anywhere at all, for business purposes, the +genial comrade with whom he had passed an hour of relaxation in the +lonely house on the coomb. + +The grass has long been green on the graves of Shepherd Fennel and his +frugal wife; the guests who made up the christening party have mainly +followed their entertainers to the tomb; the baby in whose honour they +all had met is a matron in the sere and yellow leaf. But the arrival of +the three strangers at the shepherd’s that night, and the details +connected therewith, is a story as well known as ever in the country +about Higher Crowstairs. + +March 1883. + + + + +THE WITHERED ARM + + +CHAPTER I—A LORN MILKMAID + +It was an eighty-cow dairy, and the troop of milkers, regular and +supernumerary, were all at work; for, though the time of year was as +yet but early April, the feed lay entirely in water-meadows, and the +cows were ‘in full pail.’ The hour was about six in the evening, and +three-fourths of the large, red, rectangular animals having been +finished off, there was opportunity for a little conversation. + +‘He do bring home his bride to-morrow, I hear. They’ve come as far as +Anglebury to-day.’ + +The voice seemed to proceed from the belly of the cow called Cherry, +but the speaker was a milking-woman, whose face was buried in the flank +of that motionless beast. + +‘Hav’ anybody seen her?’ said another. + +There was a negative response from the first. ‘Though they say she’s a +rosy-cheeked, tisty-tosty little body enough,’ she added; and as the +milkmaid spoke she turned her face so that she could glance past her +cow’s tail to the other side of the barton, where a thin, fading woman +of thirty milked somewhat apart from the rest. + +‘Years younger than he, they say,’ continued the second, with also a +glance of reflectiveness in the same direction. + +‘How old do you call him, then?’ + +‘Thirty or so.’ + +‘More like forty,’ broke in an old milkman near, in a long white +pinafore or ‘wropper,’ and with the brim of his hat tied down, so that +he looked like a woman. ‘’A was born before our Great Weir was builded, +and I hadn’t man’s wages when I laved water there.’ + +The discussion waxed so warm that the purr of the milk-streams became +jerky, till a voice from another cow’s belly cried with authority, ‘Now +then, what the Turk do it matter to us about Farmer Lodge’s age, or +Farmer Lodge’s new mis’ess? I shall have to pay him nine pound a year +for the rent of every one of these milchers, whatever his age or hers. +Get on with your work, or ’twill be dark afore we have done. The +evening is pinking in a’ready.’ This speaker was the dairyman himself; +by whom the milkmaids and men were employed. + +Nothing more was said publicly about Farmer Lodge’s wedding, but the +first woman murmured under her cow to her next neighbour, ‘’Tis hard +for _she_,’ signifying the thin worn milkmaid aforesaid. + +‘O no,’ said the second. ‘He ha’n’t spoke to Rhoda Brook for years.’ + +When the milking was done they washed their pails and hung them on a +many-forked stand made of the peeled limb of an oak-tree, set upright +in the earth, and resembling a colossal antlered horn. The majority +then dispersed in various directions homeward. The thin woman who had +not spoken was joined by a boy of twelve or thereabout, and the twain +went away up the field also. + +Their course lay apart from that of the others, to a lonely spot high +above the water-meads, and not far from the border of Egdon Heath, +whose dark countenance was visible in the distance as they drew nigh to +their home. + +‘They’ve just been saying down in barton that your father brings his +young wife home from Anglebury to-morrow,’ the woman observed. ‘I shall +want to send you for a few things to market, and you’ll be pretty sure +to meet ’em.’ + +‘Yes, mother,’ said the boy. ‘Is father married then?’ + +‘Yes . . . You can give her a look, and tell me what’s she’s like, if +you do see her.’ + +‘Yes, mother.’ + +‘If she’s dark or fair, and if she’s tall—as tall as I. And if she +seems like a woman who has ever worked for a living, or one that has +been always well off, and has never done anything, and shows marks of +the lady on her, as I expect she do.’ + +‘Yes.’ + +They crept up the hill in the twilight, and entered the cottage. It was +built of mud-walls, the surface of which had been washed by many rains +into channels and depressions that left none of the original flat face +visible; while here and there in the thatch above a rafter showed like +a bone protruding through the skin. + +She was kneeling down in the chimney-corner, before two pieces of turf +laid together with the heather inwards, blowing at the red-hot ashes +with her breath till the turves flamed. The radiance lit her pale +cheek, and made her dark eyes, that had once been handsome, seem +handsome anew. ‘Yes,’ she resumed, ‘see if she is dark or fair, and if +you can, notice if her hands be white; if not, see if they look as +though she had ever done housework, or are milker’s hands like mine.’ + +The boy again promised, inattentively this time, his mother not +observing that he was cutting a notch with his pocket-knife in the +beech-backed chair. + +CHAPTER II—THE YOUNG WIFE + +The road from Anglebury to Holmstoke is in general level; but there is +one place where a sharp ascent breaks its monotony. Farmers +homeward-bound from the former market-town, who trot all the rest of +the way, walk their horses up this short incline. + +The next evening, while the sun was yet bright, a handsome new gig, +with a lemon-coloured body and red wheels, was spinning westward along +the level highway at the heels of a powerful mare. The driver was a +yeoman in the prime of life, cleanly shaven like an actor, his face +being toned to that bluish-vermilion hue which so often graces a +thriving farmer’s features when returning home after successful +dealings in the town. Beside him sat a woman, many years his +junior—almost, indeed, a girl. Her face too was fresh in colour, but it +was of a totally different quality—soft and evanescent, like the light +under a heap of rose-petals. + +Few people travelled this way, for it was not a main road; and the long +white riband of gravel that stretched before them was empty, save of +one small scarce-moving speck, which presently resolved itself into the +figure of boy, who was creeping on at a snail’s pace, and continually +looking behind him—the heavy bundle he carried being some excuse for, +if not the reason of, his dilatoriness. When the bouncing gig-party +slowed at the bottom of the incline above mentioned, the pedestrian was +only a few yards in front. Supporting the large bundle by putting one +hand on his hip, he turned and looked straight at the farmer’s wife as +though he would read her through and through, pacing along abreast of +the horse. + +The low sun was full in her face, rendering every feature, shade, and +contour distinct, from the curve of her little nostril to the colour of +her eyes. The farmer, though he seemed annoyed at the boy’s persistent +presence, did not order him to get out of the way; and thus the lad +preceded them, his hard gaze never leaving her, till they reached the +top of the ascent, when the farmer trotted on with relief in his +lineaments—having taken no outward notice of the boy whatever. + +‘How that poor lad stared at me!’ said the young wife. + +‘Yes, dear; I saw that he did.’ + +‘He is one of the village, I suppose?’ + +‘One of the neighbourhood. I think he lives with his mother a mile or +two off.’ + +‘He knows who we are, no doubt?’ + +‘O yes. You must expect to be stared at just at first, my pretty +Gertrude.’ + +‘I do,—though I think the poor boy may have looked at us in the hope we +might relieve him of his heavy load, rather than from curiosity.’ + +‘O no,’ said her husband off-handedly. ‘These country lads will carry a +hundredweight once they get it on their backs; besides his pack had +more size than weight in it. Now, then, another mile and I shall be +able to show you our house in the distance—if it is not too dark before +we get there.’ The wheels spun round, and particles flew from their +periphery as before, till a white house of ample dimensions revealed +itself, with farm-buildings and ricks at the back. + +Meanwhile the boy had quickened his pace, and turning up a by-lane some +mile and half short of the white farmstead, ascended towards the leaner +pastures, and so on to the cottage of his mother. + +She had reached home after her day’s milking at the outlying dairy, and +was washing cabbage at the doorway in the declining light. ‘Hold up the +net a moment,’ she said, without preface, as the boy came up. + +He flung down his bundle, held the edge of the cabbage-net, and as she +filled its meshes with the dripping leaves she went on, ‘Well, did you +see her?’ + +‘Yes; quite plain.’ + +‘Is she ladylike?’ + +‘Yes; and more. A lady complete.’ + +‘Is she young?’ + +‘Well, she’s growed up, and her ways be quite a woman’s.’ + +‘Of course. What colour is her hair and face?’ + +‘Her hair is lightish, and her face as comely as a live doll’s.’ + +‘Her eyes, then, are not dark like mine?’ + +‘No—of a bluish turn, and her mouth is very nice and red; and when she +smiles, her teeth show white.’ + +‘Is she tall?’ said the woman sharply. + +‘I couldn’t see. She was sitting down.’ + +‘Then do you go to Holmstoke church to-morrow morning: she’s sure to be +there. Go early and notice her walking in, and come home and tell me if +she’s taller than I.’ + +‘Very well, mother. But why don’t you go and see for yourself?’ + +_‘I_ go to see her! I wouldn’t look up at her if she were to pass my +window this instant. She was with Mr. Lodge, of course. What did he say +or do?’ + +‘Just the same as usual.’ + +‘Took no notice of you?’ + +‘None.’ + +Next day the mother put a clean shirt on the boy, and started him off +for Holmstoke church. He reached the ancient little pile when the door +was just being opened, and he was the first to enter. Taking his seat +by the font, he watched all the parishioners file in. The well-to-do +Farmer Lodge came nearly last; and his young wife, who accompanied him, +walked up the aisle with the shyness natural to a modest woman who had +appeared thus for the first time. As all other eyes were fixed upon +her, the youth’s stare was not noticed now. + +When he reached home his mother said, ‘Well?’ before he had entered the +room. + +‘She is not tall. She is rather short,’ he replied. + +‘Ah!’ said his mother, with satisfaction. + +‘But she’s very pretty—very. In fact, she’s lovely.’ + +The youthful freshness of the yeoman’s wife had evidently made an +impression even on the somewhat hard nature of the boy. + +‘That’s all I want to hear,’ said his mother quickly. ‘Now, spread the +table-cloth. The hare you caught is very tender; but mind that nobody +catches you.—You’ve never told me what sort of hands she had.’ + +‘I have never seen ’em. She never took off her gloves.’ + +‘What did she wear this morning?’ + +‘A white bonnet and a silver-coloured gownd. It whewed and whistled so +loud when it rubbed against the pews that the lady coloured up more +than ever for very shame at the noise, and pulled it in to keep it from +touching; but when she pushed into her seat, it whewed more than ever. +Mr. Lodge, he seemed pleased, and his waistcoat stuck out, and his +great golden seals hung like a lord’s; but she seemed to wish her noisy +gownd anywhere but on her.’ + +‘Not she! However, that will do now.’ + +These descriptions of the newly-married couple were continued from time +to time by the boy at his mother’s request, after any chance encounter +he had had with them. But Rhoda Brook, though she might easily have +seen young Mrs. Lodge for herself by walking a couple of miles, would +never attempt an excursion towards the quarter where the farmhouse lay. +Neither did she, at the daily milking in the dairyman’s yard on Lodge’s +outlying second farm, ever speak on the subject of the recent marriage. +The dairyman, who rented the cows of Lodge, and knew perfectly the tall +milkmaid’s history, with manly kindliness always kept the gossip in the +cow-barton from annoying Rhoda. But the atmosphere thereabout was full +of the subject during the first days of Mrs. Lodge’s arrival; and from +her boy’s description and the casual words of the other milkers, Rhoda +Brook could raise a mental image of the unconscious Mrs Lodge that was +realistic as a photograph. + +CHAPTER III—A VISION + +One night, two or three weeks after the bridal return, when the boy was +gone to bed, Rhoda sat a long time over the turf ashes that she had +raked out in front of her to extinguish them. She contemplated so +intently the new wife, as presented to her in her mind’s eye over the +embers, that she forgot the lapse of time. At last, wearied with her +day’s work, she too retired. + +But the figure which had occupied her so much during this and the +previous days was not to be banished at night. For the first time +Gertrude Lodge visited the supplanted woman in her dreams. Rhoda Brook +dreamed—since her assertion that she really saw, before falling asleep, +was not to be believed—that the young wife, in the pale silk dress and +white bonnet, but with features shockingly distorted, and wrinkled as +by age, was sitting upon her chest as she lay. The pressure of Mrs. +Lodge’s person grew heavier; the blue eyes peered cruelly into her +face; and then the figure thrust forward its left hand mockingly, so as +to make the wedding-ring it wore glitter in Rhoda’s eyes. Maddened +mentally, and nearly suffocated by pressure, the sleeper struggled; the +incubus, still regarding her, withdrew to the foot of the bed, only, +however, to come forward by degrees, resume her seat, and flash her +left hand as before. + +Gasping for breath, Rhoda, in a last desperate effort, swung out her +right hand, seized the confronting spectre by its obtrusive left arm, +and whirled it backward to the floor, starting up herself as she did so +with a low cry. + +‘O, merciful heaven!’ she cried, sitting on the edge of the bed in a +cold sweat; ‘that was not a dream—she was here!’ + +She could feel her antagonist’s arm within her grasp even now—the very +flesh and bone of it, as it seemed. She looked on the floor whither she +had whirled the spectre, but there was nothing to be seen. + +Rhoda Brook slept no more that night, and when she went milking at the +next dawn they noticed how pale and haggard she looked. The milk that +she drew quivered into the pail; her hand had not calmed even yet, and +still retained the feel of the arm. She came home to breakfast as +wearily as if it had been suppertime. + +‘What was that noise in your chimmer, mother, last night?’ said her +son. ‘You fell off the bed, surely?’ + +‘Did you hear anything fall? At what time?’ + +‘Just when the clock struck two.’ + +She could not explain, and when the meal was done went silently about +her household work, the boy assisting her, for he hated going afield on +the farms, and she indulged his reluctance. Between eleven and twelve +the garden-gate clicked, and she lifted her eyes to the window. At the +bottom of the garden, within the gate, stood the woman of her vision. +Rhoda seemed transfixed. + +‘Ah, she said she would come!’ exclaimed the boy, also observing her. + +‘Said so—when? How does she know us?’ + +‘I have seen and spoken to her. I talked to her yesterday.’ + +‘I told you,’ said the mother, flushing indignantly, ‘never to speak to +anybody in that house, or go near the place.’ + +‘I did not speak to her till she spoke to me. And I did not go near the +place. I met her in the road.’ + +‘What did you tell her?’ + +‘Nothing. She said, “Are you the poor boy who had to bring the heavy +load from market?” And she looked at my boots, and said they would not +keep my feet dry if it came on wet, because they were so cracked. I +told her I lived with my mother, and we had enough to do to keep +ourselves, and that’s how it was; and she said then, “I’ll come and +bring you some better boots, and see your mother.” She gives away +things to other folks in the meads besides us.’ + +Mrs. Lodge was by this time close to the door—not in her silk, as Rhoda +had seen her in the bed-chamber, but in a morning hat, and gown of +common light material, which became her better than silk. On her arm +she carried a basket. + +The impression remaining from the night’s experience was still strong. +Brook had almost expected to see the wrinkles, the scorn, and the +cruelty on her visitor’s face. + +She would have escaped an interview, had escape been possible. There +was, however, no backdoor to the cottage, and in an instant the boy had +lifted the latch to Mrs. Lodge’s gentle knock. + +‘I see I have come to the right house,’ said she, glancing at the lad, +and smiling. ‘But I was not sure till you opened the door.’ + +The figure and action were those of the phantom; but her voice was so +indescribably sweet, her glance so winning, her smile so tender, so +unlike that of Rhoda’s midnight visitant, that the latter could hardly +believe the evidence of her senses. She was truly glad that she had not +hidden away in sheer aversion, as she had been inclined to do. In her +basket Mrs. Lodge brought the pair of boots that she had promised to +the boy, and other useful articles. + +At these proofs of a kindly feeling towards her and hers Rhoda’s heart +reproached her bitterly. This innocent young thing should have her +blessing and not her curse. When she left them a light seemed gone from +the dwelling. Two days later she came again to know if the boots +fitted; and less than a fortnight after that paid Rhoda another call. +On this occasion the boy was absent. + +‘I walk a good deal,’ said Mrs. Lodge, ‘and your house is the nearest +outside our own parish. I hope you are well. You don’t look quite +well.’ + +Rhoda said she was well enough; and, indeed, though the paler of the +two, there was more of the strength that endures in her well-defined +features and large frame, than in the soft-cheeked young woman before +her. The conversation became quite confidential as regarded their +powers and weaknesses; and when Mrs. Lodge was leaving, Rhoda said, ‘I +hope you will find this air agree with you, ma’am, and not suffer from +the damp of the water-meads.’ + +The younger one replied that there was not much doubt of it, her +general health being usually good. ‘Though, now you remind me,’ she +added, ‘I have one little ailment which puzzles me. It is nothing +serious, but I cannot make it out.’ + +She uncovered her left hand and arm; and their outline confronted +Rhoda’s gaze as the exact original of the limb she had beheld and +seized in her dream. Upon the pink round surface of the arm were faint +marks of an unhealthy colour, as if produced by a rough grasp. Rhoda’s +eyes became riveted on the discolorations; she fancied that she +discerned in them the shape of her own four fingers. + +‘How did it happen?’ she said mechanically. + +‘I cannot tell,’ replied Mrs. Lodge, shaking her head. ‘One night when +I was sound asleep, dreaming I was away in some strange place, a pain +suddenly shot into my arm there, and was so keen as to awaken me. I +must have struck it in the daytime, I suppose, though I don’t remember +doing so.’ She added, laughing, ‘I tell my dear husband that it looks +just as if he had flown into a rage and struck me there. O, I daresay +it will soon disappear.’ + +‘Ha, ha! Yes . . . On what night did it come?’ + +Mrs. Lodge considered, and said it would be a fortnight ago on the +morrow. ‘When I awoke I could not remember where I was,’ she added, +’till the clock striking two reminded me.’ + +She had named the night and the hour of Rhoda’s spectral encounter, and +Brook felt like a guilty thing. The artless disclosure startled her; +she did not reason on the freaks of coincidence; and all the scenery of +that ghastly night returned with double vividness to her mind. + +‘O, can it be,’ she said to herself, when her visitor had departed, +‘that I exercise a malignant power over people against my own will?’ +She knew that she had been slily called a witch since her fall; but +never having understood why that particular stigma had been attached to +her, it had passed disregarded. Could this be the explanation, and had +such things as this ever happened before? + +CHAPTER IV—A SUGGESTION + +The summer drew on, and Rhoda Brook almost dreaded to meet Mrs. Lodge +again, notwithstanding that her feeling for the young wife amounted +well-nigh to affection. Something in her own individuality seemed to +convict Rhoda of crime. Yet a fatality sometimes would direct the steps +of the latter to the outskirts of Holmstoke whenever she left her house +for any other purpose than her daily work; and hence it happened that +their next encounter was out of doors. Rhoda could not avoid the +subject which had so mystified her, and after the first few words she +stammered, ‘I hope your—arm is well again, ma’am?’ She had perceived +with consternation that Gertrude Lodge carried her left arm stiffly. + +‘No; it is not quite well. Indeed it is no better at all; it is rather +worse. It pains me dreadfully sometimes.’ + +‘Perhaps you had better go to a doctor, ma’am.’ + +She replied that she had already seen a doctor. Her husband had +insisted upon her going to one. But the surgeon had not seemed to +understand the afflicted limb at all; he had told her to bathe it in +hot water, and she had bathed it, but the treatment had done no good. + +‘Will you let me see it?’ said the milkwoman. + +Mrs. Lodge pushed up her sleeve and disclosed the place, which was a +few inches above the wrist. As soon as Rhoda Brook saw it, she could +hardly preserve her composure. There was nothing of the nature of a +wound, but the arm at that point had a shrivelled look, and the outline +of the four fingers appeared more distinct than at the former time. +Moreover, she fancied that they were imprinted in precisely the +relative position of her clutch upon the arm in the trance; the first +finger towards Gertrude’s wrist, and the fourth towards her elbow. + +What the impress resembled seemed to have struck Gertrude herself since +their last meeting. ‘It looks almost like finger-marks,’ she said; +adding with a faint laugh, ‘my husband says it is as if some witch, or +the devil himself, had taken hold of me there, and blasted the flesh.’ + +Rhoda shivered. ‘That’s fancy,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I wouldn’t mind +it, if I were you.’ + +‘I shouldn’t so much mind it,’ said the younger, with hesitation, +‘if—if I hadn’t a notion that it makes my husband—dislike me—no, love +me less. Men think so much of personal appearance.’ + +‘Some do—he for one.’ + +‘Yes; and he was very proud of mine, at first.’ + +‘Keep your arm covered from his sight.’ + +‘Ah—he knows the disfigurement is there!’ She tried to hide the tears +that filled her eyes. + +‘Well, ma’am, I earnestly hope it will go away soon.’ + +And so the milkwoman’s mind was chained anew to the subject by a horrid +sort of spell as she returned home. The sense of having been guilty of +an act of malignity increased, affect as she might to ridicule her +superstition. In her secret heart Rhoda did not altogether object to a +slight diminution of her successor’s beauty, by whatever means it had +come about; but she did not wish to inflict upon her physical pain. For +though this pretty young woman had rendered impossible any reparation +which Lodge might have made Rhoda for his past conduct, everything like +resentment at the unconscious usurpation had quite passed away from the +elder’s mind. + +If the sweet and kindly Gertrude Lodge only knew of the scene in the +bed-chamber, what would she think? Not to inform her of it seemed +treachery in the presence of her friendliness; but tell she could not +of her own accord—neither could she devise a remedy. + +She mused upon the matter the greater part of the night; and the next +day, after the morning milking, set out to obtain another glimpse of +Gertrude Lodge if she could, being held to her by a gruesome +fascination. By watching the house from a distance the milkmaid was +presently able to discern the farmer’s wife in a ride she was taking +alone—probably to join her husband in some distant field. Mrs. Lodge +perceived her, and cantered in her direction. + +‘Good morning, Rhoda!’ Gertrude said, when she had come up. ‘I was +going to call.’ + +Rhoda noticed that Mrs. Lodge held the reins with some difficulty. + +‘I hope—the bad arm,’ said Rhoda. + +‘They tell me there is possibly one way by which I might be able to +find out the cause, and so perhaps the cure, of it,’ replied the other +anxiously. ‘It is by going to some clever man over in Egdon Heath. They +did not know if he was still alive—and I cannot remember his name at +this moment; but they said that you knew more of his movements than +anybody else hereabout, and could tell me if he were still to be +consulted. Dear me—what was his name? But you know.’ + +‘Not Conjuror Trendle?’ said her thin companion, turning pale. + +‘Trendle—yes. Is he alive?’ + +‘I believe so,’ said Rhoda, with reluctance. + +‘Why do you call him conjuror?’ + +‘Well—they say—they used to say he was a—he had powers other folks have +not.’ + +‘O, how could my people be so superstitious as to recommend a man of +that sort! I thought they meant some medical man. I shall think no more +of him.’ + +Rhoda looked relieved, and Mrs. Lodge rode on. The milkwoman had +inwardly seen, from the moment she heard of her having been mentioned +as a reference for this man, that there must exist a sarcastic feeling +among the work-folk that a sorceress would know the whereabouts of the +exorcist. They suspected her, then. A short time ago this would have +given no concern to a woman of her common-sense. But she had a haunting +reason to be superstitious now; and she had been seized with sudden +dread that this Conjuror Trendle might name her as the malignant +influence which was blasting the fair person of Gertrude, and so lead +her friend to hate her for ever, and to treat her as some fiend in +human shape. + +But all was not over. Two days after, a shadow intruded into the +window-pattern thrown on Rhoda Brook’s floor by the afternoon sun. The +woman opened the door at once, almost breathlessly. + +‘Are you alone?’ said Gertrude. She seemed to be no less harassed and +anxious than Brook herself. + +‘Yes,’ said Rhoda. + +‘The place on my arm seems worse, and troubles me!’ the young farmer’s +wife went on. ‘It is so mysterious! I do hope it will not be an +incurable wound. I have again been thinking of what they said about +Conjuror Trendle. I don’t really believe in such men, but I should not +mind just visiting him, from curiosity—though on no account must my +husband know. Is it far to where he lives?’ + +‘Yes—five miles,’ said Rhoda backwardly. ‘In the heart of Egdon.’ + +‘Well, I should have to walk. Could not you go with me to show me the +way—say to-morrow afternoon?’ + +‘O, not I—that is,’ the milkwoman murmured, with a start of dismay. +Again the dread seized her that something to do with her fierce act in +the dream might be revealed, and her character in the eyes of the most +useful friend she had ever had be ruined irretrievably. + +Mrs. Lodge urged, and Rhoda finally assented, though with much +misgiving. Sad as the journey would be to her, she could not +conscientiously stand in the way of a possible remedy for her patron’s +strange affliction. It was agreed that, to escape suspicion of their +mystic intent, they should meet at the edge of the heath at the corner +of a plantation which was visible from the spot where they now stood. + +CHAPTER V—CONJUROR TRENDLE + +By the next afternoon Rhoda would have done anything to escape this +inquiry. But she had promised to go. Moreover, there was a horrid +fascination at times in becoming instrumental in throwing such possible +light on her own character as would reveal her to be something greater +in the occult world than she had ever herself suspected. + +She started just before the time of day mentioned between them, and +half-an-hour’s brisk walking brought her to the south-eastern extension +of the Egdon tract of country, where the fir plantation was. A slight +figure, cloaked and veiled, was already there. Rhoda recognized, almost +with a shudder, that Mrs. Lodge bore her left arm in a sling. + +They hardly spoke to each other, and immediately set out on their climb +into the interior of this solemn country, which stood high above the +rich alluvial soil they had left half-an-hour before. It was a long +walk; thick clouds made the atmosphere dark, though it was as yet only +early afternoon; and the wind howled dismally over the hills of the +heath—not improbably the same heath which had witnessed the agony of +the Wessex King Ina, presented to after-ages as Lear. Gertrude Lodge +talked most, Rhoda replying with monosyllabic preoccupation. She had a +strange dislike to walking on the side of her companion where hung the +afflicted arm, moving round to the other when inadvertently near it. +Much heather had been brushed by their feet when they descended upon a +cart-track, beside which stood the house of the man they sought. + +He did not profess his remedial practices openly, or care anything +about their continuance, his direct interests being those of a dealer +in furze, turf, ‘sharp sand,’ and other local products. Indeed, he +affected not to believe largely in his own powers, and when warts that +had been shown him for cure miraculously disappeared—which it must be +owned they infallibly did—he would say lightly, ‘O, I only drink a +glass of grog upon ’em—perhaps it’s all chance,’ and immediately turn +the subject. + +He was at home when they arrived, having in fact seen them descending +into his valley. He was a gray-bearded man, with a reddish face, and he +looked singularly at Rhoda the first moment he beheld her. Mrs. Lodge +told him her errand; and then with words of self-disparagement he +examined her arm. + +‘Medicine can’t cure it,’ he said promptly. ‘’Tis the work of an +enemy.’ + +Rhoda shrank into herself, and drew back. + +‘An enemy? What enemy?’ asked Mrs. Lodge. + +He shook his head. ‘That’s best known to yourself,’ he said. ‘If you +like, I can show the person to you, though I shall not myself know who +it is. I can do no more; and don’t wish to do that.’ + +She pressed him; on which he told Rhoda to wait outside where she +stood, and took Mrs. Lodge into the room. It opened immediately from +the door; and, as the latter remained ajar, Rhoda Brook could see the +proceedings without taking part in them. He brought a tumbler from the +dresser, nearly filled it with water, and fetching an egg, prepared it +in some private way; after which he broke it on the edge of the glass, +so that the white went in and the yolk remained. As it was getting +gloomy, he took the glass and its contents to the window, and told +Gertrude to watch them closely. They leant over the table together, and +the milkwoman could see the opaline hue of the egg-fluid changing form +as it sank in the water, but she was not near enough to define the +shape that it assumed. + +‘Do you catch the likeness of any face or figure as you look?’ demanded +the conjuror of the young woman. + +She murmured a reply, in tones so low as to be inaudible to Rhoda, and +continued to gaze intently into the glass. Rhoda turned, and walked a +few steps away. + +When Mrs. Lodge came out, and her face was met by the light, it +appeared exceedingly pale—as pale as Rhoda’s—against the sad dun shades +of the upland’s garniture. Trendle shut the door behind her, and they +at once started homeward together. But Rhoda perceived that her +companion had quite changed. + +‘Did he charge much?’ she asked tentatively. + +‘O no—nothing. He would not take a farthing,’ said Gertrude. + +‘And what did you see?’ inquired Rhoda. + +‘Nothing I—care to speak of.’ The constraint in her manner was +remarkable; her face was so rigid as to wear an oldened aspect, faintly +suggestive of the face in Rhoda’s bed-chamber. + +‘Was it you who first proposed coming here?’ Mrs. Lodge suddenly +inquired, after a long pause. ‘How very odd, if you did!’ + +‘No. But I am not sorry we have come, all things considered,’ she +replied. For the first time a sense of triumph possessed her, and she +did not altogether deplore that the young thing at her side should +learn that their lives had been antagonized by other influences than +their own. + +The subject was no more alluded to during the long and dreary walk +home. But in some way or other a story was whispered about the +many-dairied lowland that winter that Mrs. Lodge’s gradual loss of the +use of her left arm was owing to her being ‘overlooked’ by Rhoda Brook. +The latter kept her own counsel about the incubus, but her face grew +sadder and thinner; and in the spring she and her boy disappeared from +the neighbourhood of Holmstoke. + +CHAPTER VI—A SECOND ATTEMPT + +Half-a-dozen years passed away, and Mr. and Mrs. Lodge’s married +experience sank into prosiness, and worse. The farmer was usually +gloomy and silent: the woman whom he had wooed for her grace and beauty +was contorted and disfigured in the left limb; moreover, she had +brought him no child, which rendered it likely that he would be the +last of a family who had occupied that valley for some two hundred +years. He thought of Rhoda Brook and her son; and feared this might be +a judgment from heaven upon him. + +The once blithe-hearted and enlightened Gertrude was changing into an +irritable, superstitious woman, whose whole time was given to +experimenting upon her ailment with every quack remedy she came across. +She was honestly attached to her husband, and was ever secretly hoping +against hope to win back his heart again by regaining some at least of +her personal beauty. Hence it arose that her closet was lined with +bottles, packets, and ointment-pots of every description—nay, bunches +of mystic herbs, charms, and books of necromancy, which in her +schoolgirl time she would have ridiculed as folly. + +‘Damned if you won’t poison yourself with these apothecary messes and +witch mixtures some time or other,’ said her husband, when his eye +chanced to fall upon the multitudinous array. + +She did not reply, but turned her sad, soft glance upon him in such +heart-swollen reproach that he looked sorry for his words, and added, +‘I only meant it for your good, you know, Gertrude.’ + +‘I’ll clear out the whole lot, and destroy them,’ said she huskily, +‘and try such remedies no more!’ + +‘You want somebody to cheer you,’ he observed. ‘I once thought of +adopting a boy; but he is too old now. And he is gone away I don’t know +where.’ + +She guessed to whom he alluded; for Rhoda Brook’s story had in the +course of years become known to her; though not a word had ever passed +between her husband and herself on the subject. Neither had she ever +spoken to him of her visit to Conjuror Trendle, and of what was +revealed to her, or she thought was revealed to her, by that solitary +heath-man. + +She was now five-and-twenty; but she seemed older. + +‘Six years of marriage, and only a few months of love,’ she sometimes +whispered to herself. And then she thought of the apparent cause, and +said, with a tragic glance at her withering limb, ‘If I could only +again be as I was when he first saw me!’ + +She obediently destroyed her nostrums and charms; but there remained a +hankering wish to try something else—some other sort of cure +altogether. She had never revisited Trendle since she had been +conducted to the house of the solitary by Rhoda against her will; but +it now suddenly occurred to Gertrude that she would, in a last +desperate effort at deliverance from this seeming curse, again seek out +the man, if he yet lived. He was entitled to a certain credence, for +the indistinct form he had raised in the glass had undoubtedly +resembled the only woman in the world who—as she now knew, though not +then—could have a reason for bearing her ill-will. The visit should be +paid. + +This time she went alone, though she nearly got lost on the heath, and +roamed a considerable distance out of her way. Trendle’s house was +reached at last, however: he was not indoors, and instead of waiting at +the cottage, she went to where his bent figure was pointed out to her +at work a long way off. Trendle remembered her, and laying down the +handful of furze-roots which he was gathering and throwing into a heap, +he offered to accompany her in her homeward direction, as the distance +was considerable and the days were short. So they walked together, his +head bowed nearly to the earth, and his form of a colour with it. + +‘You can send away warts and other excrescences I know,’ she said; ‘why +can’t you send away this?’ And the arm was uncovered. + +‘You think too much of my powers!’ said Trendle; ‘and I am old and weak +now, too. No, no; it is too much for me to attempt in my own person. +What have ye tried?’ + +She named to him some of the hundred medicaments and counterspells +which she had adopted from time to time. He shook his head. + +‘Some were good enough,’ he said approvingly; ‘but not many of them for +such as this. This is of the nature of a blight, not of the nature of a +wound; and if you ever do throw it off; it will be all at once.’ + +‘If I only could!’ + +‘There is only one chance of doing it known to me. It has never failed +in kindred afflictions,—that I can declare. But it is hard to carry +out, and especially for a woman.’ + +‘Tell me!’ said she. + +‘You must touch with the limb the neck of a man who’s been hanged.’ + +She started a little at the image he had raised. + +‘Before he’s cold—just after he’s cut down,’ continued the conjuror +impassively. + +‘How can that do good?’ + +‘It will turn the blood and change the constitution. But, as I say, to +do it is hard. You must get into jail, and wait for him when he’s +brought off the gallows. Lots have done it, though perhaps not such +pretty women as you. I used to send dozens for skin complaints. But +that was in former times. The last I sent was in ‘13—near twenty years +ago.’ + +He had no more to tell her; and, when he had put her into a straight +track homeward, turned and left her, refusing all money as at first. + +CHAPTER VII—A RIDE + +The communication sank deep into Gertrude’s mind. Her nature was rather +a timid one; and probably of all remedies that the white wizard could +have suggested there was not one which would have filled her with so +much aversion as this, not to speak of the immense obstacles in the way +of its adoption. + +Casterbridge, the county-town, was a dozen or fifteen miles off; and +though in those days, when men were executed for horse-stealing, arson, +and burglary, an assize seldom passed without a hanging, it was not +likely that she could get access to the body of the criminal unaided. +And the fear of her husband’s anger made her reluctant to breathe a +word of Trendle’s suggestion to him or to anybody about him. + +She did nothing for months, and patiently bore her disfigurement as +before. But her woman’s nature, craving for renewed love, through the +medium of renewed beauty (she was but twenty-five), was ever +stimulating her to try what, at any rate, could hardly do her any harm. +‘What came by a spell will go by a spell surely,’ she would say. +Whenever her imagination pictured the act she shrank in terror from the +possibility of it: then the words of the conjuror, ‘It will turn your +blood,’ were seen to be capable of a scientific no less than a ghastly +interpretation; the mastering desire returned, and urged her on again. + +There was at this time but one county paper, and that her husband only +occasionally borrowed. But old-fashioned days had old-fashioned means, +and news was extensively conveyed by word of mouth from market to +market, or from fair to fair, so that, whenever such an event as an +execution was about to take place, few within a radius of twenty miles +were ignorant of the coming sight; and, so far as Holmstoke was +concerned, some enthusiasts had been known to walk all the way to +Casterbridge and back in one day, solely to witness the spectacle. The +next assizes were in March; and when Gertrude Lodge heard that they had +been held, she inquired stealthily at the inn as to the result, as soon +as she could find opportunity. + +She was, however, too late. The time at which the sentences were to be +carried out had arrived, and to make the journey and obtain admission +at such short notice required at least her husband’s assistance. She +dared not tell him, for she had found by delicate experiment that these +smouldering village beliefs made him furious if mentioned, partly +because he half entertained them himself. It was therefore necessary to +wait for another opportunity. + +Her determination received a fillip from learning that two epileptic +children had attended from this very village of Holmstoke many years +before with beneficial results, though the experiment had been strongly +condemned by the neighbouring clergy. April, May, June, passed; and it +is no overstatement to say that by the end of the last-named month +Gertrude well-nigh longed for the death of a fellow-creature. Instead +of her formal prayers each night, her unconscious prayer was, ‘O Lord, +hang some guilty or innocent person soon!’ + +This time she made earlier inquiries, and was altogether more +systematic in her proceedings. Moreover, the season was summer, between +the haymaking and the harvest, and in the leisure thus afforded him her +husband had been holiday-taking away from home. + +The assizes were in July, and she went to the inn as before. There was +to be one execution—only one—for arson. + +Her greatest problem was not how to get to Casterbridge, but what means +she should adopt for obtaining admission to the jail. Though access for +such purposes had formerly never been denied, the custom had fallen +into desuetude; and in contemplating her possible difficulties, she was +again almost driven to fall back upon her husband. But, on sounding him +about the assizes, he was so uncommunicative, so more than usually +cold, that she did not proceed, and decided that whatever she did she +would do alone. + +Fortune, obdurate hitherto, showed her unexpected favour. On the +Thursday before the Saturday fixed for the execution, Lodge remarked to +her that he was going away from home for another day or two on business +at a fair, and that he was sorry he could not take her with him. + +She exhibited on this occasion so much readiness to stay at home that +he looked at her in surprise. Time had been when she would have shown +deep disappointment at the loss of such a jaunt. However, he lapsed +into his usual taciturnity, and on the day named left Holmstoke. + +It was now her turn. She at first had thought of driving, but on +reflection held that driving would not do, since it would necessitate +her keeping to the turnpike-road, and so increase by tenfold the risk +of her ghastly errand being found out. She decided to ride, and avoid +the beaten track, notwithstanding that in her husband’s stables there +was no animal just at present which by any stretch of imagination could +be considered a lady’s mount, in spite of his promise before marriage +to always keep a mare for her. He had, however, many cart-horses, fine +ones of their kind; and among the rest was a serviceable creature, an +equine Amazon, with a back as broad as a sofa, on which Gertrude had +occasionally taken an airing when unwell. This horse she chose. + +On Friday afternoon one of the men brought it round. She was dressed, +and before going down looked at her shrivelled arm. ‘Ah!’ she said to +it, ‘if it had not been for you this terrible ordeal would have been +saved me!’ + +When strapping up the bundle in which she carried a few articles of +clothing, she took occasion to say to the servant, ‘I take these in +case I should not get back to-night from the person I am going to +visit. Don’t be alarmed if I am not in by ten, and close up the house +as usual. I shall be at home to-morrow for certain.’ She meant then to +privately tell her husband: the deed accomplished was not like the deed +projected. He would almost certainly forgive her. + +And then the pretty palpitating Gertrude Lodge went from her husband’s +homestead; but though her goal was Casterbridge she did not take the +direct route thither through Stickleford. Her cunning course at first +was in precisely the opposite direction. As soon as she was out of +sight, however, she turned to the left, by a road which led into Egdon, +and on entering the heath wheeled round, and set out in the true +course, due westerly. A more private way down the county could not be +imagined; and as to direction, she had merely to keep her horse’s head +to a point a little to the right of the sun. She knew that she would +light upon a furze-cutter or cottager of some sort from time to time, +from whom she might correct her bearing. + +Though the date was comparatively recent, Egdon was much less +fragmentary in character than now. The attempts—successful and +otherwise—at cultivation on the lower slopes, which intrude and break +up the original heath into small detached heaths, had not been carried +far; Enclosure Acts had not taken effect, and the banks and fences +which now exclude the cattle of those villagers who formerly enjoyed +rights of commonage thereon, and the carts of those who had turbary +privileges which kept them in firing all the year round, were not +erected. Gertrude, therefore, rode along with no other obstacles than +the prickly furze bushes, the mats of heather, the white water-courses, +and the natural steeps and declivities of the ground. + +Her horse was sure, if heavy-footed and slow, and though a draught +animal, was easy-paced; had it been otherwise, she was not a woman who +could have ventured to ride over such a bit of country with a half-dead +arm. It was therefore nearly eight o’clock when she drew rein to +breathe the mare on the last outlying high point of heath-land towards +Casterbridge, previous to leaving Egdon for the cultivated valleys. + +She halted before a pool called Rushy-pond, flanked by the ends of two +hedges; a railing ran through the centre of the pond, dividing it in +half. Over the railing she saw the low green country; over the green +trees the roofs of the town; over the roofs a white flat façade, +denoting the entrance to the county jail. On the roof of this front +specks were moving about; they seemed to be workmen erecting something. +Her flesh crept. She descended slowly, and was soon amid corn-fields +and pastures. In another half-hour, when it was almost dusk, Gertrude +reached the White Hart, the first inn of the town on that side. + +Little surprise was excited by her arrival; farmers’ wives rode on +horseback then more than they do now; though, for that matter, Mrs. +Lodge was not imagined to be a wife at all; the innkeeper supposed her +some harum-skarum young woman who had come to attend ‘hang-fair’ next +day. Neither her husband nor herself ever dealt in Casterbridge market, +so that she was unknown. While dismounting she beheld a crowd of boys +standing at the door of a harness-maker’s shop just above the inn, +looking inside it with deep interest. + +‘What is going on there?’ she asked of the ostler. + +‘Making the rope for to-morrow.’ + +She throbbed responsively, and contracted her arm. + +‘’Tis sold by the inch afterwards,’ the man continued. ‘I could get you +a bit, miss, for nothing, if you’d like?’ + +She hastily repudiated any such wish, all the more from a curious +creeping feeling that the condemned wretch’s destiny was becoming +interwoven with her own; and having engaged a room for the night, sat +down to think. + +Up to this time she had formed but the vaguest notions about her means +of obtaining access to the prison. The words of the cunning-man +returned to her mind. He had implied that she should use her beauty, +impaired though it was, as a pass-key. In her inexperience she knew +little about jail functionaries; she had heard of a high-sheriff and an +under-sheriff; but dimly only. She knew, however, that there must be a +hangman, and to the hangman she determined to apply. + +CHAPTER VIII—A WATER-SIDE HERMIT + +At this date, and for several years after, there was a hangman to +almost every jail. Gertrude found, on inquiry, that the Casterbridge +official dwelt in a lonely cottage by a deep slow river flowing under +the cliff on which the prison buildings were situate—the stream being +the self-same one, though she did not know it, which watered the +Stickleford and Holmstoke meads lower down in its course. + +Having changed her dress, and before she had eaten or drunk—for she +could not take her ease till she had ascertained some +particulars—Gertrude pursued her way by a path along the water-side to +the cottage indicated. Passing thus the outskirts of the jail, she +discerned on the level roof over the gateway three rectangular lines +against the sky, where the specks had been moving in her distant view; +she recognized what the erection was, and passed quickly on. Another +hundred yards brought her to the executioner’s house, which a boy +pointed out It stood close to the same stream, and was hard by a weir, +the waters of which emitted a steady roar. + +While she stood hesitating the door opened, and an old man came forth +shading a candle with one hand. Locking the door on the outside, he +turned to a flight of wooden steps fixed against the end of the +cottage, and began to ascend them, this being evidently the staircase +to his bedroom. Gertrude hastened forward, but by the time she reached +the foot of the ladder he was at the top. She called to him loudly +enough to be heard above the roar of the weir; he looked down and said, +‘What d’ye want here?’ + +‘To speak to you a minute.’ + +The candle-light, such as it was, fell upon her imploring, pale, +upturned face, and Davies (as the hangman was called) backed down the +ladder. ‘I was just going to bed,’ he said; ‘“Early to bed and early to +rise,” but I don’t mind stopping a minute for such a one as you. Come +into house.’ He reopened the door, and preceded her to the room within. + +The implements of his daily work, which was that of a jobbing gardener, +stood in a corner, and seeing probably that she looked rural, he said, +‘If you want me to undertake country work I can’t come, for I never +leave Casterbridge for gentle nor simple—not I. My real calling is +officer of justice,’ he added formally. + +‘Yes, yes! That’s it. To-morrow!’ + +‘Ah! I thought so. Well, what’s the matter about that? ’Tis no use to +come here about the knot—folks do come continually, but I tell ’em one +knot is as merciful as another if ye keep it under the ear. Is the +unfortunate man a relation; or, I should say, perhaps’ (looking at her +dress) ‘a person who’s been in your employ?’ + +‘No. What time is the execution?’ + +‘The same as usual—twelve o’clock, or as soon after as the London +mail-coach gets in. We always wait for that, in case of a reprieve.’ + +‘O—a reprieve—I hope not!’ she said involuntarily, + +‘Well,—hee, hee!—as a matter of business, so do I! But still, if ever a +young fellow deserved to be let off, this one does; only just turned +eighteen, and only present by chance when the rick was fired. +Howsomever, there’s not much risk of it, as they are obliged to make an +example of him, there having been so much destruction of property that +way lately.’ + +‘I mean,’ she explained, ‘that I want to touch him for a charm, a cure +of an affliction, by the advice of a man who has proved the virtue of +the remedy.’ + +‘O yes, miss! Now I understand. I’ve had such people come in past +years. But it didn’t strike me that you looked of a sort to require +blood-turning. What’s the complaint? The wrong kind for this, I’ll be +bound.’ + +‘My arm.’ She reluctantly showed the withered skin. + +‘Ah—’tis all a-scram!’ said the hangman, examining it. + +‘Yes,’ said she. + +‘Well,’ he continued, with interest, ‘that _is_ the class o’ subject, +I’m bound to admit! I like the look of the place; it is truly as +suitable for the cure as any I ever saw. ’Twas a knowing-man that sent +‘ee, whoever he was.’ + +‘You can contrive for me all that’s necessary?’ she said breathlessly. + +‘You should really have gone to the governor of the jail, and your +doctor with ‘ee, and given your name and address—that’s how it used to +be done, if I recollect. Still, perhaps, I can manage it for a trifling +fee.’ + +‘O, thank you! I would rather do it this way, as I should like it kept +private.’ + +‘Lover not to know, eh?’ + +‘No—husband.’ + +‘Aha! Very well. I’ll get ee’ a touch of the corpse.’ + +‘Where is it now?’ she said, shuddering. + +‘It?_—he_, you mean; he’s living yet. Just inside that little small +winder up there in the glum.’ He signified the jail on the cliff above. + +She thought of her husband and her friends. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said; +‘and how am I to proceed?’ + +He took her to the door. ‘Now, do you be waiting at the little wicket +in the wall, that you’ll find up there in the lane, not later than one +o’clock. I will open it from the inside, as I shan’t come home to +dinner till he’s cut down. Good-night. Be punctual; and if you don’t +want anybody to know ‘ee, wear a veil. Ah—once I had such a daughter as +you!’ + +She went away, and climbed the path above, to assure herself that she +would be able to find the wicket next day. Its outline was soon visible +to her—a narrow opening in the outer wall of the prison precincts. The +steep was so great that, having reached the wicket, she stopped a +moment to breathe; and, looking back upon the water-side cot, saw the +hangman again ascending his outdoor staircase. He entered the loft or +chamber to which it led, and in a few minutes extinguished his light. + +The town clock struck ten, and she returned to the White Hart as she +had come. + +CHAPTER IX—A RENCOUNTER + +It was one o’clock on Saturday. Gertrude Lodge, having been admitted to +the jail as above described, was sitting in a waiting-room within the +second gate, which stood under a classic archway of ashlar, then +comparatively modern, and bearing the inscription, ‘COVNTY JAIL: 1793.’ +This had been the façade she saw from the heath the day before. Near at +hand was a passage to the roof on which the gallows stood. + +The town was thronged, and the market suspended; but Gertrude had seen +scarcely a soul. Having kept her room till the hour of the appointment, +she had proceeded to the spot by a way which avoided the open space +below the cliff where the spectators had gathered; but she could, even +now, hear the multitudinous babble of their voices, out of which rose +at intervals the hoarse croak of a single voice uttering the words, +‘Last dying speech and confession!’ There had been no reprieve, and the +execution was over; but the crowd still waited to see the body taken +down. + +Soon the persistent girl heard a trampling overhead, then a hand +beckoned to her, and, following directions, she went out and crossed +the inner paved court beyond the gatehouse, her knees trembling so that +she could scarcely walk. One of her arms was out of its sleeve, and +only covered by her shawl. + +On the spot at which she had now arrived were two trestles, and before +she could think of their purpose she heard heavy feet descending stairs +somewhere at her back. Turn her head she would not, or could not, and, +rigid in this position, she was conscious of a rough coffin passing her +shoulder, borne by four men. It was open, and in it lay the body of a +young man, wearing the smockfrock of a rustic, and fustian breeches. +The corpse had been thrown into the coffin so hastily that the skirt of +the smockfrock was hanging over. The burden was temporarily deposited +on the trestles. + +By this time the young woman’s state was such that a gray mist seemed +to float before her eyes, on account of which, and the veil she wore, +she could scarcely discern anything: it was as though she had nearly +died, but was held up by a sort of galvanism. + +‘Now!’ said a voice close at hand, and she was just conscious that the +word had been addressed to her. + +By a last strenuous effort she advanced, at the same time hearing +persons approaching behind her. She bared her poor curst arm; and +Davies, uncovering the face of the corpse, took Gertrude’s hand, and +held it so that her arm lay across the dead man’s neck, upon a line the +colour of an unripe blackberry, which surrounded it. + +Gertrude shrieked: ‘the turn o’ the blood,’ predicted by the conjuror, +had taken place. But at that moment a second shriek rent the air of the +enclosure: it was not Gertrude’s, and its effect upon her was to make +her start round. + +Immediately behind her stood Rhoda Brook, her face drawn, and her eyes +red with weeping. Behind Rhoda stood Gertrude’s own husband; his +countenance lined, his eyes dim, but without a tear. + +‘D-n you! what are you doing here?’ he said hoarsely. + +‘Hussy—to come between us and our child now!’ cried Rhoda. ‘This is the +meaning of what Satan showed me in the vision! You are like her at +last!’ And clutching the bare arm of the younger woman, she pulled her +unresistingly back against the wall. Immediately Brook had loosened her +hold the fragile young Gertrude slid down against the feet of her +husband. When he lifted her up she was unconscious. + +The mere sight of the twain had been enough to suggest to her that the +dead young man was Rhoda’s son. At that time the relatives of an +executed convict had the privilege of claiming the body for burial, if +they chose to do so; and it was for this purpose that Lodge was +awaiting the inquest with Rhoda. He had been summoned by her as soon as +the young man was taken in the crime, and at different times since; and +he had attended in court during the trial. This was the ‘holiday’ he +had been indulging in of late. The two wretched parents had wished to +avoid exposure; and hence had come themselves for the body, a waggon +and sheet for its conveyance and covering being in waiting outside. + +Gertrude’s case was so serious that it was deemed advisable to call to +her the surgeon who was at hand. She was taken out of the jail into the +town; but she never reached home alive. Her delicate vitality, sapped +perhaps by the paralyzed arm, collapsed under the double shock that +followed the severe strain, physical and mental, to which she had +subjected herself during the previous twenty-four hours. Her blood had +been ‘turned’ indeed—too far. Her death took place in the town three +days after. + +Her husband was never seen in Casterbridge again; once only in the old +market-place at Anglebury, which he had so much frequented, and very +seldom in public anywhere. Burdened at first with moodiness and +remorse, he eventually changed for the better, and appeared as a +chastened and thoughtful man. Soon after attending the funeral of his +poor young wife he took steps towards giving up the farms in Holmstoke +and the adjoining parish, and, having sold every head of his stock, he +went away to Port-Bredy, at the other end of the county, living there +in solitary lodgings till his death two years later of a painless +decline. It was then found that he had bequeathed the whole of his not +inconsiderable property to a reformatory for boys, subject to the +payment of a small annuity to Rhoda Brook, if she could be found to +claim it. + +For some time she could not be found; but eventually she reappeared in +her old parish,—absolutely refusing, however, to have anything to do +with the provision made for her. Her monotonous milking at the dairy +was resumed, and followed for many long years, till her form became +bent, and her once abundant dark hair white and worn away at the +forehead—perhaps by long pressure against the cows. Here, sometimes, +those who knew her experiences would stand and observe her, and wonder +what sombre thoughts were beating inside that impassive, wrinkled brow, +to the rhythm of the alternating milk-streams. + +(‘_Blackwood’s Magazine_,’ _January_ 1888.) + + + + +FELLOW-TOWNSMEN + + +CHAPTER I + +The shepherd on the east hill could shout out lambing intelligence to +the shepherd on the west hill, over the intervening town chimneys, +without great inconvenience to his voice, so nearly did the steep +pastures encroach upon the burghers’ backyards. And at night it was +possible to stand in the very midst of the town and hear from their +native paddocks on the lower levels of greensward the mild lowing of +the farmer’s heifers, and the profound, warm blowings of breath in +which those creatures indulge. But the community which had jammed +itself in the valley thus flanked formed a veritable town, with a real +mayor and corporation, and a staple manufacture. + +During a certain damp evening five-and-thirty years ago, before the +twilight was far advanced, a pedestrian of professional appearance, +carrying a small bag in his hand and an elevated umbrella, was +descending one of these hills by the turnpike road when he was +overtaken by a phaeton. + +‘Hullo, Downe—is that you?’ said the driver of the vehicle, a young man +of pale and refined appearance. ‘Jump up here with me, and ride down to +your door.’ + +The other turned a plump, cheery, rather self-indulgent face over his +shoulder towards the hailer. + +‘O, good evening, Mr. Barnet—thanks,’ he said, and mounted beside his +acquaintance. + +They were fellow-burgesses of the town which lay beneath them, but +though old and very good friends, they were differently circumstanced. +Barnet was a richer man than the struggling young lawyer Downe, a fact +which was to some extent perceptible in Downe’s manner towards his +companion, though nothing of it ever showed in Barnet’s manner towards +the solicitor. Barnet’s position in the town was none of his own +making; his father had been a very successful flax-merchant in the same +place, where the trade was still carried on as briskly as the small +capacities of its quarters would allow. Having acquired a fair fortune, +old Mr. Barnet had retired from business, bringing up his son as a +gentleman-burgher, and, it must be added, as a well-educated, +liberal-minded young man. + +‘How is Mrs. Barnet?’ asked Downe. + +‘Mrs. Barnet was very well when I left home,’ the other answered +constrainedly, exchanging his meditative regard of the horse for one of +self-consciousness. + +Mr. Downe seemed to regret his inquiry, and immediately took up another +thread of conversation. He congratulated his friend on his election as +a council-man; he thought he had not seen him since that event took +place; Mrs. Downe had meant to call and congratulate Mrs. Barnet, but +he feared that she had failed to do so as yet. + +Barnet seemed hampered in his replies. _‘We_ should have been glad to +see you. I—my wife would welcome Mrs. Downe at any time, as you know . +. . Yes, I am a member of the corporation—rather an inexperienced +member, some of them say. It is quite true; and I should have declined +the honour as premature—having other things on my hands just now, +too—if it had not been pressed upon me so very heartily.’ + +‘There is one thing you have on your hands which I can never quite see +the necessity for,’ said Downe, with good-humoured freedom. ‘What the +deuce do you want to build that new mansion for, when you have already +got such an excellent house as the one you live in?’ + +Barnet’s face acquired a warmer shade of colour; but as the question +had been idly asked by the solicitor while regarding the surrounding +flocks and fields, he answered after a moment with no apparent +embarrassment— + +‘Well, we wanted to get out of the town, you know: the house I am +living in is rather old and inconvenient.’ Mr. Downe declared that he +had chosen a pretty site for the new building. They would be able to +see for miles and miles from the windows. Was he going to give it a +name? He supposed so. + +Barnet thought not. There was no other house near that was likely to be +mistaken for it. And he did not care for a name. + +‘But I think it has a name!’ Downe observed: ‘I went past—when was +it?—this morning; and I saw something,—“Château Ringdale,” I think it +was, stuck up on a board!’ + +‘It was an idea she—we had for a short time,’ said Barnet hastily. ‘But +we have decided finally to do without a name—at any rate such a name as +that. It must have been a week ago that you saw it. It was taken down +last Saturday . . . Upon that matter I am firm!’ he added grimly. + +Downe murmured in an unconvinced tone that he thought he had seen it +yesterday. + +Talking thus they drove into the town. The street was unusually still +for the hour of seven in the evening; an increasing drizzle had +prevailed since the afternoon, and now formed a gauze across the yellow +lamps, and trickled with a gentle rattle down the heavy roofs of stone +tile, that bent the house-ridges hollow-backed with its weight, and in +some instances caused the walls to bulge outwards in the upper story. +Their route took them past the little town-hall, the Black-Bull Hotel, +and onward to the junction of a small street on the right, consisting +of a row of those two-and-two windowed brick residences of no +particular age, which are exactly alike wherever found, except in the +people they contain. + +‘Wait—I’ll drive you up to your door,’ said Barnet, when Downe prepared +to alight at the corner. He thereupon turned into the narrow street, +when the faces of three little girls could be discerned close to the +panes of a lighted window a few yards ahead, surmounted by that of a +young matron, the gaze of all four being directed eagerly up the empty +street. ‘You are a fortunate fellow, Downe,’ Barnet continued, as +mother and children disappeared from the window to run to the door. +‘You must be happy if any man is. I would give a hundred such houses as +my new one to have a home like yours.’ + +‘Well—yes, we get along pretty comfortably,’ replied Downe +complacently. + +‘That house, Downe, is none of my ordering,’ Barnet broke out, +revealing a bitterness hitherto suppressed, and checking the horse a +moment to finish his speech before delivering up his passenger. ‘The +house I have already is good enough for me, as you supposed. It is my +own freehold; it was built by my grandfather, and is stout enough for a +castle. My father was born there, lived there, and died there. I was +born there, and have always lived there; yet I must needs build a new +one.’ + +‘Why do you?’ said Downe. + +‘Why do I? To preserve peace in the household. I do anything for that; +but I don’t succeed. I was firm in resisting “Château Ringdale,” +however; not that I would not have put up with the absurdity of the +name, but it was too much to have your house christened after Lord +Ringdale, because your wife once had a fancy for him. If you only knew +everything, you would think all attempt at reconciliation hopeless. In +your happy home you have had no such experiences; and God forbid that +you ever should. See, here they are all ready to receive you!’ + +‘Of course! And so will your wife be waiting to receive you,’ said +Downe. ‘Take my word for it she will! And with a dinner prepared for +you far better than mine.’ + +‘I hope so,’ Barnet replied dubiously. + +He moved on to Downe’s door, which the solicitor’s family had already +opened. Downe descended, but being encumbered with his bag and +umbrella, his foot slipped, and he fell upon his knees in the gutter. + +‘O, my dear Charles!’ said his wife, running down the steps; and, quite +ignoring the presence of Barnet, she seized hold of her husband, pulled +him to his feet, and kissed him, exclaiming, ‘I hope you are not hurt, +darling!’ The children crowded round, chiming in piteously, ‘Poor +papa!’ + +‘He’s all right,’ said Barnet, perceiving that Downe was only a little +muddy, and looking more at the wife than at the husband. Almost at any +other time—certainly during his fastidious bachelor years—he would have +thought her a too demonstrative woman; but those recent circumstances +of his own life to which he had just alluded made Mrs. Downe’s +solicitude so affecting that his eye grew damp as he witnessed it. +Bidding the lawyer and his family good-night he left them, and drove +slowly into the main street towards his own house. + +The heart of Barnet was sufficiently impressionable to be influenced by +Downe’s parting prophecy that he might not be so unwelcome home as he +imagined: the dreary night might, at least on this one occasion, make +Downe’s forecast true. Hence it was in a suspense that he could hardly +have believed possible that he halted at his door. On entering his wife +was nowhere to be seen, and he inquired for her. The servant informed +him that her mistress had the dressmaker with her, and would be engaged +for some time. + +‘Dressmaker at this time of day!’ + +‘She dined early, sir, and hopes you will excuse her joining you this +evening.’ + +‘But she knew I was coming to-night?’ + +‘O yes, sir.’ + +‘Go up and tell her I am come.’ + +The servant did so; but the mistress of the house merely transmitted +her former words. + +Barnet said nothing more, and presently sat down to his lonely meal, +which was eaten abstractedly, the domestic scene he had lately +witnessed still impressing him by its contrast with the situation here. +His mind fell back into past years upon a certain pleasing and gentle +being whose face would loom out of their shades at such times as these. +Barnet turned in his chair, and looked with unfocused eyes in a +direction southward from where he sat, as if he saw not the room but a +long way beyond. ‘I wonder if she lives there still!’ he said. + +CHAPTER II + +He rose with a sudden rebelliousness, put on his hat and coat, and went +out of the house, pursuing his way along the glistening pavement while +eight o’clock was striking from St. Mary’s tower, and the apprentices +and shopmen were slamming up the shutters from end to end of the town. +In two minutes only those shops which could boast of no attendant save +the master or the mistress remained with open eyes. These were ever +somewhat less prompt to exclude customers than the others: for their +owners’ ears the closing hour had scarcely the cheerfulness that it +possessed for the hired servants of the rest. Yet the night being +dreary the delay was not for long, and their windows, too, blinked +together one by one. + +During this time Barnet had proceeded with decided step in a direction +at right angles to the broad main thoroughfare of the town, by a long +street leading due southward. Here, though his family had no more to do +with the flax manufacture, his own name occasionally greeted him on +gates and warehouses, being used allusively by small rising tradesmen +as a recommendation, in such words as ‘Smith, from Barnet & +Co.’—‘Robinson, late manager at Barnet’s.’ The sight led him to reflect +upon his father’s busy life, and he questioned if it had not been far +happier than his own. + +The houses along the road became fewer, and presently open ground +appeared between them on either side, the track on the right hand +rising to a higher level till it merged in a knoll. On the summit a row +of builders’ scaffold-poles probed the indistinct sky like spears, and +at their bases could be discerned the lower courses of a building +lately begun. Barnet slackened his pace and stood for a few moments +without leaving the centre of the road, apparently not much interested +in the sight, till suddenly his eye was caught by a post in the fore +part of the ground bearing a white board at the top. He went to the +rails, vaulted over, and walked in far enough to discern painted upon +the board ‘Château Ringdale.’ + +A dismal irony seemed to lie in the words, and its effect was to +irritate him. Downe, then, had spoken truly. He stuck his umbrella into +the sod, and seized the post with both hands, as if intending to loosen +and throw it down. Then, like one bewildered by an opposition which +would exist none the less though its manifestations were removed, he +allowed his arms to sink to his side. + +‘Let it be,’ he said to himself. ‘I have declared there shall be +peace—if possible.’ + +Taking up his umbrella he quietly left the enclosure, and went on his +way, still keeping his back to the town. He had advanced with more +decision since passing the new building, and soon a hoarse murmur rose +upon the gloom; it was the sound of the sea. The road led to the +harbour, at a distance of a mile from the town, from which the trade of +the district was fed. After seeing the obnoxious name-board Barnet had +forgotten to open his umbrella, and the rain tapped smartly on his hat, +and occasionally stroked his face as he went on. + +Though the lamps were still continued at the roadside, they stood at +wider intervals than before, and the pavement had given place to common +road. Every time he came to a lamp an increasing shine made itself +visible upon his shoulders, till at last they quite glistened with wet. +The murmur from the shore grew stronger, but it was still some distance +off when he paused before one of the smallest of the detached houses by +the wayside, standing in its own garden, the latter being divided from +the road by a row of wooden palings. Scrutinizing the spot to ensure +that he was not mistaken, he opened the gate and gently knocked at the +cottage door. + +When he had patiently waited minutes enough to lead any man in ordinary +cases to knock again, the door was heard to open, though it was +impossible to see by whose hand, there being no light in the passage. +Barnet said at random, ‘Does Miss Savile live here?’ + +A youthful voice assured him that she did live there, and by a sudden +afterthought asked him to come in. It would soon get a light, it said: +but the night being wet, mother had not thought it worth while to trim +the passage lamp. + +‘Don’t trouble yourself to get a light for me,’ said Barnet hastily; +‘it is not necessary at all. Which is Miss Savile’s sitting-room?’ + +The young person, whose white pinafore could just be discerned, +signified a door in the side of the passage, and Barnet went forward at +the same moment, so that no light should fall upon his face. On +entering the room he closed the door behind him, pausing till he heard +the retreating footsteps of the child. + +He found himself in an apartment which was simply and neatly, though +not poorly furnished; everything, from the miniature chiffonnier to the +shining little daguerreotype which formed the central ornament of the +mantelpiece, being in scrupulous order. The picture was enclosed by a +frame of embroidered card-board—evidently the work of feminine +hands—and it was the portrait of a thin faced, elderly lieutenant in +the navy. From behind the lamp on the table a female form now rose into +view, that of a young girl, and a resemblance between her and the +portrait was early discoverable. She had been so absorbed in some +occupation on the other side of the lamp as to have barely found time +to realize her visitor’s presence. + +They both remained standing for a few seconds without speaking. The +face that confronted Barnet had a beautiful outline; the Raffaelesque +oval of its contour was remarkable for an English countenance, and that +countenance housed in a remote country-road to an unheard-of harbour. +But her features did not do justice to this splendid beginning: Nature +had recollected that she was not in Italy; and the young lady’s +lineaments, though not so inconsistent as to make her plain, would have +been accepted rather as pleasing than as correct. The preoccupied +expression which, like images on the retina, remained with her for a +moment after the state that caused it had ceased, now changed into a +reserved, half-proud, and slightly indignant look, in which the blood +diffused itself quickly across her cheek, and additional brightness +broke the shade of her rather heavy eyes. + +‘I know I have no business here,’ he said, answering the look. ‘But I +had a great wish to see you, and inquire how you were. You can give +your hand to me, seeing how often I have held it in past days?’ + +‘I would rather forget than remember all that, Mr. Barnet,’ she +answered, as she coldly complied with the request. ‘When I think of the +circumstances of our last meeting, I can hardly consider it kind of you +to allude to such a thing as our past—or, indeed, to come here at all.’ + +‘There was no harm in it surely? I don’t trouble you often, Lucy.’ + +‘I have not had the honour of a visit from you for a very long time, +certainly, and I did not expect it now,’ she said, with the same +stiffness in her air. ‘I hope Mrs. Barnet is very well?’ + +‘Yes, yes!’ he impatiently returned. ‘At least I suppose so—though I +only speak from inference!’ + +‘But she is your wife, sir,’ said the young girl tremulously. + +The unwonted tones of a man’s voice in that feminine chamber had +startled a canary that was roosting in its cage by the window; the bird +awoke hastily, and fluttered against the bars. She went and stilled it +by laying her face against the cage and murmuring a coaxing sound. It +might partly have been done to still herself. + +‘I didn’t come to talk of Mrs. Barnet,’ he pursued; ‘I came to talk of +you, of yourself alone; to inquire how you are getting on since your +great loss.’ And he turned towards the portrait of her father. + +‘I am getting on fairly well, thank you.’ + +The force of her utterance was scarcely borne out by her look; but +Barnet courteously reproached himself for not having guessed a thing so +natural; and to dissipate all embarrassment, added, as he bent over the +table, ‘What were you doing when I came?—painting flowers, and by +candlelight?’ + +‘O no,’ she said, ‘not painting them—only sketching the outlines. I do +that at night to save time—I have to get three dozen done by the end of +the month.’ + +Barnet looked as if he regretted it deeply. ‘You will wear your poor +eyes out,’ he said, with more sentiment than he had hitherto shown. +‘You ought not to do it. There was a time when I should have said you +must not. Well—I almost wish I had never seen light with my own eyes +when I think of that!’ + +‘Is this a time or place for recalling such matters?’ she asked, with +dignity. ‘You used to have a gentlemanly respect for me, and for +yourself. Don’t speak any more as you have spoken, and don’t come +again. I cannot think that this visit is serious, or was closely +considered by you.’ + +‘Considered: well, I came to see you as an old and good friend—not to +mince matters, to visit a woman I loved. Don’t be angry! I could not +help doing it, so many things brought you into my mind . . . This +evening I fell in with an acquaintance, and when I saw how happy he was +with his wife and family welcoming him home, though with only one-tenth +of my income and chances, and thought what might have been in my case, +it fairly broke down my discretion, and off I came here. Now I am here +I feel that I am wrong to some extent. But the feeling that I should +like to see you, and talk of those we used to know in common, was very +strong.’ + +‘Before that can be the case a little more time must pass,’ said Miss +Savile quietly; ‘a time long enough for me to regard with some calmness +what at present I remember far too impatiently—though it may be you +almost forget it. Indeed you must have forgotten it long before you +acted as you did.’ Her voice grew stronger and more vivacious as she +added: ‘But I am doing my best to forget it too, and I know I shall +succeed from the progress I have made already!’ + +She had remained standing till now, when she turned and sat down, +facing half away from him. + +Barnet watched her moodily. ‘Yes, it is only what I deserve,’ he said. +‘Ambition pricked me on—no, it was not ambition, it was +wrongheadedness! Had I but reflected . . . ’ He broke out vehemently: +‘But always remember this, Lucy: if you had written to me only one +little line after that misunderstanding, I declare I should have come +back to you. That ruined me!’ he slowly walked as far as the little +room would allow him to go, and remained with his eyes on the skirting. + +‘But, Mr. Barnet, how could I write to you? There was no opening for my +doing so.’ + +‘Then there ought to have been,’ said Barnet, turning. ‘That was my +fault!’ + +‘Well, I don’t know anything about that; but as there had been nothing +said by me which required any explanation by letter, I did not send +one. Everything was so indefinite, and feeling your position to be so +much wealthier than mine, I fancied I might have mistaken your meaning. +And when I heard of the other lady—a woman of whose family even you +might be proud—I thought how foolish I had been, and said nothing.’ + +‘Then I suppose it was destiny—accident—I don’t know what, that +separated us, dear Lucy. Anyhow you were the woman I ought to have made +my wife—and I let you slip, like the foolish man that I was!’ + +‘O, Mr. Barnet,’ she said, almost in tears, ‘don’t revive the subject +to me; I am the wrong one to console you—think, sir,—you should not be +here—it would be so bad for me if it were known!’ + +‘It would—it would, indeed,’ he said hastily. ‘I am not right in doing +this, and I won’t do it again.’ + +‘It is a very common folly of human nature, you know, to think the +course you did _not_ adopt must have been the best,’ she continued, +with gentle solicitude, as she followed him to the door of the room. +‘And you don’t know that I should have accepted you, even if you had +asked me to be your wife.’ At this his eye met hers, and she dropped +her gaze. She knew that her voice belied her. There was a silence till +she looked up to add, in a voice of soothing playfulness, ‘My family +was so much poorer than yours, even before I lost my dear father, +that—perhaps your companions would have made it unpleasant for us on +account of my deficiencies.’ + +‘Your disposition would soon have won them round,’ said Barnet. + +She archly expostulated: ‘Now, never mind my disposition; try to make +it up with your wife! Those are my commands to you. And now you are to +leave me at once.’ + +‘I will. I must make the best of it all, I suppose,’ he replied, more +cheerfully than he had as yet spoken. ‘But I shall never again meet +with such a dear girl as you!’ And he suddenly opened the door, and +left her alone. When his glance again fell on the lamps that were +sparsely ranged along the dreary level road, his eyes were in a state +which showed straw-like motes of light radiating from each flame into +the surrounding air. + +On the other side of the way Barnet observed a man under an umbrella, +walking parallel with himself. Presently this man left the footway, and +gradually converged on Barnet’s course. The latter then saw that it was +Charlson, a surgeon of the town, who owed him money. Charlson was a man +not without ability; yet he did not prosper. Sundry circumstances stood +in his way as a medical practitioner: he was needy; he was not a +coddle; he gossiped with men instead of with women; he had married a +stranger instead of one of the town young ladies; and he was given to +conversational buffoonery. Moreover, his look was quite erroneous. +Those only proper features in the family doctor, the quiet eye, and the +thin straight passionless lips which never curl in public either for +laughter or for scorn, were not his; he had a full-curved mouth, and a +bold black eye that made timid people nervous. His companions were what +in old times would have been called boon companions—an expression +which, though of irreproachable root, suggests fraternization carried +to the point of unscrupulousness. All this was against him in the +little town of his adoption. + +Charlson had been in difficulties, and to oblige him Barnet had put his +name to a bill; and, as he had expected, was called upon to meet it +when it fell due. It had been only a matter of fifty pounds, which +Barnet could well afford to lose, and he bore no ill-will to the +thriftless surgeon on account of it. But Charlson had a little too much +brazen indifferentism in his composition to be altogether a desirable +acquaintance. + +‘I hope to be able to make that little bill-business right with you in +the course of three weeks, Mr. Barnet,’ said Charlson with hail-fellow +friendliness. + +Barnet replied good-naturedly that there was no hurry. + +This particular three weeks had moved on in advance of Charlson’s +present with the precision of a shadow for some considerable time. + +‘I’ve had a dream,’ Charlson continued. Barnet knew from his tone that +the surgeon was going to begin his characteristic nonsense, and did not +encourage him. ‘I’ve had a dream,’ repeated Charlson, who required no +encouragement. ‘I dreamed that a gentleman, who has been very kind to +me, married a haughty lady in haste, before he had quite forgotten a +nice little girl he knew before, and that one wet evening, like the +present, as I was walking up the harbour-road, I saw him come out of +that dear little girl’s present abode.’ + +Barnet glanced towards the speaker. The rays from a neighbouring lamp +struck through the drizzle under Charlson’s umbrella, so as just to +illumine his face against the shade behind, and show that his eye was +turned up under the outer corner of its lid, whence it leered with +impish jocoseness as he thrust his tongue into his cheek. + +‘Come,’ said Barnet gravely, ‘we’ll have no more of that.’ + +‘No, no—of course not,’ Charlson hastily answered, seeing that his +humour had carried him too far, as it had done many times before. He +was profuse in his apologies, but Barnet did not reply. Of one thing he +was certain—that scandal was a plant of quick root, and that he was +bound to obey Lucy’s injunction for Lucy’s own sake. + +CHAPTER III + +He did so, to the letter; and though, as the crocus followed the +snowdrop and the daffodil the crocus in Lucy’s garden, the harbour-road +was a not unpleasant place to walk in, Barnet’s feet never trod its +stones, much less approached her door. He avoided a saunter that way as +he would have avoided a dangerous dram, and took his airings a long +distance northward, among severely square and brown ploughed fields, +where no other townsman came. Sometimes he went round by the lower +lanes of the borough, where the rope-walks stretched in which his +family formerly had share, and looked at the rope-makers walking +backwards, overhung by apple-trees and bushes, and intruded on by cows +and calves, as if trade had established itself there at considerable +inconvenience to Nature. + +One morning, when the sun was so warm as to raise a steam from the +south-eastern slopes of those flanking hills that looked so lovely +above the old roofs, but made every low-chimneyed house in the town as +smoky as Tophet, Barnet glanced from the windows of the town-council +room for lack of interest in what was proceeding within. Several +members of the corporation were present, but there was not much +business doing, and in a few minutes Downe came leisurely across to +him, saying that he seldom saw Barnet now. + +Barnet owned that he was not often present. + +Downe looked at the crimson curtain which hung down beside the panes, +reflecting its hot hues into their faces, and then out of the window. +At that moment there passed along the street a tall commanding lady, in +whom the solicitor recognized Barnet’s wife. Barnet had done the same +thing, and turned away. + +‘It will be all right some day,’ said Downe, with cheering sympathy. + +‘You have heard, then, of her last outbreak?’ + +Downe depressed his cheerfulness to its very reverse in a moment. ‘No, +I have not heard of anything serious,’ he said, with as long a face as +one naturally round could be turned into at short notice. ‘I only hear +vague reports of such things.’ + +‘You may think it will be all right,’ said Barnet drily. ‘But I have a +different opinion . . . No, Downe, we must look the thing in the face. +Not poppy nor mandragora—however, how are your wife and children?’ + +Downe said that they were all well, thanks; they were out that morning +somewhere; he was just looking to see if they were walking that way. +Ah, there they were, just coming down the street; and Downe pointed to +the figures of two children with a nursemaid, and a lady walking behind +them. + +‘You will come out and speak to her?’ he asked. + +‘Not this morning. The fact is I don’t care to speak to anybody just +now.’ + +‘You are too sensitive, Mr. Barnet. At school I remember you used to +get as red as a rose if anybody uttered a word that hurt your +feelings.’ + +Barnet mused. ‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘there is a grain of truth in that. +It is because of that I often try to make peace at home. Life would be +tolerable then at any rate, even if not particularly bright.’ + +‘I have thought more than once of proposing a little plan to you,’ said +Downe with some hesitation. ‘I don’t know whether it will meet your +views, but take it or leave it, as you choose. In fact, it was my wife +who suggested it: that she would be very glad to call on Mrs. Barnet +and get into her confidence. She seems to think that Mrs. Barnet is +rather alone in the town, and without advisers. Her impression is that +your wife will listen to reason. Emily has a wonderful way of winning +the hearts of people of her own sex.’ + +‘And of the other sex too, I think. She is a charming woman, and you +were a lucky fellow to find her.’ + +‘Well, perhaps I was,’ simpered Downe, trying to wear an aspect of +being the last man in the world to feel pride. ‘However, she will be +likely to find out what ruffles Mrs. Barnet. Perhaps it is some +misunderstanding, you know—something that she is too proud to ask you +to explain, or some little thing in your conduct that irritates her +because she does not fully comprehend you. The truth is, Emily would +have been more ready to make advances if she had been quite sure of her +fitness for Mrs. Barnet’s society, who has of course been accustomed to +London people of good position, which made Emily fearful of intruding.’ + +Barnet expressed his warmest thanks for the well-intentioned +proposition. There was reason in Mrs. Downe’s fear—that he owned. ‘But +do let her call,’ he said. ‘There is no woman in England I would so +soon trust on such an errand. I am afraid there will not be any +brilliant result; still I shall take it as the kindest and nicest thing +if she will try it, and not be frightened at a repulse.’ + +When Barnet and Downe had parted, the former went to the Town +Savings-Bank, of which he was a trustee, and endeavoured to forget his +troubles in the contemplation of low sums of money, and figures in a +network of red and blue lines. He sat and watched the working-people +making their deposits, to which at intervals he signed his name. Before +he left in the afternoon Downe put his head inside the door. + +‘Emily has seen Mrs. Barnet,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘She has got +Mrs. Barnet’s promise to take her for a drive down to the shore +to-morrow, if it is fine. Good afternoon!’ + +Barnet shook Downe by the hand without speaking, and Downe went away. + +CHAPTER IV + +The next day was as fine as the arrangement could possibly require. As +the sun passed the meridian and declined westward, the tall shadows +from the scaffold-poles of Barnet’s rising residence streaked the +ground as far as to the middle of the highway. Barnet himself was there +inspecting the progress of the works for the first time during several +weeks. A building in an old-fashioned town five-and-thirty years ago +did not, as in the modern fashion, rise from the sod like a booth at a +fair. The foundations and lower courses were put in and allowed to +settle for many weeks before the superstructure was built up, and a +whole summer of drying was hardly sufficient to do justice to the +important issues involved. Barnet stood within a window-niche which had +as yet received no frame, and thence looked down a slope into the road. +The wheels of a chaise were heard, and then his handsome Xantippe, in +the company of Mrs. Downe, drove past on their way to the shore. They +were driving slowly; there was a pleasing light in Mrs. Downe’s face, +which seemed faintly to reflect itself upon the countenance of her +companion—that _politesse du coeur_ which was so natural to her having +possibly begun already to work results. But whatever the situation, +Barnet resolved not to interfere, or do anything to hazard the promise +of the day. He might well afford to trust the issue to another when he +could never direct it but to ill himself. His wife’s clenched rein-hand +in its lemon-coloured glove, her stiff erect figure, clad in velvet and +lace, and her boldly-outlined face, passed on, exhibiting their owner +as one fixed for ever above the level of her companion—socially by her +early breeding, and materially by her higher cushion. + +Barnet decided to allow them a proper time to themselves, and then +stroll down to the shore and drive them home. After lingering on at the +house for another hour he started with this intention. A few hundred +yards below ‘Château Ringdale’ stood the cottage in which the late +lieutenant’s daughter had her lodging. Barnet had not been so far that +way for a long time, and as he approached the forbidden ground a +curious warmth passed into him, which led him to perceive that, unless +he were careful, he might have to fight the battle with himself about +Lucy over again. A tenth of his present excuse would, however, have +justified him in travelling by that road to-day. + +He came opposite the dwelling, and turned his eyes for a momentary +glance into the little garden that stretched from the palings to the +door. Lucy was in the enclosure; she was walking and stooping to gather +some flowers, possibly for the purpose of painting them, for she moved +about quickly, as if anxious to save time. She did not see him; he +might have passed unnoticed; but a sensation which was not in strict +unison with his previous sentiments that day led him to pause in his +walk and watch her. She went nimbly round and round the beds of +anemones, tulips, jonquils, polyanthuses, and other old-fashioned +flowers, looking a very charming figure in her half-mourning bonnet, +and with an incomplete nosegay in her left hand. Raising herself to +pull down a lilac blossom she observed him. + +‘Mr. Barnet!’ she said, innocently smiling. ‘Why, I have been thinking +of you many times since Mrs. Barnet went by in the pony-carriage, and +now here you are!’ + +‘Yes, Lucy,’ he said. + +Then she seemed to recall particulars of their last meeting, and he +believed that she flushed, though it might have been only the fancy of +his own supersensitivenesss. + +‘I am going to the harbour,’ he added. + +‘Are you?’ Lucy remarked simply. ‘A great many people begin to go there +now the summer is drawing on.’ + +Her face had come more into his view as she spoke, and he noticed how +much thinner and paler it was than when he had seen it last. ‘Lucy, how +weary you look! tell me, can I help you?’ he was going to cry out.—‘If +I do,’ he thought, ‘it will be the ruin of us both!’ He merely said +that the afternoon was fine, and went on his way. + +As he went a sudden blast of air came over the hill as if in +contradiction to his words, and spoilt the previous quiet of the scene. +The wind had already shifted violently, and now smelt of the sea. + +The harbour-road soon began to justify its name. A gap appeared in the +rampart of hills which shut out the sea, and on the left of the opening +rose a vertical cliff, coloured a burning orange by the sunlight, the +companion cliff on the right being livid in shade. Between these +cliffs, like the Libyan bay which sheltered the shipwrecked Trojans, +was a little haven, seemingly a beginning made by Nature herself of a +perfect harbour, which appealed to the passer-by as only requiring a +little human industry to finish it and make it famous, the ground on +each side as far back as the daisied slopes that bounded the interior +valley being a mere layer of blown sand. But the Port-Bredy burgesses a +mile inland had, in the course of ten centuries, responded many times +to that mute appeal, with the result that the tides had invariably +choked up their works with sand and shingle as soon as completed. There +were but few houses here: a rough pier, a few boats, some stores, an +inn, a residence or two, a ketch unloading in the harbour, were the +chief features of the settlement. On the open ground by the shore stood +his wife’s pony-carriage, empty, the boy in attendance holding the +horse. + +When Barnet drew nearer, he saw an indigo-coloured spot moving swiftly +along beneath the radiant base of the eastern cliff, which proved to be +a man in a jersey, running with all his might. He held up his hand to +Barnet, as it seemed, and they approached each other. The man was +local, but a stranger to him. + +‘What is it, my man?’ said Barnet. + +‘A terrible calamity!’ the boatman hastily explained. Two ladies had +been capsized in a boat—they were Mrs. Downe and Mrs. Barnet of the old +town; they had driven down there that afternoon—they had alighted, and +it was so fine, that, after walking about a little while, they had been +tempted to go out for a short sail round the cliff. Just as they were +putting in to the shore, the wind shifted with a sudden gust, the boat +listed over, and it was thought they were both drowned. How it could +have happened was beyond his mind to fathom, for John Green knew how to +sail a boat as well as any man there. + +‘Which is the way to the place?’ said Barnet. + +It was just round the cliff. + +‘Run to the carriage and tell the boy to bring it to the place as soon +as you can. Then go to the Harbour Inn and tell them to ride to town +for a doctor. Have they been got out of the water?’ + +‘One lady has.’ + +‘Which?’ + +‘Mrs. Barnet. Mrs. Downe, it is feared, has fleeted out to sea.’ + +Barnet ran on to that part of the shore which the cliff had hitherto +obscured from his view, and there discerned, a long way ahead, a group +of fishermen standing. As soon as he came up one or two recognized him, +and, not liking to meet his eye, turned aside with misgiving. He went +amidst them and saw a small sailing-boat lying draggled at the water’s +edge; and, on the sloping shingle beside it, a soaked and sandy woman’s +form in the velvet dress and yellow gloves of his wife. + +CHAPTER V + +All had been done that could be done. Mrs. Barnet was in her own house +under medical hands, but the result was still uncertain. Barnet had +acted as if devotion to his wife were the dominant passion of his +existence. There had been much to decide—whether to attempt restoration +of the apparently lifeless body as it lay on the shore—whether to carry +her to the Harbour Inn—whether to drive with her at once to his own +house. The first course, with no skilled help or appliances near at +hand, had seemed hopeless. The second course would have occupied nearly +as much time as a drive to the town, owing to the intervening ridges of +shingle, and the necessity of crossing the harbour by boat to get to +the house, added to which much time must have elapsed before a doctor +could have arrived down there. By bringing her home in the carriage +some precious moments had slipped by; but she had been laid in her own +bed in seven minutes, a doctor called to her side, and every possible +restorative brought to bear upon her. + +At what a tearing pace he had driven up that road, through the yellow +evening sunlight, the shadows flapping irksomely into his eyes as each +wayside object rushed past between him and the west! Tired workmen with +their baskets at their backs had turned on their homeward journey to +wonder at his speed. Halfway between the shore and Port-Bredy town he +had met Charlson, who had been the first surgeon to hear of the +accident. He was accompanied by his assistant in a gig. Barnet had sent +on the latter to the coast in case that Downe’s poor wife should by +that time have been reclaimed from the waves, and had brought Charlson +back with him to the house. + +Barnet’s presence was not needed here, and he felt it to be his next +duty to set off at once and find Downe, that no other than himself +might break the news to him. + +He was quite sure that no chance had been lost for Mrs. Downe by his +leaving the shore. By the time that Mrs. Barnet had been laid in the +carriage, a much larger group had assembled to lend assistance in +finding her friend, rendering his own help superfluous. But the duty of +breaking the news was made doubly painful by the circumstance that the +catastrophe which had befallen Mrs. Downe was solely the result of her +own and her husband’s loving-kindness towards himself. + +He found Downe in his office. When the solicitor comprehended the +intelligence he turned pale, stood up, and remained for a moment +perfectly still, as if bereft of his faculties; then his shoulders +heaved, he pulled out his handkerchief and began to cry like a child. +His sobs might have been heard in the next room. He seemed to have no +idea of going to the shore, or of doing anything; but when Barnet took +him gently by the hand and proposed to start at once, he quietly +acquiesced, neither uttering any further word nor making any effort to +repress his tears. + +Barnet accompanied him to the shore, where, finding that no trace had +as yet been seen of Mrs. Downe, and that his stay would be of no avail, +he left Downe with his friends and the young doctor, and once more +hastened back to his own house. + +At the door he met Charlson. ‘Well!’ Barnet said. + +‘I have just come down,’ said the doctor; ‘we have done everything, but +without result. I sympathize with you in your bereavement.’ + +Barnet did not much appreciate Charlson’s sympathy, which sounded to +his ears as something of a mockery from the lips of a man who knew what +Charlson knew about their domestic relations. Indeed there seemed an +odd spark in Charlson’s full black eye as he said the words; but that +might have been imaginary. + +‘And, Mr. Barnet,’ Charlson resumed, ‘that little matter between us—I +hope to settle it finally in three weeks at least.’ + +‘Never mind that now,’ said Barnet abruptly. He directed the surgeon to +go to the harbour in case his services might even now be necessary +there: and himself entered the house. + +The servants were coming from his wife’s chamber, looking helplessly at +each other and at him. He passed them by and entered the room, where he +stood mutely regarding the bed for a few minutes, after which he walked +into his own dressing-room adjoining, and there paced up and down. In a +minute or two he noticed what a strange and total silence had come over +the upper part of the house; his own movements, muffled as they were by +the carpet, seemed noisy, and his thoughts to disturb the air like +articulate utterances. His eye glanced through the window. Far down the +road to the harbour a roof detained his gaze: out of it rose a red +chimney, and out of the red chimney a curl of smoke, as from a fire +newly kindled. He had often seen such a sight before. In that house +lived Lucy Savile; and the smoke was from the fire which was regularly +lighted at this time to make her tea. + +After that he went back to the bedroom, and stood there some time +regarding his wife’s silent form. She was a woman some years older than +himself, but had not by any means overpassed the maturity of good looks +and vigour. Her passionate features, well-defined, firm, and statuesque +in life, were doubly so now: her mouth and brow, beneath her purplish +black hair, showed only too clearly that the turbulency of character +which had made a bear-garden of his house had been no temporary phase +of her existence. While he reflected, he suddenly said to himself, I +wonder if all has been done? + +The thought was led up to by his having fancied that his wife’s +features lacked in its complete form the expression which he had been +accustomed to associate with the faces of those whose spirits have fled +for ever. The effacement of life was not so marked but that, entering +uninformed, he might have supposed her sleeping. Her complexion was +that seen in the numerous faded portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds; it +was pallid in comparison with life, but there was visible on a close +inspection the remnant of what had once been a flush; the keeping +between the cheeks and the hollows of the face being thus preserved, +although positive colour was gone. Long orange rays of evening sun +stole in through chinks in the blind, striking on the large mirror, and +being thence reflected upon the crimson hangings and woodwork of the +heavy bedstead, so that the general tone of light was remarkably warm; +and it was probable that something might be due to this circumstance. +Still the fact impressed him as strange. Charlson had been gone more +than a quarter of an hour: could it be possible that he had left too +soon, and that his attempts to restore her had operated so sluggishly +as only now to have made themselves felt? Barnet laid his hand upon her +chest, and fancied that ever and anon a faint flutter of palpitation, +gentle as that of a butterfly’s wing, disturbed the stillness +there—ceasing for a time, then struggling to go on, then breaking down +in weakness and ceasing again. + +Barnet’s mother had been an active practitioner of the healing art +among her poorer neighbours, and her inspirations had all been derived +from an octavo volume of Domestic Medicine, which at this moment was +lying, as it had lain for many years, on a shelf in Barnet’s +dressing-room. He hastily fetched it, and there read under the head +‘Drowning:’- + +‘Exertions for the recovery of any person who has not been immersed for +a longer period than half-an-hour should be continued for at least four +hours, as there have been many cases in which returning life has made +itself visible even after a longer interval. + +‘Should, however, a weak action of any of the organs show itself when +the case seems almost hopeless, our efforts must be redoubled; the +feeble spark in this case requires to be solicited; it will certainly +disappear under a relaxation of labour.’ + + +Barnet looked at his watch; it was now barely two hours and a half from +the time when he had first heard of the accident. He threw aside the +book and turned quickly to reach a stimulant which had previously been +used. Pulling up the blind for more light, his eye glanced out of the +window. There he saw that red chimney still smoking cheerily, and that +roof, and through the roof that somebody. His mechanical movements +stopped, his hand remained on the blind-cord, and he seemed to become +breathless, as if he had suddenly found himself treading a high rope. + +While he stood a sparrow lighted on the windowsill, saw him, and flew +away. Next a man and a dog walked over one of the green hills which +bulged above the roofs of the town. But Barnet took no notice. + +We may wonder what were the exact images that passed through his mind +during those minutes of gazing upon Lucy Savile’s house, the sparrow, +the man and the dog, and Lucy Savile’s house again. There are honest +men who will not admit to their thoughts, even as idle hypotheses, +views of the future that assume as done a deed which they would recoil +from doing; and there are other honest men for whom morality ends at +the surface of their own heads, who will deliberate what the first will +not so much as suppose. Barnet had a wife whose pretence distracted his +home; she now lay as in death; by merely doing nothing—by letting the +intelligence which had gone forth to the world lie undisturbed—he would +effect such a deliverance for himself as he had never hoped for, and +open up an opportunity of which till now he had never dreamed. Whether +the conjuncture had arisen through any unscrupulous, ill-considered +impulse of Charlson to help out of a strait the friend who was so kind +as never to press him for what was due could not be told; there was +nothing to prove it; and it was a question which could never be asked. +The triangular situation—himself—his wife—Lucy Savile—was the one clear +thing. + +From Barnet’s actions we may infer that he _supposed_ such and such a +result, for a moment, but did not deliberate. He withdrew his hazel +eyes from the scene without, calmly turned, rang the bell for +assistance, and vigorously exerted himself to learn if life still +lingered in that motionless frame. In a short time another surgeon was +in attendance; and then Barnet’s surmise proved to be true. The slow +life timidly heaved again; but much care and patience were needed to +catch and retain it, and a considerable period elapsed before it could +be said with certainty that Mrs. Barnet lived. When this was the case, +and there was no further room for doubt, Barnet left the chamber. The +blue evening smoke from Lucy’s chimney had died down to an +imperceptible stream, and as he walked about downstairs he murmured to +himself, ‘My wife was dead, and she is alive again.’ + +It was not so with Downe. After three hours’ immersion his wife’s body +had been recovered, life, of course, being quite extinct. Barnet on +descending, went straight to his friend’s house, and there learned the +result. Downe was helpless in his wild grief, occasionally even +hysterical. Barnet said little, but finding that some guiding hand was +necessary in the sorrow-stricken household, took upon him to supervise +and manage till Downe should be in a state of mind to do so for +himself. + +CHAPTER VI + +One September evening, four months later, when Mrs. Barnet was in +perfect health, and Mrs. Downe but a weakening memory, an errand-boy +paused to rest himself in front of Mr. Barnet’s old house, depositing +his basket on one of the window-sills. The street was not yet lighted, +but there were lights in the house, and at intervals a flitting shadow +fell upon the blind at his elbow. Words also were audible from the same +apartment, and they seemed to be those of persons in violent +altercation. But the boy could not gather their purport, and he went on +his way. + +Ten minutes afterwards the door of Barnet’s house opened, and a tall +closely-veiled lady in a travelling-dress came out and descended the +freestone steps. The servant stood in the doorway watching her as she +went with a measured tread down the street. When she had been out of +sight for some minutes Barnet appeared at the door from within. + +‘Did your mistress leave word where she was going?’ he asked. + +‘No, sir.’ + +‘Is the carriage ordered to meet her anywhere?’ + +‘No, sir.’ + +‘Did she take a latch-key?’ + +‘No, sir.’ + +Barnet went in again, sat down in his chair, and leaned back. Then in +solitude and silence he brooded over the bitter emotions that filled +his heart. It was for this that he had gratuitously restored her to +life, and made his union with another impossible! The evening drew on, +and nobody came to disturb him. At bedtime he told the servants to +retire, that he would sit up for Mrs. Barnet himself; and when they +were gone he leaned his head upon his hand and mused for hours. + +The clock struck one, two; still his wife came not, and, with +impatience added to depression, he went from room to room till another +weary hour had passed. This was not altogether a new experience for +Barnet; but she had never before so prolonged her absence. At last he +sat down again and fell asleep. + +He awoke at six o’clock to find that she had not returned. In searching +about the rooms he discovered that she had taken a case of jewels which +had been hers before her marriage. At eight a note was brought him; it +was from his wife, in which she stated that she had gone by the coach +to the house of a distant relative near London, and expressed a wish +that certain boxes, articles of clothing, and so on, might be sent to +her forthwith. The note was brought to him by a waiter at the +Black-Bull Hotel, and had been written by Mrs. Barnet immediately +before she took her place in the stage. + +By the evening this order was carried out, and Barnet, with a sense of +relief, walked out into the town. A fair had been held during the day, +and the large clear moon which rose over the most prominent hill flung +its light upon the booths and standings that still remained in the +street, mixing its rays curiously with those from the flaring naphtha +lamps. The town was full of country-people who had come in to enjoy +themselves, and on this account Barnet strolled through the streets +unobserved. With a certain recklessness he made for the harbour-road, +and presently found himself by the shore, where he walked on till he +came to the spot near which his friend the kindly Mrs. Downe had lost +her life, and his own wife’s life had been preserved. A tremulous +pathway of bright moonshine now stretched over the water which had +engulfed them, and not a living soul was near. + +Here he ruminated on their characters, and next on the young girl in +whom he now took a more sensitive interest than at the time when he had +been free to marry her. Nothing, so far as he was aware, had ever +appeared in his own conduct to show that such an interest existed. He +had made it a point of the utmost strictness to hinder that feeling +from influencing in the faintest degree his attitude towards his wife; +and this was made all the more easy for him by the small demand Mrs. +Barnet made upon his attentions, for which she ever evinced the +greatest contempt; thus unwittingly giving him the satisfaction of +knowing that their severance owed nothing to jealousy, or, indeed, to +any personal behaviour of his at all. Her concern was not with him or +his feelings, as she frequently told him; but that she had, in a moment +of weakness, thrown herself away upon a common burgher when she might +have aimed at, and possibly brought down, a peer of the realm. Her +frequent depreciation of Barnet in these terms had at times been so +intense that he was sorely tempted to retaliate on her egotism by +owning that he loved at the same low level on which he lived; but +prudence had prevailed, for which he was now thankful. + +Something seemed to sound upon the shingle behind him over and above +the raking of the wave. He looked round, and a slight girlish shape +appeared quite close to him, He could not see her face because it was +in the direction of the moon. + +‘Mr. Barnet?’ the rambler said, in timid surprise. The voice was the +voice of Lucy Savile. + +‘Yes,’ said Barnet. ‘How can I repay you for this pleasure?’ + +‘I only came because the night was so clear. I am now on my way home.’ + +‘I am glad we have met. I want to know if you will let me do something +for you, to give me an occupation, as an idle man? I am sure I ought to +help you, for I know you are almost without friends.’ + +She hesitated. ‘Why should you tell me that?’ she said. + +‘In the hope that you will be frank with me.’ + +‘I am not altogether without friends here. But I am going to make a +little change in my life—to go out as a teacher of freehand drawing and +practical perspective, of course I mean on a comparatively humble +scale, because I have not been specially educated for that profession. +But I am sure I shall like it much.’ + +‘You have an opening?’ + +‘I have not exactly got it, but I have advertised for one.’ + +‘Lucy, you must let me help you!’ + +‘Not at all.’ + +‘You need not think it would compromise you, or that I am indifferent +to delicacy. I bear in mind how we stand. It is very unlikely that you +will succeed as teacher of the class you mention, so let me do +something of a different kind for you. Say what you would like, and it +shall be done.’ + +‘No; if I can’t be a drawing-mistress or governess, or something of +that sort, I shall go to India and join my brother.’ + +‘I wish I could go abroad, anywhere, everywhere with you, Lucy, and +leave this place and its associations for ever!’ + +She played with the end of her bonnet-string, and hastily turned aside. +‘Don’t ever touch upon that kind of topic again,’ she said, with a +quick severity not free from anger. ‘It simply makes it impossible for +me to see you, much less receive any guidance from you. No, thank you, +Mr. Barnet; you can do nothing for me at present; and as I suppose my +uncertainty will end in my leaving for India, I fear you never will. If +ever I think you _can_ do anything, I will take the trouble to ask you. +Till then, good-bye.’ + +The tone of her latter words was equivocal, and while he remained in +doubt whether a gentle irony was or was not inwrought with their sound, +she swept lightly round and left him alone. He saw her form get smaller +and smaller along the damp belt of sea-sand between ebb and flood; and +when she had vanished round the cliff into the harbour-road, he himself +followed in the same direction. + +That her hopes from an advertisement should be the single thread which +held Lucy Savile in England was too much for Barnet. On reaching the +town he went straight to the residence of Downe, now a widower with +four children. The young motherless brood had been sent to bed about a +quarter of an hour earlier, and when Barnet entered he found Downe +sitting alone. It was the same room as that from which the family had +been looking out for Downe at the beginning of the year, when Downe had +slipped into the gutter and his wife had been so enviably tender +towards him. The old neatness had gone from the house; articles lay in +places which could show no reason for their presence, as if momentarily +deposited there some months ago, and forgotten ever since; there were +no flowers; things were jumbled together on the furniture which should +have been in cupboards; and the place in general had that stagnant, +unrenovated air which usually pervades the maimed home of the widower. + +Downe soon renewed his customary full-worded lament over his wife, and +even when he had worked himself up to tears, went on volubly, as if a +listener were a luxury to be enjoyed whenever he could be caught. + +‘She was a treasure beyond compare, Mr. Barnet! I shall never see such +another. Nobody now to nurse me—nobody to console me in those daily +troubles, you know, Barnet, which make consolation so necessary to a +nature like mine. It would be unbecoming to repine, for her spirit’s +home was elsewhere—the tender light in her eyes always showed it; but +it is a long dreary time that I have before me, and nobody else can +ever fill the void left in my heart by her loss—nobody—nobody!’ And +Downe wiped his eyes again. + +‘She was a good woman in the highest sense,’ gravely answered Barnet, +who, though Downe’s words drew genuine compassion from his heart, could +not help feeling that a tender reticence would have been a finer +tribute to Mrs. Downe’s really sterling virtues than such a +second-class lament as this. + +‘I have something to show you,’ Downe resumed, producing from a drawer +a sheet of paper on which was an elaborate design for a canopied tomb. +‘This has been sent me by the architect, but it is not exactly what I +want.’ + +‘You have got Jones to do it, I see, the man who is carrying out my +house,’ said Barnet, as he glanced at the signature to the drawing. + +‘Yes, but it is not quite what I want. I want something more +striking—more like a tomb I have seen in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Nothing +less will do justice to my feelings, and how far short of them that +will fall!’ + +Barnet privately thought the design a sufficiently imposing one as it +stood, even extravagantly ornate; but, feeling that he had no right to +criticize, he said gently, ‘Downe, should you not live more in your +children’s lives at the present time, and soften the sharpness of +regret for your own past by thinking of their future?’ + +‘Yes, yes; but what can I do more?’ asked Downe, wrinkling his forehead +hopelessly. + +It was with anxious slowness that Barnet produced his reply—the secret +object of his visit to-night. ‘Did you not say one day that you ought +by rights to get a governess for the children?’ + +Downe admitted that he had said so, but that he could not see his way +to it. ‘The kind of woman I should like to have,’ he said, ‘would be +rather beyond my means. No; I think I shall send them to school in the +town when they are old enough to go out alone.’ + +‘Now, I know of something better than that. The late Lieutenant +Savile’s daughter, Lucy, wants to do something for herself in the way +of teaching. She would be inexpensive, and would answer your purpose as +well as anybody for six or twelve months. She would probably come daily +if you were to ask her, and so your housekeeping arrangements would not +be much affected.’ + +‘I thought she had gone away,’ said the solicitor, musing. ‘Where does +she live?’ + +Barnet told him, and added that, if Downe should think of her as +suitable, he would do well to call as soon as possible, or she might be +on the wing. ‘If you do see her,’ he said, ‘it would be advisable not +to mention my name. She is rather stiff in her ideas of me, and it +might prejudice her against a course if she knew that I recommended +it.’ + +Downe promised to give the subject his consideration, and nothing more +was said about it just then. But when Barnet rose to go, which was not +till nearly bedtime, he reminded Downe of the suggestion and went up +the street to his own solitary home with a sense of satisfaction at his +promising diplomacy in a charitable cause. + +CHAPTER VII + +The walls of his new house were carried up nearly to their full height. +By a curious though not infrequent reaction, Barnet’s feelings about +that unnecessary structure had undergone a change; he took considerable +interest in its progress as a long-neglected thing, his wife before her +departure having grown quite weary of it as a hobby. Moreover, it was +an excellent distraction for a man in the unhappy position of having to +live in a provincial town with nothing to do. He was probably the first +of his line who had ever passed a day without toil, and perhaps +something like an inherited instinct disqualifies such men for a life +of pleasant inaction, such as lies in the power of those whose leisure +is not a personal accident, but a vast historical accretion which has +become part of their natures. + +Thus Barnet got into a way of spending many of his leisure hours on the +site of the new building, and he might have been seen on most days at +this time trying the temper of the mortar by punching the joints with +his stick, looking at the grain of a floor-board, and meditating where +it grew, or picturing under what circumstances the last fire would be +kindled in the at present sootless chimneys. One day when thus occupied +he saw three children pass by in the company of a fair young woman, +whose sudden appearance caused him to flush perceptibly. + +‘Ah, she is there,’ he thought. ‘That’s a blessed thing.’ + +Casting an interested glance over the rising building and the busy +workmen, Lucy Savile and the little Downes passed by; and after that +time it became a regular though almost unconscious custom of Barnet to +stand in the half-completed house and look from the ungarnished windows +at the governess as she tripped towards the sea-shore with her young +charges, which she was in the habit of doing on most fine afternoons. +It was on one of these occasions, when he had been loitering on the +first-floor landing, near the hole left for the staircase, not yet +erected, that there appeared above the edge of the floor a little hat, +followed by a little head. + +Barnet withdrew through a doorway, and the child came to the top of the +ladder, stepping on to the floor and crying to her sisters and Miss +Savile to follow. Another head rose above the floor, and another, and +then Lucy herself came into view. The troop ran hither and thither +through the empty, shaving-strewn rooms, and Barnet came forward. + +Lucy uttered a small exclamation: she was very sorry that she had +intruded; she had not the least idea that Mr. Barnet was there: the +children had come up, and she had followed. + +Barnet replied that he was only too glad to see them there. ‘And now, +let me show you the rooms,’ he said. + +She passively assented, and he took her round. There was not much to +show in such a bare skeleton of a house, but he made the most of it, +and explained the different ornamental fittings that were soon to be +fixed here and there. Lucy made but few remarks in reply, though she +seemed pleased with her visit, and stole away down the ladder, followed +by her companions. + +After this the new residence became yet more of a hobby for Barnet. +Downe’s children did not forget their first visit, and when the windows +were glazed, and the handsome staircase spread its broad low steps into +the hall, they came again, prancing in unwearied succession through +every room from ground-floor to attics, while Lucy stood waiting for +them at the door. Barnet, who rarely missed a day in coming to inspect +progress, stepped out from the drawing-room. + +‘I could not keep them out,’ she said, with an apologetic blush. ‘I +tried to do so very much: but they are rather wilful, and we are +directed to walk this way for the sea air.’ + +‘Do let them make the house their regular playground, and you yours,’ +said Barnet. ‘There is no better place for children to romp and take +their exercise in than an empty house, particularly in muddy or damp +weather such as we shall get a good deal of now; and this place will +not be furnished for a long long time—perhaps never. I am not at all +decided about it.’ + +‘O, but it must!’ replied Lucy, looking round at the hall. ‘The rooms +are excellent, twice as high as ours; and the views from the windows +are so lovely.’ + +‘I daresay, I daresay,’ he said absently. + +‘Will all the furniture be new?’ she asked. + +‘All the furniture be new—that’s a thing I have not thought of. In fact +I only come here and look on. My father’s house would have been large +enough for me, but another person had a voice in the matter, and it was +settled that we should build. However, the place grows upon me; its +recent associations are cheerful, and I am getting to like it fast.’ + +A certain uneasiness in Lucy’s manner showed that the conversation was +taking too personal a turn for her. ‘Still, as modern tastes develop, +people require more room to gratify them in,’ she said, withdrawing to +call the children; and serenely bidding him good afternoon she went on +her way. + +Barnet’s life at this period was singularly lonely, and yet he was +happier than he could have expected. His wife’s estrangement and +absence, which promised to be permanent, left him free as a boy in his +movements, and the solitary walks that he took gave him ample +opportunity for chastened reflection on what might have been his lot if +he had only shown wisdom enough to claim Lucy Savile when there was no +bar between their lives, and she was to be had for the asking. He would +occasionally call at the house of his friend Downe; but there was +scarcely enough in common between their two natures to make them more +than friends of that excellent sort whose personal knowledge of each +other’s history and character is always in excess of intimacy, whereby +they are not so likely to be severed by a clash of sentiment as in +cases where intimacy springs up in excess of knowledge. Lucy was never +visible at these times, being either engaged in the school-room, or in +taking an airing out of doors; but, knowing that she was now +comfortable, and had given up the, to him, depressing idea of going off +to the other side of the globe, he was quite content. + +The new house had so far progressed that the gardeners were beginning +to grass down the front. During an afternoon which he was passing in +marking the curve for the carriage-drive, he beheld her coming in +boldly towards him from the road. Hitherto Barnet had only caught her +on the premises by stealth; and this advance seemed to show that at +last her reserve had broken down. + +A smile gained strength upon her face as she approached, and it was +quite radiant when she came up, and said, without a trace of +embarrassment, ‘I find I owe you a hundred thanks—and it comes to me +quite as a surprise! It was through your kindness that I was engaged by +Mr. Downe. Believe me, Mr. Barnet, I did not know it until yesterday, +or I should have thanked you long and long ago!’ + +‘I had offended you—just a trifle—at the time, I think?’ said Barnet, +smiling, ‘and it was best that you should not know.’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ she returned hastily. ‘Don’t allude to that; it is past and +over, and we will let it be. The house is finished almost, is it not? +How beautiful it will look when the evergreens are grown! Do you call +the style Palladian, Mr. Barnet?’ + +‘I—really don’t quite know what it is. Yes, it must be Palladian, +certainly. But I’ll ask Jones, the architect; for, to tell the truth, I +had not thought much about the style: I had nothing to do with choosing +it, I am sorry to say.’ + +She would not let him harp on this gloomy refrain, and talked on bright +matters till she said, producing a small roll of paper which he had +noticed in her hand all the while, ‘Mr. Downe wished me to bring you +this revised drawing of the late Mrs. Downe’s tomb, which the architect +has just sent him. He would like you to look it over.’ + +The children came up with their hoops, and she went off with them down +the harbour-road as usual. Barnet had been glad to get those words of +thanks; he had been thinking for many months that he would like her to +know of his share in finding her a home such as it was; and what he +could not do for himself, Downe had now kindly done for him. He +returned to his desolate house with a lighter tread; though in reason +he hardly knew why his tread should be light. + +On examining the drawing, Barnet found that, instead of the vast +altar-tomb and canopy Downe had determined on at their last meeting, it +was to be a more modest memorial even than had been suggested by the +architect; a coped tomb of good solid construction, with no useless +elaboration at all. Barnet was truly glad to see that Downe had come to +reason of his own accord; and he returned the drawing with a note of +approval. + +He followed up the house-work as before, and as he walked up and down +the rooms, occasionally gazing from the windows over the bulging green +hills and the quiet harbour that lay between them, he murmured words +and fragments of words, which, if listened to, would have revealed all +the secrets of his existence. Whatever his reason in going there, Lucy +did not call again: the walk to the shore seemed to be abandoned: he +must have thought it as well for both that it should be so, for he did +not go anywhere out of his accustomed ways to endeavour to discover +her. + +CHAPTER VIII + +The winter and the spring had passed, and the house was complete. It +was a fine morning in the early part of June, and Barnet, though not in +the habit of rising early, had taken a long walk before breakfast; +returning by way of the new building. A sufficiently exciting cause of +his restlessness to-day might have been the intelligence which had +reached him the night before, that Lucy Savile was going to India after +all, and notwithstanding the representations of her friends that such a +journey was unadvisable in many ways for an unpractised girl, unless +some more definite advantage lay at the end of it than she could show +to be the case. Barnet’s walk up the slope to the building betrayed +that he was in a dissatisfied mood. He hardly saw that the dewy time of +day lent an unusual freshness to the bushes and trees which had so +recently put on their summer habit of heavy leafage, and made his +newly-laid lawn look as well established as an old manorial meadow. The +house had been so adroitly placed between six tall elms which were +growing on the site beforehand, that they seemed like real ancestral +trees; and the rooks, young and old, cawed melodiously to their +visitor. + +The door was not locked, and he entered. No workmen appeared to be +present, and he walked from sunny window to sunny window of the empty +rooms, with a sense of seclusion which might have been very pleasant +but for the antecedent knowledge that his almost paternal care of Lucy +Savile was to be thrown away by her wilfulness. Footsteps echoed +through an adjoining room; and bending his eyes in that direction, he +perceived Mr. Jones, the architect. He had come to look over the +building before giving the contractor his final certificate. They +walked over the house together. Everything was finished except the +papering: there were the latest improvements of the period in +bell-hanging, ventilating, smoke-jacks, fire-grates, and French +windows. The business was soon ended, and Jones, having directed +Barnet’s attention to a roll of wall-paper patterns which lay on a +bench for his choice, was leaving to keep another engagement, when +Barnet said, ‘Is the tomb finished yet for Mrs. Downe?’ + +‘Well—yes: it is at last,’ said the architect, coming back and speaking +as if he were in a mood to make a confidence. ‘I have had no end of +trouble in the matter, and, to tell the truth, I am heartily glad it is +over.’ + +Barnet expressed his surprise. ‘I thought poor Downe had given up those +extravagant notions of his? then he has gone back to the altar and +canopy after all? Well, he is to be excused, poor fellow!’ + +‘O no—he has not at all gone back to them—quite the reverse,’ Jones +hastened to say. ‘He has so reduced design after design, that the whole +thing has been nothing but waste labour for me; till in the end it has +become a common headstone, which a mason put up in half a day.’ + +‘A common headstone?’ said Barnet. + +‘Yes. I held out for some time for the addition of a footstone at +least. But he said, “O no—he couldn’t afford it.”’ + +‘Ah, well—his family is growing up, poor fellow, and his expenses are +getting serious.’ + +‘Yes, exactly,’ said Jones, as if the subject were none of his. And +again directing Barnet’s attention to the wall-papers, the bustling +architect left him to keep some other engagement. + +‘A common headstone,’ murmured Barnet, left again to himself. He mused +a minute or two, and next began looking over and selecting from the +patterns; but had not long been engaged in the work when he heard +another footstep on the gravel without, and somebody enter the open +porch. + +Barnet went to the door—it was his manservant in search of him. + +‘I have been trying for some time to find you, sir,’ he said. ‘This +letter has come by the post, and it is marked immediate. And there’s +this one from Mr. Downe, who called just now wanting to see you.’ He +searched his pocket for the second. + +Barnet took the first letter—it had a black border, and bore the London +postmark. It was not in his wife’s handwriting, or in that of any +person he knew; but conjecture soon ceased as he read the page, wherein +he was briefly informed that Mrs. Barnet had died suddenly on the +previous day, at the furnished villa she had occupied near London. + +Barnet looked vaguely round the empty hall, at the blank walls, out of +the doorway. Drawing a long palpitating breath, and with eyes downcast, +he turned and climbed the stairs slowly, like a man who doubted their +stability. The fact of his wife having, as it were, died once already, +and lived on again, had entirely dislodged the possibility of her +actual death from his conjecture. He went to the landing, leant over +the balusters, and after a reverie, of whose duration he had but the +faintest notion, turned to the window and stretched his gaze to the +cottage further down the road, which was visible from his landing, and +from which Lucy still walked to the solicitor’s house by a cross path. +The faint words that came from his moving lips were simply, ‘At last!’ + +Then, almost involuntarily, Barnet fell down on his knees and murmured +some incoherent words of thanksgiving. Surely his virtue in restoring +his wife to life had been rewarded! But, as if the impulse struck +uneasily on his conscience, he quickly rose, brushed the dust from his +trousers and set himself to think of his next movements. He could not +start for London for some hours; and as he had no preparations to make +that could not be made in half-an-hour, he mechanically descended and +resumed his occupation of turning over the wall-papers. They had all +got brighter for him, those papers. It was all changed—who would sit in +the rooms that they were to line? He went on to muse upon Lucy’s +conduct in so frequently coming to the house with the children; her +occasional blush in speaking to him; her evident interest in him. What +woman can in the long run avoid being interested in a man whom she +knows to be devoted to her? If human solicitation could ever effect +anything, there should be no going to India for Lucy now. All the +papers previously chosen seemed wrong in their shades, and he began +from the beginning to choose again. + +While entering on the task he heard a forced ‘Ahem!’ from without the +porch, evidently uttered to attract his attention, and footsteps again +advancing to the door. His man, whom he had quite forgotten in his +mental turmoil, was still waiting there. + +‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ the man said from round the doorway; ‘but +here’s the note from Mr. Downe that you didn’t take. He called just +after you went out, and as he couldn’t wait, he wrote this on your +study-table.’ + +He handed in the letter—no black-bordered one now, but a +practical-looking note in the well-known writing of the solicitor. + +‘DEAR BARNET’—it ran—‘Perhaps you will be prepared for the information +I am about to give—that Lucy Savile and myself are going to be married +this morning. I have hitherto said nothing as to my intention to any of +my friends, for reasons which I am sure you will fully appreciate. The +crisis has been brought about by her expressing her intention to join +her brother in India. I then discovered that I could not do without +her. + +‘It is to be quite a private wedding; but it is my particular wish that +you come down here quietly at ten, and go to church with us; it will +add greatly to the pleasure I shall experience in the ceremony, and, I +believe, to Lucy’s also. I have called on you very early to make the +request, in the belief that I should find you at home; but you are +beforehand with me in your early rising.—Yours sincerely, C. Downe.’ + + +‘Need I wait, sir?’ said the servant after a dead silence. + +‘That will do, William. No answer,’ said Barnet calmly. + +When the man had gone Barnet re-read the letter. Turning eventually to +the wall-papers, which he had been at such pains to select, he +deliberately tore them into halves and quarters, and threw them into +the empty fireplace. Then he went out of the house; locked the door, +and stood in the front awhile. Instead of returning into the town, he +went down the harbour-road and thoughtfully lingered about by the sea, +near the spot where the body of Downe’s late wife had been found and +brought ashore. + +Barnet was a man with a rich capacity for misery, and there is no doubt +that he exercised it to its fullest extent now. The events that had, as +it were, dashed themselves together into one half-hour of this day +showed that curious refinement of cruelty in their arrangement which +often proceeds from the bosom of the whimsical god at other times known +as blind Circumstance. That his few minutes of hope, between the +reading of the first and second letters, had carried him to +extraordinary heights of rapture was proved by the immensity of his +suffering now. The sun blazing into his face would have shown a close +watcher that a horizontal line, which he had never noticed before, but +which was never to be gone thereafter, was somehow gradually forming +itself in the smooth of his forehead. His eyes, of a light hazel, had a +curious look which can only be described by the word bruised; the +sorrow that looked from them being largely mixed with the surprise of a +man taken unawares. + +The secondary particulars of his present position, too, were odd +enough, though for some time they appeared to engage little of his +attention. Not a soul in the town knew, as yet, of his wife’s death; +and he almost owed Downe the kindness of not publishing it till the day +was over: the conjuncture, taken with that which had accompanied the +death of Mrs. Downe, being so singular as to be quite sufficient to +darken the pleasure of the impressionable solicitor to a cruel extent, +if made known to him. But as Barnet could not set out on his journey to +London, where his wife lay, for some hours (there being at this date no +railway within a distance of many miles), no great reason existed why +he should leave the town. + +Impulse in all its forms characterized Barnet, and when he heard the +distant clock strike the hour of ten his feet began to carry him up the +harbour-road with the manner of a man who must do something to bring +himself to life. He passed Lucy Savile’s old house, his own new one, +and came in view of the church. Now he gave a perceptible start, and +his mechanical condition went away. Before the church-gate were a +couple of carriages, and Barnet then could perceive that the marriage +between Downe and Lucy was at that moment being solemnized within. A +feeling of sudden, proud self-confidence, an indocile wish to walk +unmoved in spite of grim environments, plainly possessed him, and when +he reached the wicket-gate he turned in without apparent effort. Pacing +up the paved footway he entered the church and stood for a while in the +nave passage. A group of people was standing round the vestry door; +Barnet advanced through these and stepped into the vestry. + +There they were, busily signing their names. Seeing Downe about to look +round, Barnet averted his somewhat disturbed face for a second or two; +when he turned again front to front he was calm and quite smiling; it +was a creditable triumph over himself, and deserved to be remembered in +his native town. He greeted Downe heartily, offering his +congratulations. + +It seemed as if Barnet expected a half-guilty look upon Lucy’s face; +but no, save the natural flush and flurry engendered by the service +just performed, there was nothing whatever in her bearing which showed +a disturbed mind: her gray-brown eyes carried in them now as at other +times the well-known expression of common-sensed rectitude which never +went so far as to touch on hardness. She shook hands with him, and +Downe said warmly, ‘I wish you could have come sooner: I called on +purpose to ask you. You’ll drive back with us now?’ + +‘No, no,’ said Barnet; ‘I am not at all prepared; but I thought I would +look in upon you for a moment, even though I had not time to go home +and dress. I’ll stand back and see you pass out, and observe the effect +of the spectacle upon myself as one of the public.’ + +Then Lucy and her husband laughed, and Barnet laughed and retired; and +the quiet little party went gliding down the nave and towards the +porch, Lucy’s new silk dress sweeping with a smart rustle round the +base-mouldings of the ancient font, and Downe’s little daughters +following in a state of round-eyed interest in their position, and that +of Lucy, their teacher and friend. + +So Downe was comforted after his Emily’s death, which had taken place +twelve months, two weeks, and three days before that time. + +When the two flys had driven off and the spectators had vanished, +Barnet followed to the door, and went out into the sun. He took no more +trouble to preserve a spruce exterior; his step was unequal, +hesitating, almost convulsive; and the slight changes of colour which +went on in his face seemed refracted from some inward flame. In the +churchyard he became pale as a summer cloud, and finding it not easy to +proceed he sat down on one of the tombstones and supported his head +with his hand. + +Hard by was a sexton filling up a grave which he had not found time to +finish on the previous evening. Observing Barnet, he went up to him, +and recognizing him, said, ‘Shall I help you home, sir?’ + +‘O no, thank you,’ said Barnet, rousing himself and standing up. The +sexton returned to his grave, followed by Barnet, who, after watching +him awhile, stepped into the grave, now nearly filled, and helped to +tread in the earth. + +The sexton apparently thought his conduct a little singular, but he +made no observation, and when the grave was full, Barnet suddenly +stopped, looked far away, and with a decided step proceeded to the gate +and vanished. The sexton rested on his shovel and looked after him for +a few moments, and then began banking up the mound. + +In those short minutes of treading in the dead man Barnet had formed a +design, but what it was the inhabitants of that town did not for some +long time imagine. He went home, wrote several letters of business, +called on his lawyer, an old man of the same place who had been the +legal adviser of Barnet’s father before him, and during the evening +overhauled a large quantity of letters and other documents in his +possession. By eleven o’clock the heap of papers in and before Barnet’s +grate had reached formidable dimensions, and he began to burn them. +This, owing to their quantity, it was not so easy to do as he had +expected, and he sat long into the night to complete the task. + +The next morning Barnet departed for London, leaving a note for Downe +to inform him of Mrs. Barnet’s sudden death, and that he was gone to +bury her; but when a thrice-sufficient time for that purpose had +elapsed, he was not seen again in his accustomed walks, or in his new +house, or in his old one. He was gone for good, nobody knew whither. It +was soon discovered that he had empowered his lawyer to dispose of all +his property, real and personal, in the borough, and pay in the +proceeds to the account of an unknown person at one of the large London +banks. The person was by some supposed to be himself under an assumed +name; but few, if any, had certain knowledge of that fact. + +The elegant new residence was sold with the rest of his possessions; +and its purchaser was no other than Downe, now a thriving man in the +borough, and one whose growing family and new wife required more roomy +accommodation than was afforded by the little house up the narrow side +street. Barnet’s old habitation was bought by the trustees of the +Congregational Baptist body in that town, who pulled down the +time-honoured dwelling and built a new chapel on its site. By the time +the last hour of that, to Barnet, eventful year had chimed, every +vestige of him had disappeared from the precincts of his native place, +and the name became extinct in the borough of Port-Bredy, after having +been a living force therein for more than two hundred years. + +CHAPTER IX + +Twenty-one years and six months do not pass without setting a mark even +upon durable stone and triple brass; upon humanity such a period works +nothing less than transformation. In Barnet’s old birthplace vivacious +young children with bones like india-rubber had grown up to be stable +men and women, men and women had dried in the skin, stiffened, +withered, and sunk into decrepitude; while selections from every class +had been consigned to the outlying cemetery. Of inorganic differences +the greatest was that a railway had invaded the town, tying it on to a +main line at a junction a dozen miles off. Barnet’s house on the +harbour-road, once so insistently new, had acquired a respectable +mellowness, with ivy, Virginia creepers, lichens, damp patches, and +even constitutional infirmities of its own like its elder fellows. Its +architecture, once so very improved and modern, had already become +stale in style, without having reached the dignity of being +old-fashioned. Trees about the harbour-road had increased in +circumference or disappeared under the saw; while the church had had +such a tremendous practical joke played upon it by some facetious +restorer or other as to be scarce recognizable by its dearest old +friends. + +During this long interval George Barnet had never once been seen or +heard of in the town of his fathers. + +It was the evening of a market-day, and some half-dozen middle-aged +farmers and dairymen were lounging round the bar of the Black-Bull +Hotel, occasionally dropping a remark to each other, and less +frequently to the two barmaids who stood within the pewter-topped +counter in a perfunctory attitude of attention, these latter sighing +and making a private observation to one another at odd intervals, on +more interesting experiences than the present. + +‘Days get shorter,’ said one of the dairymen, as he looked towards the +street, and noticed that the lamp-lighter was passing by. + +The farmers merely acknowledged by their countenances the propriety of +this remark, and finding that nobody else spoke, one of the barmaids +said ‘yes,’ in a tone of painful duty. + +‘Come fair-day we shall have to light up before we start for +home-along.’ + +‘That’s true,’ his neighbour conceded, with a gaze of blankness. + +‘And after that we shan’t see much further difference all’s winter.’ + +The rest were not unwilling to go even so far as this. + +The barmaid sighed again, and raised one of her hands from the counter +on which they rested to scratch the smallest surface of her face with +the smallest of her fingers. She looked towards the door, and presently +remarked, ‘I think I hear the ‘bus coming in from station.’ + +The eyes of the dairymen and farmers turned to the glass door dividing +the hall from the porch, and in a minute or two the omnibus drew up +outside. Then there was a lumbering down of luggage, and then a man +came into the hall, followed by a porter with a portmanteau on his +poll, which he deposited on a bench. + +The stranger was an elderly person, with curly ashen white hair, a +deeply-creviced outer corner to each eyelid, and a countenance baked by +innumerable suns to the colour of terra-cotta, its hue and that of his +hair contrasting like heat and cold respectively. He walked +meditatively and gently, like one who was fearful of disturbing his own +mental equilibrium. But whatever lay at the bottom of his breast had +evidently made him so accustomed to its situation there that it caused +him little practical inconvenience. + +He paused in silence while, with his dubious eyes fixed on the +barmaids, he seemed to consider himself. In a moment or two he +addressed them, and asked to be accommodated for the night. As he +waited he looked curiously round the hall, but said nothing. As soon as +invited he disappeared up the staircase, preceded by a chambermaid and +candle, and followed by a lad with his trunk. Not a soul had recognized +him. + +A quarter of an hour later, when the farmers and dairymen had driven +off to their homesteads in the country, he came downstairs, took a +biscuit and one glass of wine, and walked out into the town, where the +radiance from the shop-windows had grown so in volume of late years as +to flood with cheerfulness every standing cart, barrow, stall, and +idler that occupied the wayside, whether shabby or genteel. His chief +interest at present seemed to lie in the names painted over the +shop-fronts and on door-ways, as far as they were visible; these now +differed to an ominous extent from what they had been one-and-twenty +years before. + +The traveller passed on till he came to the bookseller’s, where he +looked in through the glass door. A fresh-faced young man was standing +behind the counter, otherwise the shop was empty. The gray-haired +observer entered, asked for some periodical by way of paying for +admission, and with his elbow on the counter began to turn over the +pages he had bought, though that he read nothing was obvious. + +At length he said, ‘Is old Mr. Watkins still alive?’ in a voice which +had a curious youthful cadence in it even now. + +‘My father is dead, sir,’ said the young man. + +‘Ah, I am sorry to hear it,’ said the stranger. ‘But it is so many +years since I last visited this town that I could hardly expect it +should be otherwise.’ After a short silence he continued—‘And is the +firm of Barnet, Browse, and Company still in existence?_—_they used to +be large flax-merchants and twine-spinners here?’ + +‘The firm is still going on, sir, but they have dropped the name of +Barnet. I believe that was a sort of fancy name—at least, I never knew +of any living Barnet. ’Tis now Browse and Co.’ + +‘And does Andrew Jones still keep on as architect?’ + +‘He’s dead, sir.’ + +‘And the Vicar of St. Mary’s—Mr. Melrose?’ + +‘He’s been dead a great many years.’ + +‘Dear me!’ He paused yet longer, and cleared his voice. ‘Is Mr. Downe, +the solicitor, still in practice?’ + +‘No, sir, he’s dead. He died about seven years ago.’ + +Here it was a longer silence still; and an attentive observer would +have noticed that the paper in the stranger’s hand increased its +imperceptible tremor to a visible shake. That gray-haired gentleman +noticed it himself, and rested the paper on the counter. ‘Is _Mrs_. +Downe still alive?’ he asked, closing his lips firmly as soon as the +words were out of his mouth, and dropping his eyes. + +‘Yes, sir, she’s alive and well. She’s living at the old place.’ + +‘In East Street?’ + +‘O no; at Château Ringdale. I believe it has been in the family for +some generations.’ + +‘She lives with her children, perhaps?’ + +‘No; she has no children of her own. There were some Miss Downes; I +think they were Mr. Downe’s daughters by a former wife; but they are +married and living in other parts of the town. Mrs. Downe lives alone.’ + +‘Quite alone?’ + +‘Yes, sir; quite alone.’ + +The newly-arrived gentleman went back to the hotel and dined; after +which he made some change in his dress, shaved back his beard to the +fashion that had prevailed twenty years earlier, when he was young and +interesting, and once more emerging, bent his steps in the direction of +the harbour-road. Just before getting to the point where the pavement +ceased and the houses isolated themselves, he overtook a shambling, +stooping, unshaven man, who at first sight appeared like a professional +tramp, his shoulders having a perceptible greasiness as they passed +under the gaslight. Each pedestrian momentarily turned and regarded the +other, and the tramp-like gentleman started back. + +‘Good—why—is that Mr. Barnet? ’Tis Mr. Barnet, surely!’ + +‘Yes; and you are Charlson?’ + +‘Yes—ah—you notice my appearance. The Fates have rather ill-used me. +By-the-bye, that fifty pounds. I never paid it, did I? . . . But I was +not ungrateful!’ Here the stooping man laid one hand emphatically on +the palm of the other. ‘I gave you a chance, Mr. George Barnet, which +many men would have thought full value received—the chance to marry +your Lucy. As far as the world was concerned, your wife was a _drowned +woman_, hey?’ + +‘Heaven forbid all that, Charlson!’ + +‘Well, well, ’twas a wrong way of showing gratitude, I suppose. And now +a drop of something to drink for old acquaintance’ sake! And Mr. +Barnet, she’s again free—there’s a chance now if you care for it—ha, +ha!’ And the speaker pushed his tongue into his hollow cheek and +slanted his eye in the old fashion. + +‘I know all,’ said Barnet quickly; and slipping a small present into +the hands of the needy, saddening man, he stepped ahead and was soon in +the outskirts of the town. + +He reached the harbour-road, and paused before the entrance to a +well-known house. It was so highly bosomed in trees and shrubs planted +since the erection of the building that one would scarcely have +recognized the spot as that which had been a mere neglected slope till +chosen as a site for a dwelling. He opened the swing-gate, closed it +noiselessly, and gently moved into the semicircular drive, which +remained exactly as it had been marked out by Barnet on the morning +when Lucy Savile ran in to thank him for procuring her the post of +governess to Downe’s children. But the growth of trees and bushes which +revealed itself at every step was beyond all expectation; sun-proof and +moon-proof bowers vaulted the walks, and the walls of the house were +uniformly bearded with creeping plants as high as the first-floor +windows. + +After lingering for a few minutes in the dusk of the bending boughs, +the visitor rang the door-bell, and on the servant appearing, he +announced himself as ‘an old friend of Mrs. Downe’s.’ + +The hall was lighted, but not brightly, the gas being turned low, as if +visitors were rare. There was a stagnation in the dwelling; it seemed +to be waiting. Could it really be waiting for him? The partitions which +had been probed by Barnet’s walking-stick when the mortar was green, +were now quite brown with the antiquity of their varnish, and the +ornamental woodwork of the staircase, which had glistened with a pale +yellow newness when first erected, was now of a rich wine-colour. +During the servant’s absence the following colloquy could be dimly +heard through the nearly closed door of the drawing-room. + +‘He didn’t give his name?’ + +‘He only said “an old friend,” ma’am.’ + +‘What kind of gentleman is he?’ + +‘A staidish gentleman, with gray hair.’ + +The voice of the second speaker seemed to affect the listener greatly. +After a pause, the lady said, ‘Very well, I will see him.’ + +And the stranger was shown in face to face with the Lucy who had once +been Lucy Savile. The round cheek of that formerly young lady had, of +course, alarmingly flattened its curve in her modern representative; a +pervasive grayness overspread her once dark brown hair, like morning +rime on heather. The parting down the middle was wide and jagged; once +it had been a thin white line, a narrow crevice between two high banks +of shade. But there was still enough left to form a handsome knob +behind, and some curls beneath inwrought with a few hairs like silver +wires were very becoming. In her eyes the only modification was that +their originally mild rectitude of expression had become a little more +stringent than heretofore. Yet she was still girlish—a girl who had +been gratuitously weighted by destiny with a burden of five-and-forty +years instead of her proper twenty. + +‘Lucy, don’t you know me?’ he said, when the servant had closed the +door. + +‘I knew you the instant I saw you!’ she returned cheerfully. ‘I don’t +know why, but I always thought you would come back to your old town +again.’ + +She gave him her hand, and then they sat down. ‘They said you were +dead,’ continued Lucy, ‘but I never thought so. We should have heard of +it for certain if you had been.’ + +‘It is a very long time since we met.’ + +‘Yes; what you must have seen, Mr. Barnet, in all these roving years, +in comparison with what I have seen in this quiet place!’ Her face grew +more serious. ‘You know my husband has been dead a long time? I am a +lonely old woman now, considering what I have been; though Mr. Downe’s +daughters—all married—manage to keep me pretty cheerful.’ + +‘And I am a lonely old man, and have been any time these twenty years.’ + +‘But where have you kept yourself? And why did you go off so +mysteriously?’ + +‘Well, Lucy, I have kept myself a little in America, and a little in +Australia, a little in India, a little at the Cape, and so on; I have +not stayed in any place for a long time, as it seems to me, and yet +more than twenty years have flown. But when people get to my age two +years go like one!—Your second question, why did I go away so +mysteriously, is surely not necessary. You guessed why, didn’t you?’ + +‘No, I never once guessed,’ she said simply; ‘nor did Charles, nor did +anybody as far as I know.’ + +‘Well, indeed! Now think it over again, and then look at me, and say if +you can’t guess?’ + +She looked him in the face with an inquiring smile. ‘Surely not because +of me?’ she said, pausing at the commencement of surprise. + +Barnet nodded, and smiled again; but his smile was sadder than hers. + +‘Because I married Charles?’ she asked. + +‘Yes; solely because you married him on the day I was free to ask you +to marry me. My wife died four-and-twenty hours before you went to +church with Downe. The fixing of my journey at that particular moment +was because of her funeral; but once away I knew I should have no +inducement to come back, and took my steps accordingly.’ + +Her face assumed an aspect of gentle reflection, and she looked up and +down his form with great interest in her eyes. ‘I never thought of it!’ +she said. ‘I knew, of course, that you had once implied some warmth of +feeling towards me, but I concluded that it passed off. And I have +always been under the impression that your wife was alive at the time +of my marriage. Was it not stupid of me!—But you will have some tea or +something? I have never dined late, you know, since my husband’s death. +I have got into the way of making a regular meal of tea. You will have +some tea with me, will you not?’ + +The travelled man assented quite readily, and tea was brought in. They +sat and chatted over the meal, regardless of the flying hour. ‘Well, +well!’ said Barnet presently, as for the first time he leisurely +surveyed the room; ‘how like it all is, and yet how different! Just +where your piano stands was a board on a couple of trestles, bearing +the patterns of wall-papers, when I was last here. I was choosing +them—standing in this way, as it might be. Then my servant came in at +the door, and handed me a note, so. It was from Downe, and announced +that you were just going to be married to him. I chose no more +wall-papers—tore up all those I had selected, and left the house. I +never entered it again till now.’ + +‘Ah, at last I understand it all,’ she murmured. + +They had both risen and gone to the fireplace. The mantel came almost +on a level with her shoulder, which gently rested against it, and +Barnet laid his hand upon the shelf close beside her shoulder. ‘Lucy,’ +he said, ‘better late than never. Will you marry me now?’ + +She started back, and the surprise which was so obvious in her wrought +even greater surprise in him that it should be so. It was difficult to +believe that she had been quite blind to the situation, and yet all +reason and common sense went to prove that she was not acting. + +‘You take me quite unawares by such a question!’ she said, with a +forced laugh of uneasiness. It was the first time she had shown any +embarrassment at all. ‘Why,’ she added, ‘I couldn’t marry you for the +world.’ + +‘Not after all this! Why not?’ + +‘It is—I would—I really think I may say it—I would upon the whole +rather marry you, Mr. Barnet, than any other man I have ever met, if I +ever dreamed of marriage again. But I don’t dream of it—it is quite out +of my thoughts; I have not the least intention of marrying again.’ + +‘But—on my account—couldn’t you alter your plans a little? Come!’ + +‘Dear Mr. Barnet,’ she said with a little flutter, ‘I would on your +account if on anybody’s in existence. But you don’t know in the least +what it is you are asking—such an impracticable thing—I won’t say +ridiculous, of course, because I see that you are really in earnest, +and earnestness is never ridiculous to my mind.’ + +‘Well, yes,’ said Barnet more slowly, dropping her hand, which he had +taken at the moment of pleading, ‘I am in earnest. The resolve, two +months ago, at the Cape, to come back once more was, it is true, rather +sudden, and as I see now, not well considered. But I am in earnest in +asking.’ + +‘And I in declining. With all good feeling and all kindness, let me say +that I am quite opposed to the idea of marrying a second time.’ + +‘Well, no harm has been done,’ he answered, with the same subdued and +tender humorousness that he had shown on such occasions in early life. +‘If you really won’t accept me, I must put up with it, I suppose.’ His +eye fell on the clock as he spoke. ‘Had you any notion that it was so +late?’ he asked. ‘How absorbed I have been!’ + +She accompanied him to the hall, helped him to put on his overcoat, and +let him out of the house herself. + +‘Good-night,’ said Barnet, on the doorstep, as the lamp shone in his +face. ‘You are not offended with me?’ + +‘Certainly not. Nor you with me?’ + +‘I’ll consider whether I am or not,’ he pleasantly replied. +‘Good-night.’ + +She watched him safely through the gate; and when his footsteps had +died away upon the road, closed the door softly and returned to the +room. Here the modest widow long pondered his speeches, with eyes +dropped to an unusually low level. Barnet’s urbanity under the blow of +her refusal greatly impressed her. After having his long period of +probation rendered useless by her decision, he had shown no anger, and +had philosophically taken her words as if he deserved no better ones. +It was very gentlemanly of him, certainly; it was more than +gentlemanly; it was heroic and grand. The more she meditated, the more +she questioned the virtue of her conduct in checking him so +peremptorily; and went to her bedroom in a mood of dissatisfaction. On +looking in the glass she was reminded that there was not so much +remaining of her former beauty as to make his frank declaration an +impulsive natural homage to her cheeks and eyes; it must undoubtedly +have arisen from an old staunch feeling of his, deserving tenderest +consideration. She recalled to her mind with much pleasure that he had +told her he was staying at the Black-Bull Hotel; so that if, after +waiting a day or two, he should not, in his modesty, call again, she +might then send him a nice little note. To alter her views for the +present was far from her intention; but she would allow herself to be +induced to reconsider the case, as any generous woman ought to do. + +The morrow came and passed, and Mr. Barnet did not drop in. At every +knock, light youthful hues flew across her cheek; and she was +abstracted in the presence of her other visitors. In the evening she +walked about the house, not knowing what to do with herself; the +conditions of existence seemed totally different from those which ruled +only four-and-twenty short hours ago. What had been at first a +tantalizing elusive sentiment was getting acclimatized within her as a +definite hope, and her person was so informed by that emotion that she +might almost have stood as its emblematical representative by the time +the clock struck ten. In short, an interest in Barnet precisely +resembling that of her early youth led her present heart to belie her +yesterday’s words to him, and she longed to see him again. + +The next day she walked out early, thinking she might meet him in the +street. The growing beauty of her romance absorbed her, and she went +from the street to the fields, and from the fields to the shore, +without any consciousness of distance, till reminded by her weariness +that she could go no further. He had nowhere appeared. In the evening +she took a step which under the circumstances seemed justifiable; she +wrote a note to him at the hotel, inviting him to tea with her at six +precisely, and signing her note ‘Lucy.’ + +In a quarter of an hour the messenger came back. Mr. Barnet had left +the hotel early in the morning of the day before, but he had stated +that he would probably return in the course of the week. + +The note was sent back, to be given to him immediately on his arrival. + +There was no sign from the inn that this desired event had occurred, +either on the next day or the day following. On both nights she had +been restless, and had scarcely slept half-an-hour. + +On the Saturday, putting off all diffidence, Lucy went herself to the +Black-Bull, and questioned the staff closely. + +Mr. Barnet had cursorily remarked when leaving that he might return on +the Thursday or Friday, but they were directed not to reserve a room +for him unless he should write. + +He had left no address. + +Lucy sorrowfully took back her note went home, and resolved to wait. + +She did wait—years and years—but Barnet never reappeared. + +_April_ 1880. + + + + +INTERLOPERS AT THE KNAP + + +CHAPTER I + +The north road from Casterbridge is tedious and lonely, especially in +winter-time. Along a part of its course it connects with Long-Ash Lane, +a monotonous track without a village or hamlet for many miles, and with +very seldom a turning. Unapprized wayfarers who are too old, or too +young, or in other respects too weak for the distance to be traversed, +but who, nevertheless, have to walk it, say, as they look wistfully +ahead, ‘Once at the top of that hill, and I must surely see the end of +Long-Ash Lane!’ But they reach the hilltop, and Long-Ash Lane stretches +in front as mercilessly as before. + +Some few years ago a certain farmer was riding through this lane in the +gloom of a winter evening. The farmer’s friend, a dairyman, was riding +beside him. A few paces in the rear rode the farmer’s man. All three +were well horsed on strong, round-barrelled cobs; and to be well horsed +was to be in better spirits about Long-Ash Lane than poor pedestrians +could attain to during its passage. + +But the farmer did not talk much to his friend as he rode along. The +enterprise which had brought him there filled his mind; for in truth it +was important. Not altogether so important was it, perhaps, when +estimated by its value to society at large; but if the true measure of +a deed be proportionate to the space it occupies in the heart of him +who undertakes it, Farmer Charles Darton’s business to-night could hold +its own with the business of kings. + +He was a large farmer. His turnover, as it is called, was probably +thirty thousand pounds a year. He had a great many draught horses, a +great many milch cows, and of sheep a multitude. This comfortable +position was, however, none of his own making. It had been created by +his father, a man of a very different stamp from the present +representative of the line. + +Darton, the father, had been a one-idea’d character, with a buttoned-up +pocket and a chink-like eye brimming with commercial subtlety. In +Darton the son, this trade subtlety had become transmuted into +emotional, and the harshness had disappeared; he would have been called +a sad man but for his constant care not to divide himself from lively +friends by piping notes out of harmony with theirs. Contemplative, he +allowed his mind to be a quiet meeting-place for memories and hopes. So +that, naturally enough, since succeeding to the agricultural calling, +and up to his present age of thirty-two, he had neither advanced nor +receded as a capitalist—a stationary result which did not agitate one +of his unambitious, unstrategic nature, since he had all that he +desired. The motive of his expedition to-night showed the same absence +of anxious regard for Number One. + +The party rode on in the slow, safe trot proper to night-time and bad +roads, Farmer Darton’s head jigging rather unromantically up and down +against the sky, and his motions being repeated with bolder emphasis by +his friend Japheth Johns; while those of the latter were travestied in +jerks still less softened by art in the person of the lad who attended +them. A pair of whitish objects hung one on each side of the latter, +bumping against him at each step, and still further spoiling the grace +of his seat. On close inspection they might have been perceived to be +open rush baskets—one containing a turkey, and the other some bottles +of wine. + +‘D’ye feel ye can meet your fate like a man, neighbour Darton?’ asked +Johns, breaking a silence which had lasted while five-and-twenty +hedgerow trees had glided by. + +Mr. Darton with a half-laugh murmured, ‘Ay—call it my fate! Hanging and +wiving go by destiny.’ And then they were silent again. + +The darkness thickened rapidly, at intervals shutting down on the land +in a perceptible flap, like the wave of a wing. The customary close of +day was accelerated by a simultaneous blurring of the air. With the +fall of night had come a mist just damp enough to incommode, but not +sufficient to saturate them. Countrymen as they were—born, as may be +said, with only an open door between them and the four seasons—they +regarded the mist but as an added obscuration, and ignored its humid +quality. + +They were travelling in a direction that was enlivened by no modern +current of traffic, the place of Darton’s pilgrimage being an +old-fashioned village—one of the Hintocks (several villages of that +name, with a distinctive prefix or affix, lying thereabout)—where the +people make the best cider and cider-wine in all Wessex, and where the +dunghills smell of pomace instead of stable refuse as elsewhere. The +lane was sometimes so narrow that the brambles of the hedge, which hung +forward like anglers’ rods over a stream, scratched their hats and +curry-combed their whiskers as they passed. Yet this neglected lane had +been a highway to Queen Elizabeth’s subjects and the cavalcades of the +past. Its day was over now, and its history as a national artery done +for ever. + +‘Why I have decided to marry her,’ resumed Darton (in a measured +musical voice of confidence which revealed a good deal of his +composition), as he glanced round to see that the lad was not too near, +‘is not only that I like her, but that I can do no better, even from a +fairly practical point of view. That I might ha’ looked higher is +possibly true, though it is really all nonsense. I have had experience +enough in looking above me. “No more superior women for me,” said I—you +know when. Sally is a comely, independent, simple character, with no +make-up about her, who’ll think me as much a superior to her as I used +to think—you know who I mean—was to me.’ + +‘Ay,’ said Johns. ‘However, I shouldn’t call Sally Hall simple. +Primary, because no Sally is; secondary, because if some could be, this +one wouldn’t. ’Tis a wrong denomination to apply to a woman, Charles, +and affects me, as your best man, like cold water. ’Tis like +recommending a stage play by saying there’s neither murder, villainy, +nor harm of any sort in it, when that’s what you’ve paid your +half-crown to see.’ + +‘Well; may your opinion do you good. Mine’s a different one.’ And +turning the conversation from the philosophical to the practical, +Darton expressed a hope that the said Sally had received what he’d sent +on by the carrier that day. + +Johns wanted to know what that was. + +‘It is a dress,’ said Darton. ‘Not exactly a wedding-dress; though she +may use it as one if she likes. It is rather serviceable than +showy—suitable for the winter weather.’ + +‘Good,’ said Johns. ‘Serviceable is a wise word in a bridegroom. I +commend ye, Charles.’ + +‘For,’ said Darton, ‘why should a woman dress up like a rope-dancer +because she’s going to do the most solemn deed of her life except +dying?’ + +‘Faith, why? But she will, because she will, I suppose,’ said Dairyman +Johns. + +‘H’m,’ said Darton. + +The lane they followed had been nearly straight for several miles, but +it now took a turn, and winding uncertainly for some distance forked +into two. By night country roads are apt to reveal ungainly qualities +which pass without observation during day; and though Darton had +travelled this way before, he had not done so frequently, Sally having +been wooed at the house of a relative near his own. He never remembered +seeing at this spot a pair of alternative ways looking so equally +probable as these two did now. Johns rode on a few steps. + +‘Don’t be out of heart, sonny,’ he cried. ‘Here’s a handpost. +Enoch—come and climm this post, and tell us the way.’ + +The lad dismounted, and jumped into the hedge where the post stood +under a tree. + +‘Unstrap the baskets, or you’ll smash up that wine!’ cried Darton, as +the young man began spasmodically to climb the post, baskets and all. + +‘Was there ever less head in a brainless world?’ said Johns. ‘Here, +simple Nocky, I’ll do it.’ He leapt off, and with much puffing climbed +the post, striking a match when he reached the top, and moving the +light along the arm, the lad standing and gazing at the spectacle. + +‘I have faced tantalization these twenty years with a temper as mild as +milk!’ said Japheth; ‘but such things as this don’t come short of +devilry!’ And flinging the match away, he slipped down to the ground. + +‘What’s the matter?’ asked Darton. + +‘Not a letter, sacred or heathen—not so much as would tell us the way +to the great fireplace—ever I should sin to say it! Either the moss and +mildew have eat away the words, or we have arrived in a land where the +natyves have lost the art o’ writing, and should ha’ brought our +compass like Christopher Columbus.’ + +‘Let us take the straightest road,’ said Darton placidly; ‘I shan’t be +sorry to get there—’tis a tiresome ride. I would have driven if I had +known.’ + +‘Nor I neither, sir,’ said Enoch. ‘These straps plough my shoulder like +a zull. If ’tis much further to your lady’s home, Maister Darton, I +shall ask to be let carry half of these good things in my innerds—hee, +hee!’ + +‘Don’t you be such a reforming radical, Enoch,’ said Johns sternly. +‘Here, I’ll take the turkey.’ + +This being done, they went forward by the right-hand lane, which +ascended a hill, the left winding away under a plantation. The +pit-a-pat of their horses’ hoofs lessened up the slope; and the +ironical directing-post stood in solitude as before, holding out its +blank arms to the raw breeze, which brought a snore from the wood as if +Skrymir the Giant were sleeping there. + +CHAPTER II + +Three miles to the left of the travellers, along the road they had not +followed, rose an old house with mullioned windows of Ham-hill stone, +and chimneys of lavish solidity. It stood at the top of a slope beside +King’s-Hintock village-street; and immediately in front of it grew a +large sycamore-tree, whose bared roots formed a convenient staircase +from the road below to the front door of the dwelling. Its situation +gave the house what little distinctive name it possessed, namely, ‘The +Knap.’ Some forty yards off a brook dribbled past, which, for its size, +made a great deal of noise. At the back was a dairy barton, accessible +for vehicles and live-stock by a side ‘drong.’ Thus much only of the +character of the homestead could be divined out of doors at this shady +evening-time. + +But within there was plenty of light to see by, as plenty was construed +at Hintock. Beside a Tudor fireplace, whose moulded four-centred arch +was nearly hidden by a figured blue-cloth blower, were seated two +women—mother and daughter—Mrs. Hall, and Sarah, or Sally; for this was +a part of the world where the latter modification had not as yet been +effaced as a vulgarity by the march of intellect. The owner of the name +was the young woman by whose means Mr. Darton proposed to put an end to +his bachelor condition on the approaching day. + +The mother’s bereavement had been so long ago as not to leave much mark +of its occurrence upon her now, either in face or clothes. She had +resumed the mob-cap of her early married life, enlivening its whiteness +by a few rose-du-Barry ribbons. Sally required no such aids to +pinkness. Roseate good-nature lit up her gaze; her features showed +curves of decision and judgment; and she might have been regarded +without much mistake as a warm-hearted, quick-spirited, handsome girl. + +She did most of the talking, her mother listening with a half-absent +air, as she picked up fragments of red-hot wood ember with the tongs, +and piled them upon the brands. But the number of speeches that passed +was very small in proportion to the meanings exchanged. Long experience +together often enabled them to see the course of thought in each +other’s minds without a word being spoken. Behind them, in the centre +of the room, the table was spread for supper, certain whiffs of air +laden with fat vapours, which ever and anon entered from the kitchen, +denoting its preparation there. + +‘The new gown he was going to send you stays about on the way like +himself,’ Sally’s mother was saying. + +‘Yes, not finished, I daresay,’ cried Sally independently. ‘Lord, I +shouldn’t be amazed if it didn’t come at all! Young men make such kind +promises when they are near you, and forget ’em when they go away. But +he doesn’t intend it as a wedding-gown—he gives it to me merely as a +gown to wear when I like—a travelling-dress is what it would be called +by some. Come rathe or come late it don’t much matter, as I have a +dress of my own to fall back upon. But what time is it?’ + +She went to the family clock and opened the glass, for the hour was not +otherwise discernible by night, and indeed at all times was rather a +thing to be investigated than beheld, so much more wall than window was +there in the apartment. ‘It is nearly eight,’ said she. + +‘Eight o’clock, and neither dress nor man,’ said Mrs. Hall. + +‘Mother, if you think to tantalize me by talking like that, you are +much mistaken! Let him be as late as he will—or stay away altogether—I +don’t care,’ said Sally. But a tender, minute quaver in the negation +showed that there was something forced in that statement. + +Mrs. Hall perceived it, and drily observed that she was not so sure +about Sally not caring. ‘But perhaps you don’t care so much as I do, +after all,’ she said. ‘For I see what you don’t, that it is a good and +flourishing match for you; a very honourable offer in Mr. Darton. And I +think I see a kind husband in him. So pray God ’twill go smooth, and +wind up well.’ + +Sally would not listen to misgivings. Of course it would go smoothly, +she asserted. ‘How you are up and down, mother!’ she went on. ‘At this +moment, whatever hinders him, we are not so anxious to see him as he is +to be here, and his thought runs on before him, and settles down upon +us like the star in the east. Hark!’ she exclaimed, with a breath of +relief, her eyes sparkling. ‘I heard something. Yes—here they are!’ + +The next moment her mother’s slower ear also distinguished the familiar +reverberation occasioned by footsteps clambering up the roots of the +sycamore. + +‘Yes it sounds like them at last,’ she said. ‘Well, it is not so very +late after all, considering the distance.’ + +The footfall ceased, and they arose, expecting a knock. They began to +think it might have been, after all, some neighbouring villager under +Bacchic influence, giving the centre of the road a wide berth, when +their doubts were dispelled by the new-comer’s entry into the passage. +The door of the room was gently opened, and there appeared, not the +pair of travellers with whom we have already made acquaintance, but a +pale-faced man in the garb of extreme poverty—almost in rags. + +‘O, it’s a tramp—gracious me!’ said Sally, starting back. + +His cheeks and eye-orbits were deep concaves—rather, it might be, from +natural weakness of constitution than irregular living, though there +were indications that he had led no careful life. He gazed at the two +women fixedly for a moment: then with an abashed, humiliated demeanour, +dropped his glance to the floor, and sank into a chair without uttering +a word. + +Sally was in advance of her mother, who had remained standing by the +fire. She now tried to discern the visitor across the candles. + +‘Why—mother,’ said Sally faintly, turning back to Mrs. Hall. ‘It is +Phil, from Australia!’ + +Mrs. Hall started, and grew pale, and a fit of coughing seized the man +with the ragged clothes. ‘To come home like this!’ she said. ‘O, +Philip—are you ill?’ + +‘No, no, mother,’ replied he impatiently, as soon as he could speak. + +‘But for God’s sake how do you come here—and just now too?’ + +‘Well, I am here,’ said the man. ‘How it is I hardly know. I’ve come +home, mother, because I was driven to it. Things were against me out +there, and went from bad to worse.’ + +‘Then why didn’t you let us know?—you’ve not writ a line for the last +two or three years.’ + +The son admitted sadly that he had not. He said that he had hoped and +thought he might fetch up again, and be able to send good news. Then he +had been obliged to abandon that hope, and had finally come home from +sheer necessity—previously to making a new start. ‘Yes, things are very +bad with me,’ he repeated, perceiving their commiserating glances at +his clothes. + +They brought him nearer the fire, took his hat from his thin hand, +which was so small and smooth as to show that his attempts to fetch up +again had not been in a manual direction. His mother resumed her +inquiries, and dubiously asked if he had chosen to come that particular +night for any special reason. + +For no reason, he told her. His arrival had been quite at random. Then +Philip Hall looked round the room, and saw for the first time that the +table was laid somewhat luxuriously, and for a larger number than +themselves; and that an air of festivity pervaded their dress. He asked +quickly what was going on. + +‘Sally is going to be married in a day or two,’ replied the mother; and +she explained how Mr. Darton, Sally’s intended husband, was coming +there that night with the groomsman, Mr. Johns, and other details. ‘We +thought it must be their step when we heard you,’ said Mrs. Hall. + +The needy wanderer looked again on the floor. ‘I see—I see,’ he +murmured. ‘Why, indeed, should I have come to-night? Such folk as I are +not wanted here at these times, naturally. And I have no business +here—spoiling other people’s happiness.’ + +‘Phil,’ said his mother, with a tear in her eye, but with a thinness of +lip and severity of manner which were presumably not more than past +events justified; ‘since you speak like that to me, I’ll speak honestly +to you. For these three years you have taken no thought for us. You +left home with a good supply of money, and strength and education, and +you ought to have made good use of it all. But you come back like a +beggar; and that you come in a very awkward time for us cannot be +denied. Your return to-night may do us much harm. But mind—you are +welcome to this home as long as it is mine. I don’t wish to turn you +adrift. We will make the best of a bad job; and I hope you are not +seriously ill?’ + +‘O no. I have only this infernal cough.’ + +She looked at him anxiously. ‘I think you had better go to bed at +once,’ she said. + +‘Well—I shall be out of the way there,’ said the son wearily. ‘Having +ruined myself, don’t let me ruin you by being seen in these togs, for +Heaven’s sake. Who do you say Sally is going to be married to—a Farmer +Darton?’ + +‘Yes—a gentleman-farmer—quite a wealthy man. Far better in station than +she could have expected. It is a good thing, altogether.’ + +‘Well done, little Sal!’ said her brother, brightening and looking up +at her with a smile. ‘I ought to have written; but perhaps I have +thought of you all the more. But let me get out of sight. I would +rather go and jump into the river than be seen here. But have you +anything I can drink? I am confoundedly thirsty with my long tramp.’ + +‘Yes, yes, we will bring something upstairs to you,’ said Sally, with +grief in her face. + +‘Ay, that will do nicely. But, Sally and mother—’ He stopped, and they +waited. ‘Mother, I have not told you all,’ he resumed slowly, still +looking on the floor between his knees. ‘Sad as what you see of me is, +there’s worse behind.’ + +His mother gazed upon him in grieved suspense, and Sally went and leant +upon the bureau, listening for every sound, and sighing. Suddenly she +turned round, saying, ‘Let them come, I don’t care! Philip, tell the +worst, and take your time.’ + +‘Well, then,’ said the unhappy Phil, ‘I am not the only one in this +mess. Would to Heaven I were! But—’ + +‘O, Phil!’ + +‘I have a wife as destitute as I.’ + +‘A wife?’ said his mother. + +‘Unhappily!’ + +‘A wife! Yes, that is the way with sons!’ + +‘And besides—’ said he. + +‘Besides! O, Philip, surely—’ + +‘I have two little children.’ + +‘Wife and children!’ whispered Mrs. Hall, sinking down confounded. + +‘Poor little things!’ said Sally involuntarily. + +His mother turned again to him. ‘I suppose these helpless beings are +left in Australia?’ + +‘No. They are in England.’ + +‘Well, I can only hope you’ve left them in a respectable place.’ + +‘I have not left them at all. They are here—within a few yards of us. +In short, they are in the stable.’ + +‘Where?’ + +‘In the stable. I did not like to bring them indoors till I had seen +you, mother, and broken the bad news a bit to you. They were very +tired, and are resting out there on some straw.’ + +Mrs. Hall’s fortitude visibly broke down. She had been brought up not +without refinement, and was even more moved by such a collapse of +genteel aims as this than a substantial dairyman’s widow would in +ordinary have been moved. ‘Well, it must be borne,’ she said, in a low +voice, with her hands tightly joined. ‘A starving son, a starving wife, +starving children! Let it be. But why is this come to us now, to-day, +to-night? Could no other misfortune happen to helpless women than this, +which will quite upset my poor girl’s chance of a happy life? Why have +you done us this wrong, Philip? What respectable man will come here, +and marry open-eyed into a family of vagabonds?’ + +‘Nonsense, mother!’ said Sally vehemently, while her face flushed. +‘Charley isn’t the man to desert me. But if he should be, and won’t +marry me because Phil’s come, let him go and marry elsewhere. I won’t +be ashamed of my own flesh and blood for any man in England—not I!’ And +then Sally turned away and burst into tears. + +‘Wait till you are twenty years older and you will tell a different +tale,’ replied her mother. + +The son stood up. ‘Mother,’ he said bitterly, ‘as I have come, so I +will go. All I ask of you is that you will allow me and mine to lie in +your stable to-night. I give you my word that we’ll be gone by break of +day, and trouble you no further!’ + +Mrs. Hall, the mother, changed at that. ‘O no,’ she answered hastily; +‘never shall it be said that I sent any of my own family from my door. +Bring ’em in, Philip, or take me out to them.’ + +‘We will put ’em all into the large bedroom,’ said Sally, brightening, +‘and make up a large fire. Let’s go and help them in, and call +Rebekah.’ (Rebekah was the woman who assisted at the dairy and +housework; she lived in a cottage hard by with her husband, who +attended to the cows.) + +Sally went to fetch a lantern from the back-kitchen, but her brother +said, ‘You won’t want a light. I lit the lantern that was hanging +there.’ + +‘What must we call your wife?’ asked Mrs. Hall. + +‘Helena,’ said Philip. + +With shawls over their heads they proceeded towards the back door. + +‘One minute before you go,’ interrupted Philip. ‘I—I haven’t confessed +all.’ + +‘Then Heaven help us!’ said Mrs. Hall, pushing to the door and clasping +her hands in calm despair. + +‘We passed through Evershead as we came,’ he continued, ‘and I just +looked in at the “Sow-and-Acorn” to see if old Mike still kept on there +as usual. The carrier had come in from Sherton Abbas at that moment, +and guessing that I was bound for this place—for I think he knew me—he +asked me to bring on a dressmaker’s parcel for Sally that was marked +“immediate.” My wife had walked on with the children. ’Twas a flimsy +parcel, and the paper was torn, and I found on looking at it that it +was a thick warm gown. I didn’t wish you to see poor Helena in a shabby +state. I was ashamed that you should—’twas not what she was born to. I +untied the parcel in the road, took it on to her where she was waiting +in the Lower Barn, and told her I had managed to get it for her, and +that she was to ask no question. She, poor thing, must have supposed I +obtained it on trust, through having reached a place where I was known, +for she put it on gladly enough. She has it on now. Sally has other +gowns, I daresay.’ + +Sally looked at her mother, speechless. + +‘You have others, I daresay!’ repeated Phil, with a sick man’s +impatience. ‘I thought to myself, “Better Sally cry than Helena +freeze.” Well, is the dress of great consequence? ’Twas nothing very +ornamental, as far as I could see.’ + +‘No—no; not of consequence,’ returned Sally sadly, adding in a gentle +voice, ‘You will not mind if I lend her another instead of that one, +will you?’ + +Philip’s agitation at the confession had brought on another attack of +the cough, which seemed to shake him to pieces. He was so obviously +unfit to sit in a chair that they helped him upstairs at once; and +having hastily given him a cordial and kindled the bedroom fire, they +descended to fetch their unhappy new relations. + +CHAPTER III + +It was with strange feelings that the girl and her mother, lately so +cheerful, passed out of the back door into the open air of the barton, +laden with hay scents and the herby breath of cows. A fine sleet had +begun to fall, and they trotted across the yard quickly. The +stable-door was open; a light shone from it—from the lantern which +always hung there, and which Philip had lighted, as he said. Softly +nearing the door, Mrs. Hall pronounced the name ‘Helena!’ + +There was no answer for the moment. Looking in she was taken by +surprise. Two people appeared before her. For one, instead of the +drabbish woman she had expected, Mrs. Hall saw a pale, dark-eyed, +ladylike creature, whose personality ruled her attire rather than was +ruled by it. She was in a new and handsome gown, of course, and an old +bonnet. She was standing up, agitated; her hand was held by her +companion—none else than Sally’s affianced, Farmer Charles Darton, upon +whose fine figure the pale stranger’s eyes were fixed, as his were +fixed upon her. His other hand held the rein of his horse, which was +standing saddled as if just led in. + +At sight of Mrs. Hall they both turned, looking at her in a way neither +quite conscious nor unconscious, and without seeming to recollect that +words were necessary as a solution to the scene. In another moment +Sally entered also, when Mr. Darton dropped his companion’s hand, led +the horse aside, and came to greet his betrothed and Mrs. Hall. + +‘Ah!’ he said, smiling—with something like forced composure—‘this is a +roundabout way of arriving, you will say, my dear Mrs. Hall. But we +lost our way, which made us late. I saw a light here, and led in my +horse at once—my friend Johns and my man have gone back to the little +inn with theirs, not to crowd you too much. No sooner had I entered +than I saw that this lady had taken temporary shelter here—and found I +was intruding.’ + +‘She is my daughter-in-law,’ said Mrs. Hall calmly. ‘My son, too, is in +the house, but he has gone to bed unwell.’ + +Sally had stood staring wonderingly at the scene until this moment, +hardly recognizing Darton’s shake of the hand. The spell that bound her +was broken by her perceiving the two little children seated on a heap +of hay. She suddenly went forward, spoke to them, and took one on her +arm and the other in her hand. + +‘And two children?’ said Mr. Darton, showing thus that he had not been +there long enough as yet to understand the situation. + +‘My grandchildren,’ said Mrs. Hall, with as much affected ease as +before. + +Philip Hall’s wife, in spite of this interruption to her first +rencounter, seemed scarcely so much affected by it as to feel any one’s +presence in addition to Mr. Darton’s. However, arousing herself by a +quick reflection, she threw a sudden critical glance of her sad eyes +upon Mrs. Hall; and, apparently finding her satisfactory, advanced to +her in a meek initiative. Then Sally and the stranger spoke some +friendly words to each other, and Sally went on with the children into +the house. Mrs. Hall and Helena followed, and Mr. Darton followed +these, looking at Helena’s dress and outline, and listening to her +voice like a man in a dream. + +By the time the others reached the house Sally had already gone +upstairs with the tired children. She rapped against the wall for +Rebekah to come in and help to attend to them, Rebekah’s house being a +little ‘spit-and-dab’ cabin leaning against the substantial stone-work +of Mrs. Hall’s taller erection. When she came a bed was made up for the +little ones, and some supper given to them. On descending the stairs +after seeing this done Sally went to the sitting-room. Young Mrs. Hall +entered it just in advance of her, having in the interim retired with +her mother-in-law to take off her bonnet, and otherwise make herself +presentable. Hence it was evident that no further communication could +have passed between her and Mr. Darton since their brief interview in +the stable. + +Mr. Japheth Johns now opportunely arrived, and broke up the restraint +of the company, after a few orthodox meteorological commentaries had +passed between him and Mrs. Hall by way of introduction. They at once +sat down to supper, the present of wine and turkey not being produced +for consumption to-night, lest the premature display of those gifts +should seem to throw doubt on Mrs. Hall’s capacities as a provider. + +‘Drink hearty, Mr. Johns—drink hearty,’ said that matron magnanimously. +‘Such as it is there’s plenty of. But perhaps cider-wine is not to your +taste?—though there’s body in it.’ + +‘Quite the contrairy, ma’am—quite the contrairy,’ said the dairyman. +‘For though I inherit the malt-liquor principle from my father, I am a +cider-drinker on my mother’s side. She came from these parts, you know. +And there’s this to be said for’t—’tis a more peaceful liquor, and +don’t lie about a man like your hotter drinks. With care, one may live +on it a twelvemonth without knocking down a neighbour, or getting a +black eye from an old acquaintance.’ + +The general conversation thus begun was continued briskly, though it +was in the main restricted to Mrs. Hall and Japheth, who in truth +required but little help from anybody. There being slight call upon +Sally’s tongue, she had ample leisure to do what her heart most +desired, namely, watch her intended husband and her sister-in-law with +a view of elucidating the strange momentary scene in which her mother +and herself had surprised them in the stable. If that scene meant +anything, it meant, at least, that they had met before. That there had +been no time for explanations Sally could see, for their manner was +still one of suppressed amazement at each other’s presence there. +Darton’s eyes, too, fell continually on the gown worn by Helena as if +this were an added riddle to his perplexity; though to Sally it was the +one feature in the case which was no mystery. He seemed to feel that +fate had impishly changed his vis-à-vis in the lover’s jig he was about +to foot; that while the gown had been expected to enclose a Sally, a +Helena’s face looked out from the bodice; that some long-lost hand met +his own from the sleeves. + +Sally could see that whatever Helena might know of Darton, she knew +nothing of how the dress entered into his embarrassment. And at moments +the young girl would have persuaded herself that Darton’s looks at her +sister-in-law were entirely the fruit of the clothes query. But surely +at other times a more extensive range of speculation and sentiment was +expressed by her lover’s eye than that which the changed dress would +account for. + +Sally’s independence made her one of the least jealous of women. But +there was something in the relations of these two visitors which ought +to be explained. + +Japheth Johns continued to converse in his well-known style, +interspersing his talk with some private reflections on the position of +Darton and Sally, which, though the sparkle in his eye showed them to +be highly entertaining to himself, were apparently not quite +communicable to the company. At last he withdrew for the night, going +off to the roadside inn half-a-mile back, whither Darton promised to +follow him in a few minutes. + +Half-an-hour passed, and then Mr. Darton also rose to leave, Sally and +her sister-in-law simultaneously wishing him good-night as they retired +upstairs to their rooms. But on his arriving at the front door with +Mrs. Hall a sharp shower of rain began to come down, when the widow +suggested that he should return to the fire-side till the storm ceased. + +Darton accepted her proposal, but insisted that, as it was getting +late, and she was obviously tired, she should not sit up on his +account, since he could let himself out of the house, and would quite +enjoy smoking a pipe by the hearth alone. Mrs. Hall assented; and +Darton was left by himself. He spread his knees to the brands, lit up +his tobacco as he had said, and sat gazing into the fire, and at the +notches of the chimney-crook which hung above. + +An occasional drop of rain rolled down the chimney with a hiss, and +still he smoked on; but not like a man whose mind was at rest. In the +long run, however, despite his meditations, early hours afield and a +long ride in the open air produced their natural result. He began to +doze. + +How long he remained in this half-unconscious state he did not know. He +suddenly opened his eyes. The back-brand had burnt itself in two, and +ceased to flame; the light which he had placed on the mantelpiece had +nearly gone out. But in spite of these deficiencies there was a light +in the apartment, and it came from elsewhere. Turning his head he saw +Philip Hall’s wife standing at the entrance of the room with a +bed-candle in one hand, a small brass tea-kettle in the other, and +_his_ gown, as it certainly seemed, still upon her. + +‘Helena!’ said Darton, starting up. + +Her countenance expressed dismay, and her first words were an apology. +‘I—did not know you were here, Mr. Darton,’ she said, while a blush +flashed to her cheek. ‘I thought every one had retired—I was coming to +make a little water boil; my husband seems to be worse. But perhaps the +kitchen fire can be lighted up again.’ + +‘Don’t go on my account. By all means put it on here as you intended,’ +said Darton. ‘Allow me to help you.’ He went forward to take the kettle +from her hand, but she did not allow him, and placed it on the fire +herself. + +They stood some way apart, one on each side of the fireplace, waiting +till the water should boil, the candle on the mantel between them, and +Helena with her eyes on the kettle. Darton was the first to break the +silence. ‘Shall I call Sally?’ he said. + +‘O no,’ she quickly returned. ‘We have given trouble enough already. We +have no right here. But we are the sport of fate, and were obliged to +come.’ + +‘No right here!’ said he in surprise. + +‘None. I can’t explain it now,’ answered Helena. ‘This kettle is very +slow.’ + +There was another pause; the proverbial dilatoriness of watched pots +was never more clearly exemplified. + +Helena’s face was of that sort which seems to ask for assistance +without the owner’s knowledge—the very antipodes of Sally’s, which was +self-reliance expressed. Darton’s eyes travelled from the kettle to +Helena’s face, then back to the kettle, then to the face for rather a +longer time. ‘So I am not to know anything of the mystery that has +distracted me all the evening?’ he said. ‘How is it that a woman, who +refused me because (as I supposed) my position was not good enough for +her taste, is found to be the wife of a man who certainly seems to be +worse off than I?’ + +‘He had the prior claim,’ said she. + +‘What! you knew him at that time?’ + +‘Yes, yes! Please say no more,’ she implored. + +‘Whatever my errors, I have paid for them during the last five years!’ + +The heart of Darton was subject to sudden overflowings. He was kind to +a fault. ‘I am sorry from my soul,’ he said, involuntarily approaching +her. Helena withdrew a step or two, at which he became conscious of his +movement, and quickly took his former place. Here he stood without +speaking, and the little kettle began to sing. + +‘Well, you might have been my wife if you had chosen,’ he said at last. +‘But that’s all past and gone. However, if you are in any trouble or +poverty I shall be glad to be of service, and as your relation by +marriage I shall have a right to be. Does your uncle know of your +distress?’ + +‘My uncle is dead. He left me without a farthing. And now we have two +children to maintain.’ + +‘What, left you nothing? How could he be so cruel as that?’ + +‘I disgraced myself in his eyes.’ + +‘Now,’ said Darton earnestly, ‘let me take care of the children, at +least while you are so unsettled. _You_ belong to another, so I cannot +take care of you.’ + +‘Yes you can,’ said a voice; and suddenly a third figure stood beside +them. It was Sally. ‘You can, since you seem to wish to?’ she repeated. +‘She no longer belongs to another . . . My poor brother is dead!’ + +Her face was red, her eyes sparkled, and all the woman came to the +front. ‘I have heard it!’ she went on to him passionately. ‘You can +protect her now as well as the children!’ She turned then to her +agitated sister-in-law. ‘I heard something,’ said Sally (in a gentle +murmur, differing much from her previous passionate words), ‘and I went +into his room. It must have been the moment you left. He went off so +quickly, and weakly, and it was so unexpected, that I couldn’t leave +even to call you.’ + +Darton was just able to gather from the confused discourse which +followed that, during his sleep by the fire, this brother whom he had +never seen had become worse; and that during Helena’s absence for water +the end had unexpectedly come. The two young women hastened upstairs, +and he was again left alone. + +After standing there a short time he went to the front door and looked +out; till, softly closing it behind him, he advanced and stood under +the large sycamore-tree. The stars were flickering coldly, and the +dampness which had just descended upon the earth in rain now sent up a +chill from it. Darton was in a strange position, and he felt it. The +unexpected appearance, in deep poverty, of Helena—a young lady, +daughter of a deceased naval officer, who had been brought up by her +uncle, a solicitor, and had refused Darton in marriage years ago—the +passionate, almost angry demeanour of Sally at discovering them, the +abrupt announcement that Helena was a widow; all this coming together +was a conjuncture difficult to cope with in a moment, and made him +question whether he ought to leave the house or offer assistance. But +for Sally’s manner he would unhesitatingly have done the latter. + +He was still standing under the tree when the door in front of him +opened, and Mrs. Hall came out. She went round to the garden-gate at +the side without seeing him. Darton followed her, intending to speak. + +Pausing outside, as if in thought, she proceeded to a spot where the +sun came earliest in spring-time, and where the north wind never blew; +it was where the row of beehives stood under the wall. Discerning her +object, he waited till she had accomplished it. + +It was the universal custom thereabout to wake the bees by tapping at +their hives whenever a death occurred in the household, under the +belief that if this were not done the bees themselves would pine away +and perish during the ensuing year. As soon as an interior buzzing +responded to her tap at the first hive Mrs. Hall went on to the second, +and thus passed down the row. As soon as she came back he met her. + +‘What can I do in this trouble, Mrs. Hall?’ he said. + +‘O—nothing, thank you, nothing,’ she said in a tearful voice, now just +perceiving him. ‘We have called Rebekah and her husband, and they will +do everything necessary.’ She told him in a few words the particulars +of her son’s arrival, broken in health—indeed, at death’s very door, +though they did not suspect it—and suggested, as the result of a +conversation between her and her daughter, that the wedding should be +postponed. + +‘Yes, of course,’ said Darton. ‘I think now to go straight to the inn +and tell Johns what has happened.’ It was not till after he had shaken +hands with her that he turned hesitatingly and added, ‘Will you tell +the mother of his children that, as they are now left fatherless, I +shall be glad to take the eldest of them, if it would be any +convenience to her and to you?’ + +Mrs. Hall promised that her son’s widow should he told of the offer, +and they parted. He retired down the rooty slope and disappeared in the +direction of the inn, where he informed Johns of the circumstances. +Meanwhile Mrs. Hall had entered the house, Sally was downstairs in the +sitting-room alone, and her mother explained to her that Darton had +readily assented to the postponement. + +‘No doubt he has,’ said Sally, with sad emphasis. ‘It is not put off +for a week, or a month, or a year. I shall never marry him, and she +will!’ + +CHAPTER IV + +Time passed, and the household on the Knap became again serene under +the composing influences of daily routine. A desultory, very desultory +correspondence, dragged on between Sally Hall and Darton, who, not +quite knowing how to take her petulant words on the night of her +brother’s death, had continued passive thus long. Helena and her +children remained at the dairy-house, almost of necessity, and Darton +therefore deemed it advisable to stay away. + +One day, seven months later on, when Mr. Darton was as usual at his +farm, twenty miles from Hintock, a note reached him from Helena. She +thanked him for his kind offer about her children, which her +mother-in-law had duly communicated, and stated that she would be glad +to accept it as regarded the eldest, the boy. Helena had, in truth, +good need to do so, for her uncle had left her penniless, and all +application to some relatives in the north had failed. There was, +besides, as she said, no good school near Hintock to which she could +send the child. + +On a fine summer day the boy came. He was accompanied half-way by Sally +and his mother—to the ‘White Horse,’ at Chalk Newton—where he was +handed over to Darton’s bailiff in a shining spring-cart, who met them +there. + +He was entered as a day-scholar at a popular school at Casterbridge, +three or four miles from Darton’s, having first been taught by Darton +to ride a forest-pony, on which he cantered to and from the aforesaid +fount of knowledge, and (as Darton hoped) brought away a promising +headful of the same at each diurnal expedition. The thoughtful +taciturnity into which Darton had latterly fallen was quite dissipated +by the presence of this boy. + +When the Christmas holidays came it was arranged that he should spend +them with his mother. The journey was, for some reason or other, +performed in two stages, as at his coming, except that Darton in person +took the place of the bailiff, and that the boy and himself rode on +horseback. + +Reaching the renowned ‘White Horse,’ Darton inquired if Miss and young +Mrs. Hall were there to meet little Philip (as they had agreed to be). +He was answered by the appearance of Helena alone at the door. + +‘At the last moment Sally would not come,’ she faltered. + +That meeting practically settled the point towards which these +long-severed persons were converging. But nothing was broached about it +for some time yet. Sally Hall had, in fact, imparted the first decisive +motion to events by refusing to accompany Helena. She soon gave them a +second move by writing the following note + +‘[Private.] + +‘DEAR CHARLES,—Living here so long and intimately with Helena, I have +naturally learnt her history, especially that of it which refers to +you. I am sure she would accept you as a husband at the proper time, +and I think you ought to give her the opportunity. You inquire in an +old note if I am sorry that I showed temper (which it wasn’t) that +night when I heard you talking to her. No, Charles, I am not sorry at +all for what I said then.—Yours sincerely, SALLY HALL.’ + + +Thus set in train, the transfer of Darton’s heart back to its original +quarters proceeded by mere lapse of time. In the following July, Darton +went to his friend Japheth to ask him at last to fulfil the bridal +office which had been in abeyance since the previous January +twelvemonths. + +‘With all my heart, man o’ constancy!’ said Dairyman Johns warmly. +‘I’ve lost most of my genteel fair complexion haymaking this hot +weather, ’tis true, but I’ll do your business as well as them that look +better. There be scents and good hair-oil in the world yet, thank God, +and they’ll take off the roughest o’ my edge. I’ll compliment her. +“Better late than never, Sally Hall,” I’ll say.’ + +‘It is not Sally,’ said Darton hurriedly. ‘It is young Mrs. Hall.’ + +Japheth’s face, as soon as he really comprehended, became a picture of +reproachful dismay. ‘Not Sally?’ he said. ‘Why not Sally? I can’t +believe it! Young Mrs. Hall! Well, well—where’s your wisdom?’ + +Darton shortly explained particulars; but Johns would not be +reconciled. ‘She was a woman worth having if ever woman was,’ he cried. +‘And now to let her go!’ + +‘But I suppose I can marry where I like,’ said Darton. + +‘H’m,’ replied the dairyman, lifting his eyebrows expressively. ‘This +don’t become you, Charles—it really do not. If I had done such a thing +you would have sworn I was a curst no’thern fool to be drawn off the +scent by such a red-herring doll-oll-oll.’ + +Farmer Darton responded in such sharp terms to this laconic opinion +that the two friends finally parted in a way they had never parted +before. Johns was to be no groomsman to Darton after all. He had flatly +declined. Darton went off sorry, and even unhappy, particularly as +Japheth was about to leave that side of the county, so that the words +which had divided them were not likely to be explained away or softened +down. + +A short time after the interview Darton was united to Helena at a +simple matter-of fact wedding; and she and her little girl joined the +boy who had already grown to look on Darton’s house as home. + +For some months the farmer experienced an unprecedented happiness and +satisfaction. There had been a flaw in his life, and it was as neatly +mended as was humanly possible. But after a season the stream of events +followed less clearly, and there were shades in his reveries. Helena +was a fragile woman, of little staying power, physically or morally, +and since the time that he had originally known her—eight or ten years +before—she had been severely tried. She had loved herself out, in +short, and was now occasionally given to moping. Sometimes she spoke +regretfully of the gentilities of her early life, and instead of +comparing her present state with her condition as the wife of the +unlucky Hall, she mused rather on what it had been before she took the +first fatal step of clandestinely marrying him. She did not care to +please such people as those with whom she was thrown as a thriving +farmer’s wife. She allowed the pretty trifles of agricultural +domesticity to glide by her as sorry details, and had it not been for +the children Darton’s house would have seemed but little brighter than +it had been before. + +This led to occasional unpleasantness, until Darton sometimes declared +to himself that such endeavours as his to rectify early deviations of +the heart by harking back to the old point mostly failed of success. +‘Perhaps Johns was right,’ he would say. ‘I should have gone on with +Sally. Better go with the tide and make the best of its course than +stem it at the risk of a capsize.’ But he kept these unmelodious +thoughts to himself, and was outwardly considerate and kind. + +This somewhat barren tract of his life had extended to less than a year +and a half when his ponderings were cut short by the loss of the woman +they concerned. When she was in her grave he thought better of her than +when she had been alive; the farm was a worse place without her than +with her, after all. No woman short of divine could have gone through +such an experience as hers with her first husband without becoming a +little soured. Her stagnant sympathies, her sometimes unreasonable +manner, had covered a heart frank and well meaning, and originally +hopeful and warm. She left him a tiny red infant in white wrappings. To +make life as easy as possible to this touching object became at once +his care. + +As this child learnt to walk and talk Darton learnt to see feasibility +in a scheme which pleased him. Revolving the experiment which he had +hitherto made upon life, he fancied he had gained wisdom from his +mistakes and caution from his miscarriages. + +What the scheme was needs no penetration to discover. Once more he had +opportunity to recast and rectify his ill-wrought situations by +returning to Sally Hall, who still lived quietly on under her mother’s +roof at Hintock. Helena had been a woman to lend pathos and refinement +to a home; Sally was the woman to brighten it. She would not, as Helena +did, despise the rural simplicities of a farmer’s fireside. Moreover, +she had a pre-eminent qualification for Darton’s household; no other +woman could make so desirable a mother to her brother’s two children +and Darton’s one as Sally—while Darton, now that Helena had gone, was a +more promising husband for Sally than he had ever been when liable to +reminders from an uncured sentimental wound. + +Darton was not a man to act rapidly, and the working out of his +reparative designs might have been delayed for some time. But there +came a winter evening precisely like the one which had darkened over +that former ride to Hintock, and he asked himself why he should +postpone longer, when the very landscape called for a repetition of +that attempt. + +He told his man to saddle the mare, booted and spurred himself with a +younger horseman’s nicety, kissed the two youngest children, and rode +off. To make the journey a complete parallel to the first, he would +fain have had his old acquaintance Japheth Johns with him. But Johns, +alas! was missing. His removal to the other side of the county had left +unrepaired the breach which had arisen between him and Darton; and +though Darton had forgiven him a hundred times, as Johns had probably +forgiven Darton, the effort of reunion in present circumstances was one +not likely to be made. + +He screwed himself up to as cheerful a pitch as he could without his +former crony, and became content with his own thoughts as he rode, +instead of the words of a companion. The sun went down; the boughs +appeared scratched in like an etching against the sky; old crooked men +with faggots at their backs said ‘Good-night, sir,’ and Darton replied +‘Good-night’ right heartily. + +By the time he reached the forking roads it was getting as dark as it +had been on the occasion when Johns climbed the directing-post. Darton +made no mistake this time. ‘Nor shall I be able to mistake, thank +Heaven, when I arrive,’ he murmured. It gave him peculiar satisfaction +to think that the proposed marriage, like his first, was of the nature +of setting in order things long awry, and not a momentary freak of +fancy. + +Nothing hindered the smoothness of his journey, which seemed not half +its former length. Though dark, it was only between five and six +o’clock when the bulky chimneys of Mrs. Hall’s residence appeared in +view behind the sycamore-tree. On second thoughts he retreated and put +up at the ale-house as in former time; and when he had plumed himself +before the inn mirror, called for something to drink, and smoothed out +the incipient wrinkles of care, he walked on to the Knap with a quick +step. + +CHAPTER V + +That evening Sally was making ‘pinners’ for the milkers, who were now +increased by two, for her mother and herself no longer joined in +milking the cows themselves. But upon the whole there was little change +in the household economy, and not much in its appearance, beyond such +minor particulars as that the crack over the window, which had been a +hundred years coming, was a trifle wider; that the beams were a shade +blacker; that the influence of modernism had supplanted the open +chimney corner by a grate; that Rebekah, who had worn a cap when she +had plenty of hair, had left it off now she had scarce any, because it +was reported that caps were not fashionable; and that Sally’s face had +naturally assumed a more womanly and experienced cast. + +Mrs. Hall was actually lifting coals with the tongs, as she had used to +do. + +‘Five years ago this very night, if I am not mistaken—’ she said, +laying on an ember. + +‘Not this very night—though ’twas one night this week,’ said the +correct Sally. + +‘Well, ’tis near enough. Five years ago Mr. Darton came to marry you, +and my poor boy Phil came home to die.’ She sighed. ‘Ah, Sally,’ she +presently said, ‘if you had managed well Mr. Darton would have had you, +Helena or none.’ + +‘Don’t be sentimental about that, mother,’ begged Sally. ‘I didn’t care +to manage well in such a case. Though I liked him, I wasn’t so anxious. +I would never have married the man in the midst of such a hitch as that +was,’ she added with decision; ‘and I don’t think I would if he were to +ask me now.’ + +‘I am not sure about that, unless you have another in your eye.’ + +‘I wouldn’t; and I’ll tell you why. I could hardly marry him for love +at this time o’ day. And as we’ve quite enough to live on if we give up +the dairy to-morrow, I should have no need to marry for any meaner +reason . . . I am quite happy enough as I am, and there’s an end of +it.’ + +Now it was not long after this dialogue that there came a mild rap at +the door, and in a moment there entered Rebekah, looking as though a +ghost had arrived. The fact was that that accomplished skimmer and +churner (now a resident in the house) had overheard the desultory +observations between mother and daughter, and on opening the door to +Mr. Darton thought the coincidence must have a grisly meaning in it. +Mrs. Hall welcomed the farmer with warm surprise, as did Sally, and for +a moment they rather wanted words. + +‘Can you push up the chimney-crook for me, Mr Darton? the notches +hitch,’ said the matron. He did it, and the homely little act bridged +over the awkward consciousness that he had been a stranger for four +years. + +Mrs. Hall soon saw what he had come for, and left the principals +together while she went to prepare him a late tea, smiling at Sally’s +recent hasty assertions of indifference, when she saw how civil Sally +was. When tea was ready she joined them. She fancied that Darton did +not look so confident as when he had arrived; but Sally was quite +light-hearted, and the meal passed pleasantly. + +About seven he took his leave of them. Mrs. Hall went as far as the +door to light him down the slope. On the doorstep he said frankly—‘I +came to ask your daughter to marry me; chose the night and everything, +with an eye to a favourable answer. But she won’t.’ + +‘Then she’s a very ungrateful girl!’ emphatically said Mrs. Hall. + +Darton paused to shape his sentence, and asked, ‘I—I suppose there’s +nobody else more favoured?’ + +‘I can’t say that there is, or that there isn’t,’ answered Mrs. Hall. +‘She’s private in some things. I’m on your side, however, Mr. Darton, +and I’ll talk to her.’ + +‘Thank ‘ee, thank ‘ee!’ said the farmer in a gayer accent; and with +this assurance the not very satisfactory visit came to an end. Darton +descended the roots of the sycamore, the light was withdrawn, and the +door closed. At the bottom of the slope he nearly ran against a man +about to ascend. + +‘Can a jack-o’-lent believe his few senses on such a dark night, or +can’t he?’ exclaimed one whose utterance Darton recognized in a moment, +despite its unexpectedness. ‘I dare not swear he can, though I fain +would!’ The speaker was Johns. + +Darton said he was glad of this opportunity, bad as it was, of putting +an end to the silence of years, and asked the dairyman what he was +travelling that way for. + +Japheth showed the old jovial confidence in a moment. ‘I’m going to see +your—relations—as they always seem to me,’ he said—‘Mrs. Hall and +Sally. Well, Charles, the fact is I find the natural barbarousness of +man is much increased by a bachelor life, and, as your leavings were +always good enough for me, I’m trying civilization here.’ He nodded +towards the house. + +‘Not with Sally—to marry her?’ said Darton, feeling something like a +rill of ice water between his shoulders. + +‘Yes, by the help of Providence and my personal charms. And I think I +shall get her. I am this road every week—my present dairy is only four +miles off, you know, and I see her through the window. ’Tis rather odd +that I was going to speak practical to-night to her for the first time. +You’ve just called?’ + +‘Yes, for a short while. But she didn’t say a word about you.’ + +‘A good sign, a good sign. Now that decides me. I’ll swing the mallet +and get her answer this very night as I planned.’ + +A few more remarks, and Darton, wishing his friend joy of Sally in a +slightly hollow tone of jocularity, bade him good-bye. Johns promised +to write particulars, and ascended, and was lost in the shade of the +house and tree. A rectangle of light appeared when Johns was admitted, +and all was dark again. + +‘Happy Japheth!’ said Darton. ‘This then is the explanation!’ + +He determined to return home that night. In a quarter of an hour he +passed out of the village, and the next day went about his +swede-lifting and storing as if nothing had occurred. + +He waited and waited to hear from Johns whether the wedding-day was +fixed: but no letter came. He learnt not a single particular till, +meeting Johns one day at a horse-auction, Darton exclaimed +genially—rather more genially than he felt—‘When is the joyful day to +be?’ + +To his great surprise a reciprocity of gladness was not conspicuous in +Johns. ‘Not at all,’ he said, in a very subdued tone. ‘’Tis a bad job; +she won’t have me.’ + +Darton held his breath till he said with treacherous solicitude, ‘Try +again—’tis coyness.’ + +‘O no,’ said Johns decisively. ‘There’s been none of that. We talked it +over dozens of times in the most fair and square way. She tells me +plainly, I don’t suit her. ’Twould be simply annoying her to ask her +again. Ah, Charles, you threw a prize away when you let her slip five +years ago.’ + +‘I did—I did,’ said Darton. + +He returned from that auction with a new set of feelings in play. He +had certainly made a surprising mistake in thinking Johns his +successful rival. It really seemed as if he might hope for Sally after +all. + +This time, being rather pressed by business, Darton had recourse to +pen-and-ink, and wrote her as manly and straightforward a proposal as +any woman could wish to receive. The reply came promptly:- + +‘DEAR MR. DARTON,—I am as sensible as any woman can be of the goodness +that leads you to make me this offer a second time. Better women than I +would be proud of the honour, for when I read your nice long speeches +on mangold-wurzel, and such like topics, at the Casterbridge Farmers’ +Club, I do feel it an honour, I assure you. But my answer is just the +same as before. I will not try to explain what, in truth, I cannot +explain—my reasons; I will simply say that I must decline to be married +to you. With good wishes as in former times, I am, your faithful +friend, + + +‘SALLY HALL.’ + + +Darton dropped the letter hopelessly. Beyond the negative, there was +just a possibility of sarcasm in it—‘nice long speeches on +mangold-wurzel’ had a suspicious sound. However, sarcasm or none, there +was the answer, and he had to be content. + +He proceeded to seek relief in a business which at this time engrossed +much of his attention—that of clearing up a curious mistake just +current in the county, that he had been nearly ruined by the recent +failure of a local bank. A farmer named Darton had lost heavily, and +the similarity of name had probably led to the error. Belief in it was +so persistent that it demanded several days of letter-writing to set +matters straight, and persuade the world that he was as solvent as ever +he had been in his life. He had hardly concluded this worrying task +when, to his delight, another letter arrived in the handwriting of +Sally. + +Darton tore it open; it was very short. + +‘DEAR MR. DARTON,—We have been so alarmed these last few days by the +report that you were ruined by the stoppage of —‘s Bank, that, now it +is contradicted I hasten, by my mother’s wish, to say how truly glad we +are to find there is no foundation for the report. After your kindness +to my poor brother’s children, I can do no less than write at such a +moment. We had a letter from each of them a few days ago.—Your faithful +friend, + + +‘SALLY HALL.’ + + +‘Mercenary little woman!’ said Darton to himself with a smile. ‘Then +that was the secret of her refusal this time—she thought I was ruined.’ + +Now, such was Darton, that as hours went on he could not help feeling +too generously towards Sally to condemn her in this. What did he want +in a wife? he asked himself. Love and integrity. What next? Worldly +wisdom. And was there really more than worldly wisdom in her refusal to +go aboard a sinking ship? She now knew it was otherwise. ‘Begad,’ he +said, ‘I’ll try her again.’ + +The fact was he had so set his heart upon Sally, and Sally alone, that +nothing was to be allowed to baulk him; and his reasoning was purely +formal. + +Anniversaries having been unpropitious, he waited on till a bright day +late in May—a day when all animate nature was fancying, in its +trusting, foolish way, that it was going to bask out of doors for +evermore. As he rode through Long-Ash Lane it was scarce recognizable +as the track of his two winter journeys. No mistake could be made now, +even with his eyes shut. The cuckoo’s note was at its best, between +April tentativeness and midsummer decrepitude, and the reptiles in the +sun behaved as winningly as kittens on a hearth. Though afternoon, and +about the same time as on the last occasion, it was broad day and +sunshine when he entered Hintock, and the details of the Knap +dairy-house were visible far up the road. He saw Sally in the garden, +and was set vibrating. He had first intended to go on to the inn; but +‘No,’ he said; ‘I’ll tie my horse to the garden-gate. If all goes well +it can soon be taken round: if not, I mount and ride away’ + +The tall shade of the horseman darkened the room in which Mrs. Hall +sat, and made her start, for he had ridden by a side path to the top of +the slope, where riders seldom came. In a few seconds he was in the +garden with Sally. + +Five—ay, three minutes—did the business at the back of that row of +bees. Though spring had come, and heavenly blue consecrated the scene, +Darton succeeded not. ‘_No_,’ said Sally firmly. ‘I will never, never +marry you, Mr. Darton. I would have done it once; but now I never can.’ + +‘But!’—implored Mr. Darton. And with a burst of real eloquence he went +on to declare all sorts of things that he would do for her. He would +drive her to see her mother every week—take her to London—settle so +much money upon her—Heaven knows what he did not promise, suggest, and +tempt her with. But it availed nothing. She interposed with a stout +negative, which closed the course of his argument like an iron gate +across a highway. Darton paused. + +‘Then,’ said he simply, ‘you hadn’t heard of my supposed failure when +you declined last time?’ + +‘I had not,’ she said. ‘But if I had ’twould have been all the same.’ + +‘And ’tis not because of any soreness from my slighting you years ago?’ + +‘No. That soreness is long past.’ + +‘Ah—then you despise me, Sally?’ + +‘No,’ she slowly answered. ‘I don’t altogether despise you. I don’t +think you quite such a hero as I once did—that’s all. The truth is, I +am happy enough as I am; and I don’t mean to marry at all. Now, may _I_ +ask a favour, sir?’ She spoke with an ineffable charm, which, whenever +he thought of it, made him curse his loss of her as long as he lived. + +‘To any extent.’ + +‘Please do not put this question to me any more. Friends as long as you +like, but lovers and married never.’ + +‘I never will,’ said Darton. ‘Not if I live a hundred years.’ + +And he never did. That he had worn out his welcome in her heart was +only too plain. + +When his step-children had grown up, and were placed out in life, all +communication between Darton and the Hall family ceased. It was only by +chance that, years after, he learnt that Sally, notwithstanding the +solicitations her attractions drew down upon her, had refused several +offers of marriage, and steadily adhered to her purpose of leading a +single life + +May 1884. + + + + +THE DISTRACTED PREACHER + + +CHAPTER I—HOW HIS COLD WAS CURED + +Something delayed the arrival of the Wesleyan minister, and a young man +came temporarily in his stead. It was on the thirteenth of January 183- +that Mr. Stockdale, the young man in question, made his humble entry +into the village, unknown, and almost unseen. But when those of the +inhabitants who styled themselves of his connection became acquainted +with him, they were rather pleased with the substitute than otherwise, +though he had scarcely as yet acquired ballast of character sufficient +to steady the consciences of the hundred-and-forty Methodists of pure +blood who, at this time, lived in Nether-Moynton, and to give in +addition supplementary support to the mixed race which went to church +in the morning and chapel in the evening, or when there was a tea—as +many as a hundred-and-ten people more, all told, and including the +parish-clerk in the winter-time, when it was too dark for the vicar to +observe who passed up the street at seven o’clock—which, to be just to +him, he was never anxious to do. + +It was owing to this overlapping of creeds that the celebrated +population-puzzle arose among the denser gentry of the district around +Nether-Moynton: how could it be that a parish containing fifteen score +of strong full-grown Episcopalians, and nearly thirteen score of +well-matured Dissenters, numbered barely two-and-twenty score adults in +all? + +The young man being personally interesting, those with whom he came in +contact were content to waive for a while the graver question of his +sufficiency. It is said that at this time of his life his eyes were +affectionate, though without a ray of levity; that his hair was curly, +and his figure tall; that he was, in short, a very lovable youth, who +won upon his female hearers as soon as they saw and heard him, and +caused them to say, ‘Why didn’t we know of this before he came, that we +might have gied him a warmer welcome!’ + +The fact was that, knowing him to be only provisionally selected, and +expecting nothing remarkable in his person or doctrine, they and the +rest of his flock in Nether-Moynton had felt almost as indifferent +about his advent as if they had been the soundest church-going +parishioners in the country, and he their true and appointed parson. +Thus when Stockdale set foot in the place nobody had secured a lodging +for him, and though his journey had given him a bad cold in the head, +he was forced to attend to that business himself. On inquiry he learnt +that the only possible accommodation in the village would be found at +the house of one Mrs. Lizzy Newberry, at the upper end of the street. + +It was a youth who gave this information, and Stockdale asked him who +Mrs. Newberry might be. + +The boy said that she was a widow-woman, who had got no husband, +because he was dead. Mr. Newberry, he added, had been a well-to-do man +enough, as the saying was, and a farmer; but he had gone off in a +decline. As regarded Mrs. Newberry’s serious side, Stockdale gathered +that she was one of the trimmers who went to church and chapel both. + +‘I’ll go there,’ said Stockdale, feeling that, in the absence of purely +sectarian lodgings, he could do no better. + +‘She’s a little particular, and won’t hae gover’ment folks, or curates, +or the pa’son’s friends, or such like,’ said the lad dubiously. + +‘Ah, that may be a promising sign: I’ll call. Or no; just you go up and +ask first if she can find room for me. I have to see one or two persons +on another matter. You will find me down at the carrier’s.’ + +In a quarter of an hour the lad came back, and said that Mrs. Newberry +would have no objection to accommodate him, whereupon Stockdale called +at the house. + +It stood within a garden-hedge, and seemed to be roomy and comfortable. +He saw an elderly woman, with whom he made arrangements to come the +same night, since there was no inn in the place, and he wished to house +himself as soon as possible; the village being a local centre from +which he was to radiate at once to the different small chapels in the +neighbourhood. He forthwith sent his luggage to Mrs. Newberry’s from +the carrier’s, where he had taken shelter, and in the evening walked up +to his temporary home. + +As he now lived there, Stockdale felt it unnecessary to knock at the +door; and entering quietly he had the pleasure of hearing footsteps +scudding away like mice into the back quarters. He advanced to the +parlour, as the front room was called, though its stone floor was +scarcely disguised by the carpet, which only over-laid the trodden +areas, leaving sandy deserts under the bulging mouldings of the +table-legs, playing with brass furniture. But the room looked snug and +cheerful. The firelight shone out brightly, trembling on the knobs and +handles, and lurking in great strength on the under surface of the +chimney-piece. A deep arm-chair, covered with horsehair, and studded +with a countless throng of brass nails, was pulled up on one side of +the fireplace. The tea-things were on the table, the teapot cover was +open, and a little hand-bell had been laid at that precise point +towards which a person seated in the great chair might be expected +instinctively to stretch his hand. + +Stockdale sat down, not objecting to his experience of the room thus +far, and began his residence by tinkling the bell. A little girl crept +in at the summons, and made tea for him. Her name, she said, was +Marther Sarer, and she lived out there, nodding towards the road and +village generally. Before Stockdale had got far with his meal, a tap +sounded on the door behind him, and on his telling the inquirer to come +in, a rustle of garments caused him to turn his head. He saw before him +a fine and extremely well-made young woman, with dark hair, a wide, +sensible, beautiful forehead, eyes that warmed him before he knew it, +and a mouth that was in itself a picture to all appreciative souls. + +‘Can I get you anything else for tea?’ she said, coming forward a step +or two, an expression of liveliness on her features, and her hand +waving the door by its edge. + +‘Nothing, thank you,’ said Stockdale, thinking less of what he replied +than of what might be her relation to the household. + +‘You are quite sure?’ said the young woman, apparently aware that he +had not considered his answer. + +He conscientiously examined the tea-things, and found them all there. +‘Quite sure, Miss Newberry,’ he said. + +‘It is Mrs. Newberry,’ she said. ‘Lizzy Newberry, I used to be Lizzy +Simpkins.’ + +‘O, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Newberry.’ And before he had occasion to +say more she left the room. + +Stockdale remained in some doubt till Martha Sarah came to clear the +table. ‘Whose house is this, my little woman,’ said he. + +‘Mrs. Lizzy Newberry’s, sir.’ + +‘Then Mrs. Newberry is not the old lady I saw this afternoon?’ + +‘No. That’s Mrs. Newberry’s mother. It was Mrs. Newberry who comed in +to you just by now, because she wanted to see if you was good-looking.’ + +Later in the evening, when Stockdale was about to begin supper, she +came again. ‘I have come myself, Mr. Stockdale,’ she said. The minister +stood up in acknowledgment of the honour. ‘I am afraid little Marther +might not make you understand. What will you have for supper?—there’s +cold rabbit, and there’s a ham uncut.’ + +Stockdale said he could get on nicely with those viands, and supper was +laid. He had no more than cut a slice when tap-tap came to the door +again. The minister had already learnt that this particular rhythm in +taps denoted the fingers of his enkindling landlady, and the doomed +young fellow buried his first mouthful under a look of receptive +blandness. + +‘We have a chicken in the house, Mr. Stockdale—I quite forgot to +mention it just now. Perhaps you would like Marther Sarer to bring it +up?’ + +Stockdale had advanced far enough in the art of being a young man to +say that he did not want the chicken, unless she brought it up herself; +but when it was uttered he blushed at the daring gallantry of the +speech, perhaps a shade too strong for a serious man and a minister. In +three minutes the chicken appeared, but, to his great surprise, only in +the hands of Martha Sarah. Stockdale was disappointed, which perhaps it +was intended that he should be. + +He had finished supper, and was not in the least anticipating Mrs. +Newberry again that night, when she tapped and entered as before. +Stockdale’s gratified look told that she had lost nothing by not +appearing when expected. It happened that the cold in the head from +which the young man suffered had increased with the approach of night, +and before she had spoken he was seized with a violent fit of sneezing +which he could not anyhow repress. + +Mrs. Newberry looked full of pity. ‘Your cold is very bad to-night, Mr. +Stockdale.’ + +Stockdale replied that it was rather troublesome. + +‘And I’ve a good mind’—she added archly, looking at the cheerless glass +of water on the table, which the abstemious minister was going to +drink. + +‘Yes, Mrs. Newberry?’ + +‘I’ve a good mind that you should have something more likely to cure it +than that cold stuff.’ + +‘Well,’ said Stockdale, looking down at the glass, ‘as there is no inn +here, and nothing better to be got in the village, of course it will +do.’ + +To this she replied, ‘There is something better, not far off, though +not in the house. I really think you must try it, or you may be ill. +Yes, Mr. Stockdale, you shall.’ She held up her finger, seeing that he +was about to speak. ‘Don’t ask what it is; wait, and you shall see.’ + +Lizzy went away, and Stockdale waited in a pleasant mood. Presently she +returned with her bonnet and cloak on, saying, ‘I am so sorry, but you +must help me to get it. Mother has gone to bed. Will you wrap yourself +up, and come this way, and please bring that cup with you?’ + +Stockdale, a lonely young fellow, who had for weeks felt a great +craving for somebody on whom to throw away superfluous interest, and +even tenderness, was not sorry to join her; and followed his guide +through the back door, across the garden, to the bottom, where the +boundary was a wall. This wall was low, and beyond it Stockdale +discerned in the night shades several grey headstones, and the outlines +of the church roof and tower. + +‘It is easy to get up this way,’ she said, stepping upon a bank which +abutted on the wall; then putting her foot on the top of the stonework, +and descending a spring inside, where the ground was much higher, as is +the manner of graveyards to be. Stockdale did the same, and followed +her in the dusk across the irregular ground till they came to the tower +door, which, when they had entered, she softly closed behind them. + +‘You can keep a secret?’ she said, in a musical voice. + +‘Like an iron chest!’ said he fervently. + +Then from under her cloak she produced a small lighted lantern, which +the minister had not noticed that she carried at all. The light showed +them to be close to the singing-gallery stairs, under which lay a heap +of lumber of all sorts, but consisting mostly of decayed framework, +pews, panels, and pieces of flooring, that from time to time had been +removed from their original fixings in the body of the edifice and +replaced by new. + +‘Perhaps you will drag some of those boards aside?’ she said, holding +the lantern over her head to light him better. ‘Or will you take the +lantern while I move them?’ + +‘I can manage it,’ said the young man, and acting as she ordered, he +uncovered, to his surprise, a row of little barrels bound with wood +hoops, each barrel being about as large as the nave of a heavy +waggon-wheel. + +When they were laid open Lizzy fixed her eyes on him, as if she +wondered what he would say. + +‘You know what they are?’ she asked, finding that he did not speak. + +‘Yes, barrels,’ said Stockdale simply. He was an inland man, the son of +highly respectable parents, and brought up with a single eye to the +ministry; and the sight suggested nothing beyond the fact that such +articles were there. + +‘You are quite right, they are barrels,’ she said, in an emphatic tone +of candour that was not without a touch of irony. + +Stockdale looked at her with an eye of sudden misgiving. ‘Not +smugglers’ liquor?’ he said. + +‘Yes,’ said she. ‘They are tubs of spirit that have accidentally come +over in the dark from France.’ + +In Nether-Moynton and its vicinity at this date people always smiled at +the sort of sin called in the outside world illicit trading; and these +little kegs of gin and brandy were as well known to the inhabitants as +turnips. So that Stockdale’s innocent ignorance, and his look of alarm +when he guessed the sinister mystery, seemed to strike Lizzy first as +ludicrous, and then as very awkward for the good impression that she +wished to produce upon him. + +‘Smuggling is carried on here by some of the people,’ she said in a +gentle, apologetic voice. ‘It has been their practice for generations, +and they think it no harm. Now, will you roll out one of the tubs?’ + +‘What to do with it?’ said the minister. + +‘To draw a little from it to cure your cold,’ she answered. ‘It is so +‘nation strong that it drives away that sort of thing in a jiffy. O, it +is all right about our taking it. I may have what I like; the owner of +the tubs says so. I ought to have had some in the house, and then I +shouldn’t ha’ been put to this trouble; but I drink none myself, and so +I often forget to keep it indoors.’ + +‘You are allowed to help yourself, I suppose, that you may not inform +where their hiding-place is?’ + +‘Well, no; not that particularly; but I may take any if I want it. So +help yourself.’ + +‘I will, to oblige you, since you have a right to it,’ murmured the +minister; and though he was not quite satisfied with his part in the +performance, he rolled one of the ‘tubs’ out from the corner into the +middle of the tower floor. ‘How do you wish me to get it out—with a +gimlet, I suppose?’ + +‘No, I’ll show you,’ said his interesting companion; and she held up +with her other hand a shoemaker’s awl and a hammer. ‘You must never do +these things with a gimlet, because the wood-dust gets in; and when the +buyers pour out the brandy that would tell them that the tub had been +broached. An awl makes no dust, and the hole nearly closes up again. +Now tap one of the hoops forward.’ + +Stockdale took the hammer and did so. + +‘Now make the hole in the part that was covered by the hoop.’ + +He made the hole as directed. ‘It won’t run out,’ he said. + +‘O yes it will,’ said she. ‘Take the tub between your knees, and +squeeze the heads; and I’ll hold the cup.’ + +Stockdale obeyed; and the pressure taking effect upon the tub, which +seemed, to be thin, the spirit spirted out in a stream. When the cup +was full he ceased pressing, and the flow immediately stopped. ‘Now we +must fill up the keg with water,’ said Lizzy, ‘or it will cluck like +forty hens when it is handled, and show that ’tis not full.’ + +‘But they tell you you may take it?’ + +‘Yes, the _smugglers_: but the _buyers_ must not know that the +smugglers have been kind to me at their expense.’ + +‘I see,’ said Stockdale doubtfully. ‘I much question the honesty of +this proceeding.’ + +By her direction he held the tub with the hole upwards, and while he +went through the process of alternately pressing and ceasing to press, +she produced a bottle of water, from which she took mouthfuls, +conveying each to the keg by putting her pretty lips to the hole, where +it was sucked in at each recovery of the cask from pressure. When it +was again full he plugged the hole, knocked the hoop down to its place, +and buried the tub in the lumber as before. + +‘Aren’t the smugglers afraid that you will tell?’ he asked, as they +recrossed the churchyard. + +‘O no; they are not afraid of that. I couldn’t do such a thing.’ + +‘They have put you into a very awkward corner,’ said Stockdale +emphatically. ‘You must, of course, as an honest person, sometimes feel +that it is your duty to inform—really you must.’ + +‘Well, I have never particularly felt it as a duty; and, besides, my +first husband—’ She stopped, and there was some confusion in her voice. +Stockdale was so honest and unsophisticated that he did not at once +discern why she paused: but at last he did perceive that the words were +a slip, and that no woman would have uttered ‘first husband’ by +accident unless she had thought pretty frequently of a second. He felt +for her confusion, and allowed her time to recover and proceed. ‘My +husband,’ she said, in a self-corrected tone, ‘used to know of their +doings, and so did my father, and kept the secret. I cannot inform, in +fact, against anybody.’ + +‘I see the hardness of it,’ he continued, like a man who looked far +into the moral of things. ‘And it is very cruel that you should be +tossed and tantalized between your memories and your conscience. I do +hope, Mrs. Newberry, that you will soon see your way out of this +unpleasant position.’ + +‘Well, I don’t just now,’ she murmured. + +By this time they had passed over the wall and entered the house, where +she brought him a glass and hot water, and left him to his own +reflections. He looked after her vanishing form, asking himself whether +he, as a respectable man, and a minister, and a shining light, even +though as yet only of the halfpenny-candle sort, were quite justified +in doing this thing. A sneeze settled the question; and he found that +when the fiery liquor was lowered by the addition of twice or thrice +the quantity of water, it was one of the prettiest cures for a cold in +the head that he had ever known, particularly at this chilly time of +the year. + +Stockdale sat in the deep chair about twenty minutes sipping and +meditating, till he at length took warmer views of things, and longed +for the morrow, when he would see Mrs. Newberry again. He then felt +that, though chronologically at a short distance, it would in an +emotional sense be very long before to-morrow came, and walked +restlessly round the room. His eye was attracted by a framed and glazed +sampler in which a running ornament of fir-trees and peacocks +surrounded the following pretty bit of sentiment:- + +‘Rose-leaves smell when roses thrive, +Here’s my work while I’m alive; +Rose-leaves smell when shrunk and shed, +Here’s my work when I am dead. + + +‘Lizzy Simpkins. Fear God. Honour the King. + ‘Aged 11 years. + + +‘’Tis hers,’ he said to himself. ‘Heavens, how I like that name!’ + +Before he had done thinking that no other name from Abigail to Zenobia +would have suited his young landlady so well, tap-tap came again upon +the door; and the minister started as her face appeared yet another +time, looking so disinterested that the most ingenious would have +refrained from asserting that she had come to affect his feelings by +her seductive eyes. + +‘Would you like a fire in your room, Mr. Stockdale, on account of your +cold?’ + +The minister, being still a little pricked in the conscience for +countenancing her in watering the spirits, saw here a way to +self-chastisement. ‘No, I thank you,’ he said firmly; ‘it is not +necessary. I have never been used to one in my life, and it would be +giving way to luxury too far.’ + +‘Then I won’t insist,’ she said, and disconcerted him by vanishing +instantly. + +Wondering if she was vexed by his refusal, he wished that he had chosen +to have a fire, even though it should have scorched him out of bed and +endangered his self-discipline for a dozen days. However, he consoled +himself with what was in truth a rare consolation for a budding lover, +that he was under the same roof with Lizzy; her guest, in fact, to take +a poetical view of the term lodger; and that he would certainly see her +on the morrow. + +The morrow came, and Stockdale rose early, his cold quite gone. He had +never in his life so longed for the breakfast hour as he did that day, +and punctually at eight o’clock, after a short walk, to reconnoitre the +premises, he re-entered the door of his dwelling. Breakfast passed, and +Martha Sarah attended, but nobody came voluntarily as on the night +before to inquire if there were other wants which he had not mentioned, +and which she would attempt to gratify. He was disappointed, and went +out, hoping to see her at dinner. Dinner time came; he sat down to the +meal, finished it, lingered on for a whole hour, although two new +teachers were at that moment waiting at the chapel-door to speak to him +by appointment. It was useless to wait longer, and he slowly went his +way down the lane, cheered by the thought that, after all, he would see +her in the evening, and perhaps engage again in the delightful +tub-broaching in the neighbouring church tower, which proceeding he +resolved to render more moral by steadfastly insisting that no water +should be introduced to fill up, though the tub should cluck like all +the hens in Christendom. But nothing could disguise the fact that it +was a queer business; and his countenance fell when he thought how much +more his mind was interested in that matter than in his serious duties. + +However, compunction vanished with the decline of day. Night came, and +his tea and supper; but no Lizzy Newberry, and no sweet temptations. At +last the minister could bear it no longer, and said to his quaint +little attendant, ‘Where is Mrs. Newberry to-day?’ judiciously handing +a penny as he spoke. + +‘She’s busy,’ said Martha. + +‘Anything serious happened?’ he asked, handing another penny, and +revealing yet additional pennies in the background. + +‘O no—nothing at all!’ said she, with breathless confidence. ‘Nothing +ever happens to her. She’s only biding upstairs in bed because ’tis her +way sometimes.’ + +Being a young man of some honour, he would not question further, and +assuming that Lizzy must have a bad headache, or other slight ailment, +in spite of what the girl had said, he went to bed dissatisfied, not +even setting eyes on old Mrs. Simpkins. ‘I said last night that I +should see her to-morrow,’ he reflected; ‘but that was not to be!’ + +Next day he had better fortune, or worse, meeting her at the foot of +the stairs in the morning, and being favoured by a visit or two from +her during the day—once for the purpose of making kindly inquiries +about his comfort, as on the first evening, and at another time to +place a bunch of winter-violets on his table, with a promise to renew +them when they drooped. On these occasions there was something in her +smile which showed how conscious she was of the effect she produced, +though it must be said that it was rather a humorous than a designing +consciousness, and savoured more of pride than of vanity. + +As for Stockdale, he clearly perceived that he possessed unlimited +capacity for backsliding, and wished that tutelary saints were not +denied to Dissenters. He set a watch upon his tongue and eyes for the +space of one hour and a half, after which he found it was useless to +struggle further, and gave himself up to the situation. ‘The other +minister will be here in a month,’ he said to himself when sitting over +the fire. ‘Then I shall be off, and she will distract my mind no more! +. . . And then, shall I go on living by myself for ever? No; when my +two years of probation are finished, I shall have a furnished house to +live in, with a varnished door and a brass knocker; and I’ll march +straight back to her, and ask her flat, as soon as the last plate is on +the dresser! + +Thus a titillating fortnight was passed by young Stockdale, during +which time things proceeded much as such matters have done ever since +the beginning of history. He saw the object of attachment several times +one day, did not see her at all the next, met her when he least +expected to do so, missed her when hints and signs as to where she +should be at a given hour almost amounted to an appointment. This mild +coquetry was perhaps fair enough under the circumstances of their being +so closely lodged, and Stockdale put up with it as philosophically as +he was able. Being in her own house, she could, after vexing him or +disappointing him of her presence, easily win him back by suddenly +surrounding him with those little attentions which her position as his +landlady put it in her power to bestow. When he had waited indoors half +the day to see her, and on finding that she would not be seen, had gone +off in a huff to the dreariest and dampest walk he could discover, she +would restore equilibrium in the evening with ‘Mr. Stockdale, I have +fancied you must feel draught o’ nights from your bedroom window, and +so I have been putting up thicker curtains this afternoon while you +were out;’ or, ‘I noticed that you sneezed twice again this morning, +Mr. Stockdale. Depend upon it that cold is hanging about you yet; I am +sure it is—I have thought of it continually; and you must let me make a +posset for you.’ + +Sometimes in coming home he found his sitting-room rearranged, chairs +placed where the table had stood, and the table ornamented with the few +fresh flowers and leaves that could be obtained at this season, so as +to add a novelty to the room. At times she would be standing on a chair +outside the house, trying to nail up a branch of the monthly rose which +the winter wind had blown down; and of course he stepped forward to +assist her, when their hands got mixed in passing the shreds and nails. +Thus they became friends again after a disagreement. She would utter on +these occasions some pretty and deprecatory remark on the necessity of +her troubling him anew; and he would straightway say that he would do a +hundred times as much for her if she should so require. + +CHAPTER II—HOW HE SAW TWO OTHER MEN + +Matters being in this advancing state, Stockdale was rather surprised +one cloudy evening, while sitting in his room, at hearing her speak in +low tones of expostulation to some one at the door. It was nearly dark, +but the shutters were not yet closed, nor the candles lighted; and +Stockdale was tempted to stretch his head towards the window. He saw +outside the door a young man in clothes of a whitish colour, and upon +reflection judged their wearer to be the well-built and rather handsome +miller who lived below. The miller’s voice was alternately low and +firm, and sometimes it reached the level of positive entreaty; but what +the words were Stockdale could in no way hear. + +Before the colloquy had ended, the minister’s attention was attracted +by a second incident. Opposite Lizzy’s home grew a clump of laurels, +forming a thick and permanent shade. One of the laurel boughs now +quivered against the light background of sky, and in a moment the head +of a man peered out, and remained still. He seemed to be also much +interested in the conversation at the door, and was plainly lingering +there to watch and listen. Had Stockdale stood in any other relation to +Lizzy than that of a lover, he might have gone out and investigated the +meaning of this: but being as yet but an unprivileged ally, he did +nothing more than stand up and show himself against the firelight, +whereupon the listener disappeared, and Lizzy and the miller spoke in +lower tones. + +Stockdale was made so uneasy by the circumstance, that as soon as the +miller was gone, he said, ‘Mrs. Newberry, are you aware that you were +watched just now, and your conversation heard?’ + +‘When?’ she said. + +‘When you were talking to that miller. A man was looking from the +laurel-tree as jealously as if he could have eaten you.’ + +She showed more concern than the trifling event seemed to demand, and +he added, ‘Perhaps you were talking of things you did not wish to be +overheard?’ + +‘I was talking only on business,’ she said. + +‘Lizzy, be frank!’ said the young man. ‘If it was only on business, why +should anybody wish to listen to you?’ + +She looked curiously at him. ‘What else do you think it could be, +then?’ + +‘Well—the only talk between a young woman and man that is likely to +amuse an eavesdropper.’ + +‘Ah yes,’ she said, smiling in spite of her preoccupation. ‘Well, my +cousin Owlett has spoken to me about matrimony, every now and then, +that’s true; but he was not speaking of it then. I wish he had been +speaking of it, with all my heart. It would have been much less serious +for me.’ + +‘O Mrs. Newberry!’ + +‘It would. Not that I should ha’ chimed in with him, of course. I wish +it for other reasons. I am glad, Mr. Stockdale, that you have told me +of that listener. It is a timely warning, and I must see my cousin +again.’ + +‘But don’t go away till I have spoken,’ said the minister. ‘I’ll out +with it at once, and make no more ado. Let it be Yes or No between us, +Lizzy; please do!’ And he held out his hand, in which she freely +allowed her own to rest, but without speaking. + +‘You mean Yes by that?’ he asked, after waiting a while. + +‘You may be my sweetheart, if you will.’ + +‘Why not say at once you will wait for me until I have a house and can +come back to marry you.’ + +‘Because I am thinking—thinking of something else,’ she said with +embarrassment. ‘It all comes upon me at once, and I must settle one +thing at a time.’ + +‘At any rate, dear Lizzy, you can assure me that the miller shall not +be allowed to speak to you except on business? You have never directly +encouraged him?’ + +She parried the question by saying, ‘You see, he and his party have +been in the habit of leaving things on my premises sometimes, and as I +have not denied him, it makes him rather forward.’ + +‘Things—what things?’ + +‘Tubs—they are called Things here.’ + +‘But why don’t you deny him, my dear Lizzy?’ + +‘I cannot well.’ + +‘You are too timid. It is unfair of him to impose so upon you, and get +your good name into danger by his smuggling tricks. Promise me that the +next time he wants to leave his tubs here you will let me roll them +into the street?’ + +She shook her head. ‘I would not venture to offend the neighbours so +much as that,’ said she, ‘or do anything that would be so likely to put +poor Owlett into the hands of the excisemen.’ + +Stockdale sighed, and said that he thought hers a mistaken generosity +when it extended to assisting those who cheated the king of his dues. +‘At any rate, you will let me make him keep his distance as your lover, +and tell him flatly that you are not for him?’ + +‘Please not, at present,’ she said. ‘I don’t wish to offend my old +neighbours. It is not only Owlett who is concerned.’ + +‘This is too bad,’ said Stockdale impatiently. + +‘On my honour, I won’t encourage him as my lover,’ Lizzy answered +earnestly. ‘A reasonable man will be satisfied with that.’ + +‘Well, so I am,’ said Stockdale, his countenance clearing. + +CHAPTER III—THE MYSTERIOUS GREATCOAT + +Stockdale now began to notice more particularly a feature in the life +of his fair landlady, which he had casually observed but scarcely ever +thought of before. It was that she was markedly irregular in her hours +of rising. For a week or two she would be tolerably punctual, reaching +the ground-floor within a few minutes of half-past seven. Then suddenly +she would not be visible till twelve at noon, perhaps for three or four +days in succession; and twice he had certain proof that she did not +leave her room till half-past three in the afternoon. The second time +that this extreme lateness came under his notice was on a day when he +had particularly wished to consult with her about his future movements; +and he concluded, as he always had done, that she had a cold, headache, +or other ailment, unless she had kept herself invisible to avoid +meeting and talking to him, which he could hardly believe. The former +supposition was disproved, however, by her innocently saying, some days +later, when they were speaking on a question of health, that she had +never had a moment’s heaviness, headache, or illness of any kind since +the previous January twelvemonth. + +‘I am glad to hear it,’ said he. ‘I thought quite otherwise.’ + +‘What, do I look sickly?’ she asked, turning up her face to show the +impossibility of his gazing on it and holding such a belief for a +moment. + +‘Not at all; I merely thought so from your being sometimes obliged to +keep your room through the best part of the day.’ + +‘O, as for that—it means nothing,’ she murmured, with a look which some +might have called cold, and which was the worst look that he liked to +see upon her. ‘It is pure sleepiness, Mr. Stockdale.’ + +‘Never!’ + +‘It is, I tell you. When I stay in my room till half-past three in the +afternoon, you may always be sure that I slept soundly till three, or I +shouldn’t have stayed there.’ + +‘It is dreadful,’ said Stockdale, thinking of the disastrous effects of +such indulgence upon the household of a minister, should it become a +habit of everyday occurrence. + +‘But then,’ she said, divining his good and prescient thoughts, ‘it +only happens when I stay awake all night. I don’t go to sleep till five +or six in the morning sometimes.’ + +‘Ah, that’s another matter,’ said Stockdale. ‘Sleeplessness to such an +alarming extent is real illness. Have you spoken to a doctor?’ + +‘O no—there is no need for doing that—it is all natural to me.’ And she +went away without further remark. + +Stockdale might have waited a long time to know the real cause of her +sleeplessness, had it not happened that one dark night he was sitting +in his bedroom jotting down notes for a sermon, which occupied him +perfunctorily for a considerable time after the other members of the +household had retired. He did not get to bed till one o’clock. Before +he had fallen asleep he heard a knocking at the front door, first +rather timidly performed, and then louder. Nobody answered it, and the +person knocked again. As the house still remained undisturbed, +Stockdale got out of bed, went to his window, which overlooked the +door, and opening it, asked who was there. + +A young woman’s voice replied that Susan Wallis was there, and that she +had come to ask if Mrs. Newberry could give her some mustard to make a +plaster with, as her father was taken very ill on the chest. + +The minister, having neither bell nor servant, was compelled to act in +person. ‘I will call Mrs. Newberry,’ he said. Partly dressing himself; +he went along the passage and tapped at Lizzy’s door. She did not +answer, and, thinking of her erratic habits in the matter of sleep, he +thumped the door persistently, when he discovered, by its moving ajar +under his knocking, that it had only been gently pushed to. As there +was now a sufficient entry for the voice, he knocked no longer, but +said in firm tones, ‘Mrs. Newberry, you are wanted.’ + +The room was quite silent; not a breathing, not a rustle, came from any +part of it. Stockdale now sent a positive shout through the open space +of the door: ‘Mrs. Newberry!’—still no answer, or movement of any kind +within. Then he heard sounds from the opposite room, that of Lizzy’s +mother, as if she had been aroused by his uproar though Lizzy had not, +and was dressing herself hastily. Stockdale softly closed the younger +woman’s door and went on to the other, which was opened by Mrs. +Simpkins before he could reach it. She was in her ordinary clothes, and +had a light in her hand. + +‘What’s the person calling about?’ she said in alarm. + +Stockdale told the girl’s errand, adding seriously, ‘I cannot wake Mrs. +Newberry.’ + +‘It is no matter,’ said her mother. ‘I can let the girl have what she +wants as well as my daughter.’ And she came out of the room and went +downstairs. + +Stockdale retired towards his own apartment, saying, however, to Mrs. +Simpkins from the landing, as if on second thoughts, ‘I suppose there +is nothing the matter with Mrs. Newberry, that I could not wake her?’ + +‘O no,’ said the old lady hastily. ‘Nothing at all.’ + +Still the minister was not satisfied. ‘Will you go in and see?’ he +said. ‘I should be much more at ease.’ + +Mrs. Simpkins returned up the staircase, went to her daughter’s room, +and came out again almost instantly. ‘There is nothing at all the +matter with Lizzy,’ she said; and descended again to attend to the +applicant, who, having seen the light, had remained quiet during this +interval. + +Stockdale went into his room and lay down as before. He heard Lizzy’s +mother open the front door, admit the girl, and then the murmured +discourse of both as they went to the store-cupboard for the medicament +required. The girl departed, the door was fastened, Mrs. Simpkins came +upstairs, and the house was again in silence. Still the minister did +not fall asleep. He could not get rid of a singular suspicion, which +was all the more harassing in being, if true, the most unaccountable +thing within his experience. That Lizzy Newberry was in her bedroom +when he made such a clamour at the door he could not possibly convince +himself; notwithstanding that he had heard her come upstairs at the +usual time, go into her chamber, and shut herself up in the usual way. +Yet all reason was so much against her being elsewhere, that he was +constrained to go back again to the unlikely theory of a heavy sleep, +though he had heard neither breath nor movement during a shouting and +knocking loud enough to rouse the Seven Sleepers. + +Before coming to any positive conclusion he fell asleep himself, and +did not awake till day. He saw nothing of Mrs. Newberry in the morning, +before he went out to meet the rising sun, as he liked to do when the +weather was fine; but as this was by no means unusual, he took no +notice of it. At breakfast-time he knew that she was not far off by +hearing her in the kitchen, and though he saw nothing of her person, +that back apartment being rigorously closed against his eyes, she +seemed to be talking, ordering, and bustling about among the pots and +skimmers in so ordinary a manner, that there was no reason for his +wasting more time in fruitless surmise. + +The minister suffered from these distractions, and his extemporized +sermons were not improved thereby. Already he often said Romans for +Corinthians in the pulpit, and gave out hymns in strange cramped +metres, that hitherto had always been skipped, because the congregation +could not raise a tune to fit them. He fully resolved that as soon as +his few weeks of stay approached their end he would cut the matter +short, and commit himself by proposing a definite engagement, repenting +at leisure if necessary. + +With this end in view, he suggested to her on the evening after her +mysterious sleep that they should take a walk together just before +dark, the latter part of the proposition being introduced that they +might return home unseen. She consented to go; and away they went over +a stile, to a shrouded footpath suited for the occasion. But, in spite +of attempts on both sides, they were unable to infuse much spirit into +the ramble. She looked rather paler than usual, and sometimes turned +her head away. + +‘Lizzy,’ said Stockdale reproachfully, when they had walked in silence +a long distance. + +‘Yes,’ said she. + +‘You yawned—much my company is to you!’ He put it in that way, but he +was really wondering whether her yawn could possibly have more to do +with physical weariness from the night before than mental weariness of +that present moment. Lizzy apologized, and owned that she was rather +tired, which gave him an opening for a direct question on the point; +but his modesty would not allow him to put it to her; and he +uncomfortably resolved to wait. + +The month of February passed with alternations of mud and frost, rain +and sleet, east winds and north-westerly gales. The hollow places in +the ploughed fields showed themselves as pools of water, which had +settled there from the higher levels, and had not yet found time to +soak away. The birds began to get lively, and a single thrush came just +before sunset each evening, and sang hopefully on the large elm-tree +which stood nearest to Mrs. Newberry’s house. Cold blasts and brittle +earth had given place to an oozing dampness more unpleasant in itself +than frost; but it suggested coming spring, and its unpleasantness was +of a bearable kind. + +Stockdale had been going to bring about a practical understanding with +Lizzy at least half-a-dozen times; but, what with the mystery of her +apparent absence on the night of the neighbour’s call, and her curious +way of lying in bed at unaccountable times, he felt a check within him +whenever he wanted to speak out. Thus they still lived on as +indefinitely affianced lovers, each of whom hardly acknowledged the +other’s claim to the name of chosen one. Stockdale persuaded himself +that his hesitation was owing to the postponement of the ordained +minister’s arrival, and the consequent delay in his own departure, +which did away with all necessity for haste in his courtship; but +perhaps it was only that his discretion was reasserting itself, and +telling him that he had better get clearer ideas of Lizzy before +arranging for the grand contract of his life with her. She, on her +part, always seemed ready to be urged further on that question than he +had hitherto attempted to go; but she was none the less independent, +and to a degree which would have kept from flagging the passion of a +far more mutable man. + +On the evening of the first of March he went casually into his bedroom +about dusk, and noticed lying on a chair a greatcoat, hat, and +breeches. Having no recollection of leaving any clothes of his own in +that spot, he went and examined them as well as he could in the +twilight, and found that they did not belong to him. He paused for a +moment to consider how they might have got there. He was the only man +living in the house; and yet these were not his garments, unless he had +made a mistake. No, they were not his. He called up Martha Sarah. + +‘How did these things come in my room?’ he said, flinging the +objectionable articles to the floor. + +Martha said that Mrs. Newberry had given them to her to brush, and that +she had brought them up there thinking they must be Mr. Stockdale’s, as +there was no other gentleman a-lodging there. + +‘Of course you did,’ said Stockdale. ‘Now take them down to your +mis’ess, and say they are some clothes I have found here and know +nothing about.’ + +As the door was left open he heard the conversation downstairs. ‘How +stupid!’ said Mrs. Newberry, in a tone of confusion. ‘Why, Marther +Sarer, I did not tell you to take ’em to Mr. Stockdale’s room?’ + +‘I thought they must be his as they was so muddy,’ said Martha humbly. + +‘You should have left ’em on the clothes-horse,’ said the young +mistress severely; and she came upstairs with the garments on her arm, +quickly passed Stockdale’s room, and threw them forcibly into a closet +at the end of a passage. With this the incident ended, and the house +was silent again. + +There would have been nothing remarkable in finding such clothes in a +widow’s house had they been clean; or moth-eaten, or creased, or mouldy +from long lying by; but that they should be splashed with recent mud +bothered Stockdale a good deal. When a young pastor is in the aspen +stage of attachment, and open to agitation at the merest trifles, a +really substantial incongruity of this complexion is a disturbing +thing. However, nothing further occurred at that time; but he became +watchful, and given to conjecture, and was unable to forget the +circumstance. + +One morning, on looking from his window, he saw Mrs. Newberry herself +brushing the tails of a long drab greatcoat, which, if he mistook not, +was the very same garment as the one that had adorned the chair of his +room. It was densely splashed up to the hollow of the back with +neighbouring Nether-Moynton mud, to judge by its colour, the spots +being distinctly visible to him in the sunlight. The previous day or +two having been wet, the inference was irresistible that the wearer had +quite recently been walking some considerable distance about the lanes +and fields. Stockdale opened the window and looked out, and Mrs. +Newberry turned her head. Her face became slowly red; she never had +looked prettier, or more incomprehensible, he waved his hand +affectionately, and said good-morning; she answered with embarrassment, +having ceased her occupation on the instant that she saw him, and +rolled up the coat half-cleaned. + +Stockdale shut the window. Some simple explanation of her proceeding +was doubtless within the bounds of possibility; but he himself could +not think of one; and he wished that she had placed the matter beyond +conjecture by voluntarily saying something about it there and then. + +But, though Lizzy had not offered an explanation at the moment, the +subject was brought forward by her at the next time of their meeting. +She was chatting to him concerning some other event, and remarked that +it happened about the time when she was dusting some old clothes that +had belonged to her poor husband. + +‘You keep them clean out of respect to his memory?’ said Stockdale +tentatively. + +‘I air and dust them sometimes,’ she said, with the most charming +innocence in the world. + +‘Do dead men come out of their graves and walk in mud?’ murmured the +minister, in a cold sweat at the deception that she was practising. + +‘What did you say?’ asked Lizzy. + +‘Nothing, nothing,’ said he mournfully. ‘Mere words—a phrase that will +do for my sermon next Sunday.’ It was too plain that Lizzy was unaware +that he had seen actual pedestrian splashes upon the skirts of the +tell-tale overcoat, and that she imagined him to believe it had come +direct from some chest or drawer. + +The aspect of the case was now considerably darker. Stockdale was so +much depressed by it that he did not challenge her explanation, or +threaten to go off as a missionary to benighted islanders, or reproach +her in any way whatever. He simply parted from her when she had done +talking, and lived on in perplexity, till by degrees his natural manner +became sad and constrained. + +CHAPTER IV—AT THE TIME OF THE NEW MOON + +The following Thursday was changeable, damp, and gloomy; and the night +threatened to be windy and unpleasant. Stockdale had gone away to +Knollsea in the morning, to be present at some commemoration service +there, and on his return he was met by the attractive Lizzy in the +passage. Whether influenced by the tide of cheerfulness which had +attended him that day, or by the drive through the open air, or whether +from a natural disposition to let bygones alone, he allowed himself to +be fascinated into forgetfulness of the greatcoat incident, and upon +the whole passed a pleasant evening; not so much in her society as +within sound of her voice, as she sat talking in the back parlour to +her mother, till the latter went to bed. Shortly after this Mrs. +Newberry retired, and then Stockdale prepared to go upstairs himself. +But before he left the room he remained standing by the dying embers +awhile, thinking long of one thing and another; and was only aroused by +the flickering of his candle in the socket as it suddenly declined and +went out. Knowing that there were a tinder-box, matches, and another +candle in his bedroom, he felt his way upstairs without a light. On +reaching his chamber he laid his hand on every possible ledge and +corner for the tinderbox, but for a long time in vain. Discovering it +at length, Stockdale produced a spark, and was kindling the brimstone, +when he fancied that he heard a movement in the passage. He blew harder +at the lint, the match flared up, and looking by aid of the blue light +through the door, which had been standing open all this time, he was +surprised to see a male figure vanishing round the top of the staircase +with the evident intention of escaping unobserved. The personage wore +the clothes which Lizzy had been brushing, and something in the outline +and gait suggested to the minister that the wearer was Lizzy herself. + +But he was not sure of this; and, greatly excited, Stockdale determined +to investigate the mystery, and to adopt his own way for doing it. He +blew out the match without lighting the candle, went into the passage, +and proceeded on tiptoe towards Lizzy’s room. A faint grey square of +light in the direction of the chamber-window as he approached told him +that the door was open, and at once suggested that the occupant was +gone. He turned and brought down his fist upon the handrail of the +staircase: ‘It was she; in her late husband’s coat and hat!’ + +Somewhat relieved to find that there was no intruder in the case, yet +none the less surprised, the minister crept down the stairs, softly put +on his boots, overcoat, and hat, and tried the front door. It was +fastened as usual: he went to the back door, found this unlocked, and +emerged into the garden. The night was mild and moonless, and rain had +lately been falling, though for the present it had ceased. There was a +sudden dropping from the trees and bushes every now and then, as each +passing wind shook their boughs. Among these sounds Stockdale heard the +faint fall of feet upon the road outside, and he guessed from the step +that it was Lizzy’s. He followed the sound, and, helped by the +circumstance of the wind blowing from the direction in which the +pedestrian moved, he got nearly close to her, and kept there, without +risk of being overheard. While he thus followed her up the street or +lane, as it might indifferently be called, there being more hedge than +houses on either side, a figure came forward to her from one of the +cottage doors. Lizzy stopped; the minister stepped upon the grass and +stopped also. + +‘Is that Mrs. Newberry?’ said the man who had come out, whose voice +Stockdale recognized as that of one of the most devout members of his +congregation. + +‘It is,’ said Lizzy. + +‘I be quite ready—I’ve been here this quarter-hour.’ + +‘Ah, John,’ said she, ‘I have bad news; there is danger to-night for +our venture.’ + +‘And d’ye tell o’t! I dreamed there might be.’ + +‘Yes,’ she said hurriedly; ‘and you must go at once round to where the +chaps are waiting, and tell them they will not be wanted till to-morrow +night at the same time. I go to burn the lugger off.’ + +‘I will,’ he said; and instantly went off through a gate, Lizzy +continuing her way. + +On she tripped at a quickening pace till the lane turned into the +turnpike-road, which she crossed, and got into the track for +Ringsworth. Here she ascended the hill without the least hesitation, +passed the lonely hamlet of Holworth, and went down the vale on the +other side. Stockdale had never taken any extensive walks in this +direction, but he was aware that if she persisted in her course much +longer she would draw near to the coast, which was here between two and +three miles distant from Nether-Moynton; and as it had been about a +quarter-past eleven o’clock when they set out, her intention seemed to +be to reach the shore about midnight. + +Lizzy soon ascended a small mound, which Stockdale at the same time +adroitly skirted on the left; and a dull monotonous roar burst upon his +ear. The hillock was about fifty yards from the top of the cliffs, and +by day it apparently commanded a full view of the bay. There was light +enough in the sky to show her disguised figure against it when she +reached the top, where she paused, and afterwards sat down. Stockdale, +not wishing on any account to alarm her at this moment, yet desirous of +being near her, sank upon his hands and knees, crept a little higher +up, and there stayed still. + +The wind was chilly, the ground damp, and his position one in which he +did not care to remain long. However, before he had decided to leave +it, the young man heard voices behind him. What they signified he did +not know; but, fearing that Lizzy was in danger, he was about to run +forward and warn her that she might be seen, when she crept to the +shelter of a little bush which maintained a precarious existence in +that exposed spot; and her form was absorbed in its dark and stunted +outline as if she had become part of it. She had evidently heard the +men as well as he. They passed near him, talking in loud and careless +tones, which could be heard above the uninterrupted washings of the +sea, and which suggested that they were not engaged in any business at +their own risk. This proved to be the fact: some of their words floated +across to him, and caused him to forget at once the coldness of his +situation. + +‘What’s the vessel?’ + +‘A lugger, about fifty tons.’ + +‘From Cherbourg, I suppose?’ + +‘Yes, ’a b’lieve.’ + +‘But it don’t all belong to Owlett?’ + +‘O no. He’s only got a share. There’s another or two in it—a farmer and +such like, but the names I don’t know.’ + +The voices died away, and the heads and shoulders of the men diminished +towards the cliff, and dropped out of sight. + +‘My darling has been tempted to buy a share by that unbeliever Owlett,’ +groaned the minister, his honest affection for Lizzy having quickened +to its intensest point during these moments of risk to her person and +name. ‘That’s why she’s here,’ he said to himself. ‘O, it will be the +ruin of her!’ + +His perturbation was interrupted by the sudden bursting out of a bright +and increasing light from the spot where Lizzy was in hiding. A few +seconds later, and before it had reached the height of a blaze, he +heard her rush past him down the hollow like a stone from a sling, in +the direction of home. The light now flared high and wide, and showed +its position clearly. She had kindled a bough of furze and stuck it +into the bush under which she had been crouching; the wind fanned the +flame, which crackled fiercely, and threatened to consume the bush as +well as the bough. Stockdale paused just long enough to notice thus +much, and then followed rapidly the route taken by the young woman. His +intention was to overtake her, and reveal himself as a friend; but run +as he would he could see nothing of her. Thus he flew across the open +country about Holworth, twisting his legs and ankles in unexpected +fissures and descents, till, on coming to the gate between the downs +and the road, he was forced to pause to get breath. There was no +audible movement either in front or behind him, and he now concluded +that she had not outrun him, but that, hearing him at her heels, and +believing him one of the excise party, she had hidden herself somewhere +on the way, and let him pass by. + +He went on at a more leisurely pace towards the village. On reaching +the house he found his surmise to be correct, for the gate was on the +latch, and the door unfastened, just as he had left them. Stockdale +closed the door behind him, and waited silently in the passage. In +about ten minutes he heard the same light footstep that he had heard in +going out; it paused at the gate, which opened and shut softly, and +then the door-latch was lifted, and Lizzy came in. + +Stockdale went forward and said at once, ‘Lizzy, don’t be frightened. I +have been waiting up for you.’ + +She started, though she had recognized the voice. ‘It is Mr. Stockdale, +isn’t it?’ she said. + +‘Yes,’ he answered, becoming angry now that she was safe indoors, and +not alarmed. ‘And a nice game I’ve found you out in to-night. You are +in man’s clothes, and I am ashamed of you!’ + +Lizzy could hardly find a voice to answer this unexpected reproach. + +‘I am only partly in man’s clothes,’ she faltered, shrinking back to +the wall. ‘It is only his greatcoat and hat and breeches that I’ve got +on, which is no harm, as he was my own husband; and I do it only +because a cloak blows about so, and you can’t use your arms. I have got +my own dress under just the same—it is only tucked in! Will you go away +upstairs and let me pass? I didn’t want you to see me at such a time as +this!’ + +‘But I have a right to see you! How do you think there can be anything +between us now?’ Lizzy was silent. ‘You are a smuggler,’ he continued +sadly. + +‘I have only a share in the run,’ she said. + +‘That makes no difference. Whatever did you engage in such a trade as +that for, and keep it such a secret from me all this time?’ + +‘I don’t do it always. I only do it in winter-time when ’tis new moon.’ + +‘Well, I suppose that’s because it can’t be done anywhen else . . . You +have regularly upset me, Lizzy.’ + +‘I am sorry for that,’ Lizzy meekly replied. + +‘Well now,’ said he more tenderly, ‘no harm is done as yet. Won’t you +for the sake of me give up this blamable and dangerous practice +altogether?’ + +‘I must do my best to save this run,’ said she, getting rather husky in +the throat. ‘I don’t want to give you up—you know that; but I don’t +want to lose my venture. I don’t know what to do now! Why I have kept +it so secret from you is that I was afraid you would be angry if you +knew.’ + +‘I should think so! I suppose if I had married you without finding this +out you’d have gone on with it just the same?’ + +‘I don’t know. I did not think so far ahead. I only went to-night to +burn the folks off, because we found that the excisemen knew where the +tubs were to be landed.’ + +‘It is a pretty mess to be in altogether, is this,’ said the distracted +young minister. ‘Well, what will you do now?’ + +Lizzy slowly murmured the particulars of their plan, the chief of which +were that they meant to try their luck at some other point of the shore +the next night; that three landing-places were always agreed upon +before the run was attempted, with the understanding that, if the +vessel was ‘burnt off’ from the first point, which was Ringsworth, as +it had been by her to-night, the crew should attempt to make the +second, which was Lulstead Cove, on the second night; and if there, +too, danger threatened, they should on the third night try the third +place, which was behind a headland further west. + +‘Suppose the officers hinder them landing there too?’ he said, his +attention to this interesting programme displacing for a moment his +concern at her share in it. + +‘Then we shan’t try anywhere else all this dark—that’s what we call the +time between moon and moon—and perhaps they’ll string the tubs to a +stray-line, and sink ’em a little-ways from shore, and take the +bearings; and then when they have a chance they’ll go to creep for +’em.’ + +‘What’s that?’ + +‘O, they’ll go out in a boat and drag a creeper—that’s a grapnel—along +the bottom till it catch hold of the stray-line.’ + +The minister stood thinking; and there was no sound within doors but +the tick of the clock on the stairs, and the quick breathing of Lizzy, +partly from her walk and partly from agitation, as she stood close to +the wall, not in such complete darkness but that he could discern +against its whitewashed surface the greatcoat and broad hat which +covered her. + +‘Lizzy, all this is very wrong,’ he said. ‘Don’t you remember the +lesson of the tribute-money? “Render unto Caesar the things that are +Caesar’s.” Surely you have heard that read times enough in your growing +up?’ + +‘He’s dead,’ she pouted. + +‘But the spirit of the text is in force just the same.’ + +‘My father did it, and so did my grandfather, and almost everybody in +Nether-Moynton lives by it, and life would be so dull if it wasn’t for +that, that I should not care to live at all.’ + +‘I am nothing to live for, of course,’ he replied bitterly. ‘You would +not think it worth while to give up this wild business and live for me +alone?’ + +‘I have never looked at it like that.’ + +‘And you won’t promise and wait till I am ready?’ + +‘I cannot give you my word to-night.’ And, looking thoughtfully down, +she gradually moved and moved away, going into the adjoining room, and +closing the door between them. She remained there in the dark till he +was tired of waiting, and had gone up to his own chamber. + +Poor Stockdale was dreadfully depressed all the next day by the +discoveries of the night before. Lizzy was unmistakably a fascinating +young woman, but as a minister’s wife she was hardly to be +contemplated. ‘If I had only stuck to father’s little grocery business, +instead of going in for the ministry, she would have suited me +beautifully!’ he said sadly, until he remembered that in that case he +would never have come from his distant home to Nether-Moynton, and +never have known her. + +The estrangement between them was not complete, but it was sufficient +to keep them out of each other’s company. Once during the day he met +her in the garden-path, and said, turning a reproachful eye upon her, +‘Do you promise, Lizzy?’ But she did not reply. The evening drew on, +and he knew well enough that Lizzy would repeat her excursion at +night—her half-offended manner had shown that she had not the slightest +intention of altering her plans at present. He did not wish to repeat +his own share of the adventure; but, act as he would, his uneasiness on +her account increased with the decline of day. Supposing that an +accident should befall her, he would never forgive himself for not +being there to help, much as he disliked the idea of seeming to +countenance such unlawful escapades. + +CHAPTER V—HOW THEY WENT TO LULSTEAD COVE + +As he had expected, she left the house at the same hour at night, this +time passing his door without stealth, as if she knew very well that he +would be watching, and were resolved to brave his displeasure. He was +quite ready, opened the door quickly, and reached the back door almost +as soon as she. + +‘Then you will go, Lizzy?’ he said as he stood on the step beside her, +who now again appeared as a little man with a face altogether unsuited +to his clothes. + +‘I must,’ she said, repressed by his stern manner. + +‘Then I shall go too,’ said he. + +‘And I am sure you will enjoy it!’ she exclaimed in more buoyant tones. +‘Everybody does who tries it.’ + +‘God forbid that I should!’ he said. ‘But I must look after you.’ + +They opened the wicket and went up the road abreast of each other, but +at some distance apart, scarcely a word passing between them. The +evening was rather less favourable to smuggling enterprise than the +last had been, the wind being lower, and the sky somewhat clear towards +the north. + +‘It is rather lighter,’ said Stockdale. + +‘’Tis, unfortunately,’ said she. ‘But it is only from those few stars +over there. The moon was new to-day at four o’clock, and I expected +clouds. I hope we shall be able to do it this dark, for when we have to +sink ’em for long it makes the stuff taste bleachy, and folks don’t +like it so well.’ + +Her course was different from that of the preceding night, branching +off to the left over Lord’s Barrow as soon as they had got out of the +lane and crossed the highway. By the time they reached Chaldon Down, +Stockdale, who had been in perplexed thought as to what he should say +to her, decided that he would not attempt expostulation now, while she +was excited by the adventure, but wait till it was over, and endeavour +to keep her from such practices in future. It occurred to him once or +twice, as they rambled on, that should they be surprised by the +excisemen, his situation would be more awkward than hers, for it would +be difficult to prove his true motive in coming to the spot; but the +risk was a slight consideration beside his wish to be with her. + +They now arrived at a ravine which lay on the outskirts of Chaldon, a +village two miles on their way towards the point of the shore they +sought. Lizzy broke the silence this time: ‘I have to wait here to meet +the carriers. I don’t know if they have come yet. As I told you, we go +to Lulstead Cove to-night, and it is two miles further than +Ringsworth.’ + +It turned out that the men had already come; for while she spoke two or +three dozen heads broke the line of the slope, and a company of them at +once descended from the bushes where they had been lying in wait. These +carriers were men whom Lizzy and other proprietors regularly employed +to bring the tubs from the boat to a hiding-place inland. They were all +young fellows of Nether-Moynton, Chaldon, and the neighbourhood, quiet +and inoffensive persons, who simply engaged to carry the cargo for +Lizzy and her cousin Owlett, as they would have engaged in any other +labour for which they were fairly well paid. + +At a word from her they closed in together. ‘You had better take it +now,’ she said to them; and handed to each a packet. It contained six +shillings, their remuneration for the night’s undertaking, which was +paid beforehand without reference to success or failure; but, besides +this, they had the privilege of selling as agents when the run was +successfully made. As soon as it was done, she said to them, ‘The place +is the old one near Lulstead Cove;’ the men till that moment not having +been told whither they were bound, for obvious reasons. ‘Owlett will +meet you there,’ added Lizzy. ‘I shall follow behind, to see that we +are not watched.’ + +The carriers went on, and Stockdale and Mrs. Newberry followed at a +distance of a stone’s throw. ‘What do these men do by day?’ he said. + +‘Twelve or fourteen of them are labouring men. Some are brickmakers, +some carpenters, some shoe-makers, some thatchers. They are all known +to me very well. Nine of ’em are of your own congregation.’ + +‘I can’t help that,’ said Stockdale. + +‘O, I know you can’t. I only told you. The others are more +church-inclined, because they supply the pa’son with all the spirits he +requires, and they don’t wish to show unfriendliness to a customer.’ + +‘How do you choose ’em?’ said Stockdale. + +‘We choose ’em for their closeness, and because they are strong and +surefooted, and able to carry a heavy load a long way without being +tired.’ + +Stockdale sighed as she enumerated each particular, for it proved how +far involved in the business a woman must be who was so well acquainted +with its conditions and needs. And yet he felt more tenderly towards +her at this moment than he had felt all the foregoing day. Perhaps it +was that her experienced manner and hold indifference stirred his +admiration in spite of himself. + +‘Take my arm, Lizzy,’ he murmured. + +‘I don’t want it,’ she said. ‘Besides, we may never be to each other +again what we once have been.’ + +‘That depends upon you,’ said he, and they went on again as before. + +The hired carriers paced along over Chaldon Down with as little +hesitation as if it had been day, avoiding the cart-way, and leaving +the village of East Chaldon on the left, so as to reach the crest of +the hill at a lonely trackless place not far from the ancient earthwork +called Round Pound. An hour’s brisk walking brought them within sound +of the sea, not many hundred yards from Lulstead Cove. Here they +paused, and Lizzy and Stockdale came up with them, when they went on +together to the verge of the cliff. One of the men now produced an iron +bar, which he drove firmly into the soil a yard from the edge, and +attached to it a rope that he had uncoiled from his body. They all +began to descend, partly stepping, partly sliding down the incline, as +the rope slipped through their hands. + +‘You will not go to the bottom, Lizzy?’ said Stockdale anxiously. + +‘No. I stay here to watch,’ she said. ‘Owlett is down there.’ + +The men remained quite silent when they reached the shore; and the next +thing audible to the two at the top was the dip of heavy oars, and the +dashing of waves against a boat’s bow. In a moment the keel gently +touched the shingle, and Stockdale heard the footsteps of the +thirty-six carriers running forwards over the pebbles towards the point +of landing. + +There was a sousing in the water as of a brood of ducks plunging in, +showing that the men had not been particular about keeping their legs, +or even their waists, dry from the brine: but it was impossible to see +what they were doing, and in a few minutes the shingle was trampled +again. The iron bar sustaining the rope, on which Stockdale’s hand +rested, began to swerve a little, and the carriers one by one appeared +climbing up the sloping cliff; dripping audibly as they came, and +sustaining themselves by the guide-rope. Each man on reaching the top +was seen to be carrying a pair of tubs, one on his back and one on his +chest, the two being slung together by cords passing round the chine +hoops, and resting on the carrier’s shoulders. Some of the stronger men +carried three by putting an extra one on the top behind, but the +customary load was a pair, these being quite weighty enough to give +their bearer the sensation of having chest and backbone in contact +after a walk of four or five miles. + +‘Where is Owlett?’ said Lizzy to one of them. + +‘He will not come up this way,’ said the carrier. ‘He’s to bide on +shore till we be safe off.’ Then, without waiting for the rest, the +foremost men plunged across the down; and, when the last had ascended, +Lizzy pulled up the rope, wound it round her arm, wriggled the bar from +the sod, and turned to follow the carriers. + +‘You are very anxious about Owlett’s safety,’ said the minister. + +‘Was there ever such a man!’ said Lizzy. ‘Why, isn’t he my cousin?’ + +‘Yes. Well, it is a bad night’s work,’ said Stockdale heavily. ‘But +I’ll carry the bar and rope for you.’ + +‘Thank God, the tubs have got so far all right,’ said she. + +Stockdale shook his head, and, taking the bar, walked by her side +towards the downs; and the moan of the sea was heard no more. + +‘Is this what you meant the other day when you spoke of having business +with Owlett?’ the young man asked. + +‘This is it,’ she replied. ‘I never see him on any other matter.’ + +‘A partnership of that kind with a young man is very odd.’ + +‘It was begun by my father and his, who were brother-laws.’ + +Her companion could not blind himself to the fact that where tastes and +pursuits were so akin as Lizzy’s and Owlett’s, and where risks were +shared, as with them, in every undertaking, there would be a peculiar +appropriateness in her answering Owlett’s standing question on +matrimony in the affirmative. This did not soothe Stockdale, its +tendency being rather to stimulate in him an effort to make the pair as +inappropriate as possible, and win her away from this nocturnal crew to +correctness of conduct and a minister’s parlour in some far-removed +inland county. + +They had been walking near enough to the file of carriers for Stockdale +to perceive that, when they got into the road to the village, they +split up into two companies of unequal size, each of which made off in +a direction of its own. One company, the smaller of the two, went +towards the church, and by the time that Lizzy and Stockdale reached +their own house these men had scaled the churchyard wall, and were +proceeding noiselessly over the grass within. + +‘I see that Owlett has arranged for one batch to be put in the church +again,’ observed Lizzy. ‘Do you remember my taking you there the first +night you came?’ + +‘Yes, of course,’ said Stockdale. ‘No wonder you had permission to +broach the tubs—they were his, I suppose?’ + +‘No, they were not—they were mine; I had permission from myself. The +day after that they went several miles inland in a waggon-load of +manure, and sold very well.’ + +At this moment the group of men who had made off to the left some time +before began leaping one by one from the hedge opposite Lizzy’s house, +and the first man, who had no tubs upon his shoulders, came forward. + +‘Mrs. Newberry, isn’t it?’ he said hastily. + +‘Yes, Jim,’ said she. ‘What’s the matter?’ + +‘I find that we can’t put any in Badger’s Clump to-night, Lizzy,’ said +Owlett. ‘The place is watched. We must sling the apple-tree in the +orchet if there’s time. We can’t put any more under the church lumber +than I have sent on there, and my mixen hev already more in en than is +safe.’ + +‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Be quick about it—that’s all. What can I do?’ + +‘Nothing at all, please. Ah, it is the minister!—you two that can’t do +anything had better get indoors and not be zeed.’ + +While Owlett thus conversed, in a tone so full of contraband anxiety +and so free from lover’s jealousy, the men who followed him had been +descending one by one from the hedge; and it unfortunately happened +that when the hindmost took his leap, the cord slipped which sustained +his tubs: the result was that both the kegs fell into the road, one of +them being stove in by the blow. + +‘’Od drown it all!’ said Owlett, rushing back. + +‘It is worth a good deal, I suppose?’ said Stockdale. + +‘O no—about two guineas and half to us now,’ said Lizzy excitedly. ‘It +isn’t that—it is the smell! It is so blazing strong before it has been +lowered by water, that it smells dreadfully when spilt in the road like +that! I do hope Latimer won’t pass by till it is gone off.’ + +Owlett and one or two others picked up the burst tub and began to +scrape and trample over the spot, to disperse the liquor as much as +possible; and then they all entered the gate of Owlett’s orchard, which +adjoined Lizzy’s garden on the right. Stockdale did not care to follow +them, for several on recognizing him had looked wonderingly at his +presence, though they said nothing. Lizzy left his side and went to the +bottom of the garden, looking over the hedge into the orchard, where +the men could be dimly seen bustling about, and apparently hiding the +tubs. All was done noiselessly, and without a light; and when it was +over they dispersed in different directions, those who had taken their +cargoes to the church having already gone off to their homes. + +Lizzy returned to the garden-gate, over which Stockdale was still +abstractedly leaning. ‘It is all finished: I am going indoors now,’ she +said gently. ‘I will leave the door ajar for you.’ + +‘O no—you needn’t,’ said Stockdale; ‘I am coming too.’ + +But before either of them had moved, the faint clatter of horses’ hoofs +broke upon the ear, and it seemed to come from the point where the +track across the down joined the hard road. + +‘They are just too late!’ cried Lizzy exultingly. + +‘Who?’ said Stockdale. + +‘Latimer, the riding-officer, and some assistant of his. We had better +go indoors.’ + +They entered the house, and Lizzy bolted the door. ‘Please don’t get a +light, Mr. Stockdale,’ she said. + +‘Of course I will not,’ said he. + +‘I thought you might be on the side of the king,’ said Lizzy, with +faintest sarcasm. + +‘I am,’ said Stockdale. ‘But, Lizzy Newberry, I love you, and you know +it perfectly well; and you ought to know, if you do not, what I have +suffered in my conscience on your account these last few days!’ + +‘I guess very well,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Yet I don’t see why. Ah, you +are better than I!’ + +The trotting of the horses seemed to have again died away, and the pair +of listeners touched each other’s fingers in the cold ‘Good-night’ of +those whom something seriously divided. They were on the landing, but +before they had taken three steps apart, the tramp of the horsemen +suddenly revived, almost close to the house. Lizzy turned to the +staircase window, opened the casement about an inch, and put her face +close to the aperture. ‘Yes, one of ’em is Latimer,’ she whispered. ‘He +always rides a white horse. One would think it was the last colour for +a man in that line.’ + +Stockdale looked, and saw the white shape of the animal as it passed +by; but before the riders had gone another ten yards, Latimer reined in +his horse, and said something to his companion which neither Stockdale +nor Lizzy could hear. Its drift was, however, soon made evident, for +the other man stopped also; and sharply turning the horses’ heads they +cautiously retraced their steps. When they were again opposite Mrs. +Newberry’s garden, Latimer dismounted, and the man on the dark horse +did the same. + +Lizzy and Stockdale, intently listening and observing the proceedings, +naturally put their heads as close as possible to the slit formed by +the slightly opened casement; and thus it occurred that at last their +cheeks came positively into contact. They went on listening, as if they +did not know of the singular incident which had happened to their +faces, and the pressure of each to each rather increased than lessened +with the lapse of time. + +They could hear the excisemen sniffing the air like hounds as they +paced slowly along. When they reached the spot where the tub had burst, +both stopped on the instant. + +‘Ay, ay, ’tis quite strong here,’ said the second officer. ‘Shall we +knock at the door?’ + +‘Well, no,’ said Latimer. ‘Maybe this is only a trick to put us off the +scent. They wouldn’t kick up this stink anywhere near their +hiding-place. I have known such things before.’ + +‘Anyhow, the things, or some of ’em, must have been brought this way,’ +said the other. + +‘Yes,’ said Latimer musingly. ‘Unless ’tis all done to tole us the +wrong way. I have a mind that we go home for to-night without saying a +word, and come the first thing in the morning with more hands. I know +they have storages about here, but we can do nothing by this owl’s +light. We will look round the parish and see if everybody is in bed, +John; and if all is quiet, we will do as I say.’ + +They went on, and the two inside the window could hear them passing +leisurely through the whole village, the street of which curved round +at the bottom and entered the turnpike road at another junction. This +way the excisemen followed, and the amble of their horses died quite +away. + +‘What will you do?’ said Stockdale, withdrawing from his position. + +She knew that he alluded to the coming search by the officers, to +divert her attention from their own tender incident by the casement, +which he wished to be passed over as a thing rather dreamt of than +done. ‘O, nothing,’ she replied, with as much coolness as she could +command under her disappointment at his manner. ‘We often have such +storms as this. You would not be frightened if you knew what fools they +are. Fancy riding o’ horseback through the place: of course they will +hear and see nobody while they make that noise; but they are always +afraid to get off, in case some of our fellows should burst out upon +’em, and tie them up to the gate-post, as they have done before now. +Good-night, Mr. Stockdale.’ + +She closed the window and went to her room, where a tear fell from her +eyes; and that not because of the alertness of the riding-officers. + +CHAPTER VI—THE GREAT SEARCH AT NETHER-MOYNTON + +Stockdale was so excited by the events of the evening, and the dilemma +that he was placed in between conscience and love, that he did not +sleep, or even doze, but remained as broadly awake as at noonday. As +soon as the grey light began to touch ever so faintly the whiter +objects in his bedroom he arose, dressed himself, and went downstairs +into the road. + +The village was already astir. Several of the carriers had heard the +well-known tramp of Latimer’s horse while they were undressing in the +dark that night, and had already communicated with each other and +Owlett on the subject. The only doubt seemed to be about the safety of +those tubs which had been left under the church gallery-stairs, and +after a short discussion at the corner of the mill, it was agreed that +these should be removed before it got lighter, and hidden in the middle +of a double hedge bordering the adjoining field. However, before +anything could be carried into effect, the footsteps of many men were +heard coming down the lane from the highway. + +‘Damn it, here they be,’ said Owlett, who, having already drawn the +hatch and started his mill for the day, stood stolidly at the mill-door +covered with flour, as if the interest of his whole soul was bound up +in the shaking walls around him. + +The two or three with whom he had been talking dispersed to their usual +work, and when the excise officers, and the formidable body of men they +had hired, reached the village cross, between the mill and Mrs. +Newberry’s house, the village wore the natural aspect of a place +beginning its morning labours. + +‘Now,’ said Latimer to his associates, who numbered thirteen men in +all, ‘what I know is that the things are somewhere in this here place. +We have got the day before us, and ’tis hard if we can’t light upon ’em +and get ’em to Budmouth Custom-house before night. First we will try +the fuel-houses, and then we’ll work our way into the chimmers, and +then to the ricks and stables, and so creep round. You have nothing but +your noses to guide ye, mind, so use ’em to-day if you never did in +your lives before.’ + +Then the search began. Owlett, during the early part, watched from his +mill-window, Lizzy from the door of her house, with the greatest +self-possession. A farmer down below, who also had a share in the run, +rode about with one eye on his fields and the other on Latimer and his +myrmidons, prepared to put them off the scent if he should be asked a +question. Stockdale, who was no smuggler at all, felt more anxiety than +the worst of them, and went about his studies with a heavy heart, +coming frequently to the door to ask Lizzy some question or other on +the consequences to her of the tubs being found. + +‘The consequences,’ she said quietly, ‘are simply that I shall lose +’em. As I have none in the house or garden, they can’t touch me +personally.’ + +‘But you have some in the orchard?’ + +‘Owlett rents that of me, and he lends it to others. So it will be hard +to say who put any tubs there if they should be found.’ + +There was never such a tremendous sniffing known as that which took +place in Nether-Moynton parish and its vicinity this day. All was done +methodically, and mostly on hands and knees. At different hours of the +day they had different plans. From daybreak to breakfast-time the +officers used their sense of smell in a direct and straightforward +manner only, pausing nowhere but at such places as the tubs might be +supposed to be secreted in at that very moment, pending their removal +on the following night. Among the places tested and examined were + +Hollow trees Cupboards Culverts +Potato-graves Clock-cases Hedgerows +Fuel-houses Chimney-flues Faggot-ricks +Bedrooms Rainwater-butts Haystacks +Apple-lofts Pigsties Coppers and ovens. + +After breakfast they recommenced with renewed vigour, taking a new +line; that is to say, directing their attention to clothes that might +be supposed to have come in contact with the tubs in their removal from +the shore, such garments being usually tainted with the spirit, owing +to its oozing between the staves. They now sniffed at— + +Smock-frocks Smiths’ and shoemakers’ aprons Old shirts and +waistcoats Knee-naps and hedging-gloves Coats and hats Tarpaulins +Breeches and leggings Market-cloaks Women’s shawls and +gowns Scarecrows + +And as soon as the mid-day meal was over, they pushed their search into +places where the spirits might have been thrown away in alarm:- + +Horse-ponds Mixens Sinks in yards Stable-drains Wet +ditches Road-scrapings, and Cinder-heaps Cesspools Back-door +gutters. + +But still these indefatigable excisemen discovered nothing more than +the original tell-tale smell in the road opposite Lizzy’s house, which +even yet had not passed off. + +‘I’ll tell ye what it is, men,’ said Latimer, about three o’clock in +the afternoon, ‘we must begin over again. Find them tubs I will.’ + +The men, who had been hired for the day, looked at their hands and +knees, muddy with creeping on all fours so frequently, and rubbed their +noses, as if they had almost had enough of it; for the quantity of bad +air which had passed into each one’s nostril had rendered it nearly as +insensible as a flue. However, after a moment’s hesitation, they +prepared to start anew, except three, whose power of smell had quite +succumbed under the excessive wear and tear of the day. + +By this time not a male villager was to be seen in the parish. Owlett +was not at his mill, the farmers were not in their fields, the parson +was not in his garden, the smith had left his forge, and the +wheelwright’s shop was silent. + +‘Where the divil are the folk gone?’ said Latimer, waking up to the +fact of their absence, and looking round. ‘I’ll have ’em up for this! +Why don’t they come and help us? There’s not a man about the place but +the Methodist parson, and he’s an old woman. I demand assistance in the +king’s name!’ + +‘We must find the jineral public afore we can demand that,’ said his +lieutenant. + +‘Well, well, we shall do better without ’em,’ said Latimer, who changed +his moods at a moment’s notice. ‘But there’s great cause of suspicion +in this silence and this keeping out of sight, and I’ll bear it in +mind. Now we will go across to Owlett’s orchard, and see what we can +find there.’ + +Stockdale, who heard this discussion from the garden-gate, over which +he had been leaning, was rather alarmed, and thought it a mistake of +the villagers to keep so completely out of the way. He himself, like +the excisemen, had been wondering for the last half-hour what could +have become of them. Some labourers were of necessity engaged in +distant fields, but the master-workmen should have been at home; though +one and all, after just showing themselves at their shops, had +apparently gone off for the day. He went in to Lizzy, who sat at a back +window sewing, and said, ‘Lizzy, where are the men?’ + +Lizzy laughed. ‘Where they mostly are when they’re run so hard as +this.’ She cast her eyes to heaven. ‘Up there,’ she said. + +Stockdale looked up. ‘What—on the top of the church tower?’ he asked, +seeing the direction of her glance. + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Well, I expect they will soon have to come down,’ said he gravely. ‘I +have been listening to the officers, and they are going to search the +orchard over again, and then every nook in the church.’ + +Lizzy looked alarmed for the first time. ‘Will you go and tell our +folk?’ she said. ‘They ought to be let know.’ Seeing his conscience +struggling within him like a boiling pot, she added, ‘No, never mind, +I’ll go myself.’ + +She went out, descended the garden, and climbed over the churchyard +wall at the same time that the preventive-men were ascending the road +to the orchard. Stockdale could do no less than follow her. By the time +that she reached the tower entrance he was at her side, and they +entered together. + +Nether-Moynton church-tower was, as in many villages, without a turret, +and the only way to the top was by going up to the singers’ gallery, +and thence ascending by a ladder to a square trap-door in the floor of +the bell-loft, above which a permanent ladder was fixed, passing +through the bells to a hole in the roof. When Lizzy and Stockdale +reached the gallery and looked up, nothing but the trap-door and the +five holes for the bell-ropes appeared. The ladder was gone. + +‘There’s no getting up,’ said Stockdale. + +‘O yes, there is,’ said she. ‘There’s an eye looking at us at this +moment through a knot-hole in that trap-door.’ + +And as she spoke the trap opened, and the dark line of the ladder was +seen descending against the white-washed wall. When it touched the +bottom Lizzy dragged it to its place, and said, ‘If you’ll go up, I’ll +follow.’ + +The young man ascended, and presently found himself among consecrated +bells for the first time in his life, nonconformity having been in the +Stockdale blood for some generations. He eyed them uneasily, and looked +round for Lizzy. Owlett stood here, holding the top of the ladder. + +‘What, be you really one of us?’ said the miller. + +‘It seems so,’ said Stockdale sadly. + +‘He’s not,’ said Lizzy, who overheard. ‘He’s neither for nor against +us. He’ll do us no harm.’ + +She stepped up beside them, and then they went on to the next stage, +which, when they had clambered over the dusty bell-carriages, was of +easy ascent, leading towards the hole through which the pale sky +appeared, and into the open air. Owlett remained behind for a moment, +to pull up the lower ladder. + +‘Keep down your heads,’ said a voice, as soon as they set foot on the +flat. + +Stockdale here beheld all the missing parishioners, lying on their +stomachs on the tower roof, except a few who, elevated on their hands +and knees, were peeping through the embrasures of the parapet. +Stockdale did the same, and saw the village lying like a map below him, +over which moved the figures of the excisemen, each foreshortened to a +crablike object, the crown of his hat forming a circular disc in the +centre of him. Some of the men had turned their heads when the young +preacher’s figure arose among them. + +‘What, Mr. Stockdale?’ said Matt Grey, in a tone of surprise. + +‘I’d as lief that it hadn’t been,’ said Jim Clarke. ‘If the pa’son +should see him a trespassing here in his tower, ’twould be none the +better for we, seeing how ’a do hate chapel-members. He’d never buy a +tub of us again, and he’s as good a customer as we have got this side +o’ Warm’ll.’ + +‘Where is the pa’son?’ said Lizzy. + +‘In his house, to be sure, that he mid see nothing of what’s going +on—where all good folks ought to be, and this young man likewise.’ + +‘Well, he has brought some news,’ said Lizzy. ‘They are going to search +the orchet and church; can we do anything if they should find?’ + +‘Yes,’ said her cousin Owlett. ‘That’s what we’ve been talking o’, and +we have settled our line. Well, be dazed!’ + +The exclamation was caused by his perceiving that some of the +searchers, having got into the orchard, and begun stooping and creeping +hither and thither, were pausing in the middle, where a tree smaller +than the rest was growing. They drew closer, and bent lower than ever +upon the ground. + +‘O, my tubs!’ said Lizzy faintly, as she peered through the parapet at +them. + +‘They have got ’em, ’a b’lieve,’ said Owlett. + +The interest in the movements of the officers was so keen that not a +single eye was looking in any other direction; but at that moment a +shout from the church beneath them attracted the attention of the +smugglers, as it did also of the party in the orchard, who sprang to +their feet and went towards the churchyard wall. At the same time those +of the Government men who had entered the church unperceived by the +smugglers cried aloud, ‘Here be some of ’em at last.’ + +The smugglers remained in a blank silence, uncertain whether ‘some of +’em’ meant tubs or men; but again peeping cautiously over the edge of +the tower they learnt that tubs were the things descried; and soon +these fated articles were brought one by one into the middle of the +churchyard from their hiding-place under the gallery-stairs. + +‘They are going to put ’em on Hinton’s vault till they find the rest!’ +said Lizzy hopelessly. The excisemen had, in fact, begun to pile up the +tubs on a large stone slab which was fixed there; and when all were +brought out from the tower, two or three of the men were left standing +by them, the rest of the party again proceeding to the orchard. + +The interest of the smugglers in the next manoeuvres of their enemies +became painfully intense. Only about thirty tubs had been secreted in +the lumber of the tower, but seventy were hidden in the orchard, making +up all that they had brought ashore as yet, the remainder of the cargo +having been tied to a sinker and dropped overboard for another night’s +operations. The excisemen, having re-entered the orchard, acted as if +they were positive that here lay hidden the rest of the tubs, which +they were determined to find before nightfall. They spread themselves +out round the field, and advancing on all fours as before, went anew +round every apple-tree in the enclosure. The young tree in the middle +again led them to pause, and at length the whole company gathered there +in a way which signified that a second chain of reasoning had led to +the same results as the first. + +When they had examined the sod hereabouts for some minutes, one of the +men rose, ran to a disused porch of the church where tools were kept, +and returned with the sexton’s pickaxe and shovel, with which they set +to work. + +‘Are they really buried there?’ said the minister, for the grass was so +green and uninjured that it was difficult to believe it had been +disturbed. The smugglers were too interested to reply, and presently +they saw, to their chagrin, the officers stand several on each side of +the tree; and, stooping and applying their hands to the soil, they +bodily lifted the tree and the turf around it. The apple-tree now +showed itself to be growing in a shallow box, with handles for lifting +at each of the four sides. Under the site of the tree a square hole was +revealed, and an exciseman went and looked down. + +‘It is all up now,’ said Owlett quietly. ‘And now all of ye get down +before they notice we are here; and be ready for our next move. I had +better bide here till dark, or they may take me on suspicion, as ’tis +on my ground. I’ll be with ye as soon as daylight begins to pink in.’ + +‘And I?’ said Lizzy. + +‘You please look to the linch-pins and screws; then go indoors and know +nothing at all. The chaps will do the rest.’ + +The ladder was replaced, and all but Owlett descended, the men passing +off one by one at the back of the church, and vanishing on their +respective errands. + +Lizzy walked boldly along the street, followed closely by the minister. + +‘You are going indoors, Mrs. Newberry?’ he said. + +She knew from the words ‘Mrs. Newberry’ that the division between them +had widened yet another degree. + +‘I am not going home,’ she said. ‘I have a little thing to do before I +go in. Martha Sarah will get your tea.’ + +‘O, I don’t mean on that account,’ said Stockdale. ‘What _can_ you have +to do further in this unhallowed affair?’ + +‘Only a little,’ she said. + +‘What is that? I’ll go with you.’ + +‘No, I shall go by myself. Will you please go indoors? I shall be there +in less than an hour.’ + +‘You are not going to run any danger, Lizzy?’ said the young man, his +tenderness reasserting itself. + +‘None whatever—worth mentioning,’ answered she, and went down towards +the Cross. + +Stockdale entered the garden gate, and stood behind it looking on. The +excisemen were still busy in the orchard, and at last he was tempted to +enter, and watch their proceedings. When he came closer he found that +the secret cellar, of whose existence he had been totally unaware, was +formed by timbers placed across from side to side about a foot under +the ground, and grassed over. + +The excisemen looked up at Stockdale’s fair and downy countenance, and +evidently thinking him above suspicion, went on with their work again. +As soon as all the tubs were taken out, they began tearing up the turf; +pulling out the timbers, and breaking in the sides, till the cellar was +wholly dismantled and shapeless, the apple-tree lying with its roots +high to the air. But the hole which had in its time held so much +contraband merchandize was never completely filled up, either then or +afterwards, a depression in the greensward marking the spot to this +day. + +CHAPTER VII—THE WALK TO WARM’ELL CROSS AND AFTERWARDS + +As the goods had all to be carried to Budmouth that night, the +excisemen’s next object was to find horses and carts for the journey, +and they went about the village for that purpose. Latimer strode hither +and thither with a lump of chalk in his hand, marking broad-arrows so +vigorously on every vehicle and set of harness that he came across, +that it seemed as if he would chalk broad-arrows on the very hedges and +roads. The owner of every conveyance so marked was bound to give it up +for Government purposes. Stockdale, who had had enough of the scene, +turned indoors thoughtful and depressed. Lizzy was already there, +having come in at the back, though she had not yet taken off her +bonnet. She looked tired, and her mood was not much brighter than his +own. They had but little to say to each other; and the minister went +away and attempted to read; but at this he could not succeed, and he +shook the little bell for tea. + +Lizzy herself brought in the tray, the girl having run off into the +village during the afternoon, too full of excitement at the proceedings +to remember her state of life. However, almost before the sad lovers +had said anything to each other, Martha came in in a steaming state. + +‘O, there’s such a stoor, Mrs. Newberry and Mr. Stockdale! The king’s +excisemen can’t get the carts ready nohow at all! They pulled Thomas +Ballam’s, and William Rogers’s, and Stephen Sprake’s carts into the +road, and off came the wheels, and down fell the carts; and they found +there was no linch-pins in the arms; and then they tried Samuel Shane’s +waggon, and found that the screws were gone from he, and at last they +looked at the dairyman’s cart, and he’s got none neither! They have +gone now to the blacksmith’s to get some made, but he’s nowhere to be +found!’ + +Stockdale looked at Lizzy, who blushed very slightly, and went out of +the room, followed by Martha Sarah. But before they had got through the +passage there was a rap at the front door, and Stockdale recognized +Latimer’s voice addressing Mrs. Newberry, who had turned back. + +‘For God’s sake, Mrs. Newberry, have you seen Hardman the blacksmith up +this way? If we could get hold of him, we’d e’en a’most drag him by the +hair of his head to his anvil, where he ought to be.’ + +‘He’s an idle man, Mr. Latimer,’ said Lizzy archly. ‘What do you want +him for?’ + +‘Why, there isn’t a horse in the place that has got more than three +shoes on, and some have only two. The waggon-wheels be without strakes, +and there’s no linch-pins to the carts. What with that, and the bother +about every set of harness being out of order, we shan’t be off before +nightfall—upon my soul we shan’t. ’Tis a rough lot, Mrs. Newberry, that +you’ve got about you here; but they’ll play at this game once too +often, mark my words they will! There’s not a man in the parish that +don’t deserve to be whipped.’ + +It happened that Hardman was at that moment a little further up the +lane, smoking his pipe behind a holly-bush. When Latimer had done +speaking he went on in this direction, and Hardman, hearing the +exciseman’s steps, found curiosity too strong for prudence. He peeped +out from the bush at the very moment that Latimer’s glance was on it. +There was nothing left for him to do but to come forward with +unconcern. + +‘I’ve been looking for you for the last hour!’ said Latimer with a +glare in his eye. + +‘Sorry to hear that,’ said Hardman. ‘I’ve been out for a stroll, to +look for more hid tubs, to deliver ’em up to Gover’ment.’ + +‘O yes, Hardman, we know it,’ said Latimer, with withering sarcasm. ‘We +know that you’ll deliver ’em up to Gover’ment. We know that all the +parish is helping us, and have been all day! Now you please walk along +with me down to your shop, and kindly let me hire ye in the king’s +name.’ + +They went down the lane together; and presently there resounded from +the smithy the ring of a hammer not very briskly swung. However, the +carts and horses were got into some sort of travelling condition, but +it was not until after the clock had struck six, when the muddy roads +were glistening under the horizontal light of the fading day. The +smuggled tubs were soon packed into the vehicles, and Latimer, with +three of his assistants, drove slowly out of the village in the +direction of the port of Budmouth, some considerable number of miles +distant, the other excisemen being left to watch for the remainder of +the cargo, which they knew to have been sunk somewhere between +Ringsworth and Lulstead Cove, and to unearth Owlett, the only person +clearly implicated by the discovery of the cave. + +Women and children stood at the doors as the carts, each chalked with +the Government pitchfork, passed in the increasing twilight; and as +they stood they looked at the confiscated property with a melancholy +expression that told only too plainly the relation which they bore to +the trade. + +‘Well, Lizzy,’ said Stockdale, when the crackle of the wheels had +nearly died away. ‘This is a fit finish to your adventure. I am truly +thankful that you have got off without suspicion, and the loss only of +the liquor. Will you sit down and let me talk to you?’ + +‘By and by,’ she said. ‘But I must go out now.’ + +‘Not to that horrid shore again?’ he said blankly. + +‘No, not there. I am only going to see the end of this day’s business.’ + +He did not answer to this, and she moved towards the door slowly, as if +waiting for him to say something more. + +‘You don’t offer to come with me,’ she added at last. ‘I suppose that’s +because you hate me after all this?’ + +‘Can you say it, Lizzy, when you know I only want to save you from such +practices? Come with you of course I will, if it is only to take care +of you. But why will you go out again?’ + +‘Because I cannot rest indoors. Something is happening, and I must know +what. Now, come!’ And they went into the dusk together. + +When they reached the turnpike-road she turned to the right, and he +soon perceived that they were following the direction of the excisemen +and their load. He had given her his arm, and every now and then she +suddenly pulled it back, to signify that he was to halt a moment and +listen. They had walked rather quickly along the first quarter of a +mile, and on the second or third time of standing still she said, ‘I +hear them ahead—don’t you?’ + +‘Yes,’ he said; ‘I hear the wheels. But what of that?’ + +‘I only want to know if they get clear away from the neighbourhood.’ + +‘Ah,’ said he, a light breaking upon him. ‘Something desperate is to be +attempted!—and now I remember there was not a man about the village +when we left.’ + +‘Hark!’ she murmured. The noise of the cartwheels had stopped, and +given place to another sort of sound. + +‘’Tis a scuffle!’ said Stockdale. ‘There’ll be murder! Lizzy, let go my +arm; I am going on. On my conscience, I must not stay here and do +nothing!’ + +‘There’ll be no murder, and not even a broken head,’ she said. ‘Our men +are thirty to four of them: no harm will be done at all.’ + +‘Then there _is_ an attack!’ exclaimed Stockdale; ‘and you knew it was +to be. Why should you side with men who break the laws like this?’ + +‘Why should you side with men who take from country traders what they +have honestly bought wi’ their own money in France?’ said she firmly. + +‘They are not honestly bought,’ said he. + +‘They are,’ she contradicted. ‘I and Owlett and the others paid thirty +shillings for every one of the tubs before they were put on board at +Cherbourg, and if a king who is nothing to us sends his people to steal +our property, we have a right to steal it back again.’ + +Stockdale did not stop to argue the matter, but went quickly in the +direction of the noise, Lizzy keeping at his side. ‘Don’t you +interfere, will you, dear Richard?’ she said anxiously, as they drew +near. ‘Don’t let us go any closer: ’tis at Warm’ell Cross where they +are seizing ’em. You can do no good, and you may meet with a hard +blow!’ + +‘Let us see first what is going on,’ he said. But before they had got +much further the noise of the cartwheels began again; and Stockdale +soon found that they were coming towards him. In another minute the +three carts came up, and Stockdale and Lizzy stood in the ditch to let +them pass. + +Instead of being conducted by four men, as had happened when they went +out of the village, the horses and carts were now accompanied by a body +of from twenty to thirty, all of whom, as Stockdale perceived to his +astonishment, had blackened faces. Among them walked six or eight huge +female figures, whom, from their wide strides, Stockdale guessed to be +men in disguise. As soon as the party discerned Lizzy and her companion +four or five fell back, and when the carts had passed, came close to +the pair. + +‘There is no walking up this way for the present,’ said one of the +gaunt women, who wore curls a foot long, dangling down the sides of her +face, in the fashion of the time. Stockdale recognized this lady’s +voice as Owlett’s. + +‘Why not?’ said Stockdale. ‘This is the public highway.’ + +‘Now look here, youngster,’ said Owlett. ‘O, ’tis the Methodist +parson!—what, and Mrs. Newberry! Well, you’d better not go up that way, +Lizzy. They’ve all run off, and folks have got their own again.’ + +The miller then hastened on and joined his comrades. Stockdale and +Lizzy also turned back. ‘I wish all this hadn’t been forced upon us,’ +she said regretfully. ‘But if those excisemen had got off with the +tubs, half the people in the parish would have been in want for the +next month or two.’ + +Stockdale was not paying much attention to her words, and he said, ‘I +don’t think I can go back like this. Those four poor excisemen may be +murdered for all I know.’ + +‘Murdered!’ said Lizzy impatiently. ‘We don’t do murder here.’ + +‘Well, I shall go as far as Warm’ell Cross to see,’ said Stockdale +decisively; and, without wishing her safe home or anything else, the +minister turned back. Lizzy stood looking at him till his form was +absorbed in the shades; and then, with sadness, she went in the +direction of Nether-Moynton. + +The road was lonely, and after nightfall at this time of the year there +was often not a passer for hours. Stockdale pursued his way without +hearing a sound beyond that of his own footsteps; and in due time he +passed beneath the trees of the plantation which surrounded the +Warm’ell Cross-road. Before he had reached the point of intersection he +heard voices from the thicket. + +‘Hoi-hoi-hoi! Help, help!’ + +The voices were not at all feeble or despairing, but they were +unmistakably anxious. Stockdale had no weapon, and before plunging into +the pitchy darkness of the plantation he pulled a stake from the hedge, +to use in case of need. When he got among the trees he shouted—‘What’s +the matter—where are you?’ + +‘Here,’ answered the voices; and, pushing through the brambles in that +direction, he came near the objects of his search. + +‘Why don’t you come forward?’ said Stockdale. + +‘We be tied to the trees!’ + +‘Who are you?’ + +‘Poor Will Latimer the exciseman!’ said one plaintively. ‘Just come and +cut these cords, there’s a good man. We were afraid nobody would pass +by to-night.’ + +Stockdale soon loosened them, upon which they stretched their limbs and +stood at their ease. + +‘The rascals!’ said Latimer, getting now into a rage, though he had +seemed quite meek when Stockdale first came up. ‘’Tis the same set of +fellows. I know they were Moynton chaps to a man.’ + +‘But we can’t swear to ’em,’ said another. ‘Not one of ’em spoke.’ + +‘What are you going to do?’ said Stockdale. + +‘I’d fain go back to Moynton, and have at ’em again!’ said Latimer. + +‘So would we!’ said his comrades. + +‘Fight till we die!’ said Latimer. + +‘We will, we will!’ said his men. + +‘But,’ said Latimer, more frigidly, as they came out of the plantation, +‘we don’t _know_ that these chaps with black faces were Moynton men? +And proof is a hard thing.’ + +‘So it is,’ said the rest. + +‘And therefore we won’t do nothing at all,’ said Latimer, with complete +dispassionateness. ‘For my part, I’d sooner be them than we. The +clitches of my arms are burning like fire from the cords those two +strapping women tied round ’em. My opinion is, now I have had time to +think o’t, that you may serve your Gover’ment at too high a price. For +these two nights and days I have not had an hour’s rest; and, please +God, here’s for home-along.’ + +The other officers agreed heartily to this course; and, thanking +Stockdale for his timely assistance, they parted from him at the Cross, +taking themselves the western road, and Stockdale going back to +Nether-Moynton. + +During that walk the minister was lost in reverie of the most painful +kind. As soon as he got into the house, and before entering his own +rooms, he advanced to the door of the little back parlour in which +Lizzy usually sat with her mother. He found her there alone. Stockdale +went forward, and, like a man in a dream, looked down upon the table +that stood between him and the young woman, who had her bonnet and +cloak still on. As he did not speak, she looked up from her chair at +him, with misgiving in her eye. + +‘Where are they gone?’ he then said listlessly. + +‘Who?—I don’t know. I have seen nothing of them since. I came straight +in here.’ + +‘If your men can manage to get off with those tubs, it will be a great +profit to you, I suppose?’ + +‘A share will be mine, a share my cousin Owlett’s, a share to each of +the two farmers, and a share divided amongst the men who helped us.’ + +‘And you still think,’ he went on slowly, ‘that you will not give this +business up?’ + +Lizzy rose, and put her hand upon his shoulder. ‘Don’t ask that,’ she +whispered. ‘You don’t know what you are asking. I must tell you, though +I meant not to do it. What I make by that trade is all I have to keep +my mother and myself with.’ + +He was astonished. ‘I did not dream of such a thing,’ he said. ‘I would +rather have swept the streets, had I been you. What is money compared +with a clear conscience?’ + +‘My conscience is clear. I know my mother, but the king I have never +seen. His dues are nothing to me. But it is a great deal to me that my +mother and I should live.’ + +‘Marry me, and promise to give it up. I will keep your mother.’ + +‘It is good of you,’ she said, trembling a little. ‘Let me think of it +by myself. I would rather not answer now.’ + +She reserved her answer till the next day, and came into his room with +a solemn face. ‘I cannot do what you wished!’ she said passionately. +‘It is too much to ask. My whole life ha’ been passed in this way.’ Her +words and manner showed that before entering she had been struggling +with herself in private, and that the contention had been strong. + +Stockdale turned pale, but he spoke quietly. ‘Then, Lizzy, we must +part. I cannot go against my principles in this matter, and I cannot +make my profession a mockery. You know how I love you, and what I would +do for you; but this one thing I cannot do.’ + +‘But why should you belong to that profession?’ she burst out. ‘I have +got this large house; why can’t you marry me, and live here with us, +and not be a Methodist preacher any more? I assure you, Richard, it is +no harm, and I wish you could only see it as I do! We only carry it on +in winter: in summer it is never done at all. It stirs up one’s dull +life at this time o’ the year, and gives excitement, which I have got +so used to now that I should hardly know how to do ‘ithout it. At +nights, when the wind blows, instead of being dull and stupid, and not +noticing whether it do blow or not, your mind is afield, even if you +are not afield yourself; and you are wondering how the chaps are +getting on; and you walk up and down the room, and look out o’ window, +and then you go out yourself, and know your way about as well by night +as by day, and have hairbreadth escapes from old Latimer and his +fellows, who are too stupid ever to really frighten us, and only make +us a bit nimble.’ + +‘He frightened you a little last night, anyhow: and I would advise you +to drop it before it is worse.’ + +She shook her head. ‘No, I must go on as I have begun. I was born to +it. It is in my blood, and I can’t be cured. O, Richard, you cannot +think what a hard thing you have asked, and how sharp you try me when +you put me between this and my love for ‘ee!’ + +Stockdale was leaning with his elbow on the mantelpiece, his hands over +his eyes. ‘We ought never to have met, Lizzy,’ he said. ‘It was an ill +day for us! I little thought there was anything so hopeless and +impossible in our engagement as this. Well, it is too late now to +regret consequences in this way. I have had the happiness of seeing you +and knowing you at least.’ + +‘You dissent from Church, and I dissent from State,’ she said. ‘And I +don’t see why we are not well matched.’ + +He smiled sadly, while Lizzy remained looking down, her eyes beginning +to overflow. + +That was an unhappy evening for both of them, and the days that +followed were unhappy days. Both she and he went mechanically about +their employments, and his depression was marked in the village by more +than one of his denomination with whom he came in contact. But Lizzy, +who passed her days indoors, was unsuspected of being the cause: for it +was generally understood that a quiet engagement to marry existed +between her and her cousin Owlett, and had existed for some time. + +Thus uncertainly the week passed on; till one morning Stockdale said to +her: ‘I have had a letter, Lizzy. I must call you that till I am gone.’ + +‘Gone?’ said she blankly. + +‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am going from this place. I felt it would be better +for us both that I should not stay after what has happened. In fact, I +couldn’t stay here, and look on you from day to day, without becoming +weak and faltering in my course. I have just heard of an arrangement by +which the other minister can arrive here in about a week; and let me go +elsewhere.’ + +That he had all this time continued so firmly fixed in his resolution +came upon her as a grievous surprise. ‘You never loved me!’ she said +bitterly. + +‘I might say the same,’ he returned; ‘but I will not. Grant me one +favour. Come and hear my last sermon on the day before I go.’ + +Lizzy, who was a church-goer on Sunday mornings, frequently attended +Stockdale’s chapel in the evening with the rest of the double-minded; +and she promised. + +It became known that Stockdale was going to leave, and a good many +people outside his own sect were sorry to hear it. The intervening days +flew rapidly away, and on the evening of the Sunday which preceded the +morning of his departure Lizzy sat in the chapel to hear him for the +last time. The little building was full to overflowing, and he took up +the subject which all had expected, that of the contraband trade so +extensively practised among them. His hearers, in laying his words to +their own hearts, did not perceive that they were most particularly +directed against Lizzy, till the sermon waxed warm, and Stockdale +nearly broke down with emotion. In truth his own earnestness, and her +sad eyes looking up at him, were too much for the young man’s +equanimity. He hardly knew how he ended. He saw Lizzy, as through a +mist, turn and go away with the rest of the congregation; and shortly +afterwards followed her home. + +She invited him to supper, and they sat down alone, her mother having, +as was usual with her on Sunday nights, gone to bed early. + +‘We will part friends, won’t we?’ said Lizzy, with forced gaiety, and +never alluding to the sermon: a reticence which rather disappointed +him. + +‘We will,’ he said, with a forced smile on his part; and they sat down. + +It was the first meal that they had ever shared together in their +lives, and probably the last that they would so share. When it was +over, and the indifferent conversation could no longer be continued, he +arose and took her hand. ‘Lizzy,’ he said, ‘do you say we must part—do +you?’ + +‘You do,’ she said solemnly. ‘I can say no more.’ + +‘Nor I,’ said he. ‘If that is your answer, good-bye!’ + +Stockdale bent over her and kissed her, and she involuntarily returned +his kiss. ‘I shall go early,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I shall not see you +again.’ + +And he did leave early. He fancied, when stepping forth into the grey +morning light, to mount the van which was to carry him away, that he +saw a face between the parted curtains of Lizzy’s window, but the light +was faint, and the panes glistened with wet; so he could not be sure. +Stockdale mounted the vehicle, and was gone; and on the following +Sunday the new minister preached in the chapel of the Moynton +Wesleyans. + +One day, two years after the parting, Stockdale, now settled in a +midland town, came into Nether-Moynton by carrier in the original way. +Jogging along in the van that afternoon he had put questions to the +driver, and the answers that he received interested the minister +deeply. The result of them was that he went without the least +hesitation to the door of his former lodging. It was about six o’clock +in the evening, and the same time of year as when he had left; now, +too, the ground was damp and glistening, the west was bright, and +Lizzy’s snowdrops were raising their heads in the border under the +wall. + +Lizzy must have caught sight of him from the window, for by the time +that he reached the door she was there holding it open: and then, as if +she had not sufficiently considered her act of coming out, she drew +herself back, saying with some constraint, ‘Mr. Stockdale!’ + +‘You knew it was,’ said Stockdale, taking her hand. ‘I wrote to say I +should call.’ + +‘Yes, but you did not say when,’ she answered. + +‘I did not. I was not quite sure when my business would lead me to +these parts.’ + +‘You only came because business brought you near?’ + +‘Well, that is the fact; but I have often thought I should like to come +on purpose to see you . . . But what’s all this that has happened? I +told you how it would be, Lizzy, and you would not listen to me.’ + +‘I would not,’ she said sadly. ‘But I had been brought up to that life; +and it was second nature to me. However, it is all over now. The +officers have blood-money for taking a man dead or alive, and the trade +is going to nothing. We were hunted down like rats.’ + +‘Owlett is quite gone, I hear.’ + +‘Yes. He is in America. We had a dreadful struggle that last time, when +they tried to take him. It is a perfect miracle that he lived through +it; and it is a wonder that I was not killed. I was shot in the hand. +It was not by aim; the shot was really meant for my cousin; but I was +behind, looking on as usual, and the bullet came to me. It bled +terribly, but I got home without fainting; and it healed after a time. +You know how he suffered?’ + +‘No,’ said Stockdale. ‘I only heard that he just escaped with his +life.’ + +‘He was shot in the back; but a rib turned the ball. He was badly hurt. +We would not let him be took. The men carried him all night across the +meads to Kingsbere, and hid him in a barn, dressing his wound as well +as they could, till he was so far recovered as to be able to get about. +He had gied up his mill for some time; and at last he got to Bristol, +and took a passage to America, and he’s settled in Wisconsin.’ + +‘What do you think of smuggling now?’ said the minister gravely. + +‘I own that we were wrong,’ said she. ‘But I have suffered for it. I am +very poor now, and my mother has been dead these twelve months . . . +But won’t you come in, Mr. Stockdale?’ + +Stockdale went in; and it is to be supposed that they came to an +understanding; for a fortnight later there was a sale of Lizzy’s +furniture, and after that a wedding at a chapel in a neighbouring town. + +He took her away from her old haunts to the home that he had made for +himself in his native county, where she studied her duties as a +minister’s wife with praiseworthy assiduity. It is said that in after +years she wrote an excellent tract called _Render unto Caesar; or, The +Repentant Villagers_, in which her own experience was anonymously used +as the introductory story. Stockdale got it printed, after making some +corrections, and putting in a few powerful sentences of his own; and +many hundreds of copies were distributed by the couple in the course of +their married life. + +_April_ 1879. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WESSEX TALES *** + +***** This file should be named 3056-0.txt or 3056-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/5/3056/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Wessex Tales</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Thomas Hardy</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February, 2002 [eBook #3056]<br /> +[Most recently updated: February 4, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Price</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WESSEX TALES ***</div> + +<h1>Wessex Tales</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Thomas Hardy</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">Preface</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">An Imaginative Woman</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">The Three Strangers</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">The Withered Arm</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">Fellow-Townsmen</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">Interlopers at the Knap</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">The Distracted Preacher</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>PREFACE</h2> + +<p> +An apology is perhaps needed for the neglect of contrast which is shown by +presenting two consecutive stories of hangmen in such a small collection as the +following. But in the neighbourhood of county-towns tales of executions used to +form a large proportion of the local traditions; and though never personally +acquainted with any chief operator at such scenes, the writer of these pages +had as a boy the privilege of being on speaking terms with a man who applied +for the office, and who sank into an incurable melancholy because he failed to +get it, some slight mitigation of his grief being to dwell upon striking +episodes in the lives of those happier ones who had held it with success and +renown. His tale of disappointment used to cause some wonder why his ambition +should have taken such an unfortunate form, but its nobleness was never +questioned. In those days, too, there was still living an old woman who, for +the cure of some eating disease, had been taken in her youth to have her +‘blood turned’ by a convict’s corpse, in the manner described +in ‘The Withered Arm.’ +</p> + +<p> +Since writing this story some years ago I have been reminded by an aged friend +who knew ‘Rhoda Brook’ that, in relating her dream, my +forgetfulness has weakened the facts out of which the tale grew. In reality it +was while lying down on a hot afternoon that the incubus oppressed her and she +flung it off, with the results upon the body of the original as described. To +my mind the occurrence of such a vision in the daytime is more impressive than +if it had happened in a midnight dream. Readers are therefore asked to correct +the misrelation, which affords an instance of how our imperfect memories +insensibly formalize the fresh originality of living fact—from whose +shape they slowly depart, as machine-made castings depart by degrees from the +sharp hand-work of the mould. +</p> + +<p> +Among the many devices for concealing smuggled goods in caves and pits of the +earth, that of planting an apple-tree in a tray or box which was placed over +the mouth of the pit is, I believe, unique, and it is detailed in one of the +tales precisely as described by an old carrier of ‘tubs’—a +man who was afterwards in my father’s employ for over thirty years. I +never gathered from his reminiscences what means were adopted for lifting the +tree, which, with its roots, earth, and receptacle, must have been of +considerable weight. There is no doubt, however, that the thing was done +through many years. My informant often spoke, too, of the horribly suffocating +sensation produced by the pair of spirit-tubs slung upon the chest and back, +after stumbling with the burden of them for several miles inland over a rough +country and in darkness. He said that though years of his youth and young +manhood were spent in this irregular business, his profits from the same, taken +all together, did not average the wages he might have earned in a steady +employment, whilst the fatigues and risks were excessive. +</p> + +<p> +I may add that the first story in the series turns upon a physical possibility +that may attach to women of imaginative temperament, and that is well supported +by the experiences of medical men and other observers of such manifestations. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +T. H. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>April</i> 1896. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>AN IMAGINATIVE WOMAN</h2> + +<p> +When William Marchmill had finished his inquiries for lodgings at a well-known +watering-place in Upper Wessex, he returned to the hotel to find his wife. She, +with the children, had rambled along the shore, and Marchmill followed in the +direction indicated by the military-looking hall-porter +</p> + +<p> +‘By Jove, how far you’ve gone! I am quite out of breath,’ +Marchmill said, rather impatiently, when he came up with his wife, who was +reading as she walked, the three children being considerably further ahead with +the nurse. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Marchmill started out of the reverie into which the book had thrown her. +‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you’ve been such a long time. I was +tired of staying in that dreary hotel. But I am sorry if you have wanted me, +Will?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I have had trouble to suit myself. When you see the airy and +comfortable rooms heard of, you find they are stuffy and uncomfortable. Will +you come and see if what I’ve fixed on will do? There is not much room, I +am afraid; hut I can light on nothing better. The town is rather full.’ +</p> + +<p> +The pair left the children and nurse to continue their ramble, and went back +together. +</p> + +<p> +In age well-balanced, in personal appearance fairly matched, and in domestic +requirements conformable, in temper this couple differed, though even here they +did not often clash, he being equable, if not lymphatic, and she decidedly +nervous and sanguine. It was to their tastes and fancies, those smallest, +greatest particulars, that no common denominator could be applied. Marchmill +considered his wife’s likes and inclinations somewhat silly; she +considered his sordid and material. The husband’s business was that of a +gunmaker in a thriving city northwards, and his soul was in that business +always; the lady was best characterized by that superannuated phrase of +elegance ‘a votary of the muse.’ An impressionable, palpitating +creature was Ella, shrinking humanely from detailed knowledge of her +husband’s trade whenever she reflected that everything he manufactured +had for its purpose the destruction of life. She could only recover her +equanimity by assuring herself that some, at least, of his weapons were sooner +or later used for the extermination of horrid vermin and animals almost as +cruel to their inferiors in species as human beings were to theirs. +</p> + +<p> +She had never antecedently regarded this occupation of his as any objection to +having him for a husband. Indeed, the necessity of getting life-leased at all +cost, a cardinal virtue which all good mothers teach, kept her from thinking of +it at all till she had closed with William, had passed the honeymoon, and +reached the reflecting stage. Then, like a person who has stumbled upon some +object in the dark, she wondered what she had got; mentally walked round it, +estimated it; whether it were rare or common; contained gold, silver, or lead; +were a clog or a pedestal, everything to her or nothing. +</p> + +<p> +She came to some vague conclusions, and since then had kept her heart alive by +pitying her proprietor’s obtuseness and want of refinement, pitying +herself, and letting off her delicate and ethereal emotions in imaginative +occupations, day-dreams, and night-sighs, which perhaps would not much have +disturbed William if he had known of them. +</p> + +<p> +Her figure was small, elegant, and slight in build, tripping, or rather +bounding, in movement. She was dark-eyed, and had that marvellously bright and +liquid sparkle in each pupil which characterizes persons of Ella’s cast +of soul, and is too often a cause of heartache to the possessor’s male +friends, ultimately sometimes to herself. Her husband was a tall, long-featured +man, with a brown beard; he had a pondering regard; and was, it must be added, +usually kind and tolerant to her. He spoke in squarely shaped sentences, and +was supremely satisfied with a condition of sublunary things which made weapons +a necessity. +</p> + +<p> +Husband and wife walked till they had reached the house they were in search of, +which stood in a terrace facing the sea, and was fronted by a small garden of +wind-proof and salt-proof evergreens, stone steps leading up to the porch. It +had its number in the row, but, being rather larger than the rest, was in +addition sedulously distinguished as Coburg House by its landlady, though +everybody else called it ‘Thirteen, New Parade.’ The spot was +bright and lively now; but in winter it became necessary to place sandbags +against the door, and to stuff up the keyhole against the wind and rain, which +had worn the paint so thin that the priming and knotting showed through. +</p> + +<p> +The householder, who had been watching for the gentleman’s return, met +them in the passage, and showed the rooms. She informed them that she was a +professional man’s widow, left in needy circumstances by the rather +sudden death of her husband, and she spoke anxiously of the conveniences of the +establishment. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Marchmill said that she liked the situation and the house; but, it being +small, there would not be accommodation enough, unless she could have all the +rooms. +</p> + +<p> +The landlady mused with an air of disappointment. She wanted the visitors to be +her tenants very badly, she said, with obvious honesty. But unfortunately two +of the rooms were occupied permanently by a bachelor gentleman. He did not pay +season prices, it was true; but as he kept on his apartments all the year +round, and was an extremely nice and interesting young man, who gave no +trouble, she did not like to turn him out for a month’s +‘let,’ even at a high figure. ‘Perhaps, however,’ she +added, ‘he might offer to go for a time.’ +</p> + +<p> +They would not hear of this, and went back to the hotel, intending to proceed +to the agent’s to inquire further. Hardly had they sat down to tea when +the landlady called. Her gentleman, she said, had been so obliging as to offer +to give up his rooms for three or four weeks rather than drive the new-comers +away. +</p> + +<p> +‘It is very kind, but we won’t inconvenience him in that +way,’ said the Marchmills. +</p> + +<p> +‘O, it won’t inconvenience him, I assure you!’ said the +landlady eloquently. ‘You see, he’s a different sort of young man +from most—dreamy, solitary, rather melancholy—and he cares more to +be here when the south-westerly gales are beating against the door, and the sea +washes over the Parade, and there’s not a soul in the place, than he does +now in the season. He’d just as soon be where, in fact, he’s going +temporarily, to a little cottage on the Island opposite, for a change.’ +She hoped therefore that they would come. +</p> + +<p> +The Marchmill family accordingly took possession of the house next day, and it +seemed to suit them very well. After luncheon Mr. Marchmill strolled out +towards the pier, and Mrs. Marchmill, having despatched the children to their +outdoor amusements on the sands, settled herself in more completely, examining +this and that article, and testing the reflecting powers of the mirror in the +wardrobe door. +</p> + +<p> +In the small back sitting-room, which had been the young bachelor’s, she +found furniture of a more personal nature than in the rest. Shabby books, of +correct rather than rare editions, were piled up in a queerly reserved manner +in corners, as if the previous occupant had not conceived the possibility that +any incoming person of the season’s bringing could care to look inside +them. The landlady hovered on the threshold to rectify anything that Mrs. +Marchmill might not find to her satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +‘I’ll make this my own little room,’ said the latter, +‘because the books are here. By the way, the person who has left seems to +have a good many. He won’t mind my reading some of them, Mrs. Hooper, I +hope?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O dear no, ma’am. Yes, he has a good many. You see, he is in the +literary line himself somewhat. He is a poet—yes, really a poet—and +he has a little income of his own, which is enough to write verses on, but not +enough for cutting a figure, even if he cared to.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A poet! O, I did not know that.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Marchmill opened one of the books, and saw the owner’s name written +on the title-page. ‘Dear me!’ she continued; ‘I know his name +very well—Robert Trewe—of course I do; and his writings! And it is +<i>his</i> rooms we have taken, and <i>him</i> we have turned out of his +home?’ +</p> + +<p> +Ella Marchmill, sitting down alone a few minutes later, thought with interested +surprise of Robert Trewe. Her own latter history will best explain that +interest. Herself the only daughter of a struggling man of letters, she had +during the last year or two taken to writing poems, in an endeavour to find a +congenial channel in which to let flow her painfully embayed emotions, whose +former limpidity and sparkle seemed departing in the stagnation caused by the +routine of a practical household and the gloom of bearing children to a +commonplace father. These poems, subscribed with a masculine pseudonym, had +appeared in various obscure magazines, and in two cases in rather prominent +ones. In the second of the latter the page which bore her effusion at the +bottom, in smallish print, bore at the top, in large print, a few verses on the +same subject by this very man, Robert Trewe. Both of them had, in fact, been +struck by a tragic incident reported in the daily papers, and had used it +simultaneously as an inspiration, the editor remarking in a note upon the +coincidence, and that the excellence of both poems prompted him to give them +together. +</p> + +<p> +After that event Ella, otherwise ‘John Ivy,’ had watched with much +attention the appearance anywhere in print of verse bearing the signature of +Robert Trewe, who, with a man’s unsusceptibility on the question of sex, +had never once thought of passing himself off as a woman. To be sure, Mrs. +Marchmill had satisfied herself with a sort of reason for doing the contrary in +her case; that nobody might believe in her inspiration if they found that the +sentiments came from a pushing tradesman’s wife, from the mother of three +children by a matter-of-fact small-arms manufacturer. +</p> + +<p> +Trewe’s verse contrasted with that of the rank and file of recent minor +poets in being impassioned rather than ingenious, luxuriant rather than +finished. Neither <i>symboliste</i> nor <i>décadent</i>, he was a pessimist in +so far as that character applies to a man who looks at the worst contingencies +as well as the best in the human condition. Being little attracted by +excellences of form and rhythm apart from content, he sometimes, when feeling +outran his artistic speed, perpetrated sonnets in the loosely rhymed +Elizabethan fashion, which every right-minded reviewer said he ought not to +have done. +</p> + +<p> +With sad and hopeless envy, Ella Marchmill had often and often scanned the +rival poet’s work, so much stronger as it always was than her own feeble +lines. She had imitated him, and her inability to touch his level would send +her into fits of despondency. Months passed away thus, till she observed from +the publishers’ list that Trewe had collected his fugitive pieces into a +volume, which was duly issued, and was much or little praised according to +chance, and had a sale quite sufficient to pay for the printing. +</p> + +<p> +This step onward had suggested to John Ivy the idea of collecting her pieces +also, or at any rate of making up a book of her rhymes by adding many in +manuscript to the few that had seen the light, for she had been able to get no +great number into print. A ruinous charge was made for costs of publication; a +few reviews noticed her poor little volume; but nobody talked of it, nobody +bought it, and it fell dead in a fortnight—if it had ever been alive. +</p> + +<p> +The author’s thoughts were diverted to another groove just then by the +discovery that she was going to have a third child, and the collapse of her +poetical venture had perhaps less effect upon her mind than it might have done +if she had been domestically unoccupied. Her husband had paid the +publisher’s bill with the doctor’s, and there it all had ended for +the time. But, though less than a poet of her century, Ella was more than a +mere multiplier of her kind, and latterly she had begun to feel the old +afflatus once more. And now by an odd conjunction she found herself in the +rooms of Robert Trewe. +</p> + +<p> +She thoughtfully rose from her chair and searched the apartment with the +interest of a fellow-tradesman. Yes, the volume of his own verse was among the +rest. Though quite familiar with its contents, she read it here as if it spoke +aloud to her, then called up Mrs. Hooper, the landlady, for some trivial +service, and inquired again about the young man. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I’m sure you’d be interested in him, ma’am, if +you could see him, only he’s so shy that I don’t suppose you +will.’ Mrs. Hooper seemed nothing loth to minister to her tenant’s +curiosity about her predecessor. ‘Lived here long? Yes, nearly two years. +He keeps on his rooms even when he’s not here: the soft air of this place +suits his chest, and he likes to be able to come back at any time. He is mostly +writing or reading, and doesn’t see many people, though, for the matter +of that, he is such a good, kind young fellow that folks would only be too glad +to be friendly with him if they knew him. You don’t meet kind-hearted +people every day.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, he’s kind-hearted . . . and good.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes; he’ll oblige me in anything if I ask him. “Mr. +Trewe,” I say to him sometimes, “you are rather out of +spirits.” “Well, I am, Mrs. Hooper,” he’ll say, +“though I don’t know how you should find it out.” “Why +not take a little change?” I ask. Then in a day or two he’ll say +that he will take a trip to Paris, or Norway, or somewhere; and I assure you he +comes back all the better for it.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, indeed! His is a sensitive nature, no doubt.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes. Still he’s odd in some things. Once when he had finished a +poem of his composition late at night he walked up and down the room rehearsing +it; and the floors being so thin—jerry-built houses, you know, though I +say it myself—he kept me awake up above him till I wished him further . . +. But we get on very well.’ +</p> + +<p> +This was but the beginning of a series of conversations about the rising poet +as the days went on. On one of these occasions Mrs. Hooper drew Ella’s +attention to what she had not noticed before: minute scribblings in pencil on +the wall-paper behind the curtains at the head of the bed. +</p> + +<p> +‘O! let me look,’ said Mrs. Marchmill, unable to conceal a rush of +tender curiosity as she bent her pretty face close to the wall. +</p> + +<p> +‘These,’ said Mrs. Hooper, with the manner of a woman who knew +things, ‘are the very beginnings and first thoughts of his verses. He has +tried to rub most of them out, but you can read them still. My belief is that +he wakes up in the night, you know, with some rhyme in his head, and jots it +down there on the wall lest he should forget it by the morning. Some of these +very lines you see here I have seen afterwards in print in the magazines. Some +are newer; indeed, I have not seen that one before. It must have been done only +a few days ago.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O yes! . . . ’ +</p> + +<p> +Ella Marchmill flushed without knowing why, and suddenly wished her companion +would go away, now that the information was imparted. An indescribable +consciousness of personal interest rather than literary made her anxious to +read the inscription alone; and she accordingly waited till she could do so, +with a sense that a great store of emotion would be enjoyed in the act. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps because the sea was choppy outside the Island, Ella’s husband +found it much pleasanter to go sailing and steaming about without his wife, who +was a bad sailor, than with her. He did not disdain to go thus alone on board +the steamboats of the cheap-trippers, where there was dancing by moonlight, and +where the couples would come suddenly down with a lurch into each other’s +arms; for, as he blandly told her, the company was too mixed for him to take +her amid such scenes. Thus, while this thriving manufacturer got a great deal +of change and sea-air out of his sojourn here, the life, external at least, of +Ella was monotonous enough, and mainly consisted in passing a certain number of +hours each day in bathing and walking up and down a stretch of shore. But the +poetic impulse having again waxed strong, she was possessed by an inner flame +which left her hardly conscious of what was proceeding around her. +</p> + +<p> +She had read till she knew by heart Trewe’s last little volume of verses, +and spent a great deal of time in vainly attempting to rival some of them, +till, in her failure, she burst into tears. The personal element in the +magnetic attraction exercised by this circumambient, unapproachable master of +hers was so much stronger than the intellectual and abstract that she could not +understand it. To be sure, she was surrounded noon and night by his customary +environment, which literally whispered of him to her at every moment; but he +was a man she had never seen, and that all that moved her was the instinct to +specialize a waiting emotion on the first fit thing that came to hand did not, +of course, suggest itself to Ella. +</p> + +<p> +In the natural way of passion under the too practical conditions which +civilization has devised for its fruition, her husband’s love for her had +not survived, except in the form of fitful friendship, any more than, or even +so much as, her own for him; and, being a woman of very living ardours, that +required sustenance of some sort, they were beginning to feed on this chancing +material, which was, indeed, of a quality far better than chance usually +offers. +</p> + +<p> +One day the children had been playing hide-and-seek in a closet, whence, in +their excitement, they pulled out some clothing. Mrs. Hooper explained that it +belonged to Mr. Trewe, and hung it up in the closet again. Possessed of her +fantasy, Ella went later in the afternoon, when nobody was in that part of the +house, opened the closet, unhitched one of the articles, a mackintosh, and put +it on, with the waterproof cap belonging to it. +</p> + +<p> +‘The mantle of Elijah!’ she said. ‘Would it might inspire me +to rival him, glorious genius that he is!’ +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes always grew wet when she thought like that, and she turned to look at +herself in the glass. <i>His</i> heart had beat inside that coat, and +<i>his</i> brain had worked under that hat at levels of thought she would never +reach. The consciousness of her weakness beside him made her feel quite sick. +Before she had got the things off her the door opened, and her husband entered +the room. +</p> + +<p> +‘What the devil—’ +</p> + +<p> +She blushed, and removed them +</p> + +<p> +‘I found them in the closet here,’ she said, ‘and put them on +in a freak. What have I else to do? You are always away!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Always away? Well . . . ’ +</p> + +<p> +That evening she had a further talk with the landlady, who might herself have +nourished a half-tender regard for the poet, so ready was she to discourse +ardently about him. +</p> + +<p> +‘You are interested in Mr. Trewe, I know, ma’am,’ she said; +‘and he has just sent to say that he is going to call to-morrow afternoon +to look up some books of his that he wants, if I’ll be in, and he may +select them from your room?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O yes!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You could very well meet Mr Trewe then, if you’d like to be in the +way!’ +</p> + +<p> +She promised with secret delight, and went to bed musing of him. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning her husband observed: ‘I’ve been thinking of what you +said, Ell: that I have gone about a good deal and left you without much to +amuse you. Perhaps it’s true. To-day, as there’s not much sea, +I’ll take you with me on board the yacht.’ +</p> + +<p> +For the first time in her experience of such an offer Ella was not glad. But +she accepted it for the moment. The time for setting out drew near, and she +went to get ready. She stood reflecting. The longing to see the poet she was +now distinctly in love with overpowered all other considerations. +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t want to go,’ she said to herself. ‘I +can’t bear to be away! And I won’t go.’ +</p> + +<p> +She told her husband that she had changed her mind about wishing to sail. He +was indifferent, and went his way. +</p> + +<p> +For the rest of the day the house was quiet, the children having gone out upon +the sands. The blinds waved in the sunshine to the soft, steady stroke of the +sea beyond the wall; and the notes of the Green Silesian band, a troop of +foreign gentlemen hired for the season, had drawn almost all the residents and +promenaders away from the vicinity of Coburg House. A knock was audible at the +door. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Marchmill did not hear any servant go to answer it, and she became +impatient. The books were in the room where she sat; but nobody came up. She +rang the bell. +</p> + +<p> +‘There is some person waiting at the door,’ she said. +</p> + +<p> +‘O no, ma’am! He’s gone long ago. I answered it.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hooper came in herself. +</p> + +<p> +‘So disappointing!’ she said. ‘Mr. Trewe not coming after +all!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But I heard him knock, I fancy!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No; that was somebody inquiring for lodgings who came to the wrong +house. I forgot to tell you that Mr. Trewe sent a note just before lunch to say +I needn’t get any tea for him, as he should not require the books, and +wouldn’t come to select them.’ +</p> + +<p> +Ella was miserable, and for a long time could not even re-read his mournful +ballad on ‘Severed Lives,’ so aching was her erratic little heart, +and so tearful her eyes. When the children came in with wet stockings, and ran +up to her to tell her of their adventures, she could not feel that she cared +about them half as much as usual. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +‘Mrs. Hooper, have you a photograph of—the gentleman who lived +here?’ She was getting to be curiously shy in mentioning his name. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why, yes. It’s in the ornamental frame on the mantelpiece in your +own bedroom, ma’am.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No; the Royal Duke and Duchess are in that.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, so they are; but he’s behind them. He belongs rightly to that +frame, which I bought on purpose; but as he went away he said: “Cover me +up from those strangers that are coming, for God’s sake. I don’t +want them staring at me, and I am sure they won’t want me staring at +them.” So I slipped in the Duke and Duchess temporarily in front of him, +as they had no frame, and Royalties are more suitable for letting furnished +than a private young man. If you take ’em out you’ll see him under. +Lord, ma’am, he wouldn’t mind if he knew it! He didn’t think +the next tenant would be such an attractive lady as you, or he wouldn’t +have thought of hiding himself; perhaps.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Is he handsome?’ she asked timidly. +</p> + +<p> +‘<i>I</i> call him so. Some, perhaps, wouldn’t.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Should I?’ she asked, with eagerness. +</p> + +<p> +‘I think you would, though some would say he’s more striking than +handsome; a large-eyed thoughtful fellow, you know, with a very electric flash +in his eye when he looks round quickly, such as you’d expect a poet to be +who doesn’t get his living by it.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘How old is he?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Several years older than yourself, ma’am; about thirty-one or two, +I think.’ +</p> + +<p> +Ella was, as a matter of fact, a few months over thirty herself; but she did +not look nearly so much. Though so immature in nature, she was entering on that +tract of life in which emotional women begin to suspect that last love may be +stronger than first love; and she would soon, alas, enter on the still more +melancholy tract when at least the vainer ones of her sex shrink from receiving +a male visitor otherwise than with their backs to the window or the blinds half +down. She reflected on Mrs. Hooper’s remark, and said no more about age. +</p> + +<p> +Just then a telegram was brought up. It came from her husband, who had gone +down the Channel as far as Budmouth with his friends in the yacht, and would +not be able to get back till next day. +</p> + +<p> +After her light dinner Ella idled about the shore with the children till dusk, +thinking of the yet uncovered photograph in her room, with a serene sense of +something ecstatic to come. For, with the subtle luxuriousness of fancy in +which this young woman was an adept, on learning that her husband was to be +absent that night she had refrained from incontinently rushing upstairs and +opening the picture-frame, preferring to reserve the inspection till she could +be alone, and a more romantic tinge be imparted to the occasion by silence, +candles, solemn sea and stars outside, than was afforded by the garish +afternoon sunlight. +</p> + +<p> +The children had been sent to bed, and Ella soon followed, though it was not +yet ten o’clock. To gratify her passionate curiosity she now made her +preparations, first getting rid of superfluous garments and putting on her +dressing-gown, then arranging a chair in front of the table and reading several +pages of Trewe’s tenderest utterances. Then she fetched the +portrait-frame to the light, opened the back, took out the likeness, and set it +up before her. +</p> + +<p> +It was a striking countenance to look upon. The poet wore a luxuriant black +moustache and imperial, and a slouched hat which shaded the forehead. The large +dark eyes, described by the landlady, showed an unlimited capacity for misery; +they looked out from beneath well-shaped brows as if they were reading the +universe in the microcosm of the confronter’s face, and were not +altogether overjoyed at what the spectacle portended. +</p> + +<p> +Ella murmured in her lowest, richest, tenderest tone: ‘And it’s +<i>you</i> who’ve so cruelly eclipsed me these many times!’ +</p> + +<p> +As she gazed long at the portrait she fell into thought, till her eyes filled +with tears, and she touched the cardboard with her lips. Then she laughed with +a nervous lightness, and wiped her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +She thought how wicked she was, a woman having a husband and three children, to +let her mind stray to a stranger in this unconscionable manner. No, he was not +a stranger! She knew his thoughts and feelings as well as she knew her own; +they were, in fact, the self-same thoughts and feelings as hers, which her +husband distinctly lacked; perhaps luckily for himself; considering that he had +to provide for family expenses. +</p> + +<p> +‘He’s nearer my real self, he’s more intimate with the real +me than Will is, after all, even though I’ve never seen him,’ she +said. +</p> + +<p> +She laid his book and picture on the table at the bedside, and when she was +reclining on the pillow she re-read those of Robert Trewe’s verses which +she had marked from time to time as most touching and true. Putting these +aside, she set up the photograph on its edge upon the coverlet, and +contemplated it as she lay. Then she scanned again by the light of the candle +the half-obliterated pencillings on the wall-paper beside her head. There they +were—phrases, couplets, <i>bouts-rimés</i>, beginnings and middles of +lines, ideas in the rough, like Shelley’s scraps, and the least of them +so intense, so sweet, so palpitating, that it seemed as if his very breath, +warm and loving, fanned her cheeks from those walls, walls that had surrounded +his head times and times as they surrounded her own now. He must often have put +up his hand so—with the pencil in it. Yes, the writing was sideways, as +it would be if executed by one who extended his arm thus. +</p> + +<p> +These inscribed shapes of the poet’s world, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘Forms more real than living man,<br /> +Nurslings of immortality,’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +were, no doubt, the thoughts and spirit-strivings which had come to him in the +dead of night, when he could let himself go and have no fear of the frost of +criticism. No doubt they had often been written up hastily by the light of the +moon, the rays of the lamp, in the blue-grey dawn, in full daylight perhaps +never. And now her hair was dragging where his arm had lain when he secured the +fugitive fancies; she was sleeping on a poet’s lips, immersed in the very +essence of him, permeated by his spirit as by an ether. +</p> + +<p> +While she was dreaming the minutes away thus, a footstep came upon the stairs, +and in a moment she heard her husband’s heavy step on the landing +immediately without. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ell, where are you?’ +</p> + +<p> +What possessed her she could not have described, but, with an instinctive +objection to let her husband know what she had been doing, she slipped the +photograph under the pillow just as he flung open the door, with the air of a +man who had dined not badly. +</p> + +<p> +‘O, I beg pardon,’ said William Marchmill. ‘Have you a +headache? I am afraid I have disturbed you.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, I’ve not got a headache,’ said she. ‘How is it +you’ve come?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, we found we could get back in very good time after all, and I +didn’t want to make another day of it, because of going somewhere else +to-morrow.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Shall I come down again?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O no. I’m as tired as a dog. I’ve had a good feed, and I +shall turn in straight off. I want to get out at six o’clock to-morrow if +I can . . . I shan’t disturb you by my getting up; it will be long before +you are awake.’ And he came forward into the room. +</p> + +<p> +While her eyes followed his movements, Ella softly pushed the photograph +further out of sight. +</p> + +<p> +‘Sure you’re not ill?’ he asked, bending over her. +</p> + +<p> +‘No, only wicked!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Never mind that.’ And he stooped and kissed her. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning Marchmill was called at six o’clock; and in waking and +yawning she heard him muttering to himself: ‘What the deuce is this +that’s been crackling under me so?’ Imagining her asleep he +searched round him and withdrew something. Through her half-opened eyes she +perceived it to be Mr. Trewe. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I’m damned!’ her husband exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +‘What, dear?’ said she. +</p> + +<p> +‘O, you are awake? Ha! ha!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What <i>do</i> you mean?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Some bloke’s photograph—a friend of our landlady’s, I +suppose. I wonder how it came here; whisked off the table by accident perhaps +when they were making the bed.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I was looking at it yesterday, and it must have dropped in then.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O, he’s a friend of yours? Bless his picturesque heart!’ +</p> + +<p> +Ella’s loyalty to the object of her admiration could not endure to hear +him ridiculed. ‘He’s a clever man!’ she said, with a tremor +in her gentle voice which she herself felt to be absurdly uncalled for. +</p> + +<p> +‘He is a rising poet—the gentleman who occupied two of these rooms +before we came, though I’ve never seen him.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘How do you know, if you’ve never seen him?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Mrs. Hooper told me when she showed me the photograph.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O; well, I must up and be off. I shall be home rather early. Sorry I +can’t take you to-day, dear. Mind the children don’t go getting +drowned.’ +</p> + +<p> +That day Mrs. Marchmill inquired if Mr. Trewe were likely to call at any other +time. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Hooper. ‘He’s coming this day week to +stay with a friend near here till you leave. He’ll be sure to +call.’ +</p> + +<p> +Marchmill did return quite early in the afternoon; and, opening some letters +which had arrived in his absence, declared suddenly that he and his family +would have to leave a week earlier than they had expected to do—in short, +in three days. +</p> + +<p> +‘Surely we can stay a week longer?’ she pleaded. ‘I like it +here.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t. It is getting rather slow.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then you might leave me and the children!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘How perverse you are, Ell! What’s the use? And have to come to +fetch you! No: we’ll all return together; and we’ll make out our +time in North Wales or Brighton a little later on. Besides, you’ve three +days longer yet.’ +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to be her doom not to meet the man for whose rival talent she had a +despairing admiration, and to whose person she was now absolutely attached. Yet +she determined to make a last effort; and having gathered from her landlady +that Trewe was living in a lonely spot not far from the fashionable town on the +Island opposite, she crossed over in the packet from the neighbouring pier the +following afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +What a useless journey it was! Ella knew but vaguely where the house stood, and +when she fancied she had found it, and ventured to inquire of a pedestrian if +he lived there, the answer returned by the man was that he did not know. And if +he did live there, how could she call upon him? Some women might have the +assurance to do it, but she had not. How crazy he would think her. She might +have asked him to call upon her, perhaps; but she had not the courage for that, +either. She lingered mournfully about the picturesque seaside eminence till it +was time to return to the town and enter the steamer for recrossing, reaching +home for dinner without having been greatly missed. +</p> + +<p> +At the last moment, unexpectedly enough, her husband said that he should have +no objection to letting her and the children stay on till the end of the week, +since she wished to do so, if she felt herself able to get home without him. +She concealed the pleasure this extension of time gave her; and Marchmill went +off the next morning alone. +</p> + +<p> +But the week passed, and Trewe did not call. +</p> + +<p> +On Saturday morning the remaining members of the Marchmill family departed from +the place which had been productive of so much fervour in her. The dreary, +dreary train; the sun shining in moted beams upon the hot cushions; the dusty +permanent way; the mean rows of wire—these things were her accompaniment: +while out of the window the deep blue sea-levels disappeared from her gaze, and +with them her poet’s home. Heavy-hearted, she tried to read, and wept +instead. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Marchmill was in a thriving way of business, and he and his family lived in +a large new house, which stood in rather extensive grounds a few miles outside +the city wherein he carried on his trade. Ella’s life was lonely here, as +the suburban life is apt to be, particularly at certain seasons; and she had +ample time to indulge her taste for lyric and elegiac composition. She had +hardly got back when she encountered a piece by Robert Trewe in the new number +of her favourite magazine, which must have been written almost immediately +before her visit to Solentsea, for it contained the very couplet she had seen +pencilled on the wallpaper by the bed, and Mrs. Hooper had declared to be +recent. Ella could resist no longer, but seizing a pen impulsively, wrote to +him as a brother-poet, using the name of John Ivy, congratulating him in her +letter on his triumphant executions in metre and rhythm of thoughts that moved +his soul, as compared with her own brow-beaten efforts in the same pathetic +trade. +</p> + +<p> +To this address there came a response in a few days, little as she had dared to +hope for it—a civil and brief note, in which the young poet stated that, +though he was not well acquainted with Mr. Ivy’s verse, he recalled the +name as being one he had seen attached to some very promising pieces; that he +was glad to gain Mr. Ivy’s acquaintance by letter, and should certainly +look with much interest for his productions in the future. +</p> + +<p> +There must have been something juvenile or timid in her own epistle, as one +ostensibly coming from a man, she declared to herself; for Trewe quite adopted +the tone of an elder and superior in this reply. But what did it matter? he had +replied; he had written to her with his own hand from that very room she knew +so well, for he was now back again in his quarters. +</p> + +<p> +The correspondence thus begun was continued for two months or more, Ella +Marchmill sending him from time to time some that she considered to be the best +of her pieces, which he very kindly accepted, though he did not say he +sedulously read them, nor did he send her any of his own in return. Ella would +have been more hurt at this than she was if she had not known that Trewe +laboured under the impression that she was one of his own sex. +</p> + +<p> +Yet the situation was unsatisfactory. A flattering little voice told her that, +were he only to see her, matters would be otherwise. No doubt she would have +helped on this by making a frank confession of womanhood, to begin with, if +something had not happened, to her delight, to render it unnecessary. A friend +of her husband’s, the editor of the most important newspaper in the city +and county, who was dining with them one day, observed during their +conversation about the poet that his (the editor’s) brother the +landscape-painter was a friend of Mr. Trewe’s, and that the two men were +at that very moment in Wales together. +</p> + +<p> +Ella was slightly acquainted with the editor’s brother. The next morning +down she sat and wrote, inviting him to stay at her house for a short time on +his way back, and requesting him to bring with him, if practicable, his +companion Mr. Trewe, whose acquaintance she was anxious to make. The answer +arrived after some few days. Her correspondent and his friend Trewe would have +much satisfaction in accepting her invitation on their way southward, which +would be on such and such a day in the following week. +</p> + +<p> +Ella was blithe and buoyant. Her scheme had succeeded; her beloved though as +yet unseen one was coming. “Behold, he standeth behind our wall; he +looked forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice,” she +thought ecstatically. “And, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and +gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is +come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.” +</p> + +<p> +But it was necessary to consider the details of lodging and feeding him. This +she did most solicitously, and awaited the pregnant day and hour. +</p> + +<p> +It was about five in the afternoon when she heard a ring at the door and the +editor’s brother’s voice in the hall. Poetess as she was, or as she +thought herself, she had not been too sublime that day to dress with infinite +trouble in a fashionable robe of rich material, having a faint resemblance to +the <i>chiton</i> of the Greeks, a style just then in vogue among ladies of an +artistic and romantic turn, which had been obtained by Ella of her Bond Street +dressmaker when she was last in London. Her visitor entered the drawing-room. +She looked towards his rear; nobody else came through the door. Where, in the +name of the God of Love, was Robert Trewe? +</p> + +<p> +‘O, I’m sorry,’ said the painter, after their introductory +words had been spoken. ‘Trewe is a curious fellow, you know, Mrs. +Marchmill. He said he’d come; then he said he couldn’t. He’s +rather dusty. We’ve been doing a few miles with knapsacks, you know; and +he wanted to get on home.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He—he’s not coming?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He’s not; and he asked me to make his apologies.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘When did you p-p-part from him?’ she asked, her nether lip +starting off quivering so much that it was like a <i>tremolo</i>-stop opened in +her speech. She longed to run away from this dreadful bore and cry her eyes +out. +</p> + +<p> +‘Just now, in the turnpike road yonder there.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What! he has actually gone past my gates?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes. When we got to them—handsome gates they are, too, the finest +bit of modern wrought-iron work I have seen—when we came to them we +stopped, talking there a little while, and then he wished me good-bye and went +on. The truth is, he’s a little bit depressed just now, and doesn’t +want to see anybody. He’s a very good fellow, and a warm friend, but a +little uncertain and gloomy sometimes; he thinks too much of things. His poetry +is rather too erotic and passionate, you know, for some tastes; and he has just +come in for a terrible slating from the —— <i>Review</i> that was +published yesterday; he saw a copy of it at the station by accident. Perhaps +you’ve read it?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘So much the better. O, it is not worth thinking of; just one of those +articles written to order, to please the narrow-minded set of subscribers upon +whom the circulation depends. But he’s upset by it. He says it is the +misrepresentation that hurts him so; that, though he can stand a fair attack, +he can’t stand lies that he’s powerless to refute and stop from +spreading. That’s just Trewe’s weak point. He lives so much by +himself that these things affect him much more than they would if he were in +the bustle of fashionable or commercial life. So he wouldn’t come here, +making the excuse that it all looked so new and monied—if you’ll +pardon—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But—he must have known—there was sympathy here! Has he never +said anything about getting letters from this address?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes, he has, from John Ivy—perhaps a relative of yours, he +thought, visiting here at the time?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Did he—like Ivy, did he say?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I don’t know that he took any great interest in Ivy.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Or in his poems?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Or in his poems—so far as I know, that is.’ +</p> + +<p> +Robert Trewe took no interest in her house, in her poems, or in their writer. +As soon as she could get away she went into the nursery and tried to let off +her emotion by unnecessarily kissing the children, till she had a sudden sense +of disgust at being reminded how plain-looking they were, like their father. +</p> + +<p> +The obtuse and single-minded landscape-painter never once perceived from her +conversation that it was only Trewe she wanted, and not himself. He made the +best of his visit, seeming to enjoy the society of Ella’s husband, who +also took a great fancy to him, and showed him everywhere about the +neighbourhood, neither of them noticing Ella’s mood. +</p> + +<p> +The painter had been gone only a day or two when, while sitting upstairs alone +one morning, she glanced over the London paper just arrived, and read the +following paragraph:- +</p> + +<p class="center"> +‘SUICIDE OF A POET +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +‘Mr. Robert Trewe, who has been favourably known for some years as one of +our rising lyrists, committed suicide at his lodgings at Solentsea on Saturday +evening last by shooting himself in the right temple with a revolver. Readers +hardly need to be reminded that Mr. Trewe has recently attracted the attention +of a much wider public than had hitherto known him, by his new volume of verse, +mostly of an impassioned kind, entitled “Lyrics to a Woman +Unknown,” which has been already favourably noticed in these pages for +the extraordinary gamut of feeling it traverses, and which has been made the +subject of a severe, if not ferocious, criticism in the —— Review. +It is supposed, though not certainly known, that the article may have partially +conduced to the sad act, as a copy of the review in question was found on his +writing-table; and he has been observed to be in a somewhat depressed state of +mind since the critique appeared.’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Then came the report of the inquest, at which the following letter was read, it +having been addressed to a friend at a distance:- +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +‘DEAR ——,—Before these lines reach your hands I shall +be delivered from the inconveniences of seeing, hearing, and knowing more of +the things around me. I will not trouble you by giving my reasons for the step +I have taken, though I can assure you they were sound and logical. Perhaps had +I been blessed with a mother, or a sister, or a female friend of another sort +tenderly devoted to me, I might have thought it worth while to continue my +present existence. I have long dreamt of such an unattainable creature, as you +know, and she, this undiscoverable, elusive one, inspired my last volume; the +imaginary woman alone, for, in spite of what has been said in some quarters, +there is no real woman behind the title. She has continued to the last +unrevealed, unmet, unwon. I think it desirable to mention this in order that no +blame may attach to any real woman as having been the cause of my decease by +cruel or cavalier treatment of me. Tell my landlady that I am sorry to have +caused her this unpleasantness; but my occupancy of the rooms will soon be +forgotten. There are ample funds in my name at the bank to pay all expenses. R. +TREWE.’ +</p> + +<p> +Ella sat for a while as if stunned, then rushed into the adjoining chamber and +flung herself upon her face on the bed. +</p> + +<p> +Her grief and distraction shook her to pieces; and she lay in this frenzy of +sorrow for more than an hour. Broken words came every now and then from her +quivering lips: ‘O, if he had only known of me—known of +me—me! . . . O, if I had only once met him—only once; and put my +hand upon his hot forehead—kissed him—let him know how I loved +him—that I would have suffered shame and scorn, would have lived and +died, for him! Perhaps it would have saved his dear life! . . . But no—it +was not allowed! God is a jealous God; and that happiness was not for him and +me!’ +</p> + +<p> +All possibilities were over; the meeting was stultified. Yet it was almost +visible to her in her fantasy even now, though it could never be +substantiated— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘The hour which might have been, yet might not be,<br /> +Which man’s and woman’s heart conceived and bore,<br /> +Yet whereof life was barren.’ +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +She wrote to the landlady at Solentsea in the third person, in as subdued a +style as she could command, enclosing a postal order for a sovereign, and +informing Mrs. Hooper that Mrs. Marchmill had seen in the papers the sad +account of the poet’s death, and having been, as Mrs. Hooper was aware, +much interested in Mr. Trewe during her stay at Coburg House, she would be +obliged if Mrs. Hooper could obtain a small portion of his hair before his +coffin was closed down, and send it her as a memorial of him, as also the +photograph that was in the frame. +</p> + +<p> +By the return-post a letter arrived containing what had been requested. Ella +wept over the portrait and secured it in her private drawer; the lock of hair +she tied with white ribbon and put in her bosom, whence she drew it and kissed +it every now and then in some unobserved nook. +</p> + +<p> +‘What’s the matter?’ said her husband, looking up from his +newspaper on one of these occasions. ‘Crying over something? A lock of +hair? Whose is it?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He’s dead!’ she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +‘Who?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t want to tell you, Will, just now, unless you +insist!’ she said, a sob hanging heavy in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +‘O, all right.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Do you mind my refusing? I will tell you some day.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It doesn’t matter in the least, of course.’ +</p> + +<p> +He walked away whistling a few bars of no tune in particular; and when he had +got down to his factory in the city the subject came into Marchmill’s +head again. +</p> + +<p> +He, too, was aware that a suicide had taken place recently at the house they +had occupied at Solentsea. Having seen the volume of poems in his wife’s +hand of late, and heard fragments of the landlady’s conversation about +Trewe when they were her tenants, he all at once said to himself; ‘Why of +course it’s he! How the devil did she get to know him? What sly animals +women are!’ +</p> + +<p> +Then he placidly dismissed the matter, and went on with his daily affairs. By +this time Ella at home had come to a determination. Mrs. Hooper, in sending the +hair and photograph, had informed her of the day of the funeral; and as the +morning and noon wore on an overpowering wish to know where they were laying +him took possession of the sympathetic woman. Caring very little now what her +husband or any one else might think of her eccentricities; she wrote Marchmill +a brief note, stating that she was called away for the afternoon and evening, +but would return on the following morning. This she left on his desk, and +having given the same information to the servants, went out of the house on +foot. +</p> + +<p> +When Mr. Marchmill reached home early in the afternoon the servants looked +anxious. The nurse took him privately aside, and hinted that her +mistress’s sadness during the past few days had been such that she feared +she had gone out to drown herself. Marchmill reflected. Upon the whole he +thought that she had not done that. Without saying whither he was bound he also +started off, telling them not to sit up for him. He drove to the +railway-station, and took a ticket for Solentsea. +</p> + +<p> +It was dark when he reached the place, though he had come by a fast train, and +he knew that if his wife had preceded him thither it could only have been by a +slower train, arriving not a great while before his own. The season at +Solentsea was now past: the parade was gloomy, and the flys were few and cheap. +He asked the way to the Cemetery, and soon reached it. The gate was locked, but +the keeper let him in, declaring, however, that there was nobody within the +precincts. Although it was not late, the autumnal darkness had now become +intense; and he found some difficulty in keeping to the serpentine path which +led to the quarter where, as the man had told him, the one or two interments +for the day had taken place. He stepped upon the grass, and, stumbling over +some pegs, stooped now and then to discern if possible a figure against the +sky. +</p> + +<p> +He could see none; but lighting on a spot where the soil was trodden, beheld a +crouching object beside a newly made grave. She heard him, and sprang up. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ell, how silly this is!’ he said indignantly. ‘Running away +from home—I never heard such a thing! Of course I am not jealous of this +unfortunate man; but it is too ridiculous that you, a married woman with three +children and a fourth coming, should go losing your head like this over a dead +lover! . . . Do you know you were locked in? You might not have been able to +get out all night.’ +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +‘I hope it didn’t go far between you and him, for your own +sake.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Don’t insult me, Will.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Mind, I won’t have any more of this sort of thing; do you +hear?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Very well,’ she said. +</p> + +<p> +He drew her arm within his own, and conducted her out of the Cemetery. It was +impossible to get back that night; and not wishing to be recognized in their +present sorry condition, he took her to a miserable little coffee-house close +to the station, whence they departed early in the morning, travelling almost +without speaking, under the sense that it was one of those dreary situations +occurring in married life which words could not mend, and reaching their own +door at noon. +</p> + +<p> +The months passed, and neither of the twain ever ventured to start a +conversation upon this episode. Ella seemed to be only too frequently in a sad +and listless mood, which might almost have been called pining. The time was +approaching when she would have to undergo the stress of childbirth for a +fourth time, and that apparently did not tend to raise her spirits. +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t think I shall get over it this time!’ she said one +day. +</p> + +<p> +‘Pooh! what childish foreboding! Why shouldn’t it be as well now as +ever?’ +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. ‘I feel almost sure I am going to die; and I should +be glad, if it were not for Nelly, and Frank, and Tiny.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And me!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You’ll soon find somebody to fill my place,’ she murmured, +with a sad smile. ‘And you’ll have a perfect right to; I assure you +of that.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ell, you are not thinking still about that—poetical friend of +yours?’ +</p> + +<p> +She neither admitted nor denied the charge. ‘I am not going to get over +my illness this time,’ she reiterated. ‘Something tells me I +shan’t.’ +</p> + +<p> +This view of things was rather a bad beginning, as it usually is; and, in fact, +six weeks later, in the month of May, she was lying in her room, pulseless and +bloodless, with hardly strength enough left to follow up one feeble breath with +another, the infant for whose unnecessary life she was slowly parting with her +own being fat and well. Just before her death she spoke to Marchmill softly:- +</p> + +<p> +‘Will, I want to confess to you the entire circumstances of +that—about you know what—that time we visited Solentsea. I +can’t tell what possessed me—how I could forget you so, my husband! +But I had got into a morbid state: I thought you had been unkind; that you had +neglected me; that you weren’t up to my intellectual level, while he was, +and far above it. I wanted a fuller appreciator, perhaps, rather than another +lover—’ +</p> + +<p> +She could get no further then for very exhaustion; and she went off in sudden +collapse a few hours later, without having said anything more to her husband on +the subject of her love for the poet. William Marchmill, in truth, like most +husbands of several years’ standing, was little disturbed by +retrospective jealousies, and had not shown the least anxiety to press her for +confessions concerning a man dead and gone beyond any power of inconveniencing +him more. +</p> + +<p> +But when she had been buried a couple of years it chanced one day that, in +turning over some forgotten papers that he wished to destroy before his second +wife entered the house, he lighted on a lock of hair in an envelope, with the +photograph of the deceased poet, a date being written on the back in his late +wife’s hand. It was that of the time they spent at Solentsea. +</p> + +<p> +Marchmill looked long and musingly at the hair and portrait, for something +struck him. Fetching the little boy who had been the death of his mother, now a +noisy toddler, he took him on his knee, held the lock of hair against the +child’s head, and set up the photograph on the table behind, so that he +could closely compare the features each countenance presented. There were +undoubtedly strong traces of resemblance; the dreamy and peculiar expression of +the poet’s face sat, as the transmitted idea, upon the child’s, and +the hair was of the same hue. +</p> + +<p> +‘I’m damned if I didn’t think so!’ murmured Marchmill. +‘Then she <i>did</i> play me false with that fellow at the lodgings! Let +me see: the dates—the second week in August . . . the third week in May . +. . Yes . . . yes . . . Get away, you poor little brat! You are nothing to +me!’ +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +1893. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>THE THREE STRANGERS</h2> + +<p> +Among the few features of agricultural England which retain an appearance but +little modified by the lapse of centuries, may be reckoned the high, grassy and +furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as they are indifferently called, that fill +a large area of certain counties in the south and south-west. If any mark of +human occupation is met with hereon, it usually takes the form of the solitary +cottage of some shepherd. +</p> + +<p> +Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down, and may possibly be +standing there now. In spite of its loneliness, however, the spot, by actual +measurement, was not more than five miles from a county-town. Yet that affected +it little. Five miles of irregular upland, during the long inimical seasons, +with their sleets, snows, rains, and mists, afford withdrawing space enough to +isolate a Timon or a Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please that +less repellent tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, and others who +‘conceive and meditate of pleasant things.’ +</p> + +<p> +Some old earthen camp or barrow, some clump of trees, at least some starved +fragment of ancient hedge is usually taken advantage of in the erection of +these forlorn dwellings. But, in the present case, such a kind of shelter had +been disregarded. Higher Crowstairs, as the house was called, stood quite +detached and undefended. The only reason for its precise situation seemed to be +the crossing of two footpaths at right angles hard by, which may have crossed +there and thus for a good five hundred years. Hence the house was exposed to +the elements on all sides. But, though the wind up here blew unmistakably when +it did blow, and the rain hit hard whenever it fell, the various weathers of +the winter season were not quite so formidable on the coomb as they were +imagined to be by dwellers on low ground. The raw rimes were not so pernicious +as in the hollows, and the frosts were scarcely so severe. When the shepherd +and his family who tenanted the house were pitied for their sufferings from the +exposure, they said that upon the whole they were less inconvenienced by +‘wuzzes and flames’ (hoarses and phlegms) than when they had lived +by the stream of a snug neighbouring valley. +</p> + +<p> +The night of March 28, 182-, was precisely one of the nights that were wont to +call forth these expressions of commiseration. The level rainstorm smote walls, +slopes, and hedges like the clothyard shafts of Senlac and Crecy. Such sheep +and outdoor animals as had no shelter stood with their buttocks to the winds; +while the tails of little birds trying to roost on some scraggy thorn were +blown inside-out like umbrellas. The gable-end of the cottage was stained with +wet, and the eavesdroppings flapped against the wall. Yet never was +commiseration for the shepherd more misplaced. For that cheerful rustic was +entertaining a large party in glorification of the christening of his second +girl. +</p> + +<p> +The guests had arrived before the rain began to fall, and they were all now +assembled in the chief or living room of the dwelling. A glance into the +apartment at eight o’clock on this eventful evening would have resulted +in the opinion that it was as cosy and comfortable a nook as could be wished +for in boisterous weather. The calling of its inhabitant was proclaimed by a +number of highly-polished sheep-crooks without stems that were hung +ornamentally over the fireplace, the curl of each shining crook varying from +the antiquated type engraved in the patriarchal pictures of old family Bibles +to the most approved fashion of the last local sheep-fair. The room was lighted +by half-a-dozen candles, having wicks only a trifle smaller than the grease +which enveloped them, in candlesticks that were never used but at high-days, +holy-days, and family feasts. The lights were scattered about the room, two of +them standing on the chimney-piece. This position of candles was in itself +significant. Candles on the chimney-piece always meant a party. +</p> + +<p> +On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of +thorns, that crackled ‘like the laughter of the fool.’ +</p> + +<p> +Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns of +various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy and not shy filled +the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge-carpenter, Elijah +New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighbouring dairyman, the +shepherd’s father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who +were blushing over tentative <i>pourparlers</i> on a life-companionship, sat +beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward +moved restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where +she was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being +unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each +other’s good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of +manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the +absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the +world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever—which +nowadays so generally nips the bloom and <i>bonhomie</i> of all except the two +extremes of the social scale. +</p> + +<p> +Shepherd Fennel had married well, his wife being a dairyman’s daughter +from a vale at a distance, who brought fifty guineas in her pocket—and +kept them there, till they should be required for ministering to the needs of a +coming family. This frugal woman had been somewhat exercised as to the +character that should be given to the gathering. A sit-still party had its +advantages; but an undisturbed position of ease in chairs and settles was apt +to lead on the men to such an unconscionable deal of toping that they would +sometimes fairly drink the house dry. A dancing-party was the alternative; but +this, while avoiding the foregoing objection on the score of good drink, had a +counterbalancing disadvantage in the matter of good victuals, the ravenous +appetites engendered by the exercise causing immense havoc in the buttery. +Shepherdess Fennel fell back upon the intermediate plan of mingling short +dances with short periods of talk and singing, so as to hinder any ungovernable +rage in either. But this scheme was entirely confined to her own gentle mind: +the shepherd himself was in the mood to exhibit the most reckless phases of +hospitality. +</p> + +<p> +The fiddler was a boy of those parts, about twelve years of age, who had a +wonderful dexterity in jigs and reels, though his fingers were so small and +short as to necessitate a constant shifting for the high notes, from which he +scrambled back to the first position with sounds not of unmixed purity of tone. +At seven the shrill tweedle-dee of this youngster had begun, accompanied by a +booming ground-bass from Elijah New, the parish-clerk, who had thoughtfully +brought with him his favourite musical instrument, the serpent. Dancing was +instantaneous, Mrs. Fennel privately enjoining the players on no account to let +the dance exceed the length of a quarter of an hour. +</p> + +<p> +But Elijah and the boy, in the excitement of their position, quite forgot the +injunction. Moreover, Oliver Giles, a man of seventeen, one of the dancers, who +was enamoured of his partner, a fair girl of thirty-three rolling years, had +recklessly handed a new crown-piece to the musicians, as a bribe to keep going +as long as they had muscle and wind. Mrs. Fennel, seeing the steam begin to +generate on the countenances of her guests, crossed over and touched the +fiddler’s elbow and put her hand on the serpent’s mouth. But they +took no notice, and fearing she might lose her character of genial hostess if +she were to interfere too markedly, she retired and sat down helpless. And so +the dance whizzed on with cumulative fury, the performers moving in their +planet-like courses, direct and retrograde, from apogee to perigee, till the +hand of the well-kicked clock at the bottom of the room had travelled over the +circumference of an hour. +</p> + +<p> +While these cheerful events were in course of enactment within Fennel’s +pastoral dwelling, an incident having considerable bearing on the party had +occurred in the gloomy night without. Mrs. Fennel’s concern about the +growing fierceness of the dance corresponded in point of time with the ascent +of a human figure to the solitary hill of Higher Crowstairs from the direction +of the distant town. This personage strode on through the rain without a pause, +following the little-worn path which, further on in its course, skirted the +shepherd’s cottage. +</p> + +<p> +It was nearly the time of full moon, and on this account, though the sky was +lined with a uniform sheet of dripping cloud, ordinary objects out of doors +were readily visible. The sad wan light revealed the lonely pedestrian to be a +man of supple frame; his gait suggested that he had somewhat passed the period +of perfect and instinctive agility, though not so far as to be otherwise than +rapid of motion when occasion required. At a rough guess, he might have been +about forty years of age. He appeared tall, but a recruiting sergeant, or other +person accustomed to the judging of men’s heights by the eye, would have +discerned that this was chiefly owing to his gauntness, and that he was not +more than five-feet-eight or nine. +</p> + +<p> +Notwithstanding the regularity of his tread, there was caution in it, as in +that of one who mentally feels his way; and despite the fact that it was not a +black coat nor a dark garment of any sort that he wore, there was something +about him which suggested that he naturally belonged to the black-coated tribes +of men. His clothes were of fustian, and his boots hobnailed, yet in his +progress he showed not the mud-accustomed bearing of hobnailed and fustianed +peasantry. +</p> + +<p> +By the time that he had arrived abreast of the shepherd’s premises the +rain came down, or rather came along, with yet more determined violence. The +outskirts of the little settlement partially broke the force of wind and rain, +and this induced him to stand still. The most salient of the shepherd’s +domestic erections was an empty sty at the forward corner of his hedgeless +garden, for in these latitudes the principle of masking the homelier features +of your establishment by a conventional frontage was unknown. The +traveller’s eye was attracted to this small building by the pallid shine +of the wet slates that covered it. He turned aside, and, finding it empty, +stood under the pent-roof for shelter. +</p> + +<p> +While he stood, the boom of the serpent within the adjacent house, and the +lesser strains of the fiddler, reached the spot as an accompaniment to the +surging hiss of the flying rain on the sod, its louder beating on the +cabbage-leaves of the garden, on the eight or ten beehives just discernible by +the path, and its dripping from the eaves into a row of buckets and pans that +had been placed under the walls of the cottage. For at Higher Crowstairs, as at +all such elevated domiciles, the grand difficulty of housekeeping was an +insufficiency of water; and a casual rainfall was utilized by turning out, as +catchers, every utensil that the house contained. Some queer stories might be +told of the contrivances for economy in suds and dish-waters that are +absolutely necessitated in upland habitations during the droughts of summer. +But at this season there were no such exigencies; a mere acceptance of what the +skies bestowed was sufficient for an abundant store. +</p> + +<p> +At last the notes of the serpent ceased and the house was silent. This +cessation of activity aroused the solitary pedestrian from the reverie into +which he had lapsed, and, emerging from the shed, with an apparently new +intention, he walked up the path to the house-door. Arrived here, his first act +was to kneel down on a large stone beside the row of vessels, and to drink a +copious draught from one of them. Having quenched his thirst he rose and lifted +his hand to knock, but paused with his eye upon the panel. Since the dark +surface of the wood revealed absolutely nothing, it was evident that he must be +mentally looking through the door, as if he wished to measure thereby all the +possibilities that a house of this sort might include, and how they might bear +upon the question of his entry. +</p> + +<p> +In his indecision he turned and surveyed the scene around. Not a soul was +anywhere visible. The garden-path stretched downward from his feet, gleaming +like the track of a snail; the roof of the little well (mostly dry), the +well-cover, the top rail of the garden-gate, were varnished with the same dull +liquid glaze; while, far away in the vale, a faint whiteness of more than usual +extent showed that the rivers were high in the meads. Beyond all this winked a +few bleared lamplights through the beating drops—lights that denoted the +situation of the county-town from which he had appeared to come. The absence of +all notes of life in that direction seemed to clinch his intentions, and he +knocked at the door. +</p> + +<p> +Within, a desultory chat had taken the place of movement and musical sound. The +hedge-carpenter was suggesting a song to the company, which nobody just then +was inclined to undertake, so that the knock afforded a not unwelcome +diversion. +</p> + +<p> +‘Walk in!’ said the shepherd promptly. +</p> + +<p> +The latch clicked upward, and out of the night our pedestrian appeared upon the +door-mat. The shepherd arose, snuffed two of the nearest candles, and turned to +look at him. +</p> + +<p> +Their light disclosed that the stranger was dark in complexion and not +unprepossessing as to feature. His hat, which for a moment he did not remove, +hung low over his eyes, without concealing that they were large, open, and +determined, moving with a flash rather than a glance round the room. He seemed +pleased with his survey, and, baring his shaggy head, said, in a rich deep +voice, ‘The rain is so heavy, friends, that I ask leave to come in and +rest awhile.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘To be sure, stranger,’ said the shepherd. ‘And faith, +you’ve been lucky in choosing your time, for we are having a bit of a +fling for a glad cause—though, to be sure, a man could hardly wish that +glad cause to happen more than once a year.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Nor less,’ spoke up a woman. ‘For ’tis best to get +your family over and done with, as soon as you can, so as to be all the earlier +out of the fag o’t.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And what may be this glad cause?’ asked the stranger. +</p> + +<p> +‘A birth and christening,’ said the shepherd. +</p> + +<p> +The stranger hoped his host might not be made unhappy either by too many or too +few of such episodes, and being invited by a gesture to a pull at the mug, he +readily acquiesced. His manner, which, before entering, had been so dubious, +was now altogether that of a careless and candid man. +</p> + +<p> +‘Late to be traipsing athwart this coomb—hey?’ said the +engaged man of fifty. +</p> + +<p> +‘Late it is, master, as you say.—I’ll take a seat in the +chimney-corner, if you have nothing to urge against it, ma’am; for I am a +little moist on the side that was next the rain.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Shepherd Fennel assented, and made room for the self-invited comer, who, +having got completely inside the chimney-corner, stretched out his legs and his +arms with the expansiveness of a person quite at home. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, I am rather cracked in the vamp,’ he said freely, seeing that +the eyes of the shepherd’s wife fell upon his boots, ‘and I am not +well fitted either. I have had some rough times lately, and have been forced to +pick up what I can get in the way of wearing, but I must find a suit better fit +for working-days when I reach home.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘One of hereabouts?’ she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +‘Not quite that—further up the country.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I thought so. And so be I; and by your tongue you come from my +neighbourhood.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But you would hardly have heard of me,’ he said quickly. ‘My +time would be long before yours, ma’am, you see.’ +</p> + +<p> +This testimony to the youthfulness of his hostess had the effect of stopping +her cross-examination. +</p> + +<p> +‘There is only one thing more wanted to make me happy,’ continued +the new-comer. ‘And that is a little baccy, which I am sorry to say I am +out of.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I’ll fill your pipe,’ said the shepherd. +</p> + +<p> +‘I must ask you to lend me a pipe likewise.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A smoker, and no pipe about ‘ee?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I have dropped it somewhere on the road.’ +</p> + +<p> +The shepherd filled and handed him a new clay pipe, saying, as he did so, +‘Hand me your baccy-box—I’ll fill that too, now I am about +it.’ +</p> + +<p> +The man went through the movement of searching his pockets. +</p> + +<p> +‘Lost that too?’ said his entertainer, with some surprise. +</p> + +<p> +‘I am afraid so,’ said the man with some confusion. ‘Give it +to me in a screw of paper.’ Lighting his pipe at the candle with a +suction that drew the whole flame into the bowl, he resettled himself in the +corner and bent his looks upon the faint steam from his damp legs, as if he +wished to say no more. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile the general body of guests had been taking little notice of this +visitor by reason of an absorbing discussion in which they were engaged with +the band about a tune for the next dance. The matter being settled, they were +about to stand up when an interruption came in the shape of another knock at +the door. +</p> + +<p> +At sound of the same the man in the chimney-corner took up the poker and began +stirring the brands as if doing it thoroughly were the one aim of his +existence; and a second time the shepherd said, ‘Walk in!’ In a +moment another man stood upon the straw-woven door-mat. He too was a stranger. +</p> + +<p> +This individual was one of a type radically different from the first. There was +more of the commonplace in his manner, and a certain jovial cosmopolitanism sat +upon his features. He was several years older than the first arrival, his hair +being slightly frosted, his eyebrows bristly, and his whiskers cut back from +his cheeks. His face was rather full and flabby, and yet it was not altogether +a face without power. A few grog-blossoms marked the neighbourhood of his nose. +He flung back his long drab greatcoat, revealing that beneath it he wore a suit +of cinder-gray shade throughout, large heavy seals, of some metal or other that +would take a polish, dangling from his fob as his only personal ornament. +Shaking the water-drops from his low-crowned glazed hat, he said, ‘I must +ask for a few minutes’ shelter, comrades, or I shall be wetted to my skin +before I get to Casterbridge.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Make yourself at home, master,’ said the shepherd, perhaps a +trifle less heartily than on the first occasion. Not that Fennel had the least +tinge of niggardliness in his composition; but the room was far from large, +spare chairs were not numerous, and damp companions were not altogether +desirable at close quarters for the women and girls in their bright-coloured +gowns. +</p> + +<p> +However, the second comer, after taking off his greatcoat, and hanging his hat +on a nail in one of the ceiling-beams as if he had been specially invited to +put it there, advanced and sat down at the table. This had been pushed so +closely into the chimney-corner, to give all available room to the dancers, +that its inner edge grazed the elbow of the man who had ensconced himself by +the fire; and thus the two strangers were brought into close companionship. +They nodded to each other by way of breaking the ice of unacquaintance, and the +first stranger handed his neighbour the family mug—a huge vessel of brown +ware, having its upper edge worn away like a threshold by the rub of whole +generations of thirsty lips that had gone the way of all flesh, and bearing the +following inscription burnt upon its rotund side in yellow letters +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THERE IS NO FUN<br /> +UNTiLL i CUM. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The other man, nothing loth, raised the mug to his lips, and drank on, and on, +and on—till a curious blueness overspread the countenance of the +shepherd’s wife, who had regarded with no little surprise the first +stranger’s free offer to the second of what did not belong to him to +dispense. +</p> + +<p> +‘I knew it!’ said the toper to the shepherd with much satisfaction. +‘When I walked up your garden before coming in, and saw the hives all of +a row, I said to myself; “Where there’s bees there’s honey, +and where there’s honey there’s mead.” But mead of such a +truly comfortable sort as this I really didn’t expect to meet in my older +days.’ He took yet another pull at the mug, till it assumed an ominous +elevation. +</p> + +<p> +‘Glad you enjoy it!’ said the shepherd warmly. +</p> + +<p> +‘It is goodish mead,’ assented Mrs. Fennel, with an absence of +enthusiasm which seemed to say that it was possible to buy praise for +one’s cellar at too heavy a price. ‘It is trouble enough to +make—and really I hardly think we shall make any more. For honey sells +well, and we ourselves can make shift with a drop o’ small mead and +metheglin for common use from the comb-washings.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O, but you’ll never have the heart!’ reproachfully cried the +stranger in cinder-gray, after taking up the mug a third time and setting it +down empty. ‘I love mead, when ’tis old like this, as I love to go +to church o’ Sundays, or to relieve the needy any day of the week.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ha, ha, ha!’ said the man in the chimney-corner, who, in spite of +the taciturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, could not or would not refrain +from this slight testimony to his comrade’s humour. +</p> + +<p> +Now the old mead of those days, brewed of the purest first-year or maiden +honey, four pounds to the gallon—with its due complement of white of +eggs, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, rosemary, yeast, and processes of +working, bottling, and cellaring—tasted remarkably strong; but it did not +taste so strong as it actually was. Hence, presently, the stranger in +cinder-gray at the table, moved by its creeping influence, unbuttoned his +waistcoat, threw himself back in his chair, spread his legs, and made his +presence felt in various ways. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, well, as I say,’ he resumed, ‘I am going to +Casterbridge, and to Casterbridge I must go. I should have been almost there by +this time; but the rain drove me into your dwelling, and I’m not sorry +for it.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You don’t live in Casterbridge?’ said the shepherd. +</p> + +<p> +‘Not as yet; though I shortly mean to move there.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Going to set up in trade, perhaps?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, no,’ said the shepherd’s wife. ‘It is easy to see +that the gentleman is rich, and don’t want to work at anything.’ +</p> + +<p> +The cinder-gray stranger paused, as if to consider whether he would accept that +definition of himself. He presently rejected it by answering, ‘Rich is +not quite the word for me, dame. I do work, and I must work. And even if I only +get to Casterbridge by midnight I must begin work there at eight to-morrow +morning. Yes, het or wet, blow or snow, famine or sword, my day’s work +to-morrow must be done.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Poor man! Then, in spite o’ seeming, you be worse off than +we?’ replied the shepherd’s wife. +</p> + +<p> +‘’Tis the nature of my trade, men and maidens. ’Tis the +nature of my trade more than my poverty . . . But really and truly I must up +and off, or I shan’t get a lodging in the town.’ However, the +speaker did not move, and directly added, ‘There’s time for one +more draught of friendship before I go; and I’d perform it at once if the +mug were not dry.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Here’s a mug o’ small,’ said Mrs. Fennel. +‘Small, we call it, though to be sure ’tis only the first wash +o’ the combs.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No,’ said the stranger disdainfully. ‘I won’t spoil +your first kindness by partaking o’ your second.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Certainly not,’ broke in Fennel. ‘We don’t increase +and multiply every day, and I’ll fill the mug again.’ He went away +to the dark place under the stairs where the barrel stood. The shepherdess +followed him. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why should you do this?’ she said reproachfully, as soon as they +were alone. ‘He’s emptied it once, though it held enough for ten +people; and now he’s not contented wi’ the small, but must needs +call for more o’ the strong! And a stranger unbeknown to any of us. For +my part, I don’t like the look o’ the man at all.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But he’s in the house, my honey; and ’tis a wet night, and a +christening. Daze it, what’s a cup of mead more or less? There’ll +be plenty more next bee-burning.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Very well—this time, then,’ she answered, looking wistfully +at the barrel. ‘But what is the man’s calling, and where is he one +of; that he should come in and join us like this?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t know. I’ll ask him again.’ +</p> + +<p> +The catastrophe of having the mug drained dry at one pull by the stranger in +cinder-gray was effectually guarded against this time by Mrs. Fennel. She +poured out his allowance in a small cup, keeping the large one at a discreet +distance from him. When he had tossed off his portion the shepherd renewed his +inquiry about the stranger’s occupation. +</p> + +<p> +The latter did not immediately reply, and the man in the chimney-corner, with +sudden demonstrativeness, said, ‘Anybody may know my +trade—I’m a wheelwright.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A very good trade for these parts,’ said the shepherd. +</p> + +<p> +‘And anybody may know mine—if they’ve the sense to find it +out,’ said the stranger in cinder-gray. +</p> + +<p> +‘You may generally tell what a man is by his claws,’ observed the +hedge-carpenter, looking at his own hands. ‘My fingers be as full of +thorns as an old pin-cushion is of pins.’ +</p> + +<p> +The hands of the man in the chimney-corner instinctively sought the shade, and +he gazed into the fire as he resumed his pipe. The man at the table took up the +hedge-carpenter’s remark, and added smartly, ‘True; but the oddity +of my trade is that, instead of setting a mark upon me, it sets a mark upon my +customers.’ +</p> + +<p> +No observation being offered by anybody in elucidation of this enigma, the +shepherd’s wife once more called for a song. The same obstacles presented +themselves as at the former time—one had no voice, another had forgotten +the first verse. The stranger at the table, whose soul had now risen to a good +working temperature, relieved the difficulty by exclaiming that, to start the +company, he would sing himself. Thrusting one thumb into the arm-hole of his +waistcoat, he waved the other hand in the air, and, with an extemporizing gaze +at the shining sheep-crooks above the mantelpiece, began:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘O my trade it is the rarest one,<br /> +Simple shepherds all—<br /> +My trade is a sight to see;<br /> +For my customers I tie, and take them up on high,<br /> +And waft ’em to a far countree!’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The room was silent when he had finished the verse—with one exception, +that of the man in the chimney-corner, who, at the singer’s word, +‘Chorus! ‘joined him in a deep bass voice of musical relish— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘And waft ’em to a far countree!’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Oliver Giles, John Pitcher the dairyman, the parish-clerk, the engaged man of +fifty, the row of young women against the wall, seemed lost in thought not of +the gayest kind. The shepherd looked meditatively on the ground, the +shepherdess gazed keenly at the singer, and with some suspicion; she was +doubting whether this stranger were merely singing an old song from +recollection, or was composing one there and then for the occasion. All were as +perplexed at the obscure revelation as the guests at Belshazzar’s Feast, +except the man in the chimney-corner, who quietly said, ‘Second verse, +stranger,’ and smoked on. +</p> + +<p> +The singer thoroughly moistened himself from his lips inwards, and went on with +the next stanza as requested:- +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +My tools are but common ones,<br /> +Simple shepherds all—<br /> +My tools are no sight to see:<br /> +A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing,<br /> +Are implements enough for me!’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Shepherd Fennel glanced round. There was no longer any doubt that the stranger +was answering his question rhythmically. The guests one and all started back +with suppressed exclamations. The young woman engaged to the man of fifty +fainted half-way, and would have proceeded, but finding him wanting in alacrity +for catching her she sat down trembling. +</p> + +<p> +‘O, he’s the—!’ whispered the people in the background, +mentioning the name of an ominous public officer. ‘He’s come to do +it! ’Tis to be at Casterbridge jail to-morrow—the man for +sheep-stealing—the poor clock-maker we heard of; who used to live away at +Shottsford and had no work to do—Timothy Summers, whose family were +a-starving, and so he went out of Shottsford by the high-road, and took a sheep +in open daylight, defying the farmer and the farmer’s wife and the +farmer’s lad, and every man jack among ’em. He’ (and they +nodded towards the stranger of the deadly trade) ‘is come from up the +country to do it because there’s not enough to do in his own county-town, +and he’s got the place here now our own county man’s dead; +he’s going to live in the same cottage under the prison wall.’ +</p> + +<p> +The stranger in cinder-gray took no notice of this whispered string of +observations, but again wetted his lips. Seeing that his friend in the +chimney-corner was the only one who reciprocated his joviality in any way, he +held out his cup towards that appreciative comrade, who also held out his own. +They clinked together, the eyes of the rest of the room hanging upon the +singer’s actions. He parted his lips for the third verse; but at that +moment another knock was audible upon the door. This time the knock was faint +and hesitating. +</p> + +<p> +The company seemed scared; the shepherd looked with consternation towards the +entrance, and it was with some effort that he resisted his alarmed wife’s +deprecatory glance, and uttered for the third time the welcoming words, +‘Walk in!’ +</p> + +<p> +The door was gently opened, and another man stood upon the mat. He, like those +who had preceded him, was a stranger. This time it was a short, small +personage, of fair complexion, and dressed in a decent suit of dark clothes. +</p> + +<p> +‘Can you tell me the way to—?’ he began: when, gazing round +the room to observe the nature of the company amongst whom he had fallen, his +eyes lighted on the stranger in cinder-gray. It was just at the instant when +the latter, who had thrown his mind into his song with such a will that he +scarcely heeded the interruption, silenced all whispers and inquiries by +bursting into his third verse:- +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +To-morrow is my working day,<br /> +Simple shepherds all—<br /> +To-morrow is a working day for me:<br /> +For the farmer’s sheep is slain, and the lad who did it +ta’en,<br /> +And on his soul may God ha’ merc-y!’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The stranger in the chimney-corner, waving cups with the singer so heartily +that his mead splashed over on the hearth, repeated in his bass voice as +before:- +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘And on his soul may God ha’ merc-y!’ +</p> + +<p> +All this time the third stranger had been standing in the doorway. Finding now +that he did not come forward or go on speaking, the guests particularly +regarded him. They noticed to their surprise that he stood before them the +picture of abject terror—his knees trembling, his hand shaking so +violently that the door-latch by which he supported himself rattled audibly: +his white lips were parted, and his eyes fixed on the merry officer of justice +in the middle of the room. A moment more and he had turned, closed the door, +and fled. +</p> + +<p> +‘What a man can it be?’ said the shepherd. +</p> + +<p> +The rest, between the awfulness of their late discovery and the odd conduct of +this third visitor, looked as if they knew not what to think, and said nothing. +Instinctively they withdrew further and further from the grim gentleman in +their midst, whom some of them seemed to take for the Prince of Darkness +himself; till they formed a remote circle, an empty space of floor being left +between them and him— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘ . . . circulus, cujus centrum diabolus.’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The room was so silent—though there were more than twenty people in +it—that nothing could be heard but the patter of the rain against the +window-shutters, accompanied by the occasional hiss of a stray drop that fell +down the chimney into the fire, and the steady puffing of the man in the +corner, who had now resumed his pipe of long clay. +</p> + +<p> +The stillness was unexpectedly broken. The distant sound of a gun reverberated +through the air—apparently from the direction of the county-town. +</p> + +<p> +‘Be jiggered!’ cried the stranger who had sung the song, jumping +up. +</p> + +<p> +‘What does that mean?’ asked several. +</p> + +<p> +‘A prisoner escaped from the jail—that’s what it +means.’ +</p> + +<p> +All listened. The sound was repeated, and none of them spoke but the man in the +chimney-corner, who said quietly, ‘I’ve often been told that in +this county they fire a gun at such times; but I never heard it till +now.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I wonder if it is <i>my</i> man?’ murmured the personage in +cinder-gray. +</p> + +<p> +‘Surely it is!’ said the shepherd involuntarily. ‘And surely +we’ve zeed him! That little man who looked in at the door by now, and +quivered like a leaf when he zeed ye and heard your song!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘His teeth chattered, and the breath went out of his body,’ said +the dairyman. +</p> + +<p> +‘And his heart seemed to sink within him like a stone,’ said Oliver +Giles. +</p> + +<p> +‘And he bolted as if he’d been shot at,’ said the +hedge-carpenter. +</p> + +<p> +‘True—his teeth chattered, and his heart seemed to sink; and he +bolted as if he’d been shot at,’ slowly summed up the man in the +chimney-corner. +</p> + +<p> +‘I didn’t notice it,’ remarked the hangman. +</p> + +<p> +‘We were all a-wondering what made him run off in such a fright,’ +faltered one of the women against the wall, ‘and now ’tis +explained!’ +</p> + +<p> +The firing of the alarm-gun went on at intervals, low and sullenly, and their +suspicions became a certainty. The sinister gentleman in cinder-gray roused +himself. ‘Is there a constable here?’ he asked, in thick tones. +‘If so, let him step forward.’ +</p> + +<p> +The engaged man of fifty stepped quavering out from the wall, his betrothed +beginning to sob on the back of the chair. +</p> + +<p> +‘You are a sworn constable?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I be, sir.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then pursue the criminal at once, with assistance, and bring him back +here. He can’t have gone far.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I will, sir, I will—when I’ve got my staff. I’ll go +home and get it, and come sharp here, and start in a body.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Staff!—never mind your staff; the man’ll be gone!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But I can’t do nothing without my staff—can I, William, and +John, and Charles Jake? No; for there’s the king’s royal crown a +painted on en in yaller and gold, and the lion and the unicorn, so as when I +raise en up and hit my prisoner, ’tis made a lawful blow thereby. I +wouldn’t ‘tempt to take up a man without my staff—no, not I. +If I hadn’t the law to gie me courage, why, instead o’ my taking up +him he might take up me!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Now, I’m a king’s man myself; and can give you authority +enough for this,’ said the formidable officer in gray. ‘Now then, +all of ye, be ready. Have ye any lanterns?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes—have ye any lanterns?—I demand it!’ said the +constable. +</p> + +<p> +‘And the rest of you able-bodied—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Able-bodied men—yes—the rest of ye!’ said the +constable. +</p> + +<p> +‘Have you some good stout staves and pitch-forks—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Staves and pitchforks—in the name o’ the law! And take +’em in yer hands and go in quest, and do as we in authority tell +ye!’ +</p> + +<p> +Thus aroused, the men prepared to give chase. The evidence was, indeed, though +circumstantial, so convincing, that but little argument was needed to show the +shepherd’s guests that after what they had seen it would look very much +like connivance if they did not instantly pursue the unhappy third stranger, +who could not as yet have gone more than a few hundred yards over such uneven +country. +</p> + +<p> +A shepherd is always well provided with lanterns; and, lighting these hastily, +and with hurdle-staves in their hands, they poured out of the door, taking a +direction along the crest of the hill, away from the town, the rain having +fortunately a little abated. +</p> + +<p> +Disturbed by the noise, or possibly by unpleasant dreams of her baptism, the +child who had been christened began to cry heart-brokenly in the room overhead. +These notes of grief came down through the chinks of the floor to the ears of +the women below, who jumped up one by one, and seemed glad of the excuse to +ascend and comfort the baby, for the incidents of the last half-hour greatly +oppressed them. Thus in the space of two or three minutes the room on the +ground-floor was deserted quite. +</p> + +<p> +But it was not for long. Hardly had the sound of footsteps died away when a man +returned round the corner of the house from the direction the pursuers had +taken. Peeping in at the door, and seeing nobody there, he entered leisurely. +It was the stranger of the chimney-corner, who had gone out with the rest. The +motive of his return was shown by his helping himself to a cut piece of +skimmer-cake that lay on a ledge beside where he had sat, and which he had +apparently forgotten to take with him. He also poured out half a cup more mead +from the quantity that remained, ravenously eating and drinking these as he +stood. He had not finished when another figure came in just as +quietly—his friend in cinder-gray. +</p> + +<p> +‘O—you here?’ said the latter, smiling. ‘I thought you +had gone to help in the capture.’ And this speaker also revealed the +object of his return by looking solicitously round for the fascinating mug of +old mead. +</p> + +<p> +‘And I thought you had gone,’ said the other, continuing his +skimmer-cake with some effort. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, on second thoughts, I felt there were enough without me,’ +said the first confidentially, ‘and such a night as it is, too. Besides, +’tis the business o’ the Government to take care of its +criminals—not mine.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘True; so it is. And I felt as you did, that there were enough without +me.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t want to break my limbs running over the humps and hollows +of this wild country.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Nor I neither, between you and me.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘These shepherd-people are used to it—simple-minded souls, you +know, stirred up to anything in a moment. They’ll have him ready for me +before the morning, and no trouble to me at all.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘They’ll have him, and we shall have saved ourselves all labour in +the matter.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘True, true. Well, my way is to Casterbridge; and ’tis as much as +my legs will do to take me that far. Going the same way?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, I am sorry to say! I have to get home over there’ (he nodded +indefinitely to the right), ‘and I feel as you do, that it is quite +enough for my legs to do before bedtime.’ +</p> + +<p> +The other had by this time finished the mead in the mug, after which, shaking +hands heartily at the door, and wishing each other well, they went their +several ways. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime the company of pursuers had reached the end of the +hog’s-back elevation which dominated this part of the down. They had +decided on no particular plan of action; and, finding that the man of the +baleful trade was no longer in their company, they seemed quite unable to form +any such plan now. They descended in all directions down the hill, and +straightway several of the party fell into the snare set by Nature for all +misguided midnight ramblers over this part of the cretaceous formation. The +‘lanchets,’ or flint slopes, which belted the escarpment at +intervals of a dozen yards, took the less cautious ones unawares, and losing +their footing on the rubbly steep they slid sharply downwards, the lanterns +rolling from their hands to the bottom, and there lying on their sides till the +horn was scorched through. +</p> + +<p> +When they had again gathered themselves together, the shepherd, as the man who +knew the country best, took the lead, and guided them round these treacherous +inclines. The lanterns, which seemed rather to dazzle their eyes and warn the +fugitive than to assist them in the exploration, were extinguished, due silence +was observed; and in this more rational order they plunged into the vale. It +was a grassy, briery, moist defile, affording some shelter to any person who +had sought it; but the party perambulated it in vain, and ascended on the other +side. Here they wandered apart, and after an interval closed together again to +report progress. +</p> + +<p> +At the second time of closing in they found themselves near a lonely ash, the +single tree on this part of the coomb, probably sown there by a passing bird +some fifty years before. And here, standing a little to one side of the trunk, +as motionless as the trunk itself; appeared the man they were in quest of; his +outline being well defined against the sky beyond. The band noiselessly drew up +and faced him. +</p> + +<p> +‘Your money or your life!’ said the constable sternly to the still +figure. +</p> + +<p> +‘No, no,’ whispered John Pitcher. ‘’Tisn’t our +side ought to say that. That’s the doctrine of vagabonds like him, and we +be on the side of the law.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, well,’ replied the constable impatiently; ‘I must say +something, mustn’t I? and if you had all the weight o’ this +undertaking upon your mind, perhaps you’d say the wrong thing +too!—Prisoner at the bar, surrender, in the name of the Father—the +Crown, I mane!’ +</p> + +<p> +The man under the tree seemed now to notice them for the first time, and, +giving them no opportunity whatever for exhibiting their courage, he strolled +slowly towards them. He was, indeed, the little man, the third stranger; but +his trepidation had in a great measure gone. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, travellers,’ he said, ‘did I hear ye speak to +me?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You did: you’ve got to come and be our prisoner at once!’ +said the constable. ‘We arrest ‘ee on the charge of not biding in +Casterbridge jail in a decent proper manner to be hung to-morrow morning. +Neighbours, do your duty, and seize the culpet!’ +</p> + +<p> +On hearing the charge, the man seemed enlightened, and, saying not another +word, resigned himself with preternatural civility to the search-party, who, +with their staves in their hands, surrounded him on all sides, and marched him +back towards the shepherd’s cottage. +</p> + +<p> +It was eleven o’clock by the time they arrived. The light shining from +the open door, a sound of men’s voices within, proclaimed to them as they +approached the house that some new events had arisen in their absence. On +entering they discovered the shepherd’s living room to be invaded by two +officers from Casterbridge jail, and a well-known magistrate who lived at the +nearest country-seat, intelligence of the escape having become generally +circulated. +</p> + +<p> +‘Gentlemen,’ said the constable, ‘I have brought back your +man—not without risk and danger; but every one must do his duty! He is +inside this circle of able-bodied persons, who have lent me useful aid, +considering their ignorance of Crown work. Men, bring forward your +prisoner!’ And the third stranger was led to the light. +</p> + +<p> +‘Who is this?’ said one of the officials. +</p> + +<p> +‘The man,’ said the constable. +</p> + +<p> +‘Certainly not,’ said the turnkey; and the first corroborated his +statement. +</p> + +<p> +‘But how can it be otherwise?’ asked the constable. ‘Or why +was he so terrified at sight o’ the singing instrument of the law who sat +there?’ Here he related the strange behaviour of the third stranger on +entering the house during the hangman’s song. +</p> + +<p> +‘Can’t understand it,’ said the officer coolly. ‘All I +know is that it is not the condemned man. He’s quite a different +character from this one; a gauntish fellow, with dark hair and eyes, rather +good-looking, and with a musical bass voice that if you heard it once +you’d never mistake as long as you lived.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Why, souls—’twas the man in the chimney-corner!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Hey—what?’ said the magistrate, coming forward after +inquiring particulars from the shepherd in the background. ‘Haven’t +you got the man after all?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, sir,’ said the constable, ‘he’s the man we were +in search of, that’s true; and yet he’s not the man we were in +search of. For the man we were in search of was not the man we wanted, sir, if +you understand my everyday way; for ’twas the man in the +chimney-corner!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A pretty kettle of fish altogether!’ said the magistrate. +‘You had better start for the other man at once.’ +</p> + +<p> +The prisoner now spoke for the first time. The mention of the man in the +chimney-corner seemed to have moved him as nothing else could do. +‘Sir,’ he said, stepping forward to the magistrate, ‘take no +more trouble about me. The time is come when I may as well speak. I have done +nothing; my crime is that the condemned man is my brother. Early this afternoon +I left home at Shottsford to tramp it all the way to Casterbridge jail to bid +him farewell. I was benighted, and called here to rest and ask the way. When I +opened the door I saw before me the very man, my brother, that I thought to see +in the condemned cell at Casterbridge. He was in this chimney-corner; and +jammed close to him, so that he could not have got out if he had tried, was the +executioner who’d come to take his life, singing a song about it and not +knowing that it was his victim who was close by, joining in to save +appearances. My brother looked a glance of agony at me, and I knew he meant, +“Don’t reveal what you see; my life depends on it.” I was so +terror-struck that I could hardly stand, and, not knowing what I did, I turned +and hurried away.’ +</p> + +<p> +The narrator’s manner and tone had the stamp of truth, and his story made +a great impression on all around. ‘And do you know where your brother is +at the present time?’ asked the magistrate. +</p> + +<p> +‘I do not. I have never seen him since I closed this door.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I can testify to that, for we’ve been between ye ever +since,’ said the constable. +</p> + +<p> +‘Where does he think to fly to?—what is his occupation?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He’s a watch-and-clock-maker, sir.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘’A said ’a was a wheelwright—a wicked rogue,’ +said the constable. +</p> + +<p> +‘The wheels of clocks and watches he meant, no doubt,’ said +Shepherd Fennel. ‘I thought his hands were palish for’s +trade.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, it appears to me that nothing can be gained by retaining this poor +man in custody,’ said the magistrate; ‘your business lies with the +other, unquestionably.’ +</p> + +<p> +And so the little man was released off-hand; but he looked nothing the less sad +on that account, it being beyond the power of magistrate or constable to raze +out the written troubles in his brain, for they concerned another whom he +regarded with more solicitude than himself. When this was done, and the man had +gone his way, the night was found to be so far advanced that it was deemed +useless to renew the search before the next morning. +</p> + +<p> +Next day, accordingly, the quest for the clever sheep-stealer became general +and keen, to all appearance at least. But the intended punishment was cruelly +disproportioned to the transgression, and the sympathy of a great many +country-folk in that district was strongly on the side of the fugitive. +Moreover, his marvellous coolness and daring in hob-and-nobbing with the +hangman, under the unprecedented circumstances of the shepherd’s party, +won their admiration. So that it may be questioned if all those who ostensibly +made themselves so busy in exploring woods and fields and lanes were quite so +thorough when it came to the private examination of their own lofts and +outhouses. Stories were afloat of a mysterious figure being occasionally seen +in some old overgrown trackway or other, remote from turnpike roads; but when a +search was instituted in any of these suspected quarters nobody was found. Thus +the days and weeks passed without tidings. +</p> + +<p> +In brief; the bass-voiced man of the chimney-corner was never recaptured. Some +said that he went across the sea, others that he did not, but buried himself in +the depths of a populous city. At any rate, the gentleman in cinder-gray never +did his morning’s work at Casterbridge, nor met anywhere at all, for +business purposes, the genial comrade with whom he had passed an hour of +relaxation in the lonely house on the coomb. +</p> + +<p> +The grass has long been green on the graves of Shepherd Fennel and his frugal +wife; the guests who made up the christening party have mainly followed their +entertainers to the tomb; the baby in whose honour they all had met is a matron +in the sere and yellow leaf. But the arrival of the three strangers at the +shepherd’s that night, and the details connected therewith, is a story as +well known as ever in the country about Higher Crowstairs. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +March 1883. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>THE WITHERED ARM</h2> + +<h3>CHAPTER I—A LORN MILKMAID</h3> + +<p> +It was an eighty-cow dairy, and the troop of milkers, regular and +supernumerary, were all at work; for, though the time of year was as yet but +early April, the feed lay entirely in water-meadows, and the cows were +‘in full pail.’ The hour was about six in the evening, and +three-fourths of the large, red, rectangular animals having been finished off, +there was opportunity for a little conversation. +</p> + +<p> +‘He do bring home his bride to-morrow, I hear. They’ve come as far +as Anglebury to-day.’ +</p> + +<p> +The voice seemed to proceed from the belly of the cow called Cherry, but the +speaker was a milking-woman, whose face was buried in the flank of that +motionless beast. +</p> + +<p> +‘Hav’ anybody seen her?’ said another. +</p> + +<p> +There was a negative response from the first. ‘Though they say +she’s a rosy-cheeked, tisty-tosty little body enough,’ she added; +and as the milkmaid spoke she turned her face so that she could glance past her +cow’s tail to the other side of the barton, where a thin, fading woman of +thirty milked somewhat apart from the rest. +</p> + +<p> +‘Years younger than he, they say,’ continued the second, with also +a glance of reflectiveness in the same direction. +</p> + +<p> +‘How old do you call him, then?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Thirty or so.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘More like forty,’ broke in an old milkman near, in a long white +pinafore or ‘wropper,’ and with the brim of his hat tied down, so +that he looked like a woman. ‘’A was born before our Great Weir was +builded, and I hadn’t man’s wages when I laved water there.’ +</p> + +<p> +The discussion waxed so warm that the purr of the milk-streams became jerky, +till a voice from another cow’s belly cried with authority, ‘Now +then, what the Turk do it matter to us about Farmer Lodge’s age, or +Farmer Lodge’s new mis’ess? I shall have to pay him nine pound a +year for the rent of every one of these milchers, whatever his age or hers. Get +on with your work, or ’twill be dark afore we have done. The evening is +pinking in a’ready.’ This speaker was the dairyman himself; by whom +the milkmaids and men were employed. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing more was said publicly about Farmer Lodge’s wedding, but the +first woman murmured under her cow to her next neighbour, ‘’Tis +hard for <i>she</i>,’ signifying the thin worn milkmaid aforesaid. +</p> + +<p> +‘O no,’ said the second. ‘He ha’n’t spoke to +Rhoda Brook for years.’ +</p> + +<p> +When the milking was done they washed their pails and hung them on a +many-forked stand made of the peeled limb of an oak-tree, set upright in the +earth, and resembling a colossal antlered horn. The majority then dispersed in +various directions homeward. The thin woman who had not spoken was joined by a +boy of twelve or thereabout, and the twain went away up the field also. +</p> + +<p> +Their course lay apart from that of the others, to a lonely spot high above the +water-meads, and not far from the border of Egdon Heath, whose dark countenance +was visible in the distance as they drew nigh to their home. +</p> + +<p> +‘They’ve just been saying down in barton that your father brings +his young wife home from Anglebury to-morrow,’ the woman observed. +‘I shall want to send you for a few things to market, and you’ll be +pretty sure to meet ’em.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, mother,’ said the boy. ‘Is father married then?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes . . . You can give her a look, and tell me what’s she’s +like, if you do see her.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, mother.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘If she’s dark or fair, and if she’s tall—as tall as I. +And if she seems like a woman who has ever worked for a living, or one that has +been always well off, and has never done anything, and shows marks of the lady +on her, as I expect she do.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes.’ +</p> + +<p> +They crept up the hill in the twilight, and entered the cottage. It was built +of mud-walls, the surface of which had been washed by many rains into channels +and depressions that left none of the original flat face visible; while here +and there in the thatch above a rafter showed like a bone protruding through +the skin. +</p> + +<p> +She was kneeling down in the chimney-corner, before two pieces of turf laid +together with the heather inwards, blowing at the red-hot ashes with her breath +till the turves flamed. The radiance lit her pale cheek, and made her dark +eyes, that had once been handsome, seem handsome anew. ‘Yes,’ she +resumed, ‘see if she is dark or fair, and if you can, notice if her hands +be white; if not, see if they look as though she had ever done housework, or +are milker’s hands like mine.’ +</p> + +<p> +The boy again promised, inattentively this time, his mother not observing that +he was cutting a notch with his pocket-knife in the beech-backed chair. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER II—THE YOUNG WIFE</h3> + +<p> +The road from Anglebury to Holmstoke is in general level; but there is one +place where a sharp ascent breaks its monotony. Farmers homeward-bound from the +former market-town, who trot all the rest of the way, walk their horses up this +short incline. +</p> + +<p> +The next evening, while the sun was yet bright, a handsome new gig, with a +lemon-coloured body and red wheels, was spinning westward along the level +highway at the heels of a powerful mare. The driver was a yeoman in the prime +of life, cleanly shaven like an actor, his face being toned to that +bluish-vermilion hue which so often graces a thriving farmer’s features +when returning home after successful dealings in the town. Beside him sat a +woman, many years his junior—almost, indeed, a girl. Her face too was +fresh in colour, but it was of a totally different quality—soft and +evanescent, like the light under a heap of rose-petals. +</p> + +<p> +Few people travelled this way, for it was not a main road; and the long white +riband of gravel that stretched before them was empty, save of one small +scarce-moving speck, which presently resolved itself into the figure of boy, +who was creeping on at a snail’s pace, and continually looking behind +him—the heavy bundle he carried being some excuse for, if not the reason +of, his dilatoriness. When the bouncing gig-party slowed at the bottom of the +incline above mentioned, the pedestrian was only a few yards in front. +Supporting the large bundle by putting one hand on his hip, he turned and +looked straight at the farmer’s wife as though he would read her through +and through, pacing along abreast of the horse. +</p> + +<p> +The low sun was full in her face, rendering every feature, shade, and contour +distinct, from the curve of her little nostril to the colour of her eyes. The +farmer, though he seemed annoyed at the boy’s persistent presence, did +not order him to get out of the way; and thus the lad preceded them, his hard +gaze never leaving her, till they reached the top of the ascent, when the +farmer trotted on with relief in his lineaments—having taken no outward +notice of the boy whatever. +</p> + +<p> +‘How that poor lad stared at me!’ said the young wife. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, dear; I saw that he did.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He is one of the village, I suppose?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘One of the neighbourhood. I think he lives with his mother a mile or two +off.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He knows who we are, no doubt?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O yes. You must expect to be stared at just at first, my pretty +Gertrude.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I do,—though I think the poor boy may have looked at us in the +hope we might relieve him of his heavy load, rather than from curiosity.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O no,’ said her husband off-handedly. ‘These country lads +will carry a hundredweight once they get it on their backs; besides his pack +had more size than weight in it. Now, then, another mile and I shall be able to +show you our house in the distance—if it is not too dark before we get +there.’ The wheels spun round, and particles flew from their periphery as +before, till a white house of ample dimensions revealed itself, with +farm-buildings and ricks at the back. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile the boy had quickened his pace, and turning up a by-lane some mile +and half short of the white farmstead, ascended towards the leaner pastures, +and so on to the cottage of his mother. +</p> + +<p> +She had reached home after her day’s milking at the outlying dairy, and +was washing cabbage at the doorway in the declining light. ‘Hold up the +net a moment,’ she said, without preface, as the boy came up. +</p> + +<p> +He flung down his bundle, held the edge of the cabbage-net, and as she filled +its meshes with the dripping leaves she went on, ‘Well, did you see +her?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes; quite plain.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Is she ladylike?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes; and more. A lady complete.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Is she young?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, she’s growed up, and her ways be quite a +woman’s.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Of course. What colour is her hair and face?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Her hair is lightish, and her face as comely as a live +doll’s.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Her eyes, then, are not dark like mine?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No—of a bluish turn, and her mouth is very nice and red; and when +she smiles, her teeth show white.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Is she tall?’ said the woman sharply. +</p> + +<p> +‘I couldn’t see. She was sitting down.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then do you go to Holmstoke church to-morrow morning: she’s sure +to be there. Go early and notice her walking in, and come home and tell me if +she’s taller than I.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Very well, mother. But why don’t you go and see for +yourself?’ +</p> + +<p> +<i>‘I</i> go to see her! I wouldn’t look up at her if she were to +pass my window this instant. She was with Mr. Lodge, of course. What did he say +or do?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Just the same as usual.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Took no notice of you?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘None.’ +</p> + +<p> +Next day the mother put a clean shirt on the boy, and started him off for +Holmstoke church. He reached the ancient little pile when the door was just +being opened, and he was the first to enter. Taking his seat by the font, he +watched all the parishioners file in. The well-to-do Farmer Lodge came nearly +last; and his young wife, who accompanied him, walked up the aisle with the +shyness natural to a modest woman who had appeared thus for the first time. As +all other eyes were fixed upon her, the youth’s stare was not noticed +now. +</p> + +<p> +When he reached home his mother said, ‘Well?’ before he had entered +the room. +</p> + +<p> +‘She is not tall. She is rather short,’ he replied. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah!’ said his mother, with satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +‘But she’s very pretty—very. In fact, she’s +lovely.’ +</p> + +<p> +The youthful freshness of the yeoman’s wife had evidently made an +impression even on the somewhat hard nature of the boy. +</p> + +<p> +‘That’s all I want to hear,’ said his mother quickly. +‘Now, spread the table-cloth. The hare you caught is very tender; but +mind that nobody catches you.—You’ve never told me what sort of +hands she had.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I have never seen ’em. She never took off her gloves.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What did she wear this morning?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A white bonnet and a silver-coloured gownd. It whewed and whistled so +loud when it rubbed against the pews that the lady coloured up more than ever +for very shame at the noise, and pulled it in to keep it from touching; but +when she pushed into her seat, it whewed more than ever. Mr. Lodge, he seemed +pleased, and his waistcoat stuck out, and his great golden seals hung like a +lord’s; but she seemed to wish her noisy gownd anywhere but on +her.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Not she! However, that will do now.’ +</p> + +<p> +These descriptions of the newly-married couple were continued from time to time +by the boy at his mother’s request, after any chance encounter he had had +with them. But Rhoda Brook, though she might easily have seen young Mrs. Lodge +for herself by walking a couple of miles, would never attempt an excursion +towards the quarter where the farmhouse lay. Neither did she, at the daily +milking in the dairyman’s yard on Lodge’s outlying second farm, +ever speak on the subject of the recent marriage. The dairyman, who rented the +cows of Lodge, and knew perfectly the tall milkmaid’s history, with manly +kindliness always kept the gossip in the cow-barton from annoying Rhoda. But +the atmosphere thereabout was full of the subject during the first days of Mrs. +Lodge’s arrival; and from her boy’s description and the casual +words of the other milkers, Rhoda Brook could raise a mental image of the +unconscious Mrs Lodge that was realistic as a photograph. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER III—A VISION</h3> + +<p> +One night, two or three weeks after the bridal return, when the boy was gone to +bed, Rhoda sat a long time over the turf ashes that she had raked out in front +of her to extinguish them. She contemplated so intently the new wife, as +presented to her in her mind’s eye over the embers, that she forgot the +lapse of time. At last, wearied with her day’s work, she too retired. +</p> + +<p> +But the figure which had occupied her so much during this and the previous days +was not to be banished at night. For the first time Gertrude Lodge visited the +supplanted woman in her dreams. Rhoda Brook dreamed—since her assertion +that she really saw, before falling asleep, was not to be believed—that +the young wife, in the pale silk dress and white bonnet, but with features +shockingly distorted, and wrinkled as by age, was sitting upon her chest as she +lay. The pressure of Mrs. Lodge’s person grew heavier; the blue eyes +peered cruelly into her face; and then the figure thrust forward its left hand +mockingly, so as to make the wedding-ring it wore glitter in Rhoda’s +eyes. Maddened mentally, and nearly suffocated by pressure, the sleeper +struggled; the incubus, still regarding her, withdrew to the foot of the bed, +only, however, to come forward by degrees, resume her seat, and flash her left +hand as before. +</p> + +<p> +Gasping for breath, Rhoda, in a last desperate effort, swung out her right +hand, seized the confronting spectre by its obtrusive left arm, and whirled it +backward to the floor, starting up herself as she did so with a low cry. +</p> + +<p> +‘O, merciful heaven!’ she cried, sitting on the edge of the bed in +a cold sweat; ‘that was not a dream—she was here!’ +</p> + +<p> +She could feel her antagonist’s arm within her grasp even now—the +very flesh and bone of it, as it seemed. She looked on the floor whither she +had whirled the spectre, but there was nothing to be seen. +</p> + +<p> +Rhoda Brook slept no more that night, and when she went milking at the next +dawn they noticed how pale and haggard she looked. The milk that she drew +quivered into the pail; her hand had not calmed even yet, and still retained +the feel of the arm. She came home to breakfast as wearily as if it had been +suppertime. +</p> + +<p> +‘What was that noise in your chimmer, mother, last night?’ said her +son. ‘You fell off the bed, surely?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Did you hear anything fall? At what time?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Just when the clock struck two.’ +</p> + +<p> +She could not explain, and when the meal was done went silently about her +household work, the boy assisting her, for he hated going afield on the farms, +and she indulged his reluctance. Between eleven and twelve the garden-gate +clicked, and she lifted her eyes to the window. At the bottom of the garden, +within the gate, stood the woman of her vision. Rhoda seemed transfixed. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, she said she would come!’ exclaimed the boy, also observing +her. +</p> + +<p> +‘Said so—when? How does she know us?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I have seen and spoken to her. I talked to her yesterday.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I told you,’ said the mother, flushing indignantly, ‘never +to speak to anybody in that house, or go near the place.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I did not speak to her till she spoke to me. And I did not go near the +place. I met her in the road.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What did you tell her?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Nothing. She said, “Are you the poor boy who had to bring the +heavy load from market?” And she looked at my boots, and said they would +not keep my feet dry if it came on wet, because they were so cracked. I told +her I lived with my mother, and we had enough to do to keep ourselves, and +that’s how it was; and she said then, “I’ll come and bring +you some better boots, and see your mother.” She gives away things to +other folks in the meads besides us.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lodge was by this time close to the door—not in her silk, as Rhoda +had seen her in the bed-chamber, but in a morning hat, and gown of common light +material, which became her better than silk. On her arm she carried a basket. +</p> + +<p> +The impression remaining from the night’s experience was still strong. +Brook had almost expected to see the wrinkles, the scorn, and the cruelty on +her visitor’s face. +</p> + +<p> +She would have escaped an interview, had escape been possible. There was, +however, no backdoor to the cottage, and in an instant the boy had lifted the +latch to Mrs. Lodge’s gentle knock. +</p> + +<p> +‘I see I have come to the right house,’ said she, glancing at the +lad, and smiling. ‘But I was not sure till you opened the door.’ +</p> + +<p> +The figure and action were those of the phantom; but her voice was so +indescribably sweet, her glance so winning, her smile so tender, so unlike that +of Rhoda’s midnight visitant, that the latter could hardly believe the +evidence of her senses. She was truly glad that she had not hidden away in +sheer aversion, as she had been inclined to do. In her basket Mrs. Lodge +brought the pair of boots that she had promised to the boy, and other useful +articles. +</p> + +<p> +At these proofs of a kindly feeling towards her and hers Rhoda’s heart +reproached her bitterly. This innocent young thing should have her blessing and +not her curse. When she left them a light seemed gone from the dwelling. Two +days later she came again to know if the boots fitted; and less than a +fortnight after that paid Rhoda another call. On this occasion the boy was +absent. +</p> + +<p> +‘I walk a good deal,’ said Mrs. Lodge, ‘and your house is the +nearest outside our own parish. I hope you are well. You don’t look quite +well.’ +</p> + +<p> +Rhoda said she was well enough; and, indeed, though the paler of the two, there +was more of the strength that endures in her well-defined features and large +frame, than in the soft-cheeked young woman before her. The conversation became +quite confidential as regarded their powers and weaknesses; and when Mrs. Lodge +was leaving, Rhoda said, ‘I hope you will find this air agree with you, +ma’am, and not suffer from the damp of the water-meads.’ +</p> + +<p> +The younger one replied that there was not much doubt of it, her general health +being usually good. ‘Though, now you remind me,’ she added, +‘I have one little ailment which puzzles me. It is nothing serious, but I +cannot make it out.’ +</p> + +<p> +She uncovered her left hand and arm; and their outline confronted Rhoda’s +gaze as the exact original of the limb she had beheld and seized in her dream. +Upon the pink round surface of the arm were faint marks of an unhealthy colour, +as if produced by a rough grasp. Rhoda’s eyes became riveted on the +discolorations; she fancied that she discerned in them the shape of her own +four fingers. +</p> + +<p> +‘How did it happen?’ she said mechanically. +</p> + +<p> +‘I cannot tell,’ replied Mrs. Lodge, shaking her head. ‘One +night when I was sound asleep, dreaming I was away in some strange place, a +pain suddenly shot into my arm there, and was so keen as to awaken me. I must +have struck it in the daytime, I suppose, though I don’t remember doing +so.’ She added, laughing, ‘I tell my dear husband that it looks +just as if he had flown into a rage and struck me there. O, I daresay it will +soon disappear.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ha, ha! Yes . . . On what night did it come?’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lodge considered, and said it would be a fortnight ago on the morrow. +‘When I awoke I could not remember where I was,’ she added, +’till the clock striking two reminded me.’ +</p> + +<p> +She had named the night and the hour of Rhoda’s spectral encounter, and +Brook felt like a guilty thing. The artless disclosure startled her; she did +not reason on the freaks of coincidence; and all the scenery of that ghastly +night returned with double vividness to her mind. +</p> + +<p> +‘O, can it be,’ she said to herself, when her visitor had departed, +‘that I exercise a malignant power over people against my own +will?’ She knew that she had been slily called a witch since her fall; +but never having understood why that particular stigma had been attached to +her, it had passed disregarded. Could this be the explanation, and had such +things as this ever happened before? +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER IV—A SUGGESTION</h3> + +<p> +The summer drew on, and Rhoda Brook almost dreaded to meet Mrs. Lodge again, +notwithstanding that her feeling for the young wife amounted well-nigh to +affection. Something in her own individuality seemed to convict Rhoda of crime. +Yet a fatality sometimes would direct the steps of the latter to the outskirts +of Holmstoke whenever she left her house for any other purpose than her daily +work; and hence it happened that their next encounter was out of doors. Rhoda +could not avoid the subject which had so mystified her, and after the first few +words she stammered, ‘I hope your—arm is well again, +ma’am?’ She had perceived with consternation that Gertrude Lodge +carried her left arm stiffly. +</p> + +<p> +‘No; it is not quite well. Indeed it is no better at all; it is rather +worse. It pains me dreadfully sometimes.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Perhaps you had better go to a doctor, ma’am.’ +</p> + +<p> +She replied that she had already seen a doctor. Her husband had insisted upon +her going to one. But the surgeon had not seemed to understand the afflicted +limb at all; he had told her to bathe it in hot water, and she had bathed it, +but the treatment had done no good. +</p> + +<p> +‘Will you let me see it?’ said the milkwoman. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lodge pushed up her sleeve and disclosed the place, which was a few inches +above the wrist. As soon as Rhoda Brook saw it, she could hardly preserve her +composure. There was nothing of the nature of a wound, but the arm at that +point had a shrivelled look, and the outline of the four fingers appeared more +distinct than at the former time. Moreover, she fancied that they were +imprinted in precisely the relative position of her clutch upon the arm in the +trance; the first finger towards Gertrude’s wrist, and the fourth towards +her elbow. +</p> + +<p> +What the impress resembled seemed to have struck Gertrude herself since their +last meeting. ‘It looks almost like finger-marks,’ she said; adding +with a faint laugh, ‘my husband says it is as if some witch, or the devil +himself, had taken hold of me there, and blasted the flesh.’ +</p> + +<p> +Rhoda shivered. ‘That’s fancy,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I +wouldn’t mind it, if I were you.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I shouldn’t so much mind it,’ said the younger, with +hesitation, ‘if—if I hadn’t a notion that it makes my +husband—dislike me—no, love me less. Men think so much of personal +appearance.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Some do—he for one.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes; and he was very proud of mine, at first.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Keep your arm covered from his sight.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah—he knows the disfigurement is there!’ She tried to hide +the tears that filled her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, ma’am, I earnestly hope it will go away soon.’ +</p> + +<p> +And so the milkwoman’s mind was chained anew to the subject by a horrid +sort of spell as she returned home. The sense of having been guilty of an act +of malignity increased, affect as she might to ridicule her superstition. In +her secret heart Rhoda did not altogether object to a slight diminution of her +successor’s beauty, by whatever means it had come about; but she did not +wish to inflict upon her physical pain. For though this pretty young woman had +rendered impossible any reparation which Lodge might have made Rhoda for his +past conduct, everything like resentment at the unconscious usurpation had +quite passed away from the elder’s mind. +</p> + +<p> +If the sweet and kindly Gertrude Lodge only knew of the scene in the +bed-chamber, what would she think? Not to inform her of it seemed treachery in +the presence of her friendliness; but tell she could not of her own +accord—neither could she devise a remedy. +</p> + +<p> +She mused upon the matter the greater part of the night; and the next day, +after the morning milking, set out to obtain another glimpse of Gertrude Lodge +if she could, being held to her by a gruesome fascination. By watching the +house from a distance the milkmaid was presently able to discern the +farmer’s wife in a ride she was taking alone—probably to join her +husband in some distant field. Mrs. Lodge perceived her, and cantered in her +direction. +</p> + +<p> +‘Good morning, Rhoda!’ Gertrude said, when she had come up. +‘I was going to call.’ +</p> + +<p> +Rhoda noticed that Mrs. Lodge held the reins with some difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +‘I hope—the bad arm,’ said Rhoda. +</p> + +<p> +‘They tell me there is possibly one way by which I might be able to find +out the cause, and so perhaps the cure, of it,’ replied the other +anxiously. ‘It is by going to some clever man over in Egdon Heath. They +did not know if he was still alive—and I cannot remember his name at this +moment; but they said that you knew more of his movements than anybody else +hereabout, and could tell me if he were still to be consulted. Dear +me—what was his name? But you know.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Not Conjuror Trendle?’ said her thin companion, turning pale. +</p> + +<p> +‘Trendle—yes. Is he alive?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I believe so,’ said Rhoda, with reluctance. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why do you call him conjuror?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well—they say—they used to say he was a—he had powers +other folks have not.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O, how could my people be so superstitious as to recommend a man of that +sort! I thought they meant some medical man. I shall think no more of +him.’ +</p> + +<p> +Rhoda looked relieved, and Mrs. Lodge rode on. The milkwoman had inwardly seen, +from the moment she heard of her having been mentioned as a reference for this +man, that there must exist a sarcastic feeling among the work-folk that a +sorceress would know the whereabouts of the exorcist. They suspected her, then. +A short time ago this would have given no concern to a woman of her +common-sense. But she had a haunting reason to be superstitious now; and she +had been seized with sudden dread that this Conjuror Trendle might name her as +the malignant influence which was blasting the fair person of Gertrude, and so +lead her friend to hate her for ever, and to treat her as some fiend in human +shape. +</p> + +<p> +But all was not over. Two days after, a shadow intruded into the window-pattern +thrown on Rhoda Brook’s floor by the afternoon sun. The woman opened the +door at once, almost breathlessly. +</p> + +<p> +‘Are you alone?’ said Gertrude. She seemed to be no less harassed +and anxious than Brook herself. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said Rhoda. +</p> + +<p> +‘The place on my arm seems worse, and troubles me!’ the young +farmer’s wife went on. ‘It is so mysterious! I do hope it will not +be an incurable wound. I have again been thinking of what they said about +Conjuror Trendle. I don’t really believe in such men, but I should not +mind just visiting him, from curiosity—though on no account must my +husband know. Is it far to where he lives?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes—five miles,’ said Rhoda backwardly. ‘In the heart +of Egdon.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I should have to walk. Could not you go with me to show me the +way—say to-morrow afternoon?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O, not I—that is,’ the milkwoman murmured, with a start of +dismay. Again the dread seized her that something to do with her fierce act in +the dream might be revealed, and her character in the eyes of the most useful +friend she had ever had be ruined irretrievably. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lodge urged, and Rhoda finally assented, though with much misgiving. Sad +as the journey would be to her, she could not conscientiously stand in the way +of a possible remedy for her patron’s strange affliction. It was agreed +that, to escape suspicion of their mystic intent, they should meet at the edge +of the heath at the corner of a plantation which was visible from the spot +where they now stood. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER V—CONJUROR TRENDLE</h3> + +<p> +By the next afternoon Rhoda would have done anything to escape this inquiry. +But she had promised to go. Moreover, there was a horrid fascination at times +in becoming instrumental in throwing such possible light on her own character +as would reveal her to be something greater in the occult world than she had +ever herself suspected. +</p> + +<p> +She started just before the time of day mentioned between them, and +half-an-hour’s brisk walking brought her to the south-eastern extension +of the Egdon tract of country, where the fir plantation was. A slight figure, +cloaked and veiled, was already there. Rhoda recognized, almost with a shudder, +that Mrs. Lodge bore her left arm in a sling. +</p> + +<p> +They hardly spoke to each other, and immediately set out on their climb into +the interior of this solemn country, which stood high above the rich alluvial +soil they had left half-an-hour before. It was a long walk; thick clouds made +the atmosphere dark, though it was as yet only early afternoon; and the wind +howled dismally over the hills of the heath—not improbably the same heath +which had witnessed the agony of the Wessex King Ina, presented to after-ages +as Lear. Gertrude Lodge talked most, Rhoda replying with monosyllabic +preoccupation. She had a strange dislike to walking on the side of her +companion where hung the afflicted arm, moving round to the other when +inadvertently near it. Much heather had been brushed by their feet when they +descended upon a cart-track, beside which stood the house of the man they +sought. +</p> + +<p> +He did not profess his remedial practices openly, or care anything about their +continuance, his direct interests being those of a dealer in furze, turf, +‘sharp sand,’ and other local products. Indeed, he affected not to +believe largely in his own powers, and when warts that had been shown him for +cure miraculously disappeared—which it must be owned they infallibly +did—he would say lightly, ‘O, I only drink a glass of grog upon +’em—perhaps it’s all chance,’ and immediately turn the +subject. +</p> + +<p> +He was at home when they arrived, having in fact seen them descending into his +valley. He was a gray-bearded man, with a reddish face, and he looked +singularly at Rhoda the first moment he beheld her. Mrs. Lodge told him her +errand; and then with words of self-disparagement he examined her arm. +</p> + +<p> +‘Medicine can’t cure it,’ he said promptly. ‘’Tis +the work of an enemy.’ +</p> + +<p> +Rhoda shrank into herself, and drew back. +</p> + +<p> +‘An enemy? What enemy?’ asked Mrs. Lodge. +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. ‘That’s best known to yourself,’ he said. +‘If you like, I can show the person to you, though I shall not myself +know who it is. I can do no more; and don’t wish to do that.’ +</p> + +<p> +She pressed him; on which he told Rhoda to wait outside where she stood, and +took Mrs. Lodge into the room. It opened immediately from the door; and, as the +latter remained ajar, Rhoda Brook could see the proceedings without taking part +in them. He brought a tumbler from the dresser, nearly filled it with water, +and fetching an egg, prepared it in some private way; after which he broke it +on the edge of the glass, so that the white went in and the yolk remained. As +it was getting gloomy, he took the glass and its contents to the window, and +told Gertrude to watch them closely. They leant over the table together, and +the milkwoman could see the opaline hue of the egg-fluid changing form as it +sank in the water, but she was not near enough to define the shape that it +assumed. +</p> + +<p> +‘Do you catch the likeness of any face or figure as you look?’ +demanded the conjuror of the young woman. +</p> + +<p> +She murmured a reply, in tones so low as to be inaudible to Rhoda, and +continued to gaze intently into the glass. Rhoda turned, and walked a few steps +away. +</p> + +<p> +When Mrs. Lodge came out, and her face was met by the light, it appeared +exceedingly pale—as pale as Rhoda’s—against the sad dun +shades of the upland’s garniture. Trendle shut the door behind her, and +they at once started homeward together. But Rhoda perceived that her companion +had quite changed. +</p> + +<p> +‘Did he charge much?’ she asked tentatively. +</p> + +<p> +‘O no—nothing. He would not take a farthing,’ said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +‘And what did you see?’ inquired Rhoda. +</p> + +<p> +‘Nothing I—care to speak of.’ The constraint in her manner +was remarkable; her face was so rigid as to wear an oldened aspect, faintly +suggestive of the face in Rhoda’s bed-chamber. +</p> + +<p> +‘Was it you who first proposed coming here?’ Mrs. Lodge suddenly +inquired, after a long pause. ‘How very odd, if you did!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No. But I am not sorry we have come, all things considered,’ she +replied. For the first time a sense of triumph possessed her, and she did not +altogether deplore that the young thing at her side should learn that their +lives had been antagonized by other influences than their own. +</p> + +<p> +The subject was no more alluded to during the long and dreary walk home. But in +some way or other a story was whispered about the many-dairied lowland that +winter that Mrs. Lodge’s gradual loss of the use of her left arm was +owing to her being ‘overlooked’ by Rhoda Brook. The latter kept her +own counsel about the incubus, but her face grew sadder and thinner; and in the +spring she and her boy disappeared from the neighbourhood of Holmstoke. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER VI—A SECOND ATTEMPT</h3> + +<p> +Half-a-dozen years passed away, and Mr. and Mrs. Lodge’s married +experience sank into prosiness, and worse. The farmer was usually gloomy and +silent: the woman whom he had wooed for her grace and beauty was contorted and +disfigured in the left limb; moreover, she had brought him no child, which +rendered it likely that he would be the last of a family who had occupied that +valley for some two hundred years. He thought of Rhoda Brook and her son; and +feared this might be a judgment from heaven upon him. +</p> + +<p> +The once blithe-hearted and enlightened Gertrude was changing into an +irritable, superstitious woman, whose whole time was given to experimenting +upon her ailment with every quack remedy she came across. She was honestly +attached to her husband, and was ever secretly hoping against hope to win back +his heart again by regaining some at least of her personal beauty. Hence it +arose that her closet was lined with bottles, packets, and ointment-pots of +every description—nay, bunches of mystic herbs, charms, and books of +necromancy, which in her schoolgirl time she would have ridiculed as folly. +</p> + +<p> +‘Damned if you won’t poison yourself with these apothecary messes +and witch mixtures some time or other,’ said her husband, when his eye +chanced to fall upon the multitudinous array. +</p> + +<p> +She did not reply, but turned her sad, soft glance upon him in such +heart-swollen reproach that he looked sorry for his words, and added, ‘I +only meant it for your good, you know, Gertrude.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I’ll clear out the whole lot, and destroy them,’ said she +huskily, ‘and try such remedies no more!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You want somebody to cheer you,’ he observed. ‘I once +thought of adopting a boy; but he is too old now. And he is gone away I +don’t know where.’ +</p> + +<p> +She guessed to whom he alluded; for Rhoda Brook’s story had in the course +of years become known to her; though not a word had ever passed between her +husband and herself on the subject. Neither had she ever spoken to him of her +visit to Conjuror Trendle, and of what was revealed to her, or she thought was +revealed to her, by that solitary heath-man. +</p> + +<p> +She was now five-and-twenty; but she seemed older. +</p> + +<p> +‘Six years of marriage, and only a few months of love,’ she +sometimes whispered to herself. And then she thought of the apparent cause, and +said, with a tragic glance at her withering limb, ‘If I could only again +be as I was when he first saw me!’ +</p> + +<p> +She obediently destroyed her nostrums and charms; but there remained a +hankering wish to try something else—some other sort of cure altogether. +She had never revisited Trendle since she had been conducted to the house of +the solitary by Rhoda against her will; but it now suddenly occurred to +Gertrude that she would, in a last desperate effort at deliverance from this +seeming curse, again seek out the man, if he yet lived. He was entitled to a +certain credence, for the indistinct form he had raised in the glass had +undoubtedly resembled the only woman in the world who—as she now knew, +though not then—could have a reason for bearing her ill-will. The visit +should be paid. +</p> + +<p> +This time she went alone, though she nearly got lost on the heath, and roamed a +considerable distance out of her way. Trendle’s house was reached at +last, however: he was not indoors, and instead of waiting at the cottage, she +went to where his bent figure was pointed out to her at work a long way off. +Trendle remembered her, and laying down the handful of furze-roots which he was +gathering and throwing into a heap, he offered to accompany her in her homeward +direction, as the distance was considerable and the days were short. So they +walked together, his head bowed nearly to the earth, and his form of a colour +with it. +</p> + +<p> +‘You can send away warts and other excrescences I know,’ she said; +‘why can’t you send away this?’ And the arm was uncovered. +</p> + +<p> +‘You think too much of my powers!’ said Trendle; ‘and I am +old and weak now, too. No, no; it is too much for me to attempt in my own +person. What have ye tried?’ +</p> + +<p> +She named to him some of the hundred medicaments and counterspells which she +had adopted from time to time. He shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +‘Some were good enough,’ he said approvingly; ‘but not many +of them for such as this. This is of the nature of a blight, not of the nature +of a wound; and if you ever do throw it off; it will be all at once.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘If I only could!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘There is only one chance of doing it known to me. It has never failed in +kindred afflictions,—that I can declare. But it is hard to carry out, and +especially for a woman.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Tell me!’ said she. +</p> + +<p> +‘You must touch with the limb the neck of a man who’s been +hanged.’ +</p> + +<p> +She started a little at the image he had raised. +</p> + +<p> +‘Before he’s cold—just after he’s cut down,’ +continued the conjuror impassively. +</p> + +<p> +‘How can that do good?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It will turn the blood and change the constitution. But, as I say, to do +it is hard. You must get into jail, and wait for him when he’s brought +off the gallows. Lots have done it, though perhaps not such pretty women as +you. I used to send dozens for skin complaints. But that was in former times. +The last I sent was in ‘13—near twenty years ago.’ +</p> + +<p> +He had no more to tell her; and, when he had put her into a straight track +homeward, turned and left her, refusing all money as at first. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER VII—A RIDE</h3> + +<p> +The communication sank deep into Gertrude’s mind. Her nature was rather a +timid one; and probably of all remedies that the white wizard could have +suggested there was not one which would have filled her with so much aversion +as this, not to speak of the immense obstacles in the way of its adoption. +</p> + +<p> +Casterbridge, the county-town, was a dozen or fifteen miles off; and though in +those days, when men were executed for horse-stealing, arson, and burglary, an +assize seldom passed without a hanging, it was not likely that she could get +access to the body of the criminal unaided. And the fear of her husband’s +anger made her reluctant to breathe a word of Trendle’s suggestion to him +or to anybody about him. +</p> + +<p> +She did nothing for months, and patiently bore her disfigurement as before. But +her woman’s nature, craving for renewed love, through the medium of +renewed beauty (she was but twenty-five), was ever stimulating her to try what, +at any rate, could hardly do her any harm. ‘What came by a spell will go +by a spell surely,’ she would say. Whenever her imagination pictured the +act she shrank in terror from the possibility of it: then the words of the +conjuror, ‘It will turn your blood,’ were seen to be capable of a +scientific no less than a ghastly interpretation; the mastering desire +returned, and urged her on again. +</p> + +<p> +There was at this time but one county paper, and that her husband only +occasionally borrowed. But old-fashioned days had old-fashioned means, and news +was extensively conveyed by word of mouth from market to market, or from fair +to fair, so that, whenever such an event as an execution was about to take +place, few within a radius of twenty miles were ignorant of the coming sight; +and, so far as Holmstoke was concerned, some enthusiasts had been known to walk +all the way to Casterbridge and back in one day, solely to witness the +spectacle. The next assizes were in March; and when Gertrude Lodge heard that +they had been held, she inquired stealthily at the inn as to the result, as +soon as she could find opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +She was, however, too late. The time at which the sentences were to be carried +out had arrived, and to make the journey and obtain admission at such short +notice required at least her husband’s assistance. She dared not tell +him, for she had found by delicate experiment that these smouldering village +beliefs made him furious if mentioned, partly because he half entertained them +himself. It was therefore necessary to wait for another opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +Her determination received a fillip from learning that two epileptic children +had attended from this very village of Holmstoke many years before with +beneficial results, though the experiment had been strongly condemned by the +neighbouring clergy. April, May, June, passed; and it is no overstatement to +say that by the end of the last-named month Gertrude well-nigh longed for the +death of a fellow-creature. Instead of her formal prayers each night, her +unconscious prayer was, ‘O Lord, hang some guilty or innocent person +soon!’ +</p> + +<p> +This time she made earlier inquiries, and was altogether more systematic in her +proceedings. Moreover, the season was summer, between the haymaking and the +harvest, and in the leisure thus afforded him her husband had been +holiday-taking away from home. +</p> + +<p> +The assizes were in July, and she went to the inn as before. There was to be +one execution—only one—for arson. +</p> + +<p> +Her greatest problem was not how to get to Casterbridge, but what means she +should adopt for obtaining admission to the jail. Though access for such +purposes had formerly never been denied, the custom had fallen into desuetude; +and in contemplating her possible difficulties, she was again almost driven to +fall back upon her husband. But, on sounding him about the assizes, he was so +uncommunicative, so more than usually cold, that she did not proceed, and +decided that whatever she did she would do alone. +</p> + +<p> +Fortune, obdurate hitherto, showed her unexpected favour. On the Thursday +before the Saturday fixed for the execution, Lodge remarked to her that he was +going away from home for another day or two on business at a fair, and that he +was sorry he could not take her with him. +</p> + +<p> +She exhibited on this occasion so much readiness to stay at home that he looked +at her in surprise. Time had been when she would have shown deep disappointment +at the loss of such a jaunt. However, he lapsed into his usual taciturnity, and +on the day named left Holmstoke. +</p> + +<p> +It was now her turn. She at first had thought of driving, but on reflection +held that driving would not do, since it would necessitate her keeping to the +turnpike-road, and so increase by tenfold the risk of her ghastly errand being +found out. She decided to ride, and avoid the beaten track, notwithstanding +that in her husband’s stables there was no animal just at present which +by any stretch of imagination could be considered a lady’s mount, in +spite of his promise before marriage to always keep a mare for her. He had, +however, many cart-horses, fine ones of their kind; and among the rest was a +serviceable creature, an equine Amazon, with a back as broad as a sofa, on +which Gertrude had occasionally taken an airing when unwell. This horse she +chose. +</p> + +<p> +On Friday afternoon one of the men brought it round. She was dressed, and +before going down looked at her shrivelled arm. ‘Ah!’ she said to +it, ‘if it had not been for you this terrible ordeal would have been +saved me!’ +</p> + +<p> +When strapping up the bundle in which she carried a few articles of clothing, +she took occasion to say to the servant, ‘I take these in case I should +not get back to-night from the person I am going to visit. Don’t be +alarmed if I am not in by ten, and close up the house as usual. I shall be at +home to-morrow for certain.’ She meant then to privately tell her +husband: the deed accomplished was not like the deed projected. He would almost +certainly forgive her. +</p> + +<p> +And then the pretty palpitating Gertrude Lodge went from her husband’s +homestead; but though her goal was Casterbridge she did not take the direct +route thither through Stickleford. Her cunning course at first was in precisely +the opposite direction. As soon as she was out of sight, however, she turned to +the left, by a road which led into Egdon, and on entering the heath wheeled +round, and set out in the true course, due westerly. A more private way down +the county could not be imagined; and as to direction, she had merely to keep +her horse’s head to a point a little to the right of the sun. She knew +that she would light upon a furze-cutter or cottager of some sort from time to +time, from whom she might correct her bearing. +</p> + +<p> +Though the date was comparatively recent, Egdon was much less fragmentary in +character than now. The attempts—successful and otherwise—at +cultivation on the lower slopes, which intrude and break up the original heath +into small detached heaths, had not been carried far; Enclosure Acts had not +taken effect, and the banks and fences which now exclude the cattle of those +villagers who formerly enjoyed rights of commonage thereon, and the carts of +those who had turbary privileges which kept them in firing all the year round, +were not erected. Gertrude, therefore, rode along with no other obstacles than +the prickly furze bushes, the mats of heather, the white water-courses, and the +natural steeps and declivities of the ground. +</p> + +<p> +Her horse was sure, if heavy-footed and slow, and though a draught animal, was +easy-paced; had it been otherwise, she was not a woman who could have ventured +to ride over such a bit of country with a half-dead arm. It was therefore +nearly eight o’clock when she drew rein to breathe the mare on the last +outlying high point of heath-land towards Casterbridge, previous to leaving +Egdon for the cultivated valleys. +</p> + +<p> +She halted before a pool called Rushy-pond, flanked by the ends of two hedges; +a railing ran through the centre of the pond, dividing it in half. Over the +railing she saw the low green country; over the green trees the roofs of the +town; over the roofs a white flat façade, denoting the entrance to the +county jail. On the roof of this front specks were moving about; they seemed to +be workmen erecting something. Her flesh crept. She descended slowly, and was +soon amid corn-fields and pastures. In another half-hour, when it was almost +dusk, Gertrude reached the White Hart, the first inn of the town on that side. +</p> + +<p> +Little surprise was excited by her arrival; farmers’ wives rode on +horseback then more than they do now; though, for that matter, Mrs. Lodge was +not imagined to be a wife at all; the innkeeper supposed her some harum-skarum +young woman who had come to attend ‘hang-fair’ next day. Neither +her husband nor herself ever dealt in Casterbridge market, so that she was +unknown. While dismounting she beheld a crowd of boys standing at the door of a +harness-maker’s shop just above the inn, looking inside it with deep +interest. +</p> + +<p> +‘What is going on there?’ she asked of the ostler. +</p> + +<p> +‘Making the rope for to-morrow.’ +</p> + +<p> +She throbbed responsively, and contracted her arm. +</p> + +<p> +‘’Tis sold by the inch afterwards,’ the man continued. +‘I could get you a bit, miss, for nothing, if you’d like?’ +</p> + +<p> +She hastily repudiated any such wish, all the more from a curious creeping +feeling that the condemned wretch’s destiny was becoming interwoven with +her own; and having engaged a room for the night, sat down to think. +</p> + +<p> +Up to this time she had formed but the vaguest notions about her means of +obtaining access to the prison. The words of the cunning-man returned to her +mind. He had implied that she should use her beauty, impaired though it was, as +a pass-key. In her inexperience she knew little about jail functionaries; she +had heard of a high-sheriff and an under-sheriff; but dimly only. She knew, +however, that there must be a hangman, and to the hangman she determined to +apply. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER VIII—A WATER-SIDE HERMIT</h3> + +<p> +At this date, and for several years after, there was a hangman to almost every +jail. Gertrude found, on inquiry, that the Casterbridge official dwelt in a +lonely cottage by a deep slow river flowing under the cliff on which the prison +buildings were situate—the stream being the self-same one, though she did +not know it, which watered the Stickleford and Holmstoke meads lower down in +its course. +</p> + +<p> +Having changed her dress, and before she had eaten or drunk—for she could +not take her ease till she had ascertained some particulars—Gertrude +pursued her way by a path along the water-side to the cottage indicated. +Passing thus the outskirts of the jail, she discerned on the level roof over +the gateway three rectangular lines against the sky, where the specks had been +moving in her distant view; she recognized what the erection was, and passed +quickly on. Another hundred yards brought her to the executioner’s house, +which a boy pointed out It stood close to the same stream, and was hard by a +weir, the waters of which emitted a steady roar. +</p> + +<p> +While she stood hesitating the door opened, and an old man came forth shading a +candle with one hand. Locking the door on the outside, he turned to a flight of +wooden steps fixed against the end of the cottage, and began to ascend them, +this being evidently the staircase to his bedroom. Gertrude hastened forward, +but by the time she reached the foot of the ladder he was at the top. She +called to him loudly enough to be heard above the roar of the weir; he looked +down and said, ‘What d’ye want here?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘To speak to you a minute.’ +</p> + +<p> +The candle-light, such as it was, fell upon her imploring, pale, upturned face, +and Davies (as the hangman was called) backed down the ladder. ‘I was +just going to bed,’ he said; ‘“Early to bed and early to +rise,” but I don’t mind stopping a minute for such a one as you. +Come into house.’ He reopened the door, and preceded her to the room +within. +</p> + +<p> +The implements of his daily work, which was that of a jobbing gardener, stood +in a corner, and seeing probably that she looked rural, he said, ‘If you +want me to undertake country work I can’t come, for I never leave +Casterbridge for gentle nor simple—not I. My real calling is officer of +justice,’ he added formally. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes! That’s it. To-morrow!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah! I thought so. Well, what’s the matter about that? ’Tis +no use to come here about the knot—folks do come continually, but I tell +’em one knot is as merciful as another if ye keep it under the ear. Is +the unfortunate man a relation; or, I should say, perhaps’ (looking at +her dress) ‘a person who’s been in your employ?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No. What time is the execution?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘The same as usual—twelve o’clock, or as soon after as the +London mail-coach gets in. We always wait for that, in case of a +reprieve.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O—a reprieve—I hope not!’ she said involuntarily, +</p> + +<p> +‘Well,—hee, hee!—as a matter of business, so do I! But still, +if ever a young fellow deserved to be let off, this one does; only just turned +eighteen, and only present by chance when the rick was fired. Howsomever, +there’s not much risk of it, as they are obliged to make an example of +him, there having been so much destruction of property that way lately.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I mean,’ she explained, ‘that I want to touch him for a +charm, a cure of an affliction, by the advice of a man who has proved the +virtue of the remedy.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O yes, miss! Now I understand. I’ve had such people come in past +years. But it didn’t strike me that you looked of a sort to require +blood-turning. What’s the complaint? The wrong kind for this, I’ll +be bound.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘My arm.’ She reluctantly showed the withered skin. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah—’tis all a-scram!’ said the hangman, examining it. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said she. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well,’ he continued, with interest, ‘that <i>is</i> the +class o’ subject, I’m bound to admit! I like the look of the place; +it is truly as suitable for the cure as any I ever saw. ’Twas a +knowing-man that sent ‘ee, whoever he was.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You can contrive for me all that’s necessary?’ she said +breathlessly. +</p> + +<p> +‘You should really have gone to the governor of the jail, and your doctor +with ‘ee, and given your name and address—that’s how it used +to be done, if I recollect. Still, perhaps, I can manage it for a trifling +fee.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O, thank you! I would rather do it this way, as I should like it kept +private.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Lover not to know, eh?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No—husband.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Aha! Very well. I’ll get ee’ a touch of the corpse.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Where is it now?’ she said, shuddering. +</p> + +<p> +‘It?<i>—he</i>, you mean; he’s living yet. Just inside that +little small winder up there in the glum.’ He signified the jail on the +cliff above. +</p> + +<p> +She thought of her husband and her friends. ‘Yes, of course,’ she +said; ‘and how am I to proceed?’ +</p> + +<p> +He took her to the door. ‘Now, do you be waiting at the little wicket in +the wall, that you’ll find up there in the lane, not later than one +o’clock. I will open it from the inside, as I shan’t come home to +dinner till he’s cut down. Good-night. Be punctual; and if you +don’t want anybody to know ‘ee, wear a veil. Ah—once I had +such a daughter as you!’ +</p> + +<p> +She went away, and climbed the path above, to assure herself that she would be +able to find the wicket next day. Its outline was soon visible to her—a +narrow opening in the outer wall of the prison precincts. The steep was so +great that, having reached the wicket, she stopped a moment to breathe; and, +looking back upon the water-side cot, saw the hangman again ascending his +outdoor staircase. He entered the loft or chamber to which it led, and in a few +minutes extinguished his light. +</p> + +<p> +The town clock struck ten, and she returned to the White Hart as she had come. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER IX—A RENCOUNTER</h3> + +<p> +It was one o’clock on Saturday. Gertrude Lodge, having been admitted to +the jail as above described, was sitting in a waiting-room within the second +gate, which stood under a classic archway of ashlar, then comparatively modern, +and bearing the inscription, ‘COVNTY JAIL: 1793.’ This had been the +façade she saw from the heath the day before. Near at hand was a passage +to the roof on which the gallows stood. +</p> + +<p> +The town was thronged, and the market suspended; but Gertrude had seen scarcely +a soul. Having kept her room till the hour of the appointment, she had +proceeded to the spot by a way which avoided the open space below the cliff +where the spectators had gathered; but she could, even now, hear the +multitudinous babble of their voices, out of which rose at intervals the hoarse +croak of a single voice uttering the words, ‘Last dying speech and +confession!’ There had been no reprieve, and the execution was over; but +the crowd still waited to see the body taken down. +</p> + +<p> +Soon the persistent girl heard a trampling overhead, then a hand beckoned to +her, and, following directions, she went out and crossed the inner paved court +beyond the gatehouse, her knees trembling so that she could scarcely walk. One +of her arms was out of its sleeve, and only covered by her shawl. +</p> + +<p> +On the spot at which she had now arrived were two trestles, and before she +could think of their purpose she heard heavy feet descending stairs somewhere +at her back. Turn her head she would not, or could not, and, rigid in this +position, she was conscious of a rough coffin passing her shoulder, borne by +four men. It was open, and in it lay the body of a young man, wearing the +smockfrock of a rustic, and fustian breeches. The corpse had been thrown into +the coffin so hastily that the skirt of the smockfrock was hanging over. The +burden was temporarily deposited on the trestles. +</p> + +<p> +By this time the young woman’s state was such that a gray mist seemed to +float before her eyes, on account of which, and the veil she wore, she could +scarcely discern anything: it was as though she had nearly died, but was held +up by a sort of galvanism. +</p> + +<p> +‘Now!’ said a voice close at hand, and she was just conscious that +the word had been addressed to her. +</p> + +<p> +By a last strenuous effort she advanced, at the same time hearing persons +approaching behind her. She bared her poor curst arm; and Davies, uncovering +the face of the corpse, took Gertrude’s hand, and held it so that her arm +lay across the dead man’s neck, upon a line the colour of an unripe +blackberry, which surrounded it. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude shrieked: ‘the turn o’ the blood,’ predicted by the +conjuror, had taken place. But at that moment a second shriek rent the air of +the enclosure: it was not Gertrude’s, and its effect upon her was to make +her start round. +</p> + +<p> +Immediately behind her stood Rhoda Brook, her face drawn, and her eyes red with +weeping. Behind Rhoda stood Gertrude’s own husband; his countenance +lined, his eyes dim, but without a tear. +</p> + +<p> +‘D-n you! what are you doing here?’ he said hoarsely. +</p> + +<p> +‘Hussy—to come between us and our child now!’ cried Rhoda. +‘This is the meaning of what Satan showed me in the vision! You are like +her at last!’ And clutching the bare arm of the younger woman, she pulled +her unresistingly back against the wall. Immediately Brook had loosened her +hold the fragile young Gertrude slid down against the feet of her husband. When +he lifted her up she was unconscious. +</p> + +<p> +The mere sight of the twain had been enough to suggest to her that the dead +young man was Rhoda’s son. At that time the relatives of an executed +convict had the privilege of claiming the body for burial, if they chose to do +so; and it was for this purpose that Lodge was awaiting the inquest with Rhoda. +He had been summoned by her as soon as the young man was taken in the crime, +and at different times since; and he had attended in court during the trial. +This was the ‘holiday’ he had been indulging in of late. The two +wretched parents had wished to avoid exposure; and hence had come themselves +for the body, a waggon and sheet for its conveyance and covering being in +waiting outside. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude’s case was so serious that it was deemed advisable to call to +her the surgeon who was at hand. She was taken out of the jail into the town; +but she never reached home alive. Her delicate vitality, sapped perhaps by the +paralyzed arm, collapsed under the double shock that followed the severe +strain, physical and mental, to which she had subjected herself during the +previous twenty-four hours. Her blood had been ‘turned’ +indeed—too far. Her death took place in the town three days after. +</p> + +<p> +Her husband was never seen in Casterbridge again; once only in the old +market-place at Anglebury, which he had so much frequented, and very seldom in +public anywhere. Burdened at first with moodiness and remorse, he eventually +changed for the better, and appeared as a chastened and thoughtful man. Soon +after attending the funeral of his poor young wife he took steps towards giving +up the farms in Holmstoke and the adjoining parish, and, having sold every head +of his stock, he went away to Port-Bredy, at the other end of the county, +living there in solitary lodgings till his death two years later of a painless +decline. It was then found that he had bequeathed the whole of his not +inconsiderable property to a reformatory for boys, subject to the payment of a +small annuity to Rhoda Brook, if she could be found to claim it. +</p> + +<p> +For some time she could not be found; but eventually she reappeared in her old +parish,—absolutely refusing, however, to have anything to do with the +provision made for her. Her monotonous milking at the dairy was resumed, and +followed for many long years, till her form became bent, and her once abundant +dark hair white and worn away at the forehead—perhaps by long pressure +against the cows. Here, sometimes, those who knew her experiences would stand +and observe her, and wonder what sombre thoughts were beating inside that +impassive, wrinkled brow, to the rhythm of the alternating milk-streams. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +(‘<i>Blackwood’s Magazine</i>,’ <i>January</i> 1888.) +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>FELLOW-TOWNSMEN</h2> + +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<p> +The shepherd on the east hill could shout out lambing intelligence to the +shepherd on the west hill, over the intervening town chimneys, without great +inconvenience to his voice, so nearly did the steep pastures encroach upon the +burghers’ backyards. And at night it was possible to stand in the very +midst of the town and hear from their native paddocks on the lower levels of +greensward the mild lowing of the farmer’s heifers, and the profound, +warm blowings of breath in which those creatures indulge. But the community +which had jammed itself in the valley thus flanked formed a veritable town, +with a real mayor and corporation, and a staple manufacture. +</p> + +<p> +During a certain damp evening five-and-thirty years ago, before the twilight +was far advanced, a pedestrian of professional appearance, carrying a small bag +in his hand and an elevated umbrella, was descending one of these hills by the +turnpike road when he was overtaken by a phaeton. +</p> + +<p> +‘Hullo, Downe—is that you?’ said the driver of the vehicle, a +young man of pale and refined appearance. ‘Jump up here with me, and ride +down to your door.’ +</p> + +<p> +The other turned a plump, cheery, rather self-indulgent face over his shoulder +towards the hailer. +</p> + +<p> +‘O, good evening, Mr. Barnet—thanks,’ he said, and mounted +beside his acquaintance. +</p> + +<p> +They were fellow-burgesses of the town which lay beneath them, but though old +and very good friends, they were differently circumstanced. Barnet was a richer +man than the struggling young lawyer Downe, a fact which was to some extent +perceptible in Downe’s manner towards his companion, though nothing of it +ever showed in Barnet’s manner towards the solicitor. Barnet’s +position in the town was none of his own making; his father had been a very +successful flax-merchant in the same place, where the trade was still carried +on as briskly as the small capacities of its quarters would allow. Having +acquired a fair fortune, old Mr. Barnet had retired from business, bringing up +his son as a gentleman-burgher, and, it must be added, as a well-educated, +liberal-minded young man. +</p> + +<p> +‘How is Mrs. Barnet?’ asked Downe. +</p> + +<p> +‘Mrs. Barnet was very well when I left home,’ the other answered +constrainedly, exchanging his meditative regard of the horse for one of +self-consciousness. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Downe seemed to regret his inquiry, and immediately took up another thread +of conversation. He congratulated his friend on his election as a council-man; +he thought he had not seen him since that event took place; Mrs. Downe had +meant to call and congratulate Mrs. Barnet, but he feared that she had failed +to do so as yet. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet seemed hampered in his replies. <i>‘We</i> should have been glad +to see you. I—my wife would welcome Mrs. Downe at any time, as you know . +. . Yes, I am a member of the corporation—rather an inexperienced member, +some of them say. It is quite true; and I should have declined the honour as +premature—having other things on my hands just now, too—if it had +not been pressed upon me so very heartily.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘There is one thing you have on your hands which I can never quite see +the necessity for,’ said Downe, with good-humoured freedom. ‘What +the deuce do you want to build that new mansion for, when you have already got +such an excellent house as the one you live in?’ +</p> + +<p> +Barnet’s face acquired a warmer shade of colour; but as the question had +been idly asked by the solicitor while regarding the surrounding flocks and +fields, he answered after a moment with no apparent embarrassment— +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, we wanted to get out of the town, you know: the house I am living +in is rather old and inconvenient.’ Mr. Downe declared that he had chosen +a pretty site for the new building. They would be able to see for miles and +miles from the windows. Was he going to give it a name? He supposed so. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet thought not. There was no other house near that was likely to be +mistaken for it. And he did not care for a name. +</p> + +<p> +‘But I think it has a name!’ Downe observed: ‘I went +past—when was it?—this morning; and I saw +something,—“Château Ringdale,” I think it was, stuck up +on a board!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It was an idea she—we had for a short time,’ said Barnet +hastily. ‘But we have decided finally to do without a name—at any +rate such a name as that. It must have been a week ago that you saw it. It was +taken down last Saturday . . . Upon that matter I am firm!’ he added +grimly. +</p> + +<p> +Downe murmured in an unconvinced tone that he thought he had seen it yesterday. +</p> + +<p> +Talking thus they drove into the town. The street was unusually still for the +hour of seven in the evening; an increasing drizzle had prevailed since the +afternoon, and now formed a gauze across the yellow lamps, and trickled with a +gentle rattle down the heavy roofs of stone tile, that bent the house-ridges +hollow-backed with its weight, and in some instances caused the walls to bulge +outwards in the upper story. Their route took them past the little town-hall, +the Black-Bull Hotel, and onward to the junction of a small street on the +right, consisting of a row of those two-and-two windowed brick residences of no +particular age, which are exactly alike wherever found, except in the people +they contain. +</p> + +<p> +‘Wait—I’ll drive you up to your door,’ said Barnet, +when Downe prepared to alight at the corner. He thereupon turned into the +narrow street, when the faces of three little girls could be discerned close to +the panes of a lighted window a few yards ahead, surmounted by that of a young +matron, the gaze of all four being directed eagerly up the empty street. +‘You are a fortunate fellow, Downe,’ Barnet continued, as mother +and children disappeared from the window to run to the door. ‘You must be +happy if any man is. I would give a hundred such houses as my new one to have a +home like yours.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well—yes, we get along pretty comfortably,’ replied Downe +complacently. +</p> + +<p> +‘That house, Downe, is none of my ordering,’ Barnet broke out, +revealing a bitterness hitherto suppressed, and checking the horse a moment to +finish his speech before delivering up his passenger. ‘The house I have +already is good enough for me, as you supposed. It is my own freehold; it was +built by my grandfather, and is stout enough for a castle. My father was born +there, lived there, and died there. I was born there, and have always lived +there; yet I must needs build a new one.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Why do you?’ said Downe. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why do I? To preserve peace in the household. I do anything for that; +but I don’t succeed. I was firm in resisting “Château +Ringdale,” however; not that I would not have put up with the absurdity +of the name, but it was too much to have your house christened after Lord +Ringdale, because your wife once had a fancy for him. If you only knew +everything, you would think all attempt at reconciliation hopeless. In your +happy home you have had no such experiences; and God forbid that you ever +should. See, here they are all ready to receive you!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Of course! And so will your wife be waiting to receive you,’ said +Downe. ‘Take my word for it she will! And with a dinner prepared for you +far better than mine.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I hope so,’ Barnet replied dubiously. +</p> + +<p> +He moved on to Downe’s door, which the solicitor’s family had +already opened. Downe descended, but being encumbered with his bag and +umbrella, his foot slipped, and he fell upon his knees in the gutter. +</p> + +<p> +‘O, my dear Charles!’ said his wife, running down the steps; and, +quite ignoring the presence of Barnet, she seized hold of her husband, pulled +him to his feet, and kissed him, exclaiming, ‘I hope you are not hurt, +darling!’ The children crowded round, chiming in piteously, ‘Poor +papa!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He’s all right,’ said Barnet, perceiving that Downe was only +a little muddy, and looking more at the wife than at the husband. Almost at any +other time—certainly during his fastidious bachelor years—he would +have thought her a too demonstrative woman; but those recent circumstances of +his own life to which he had just alluded made Mrs. Downe’s solicitude so +affecting that his eye grew damp as he witnessed it. Bidding the lawyer and his +family good-night he left them, and drove slowly into the main street towards +his own house. +</p> + +<p> +The heart of Barnet was sufficiently impressionable to be influenced by +Downe’s parting prophecy that he might not be so unwelcome home as he +imagined: the dreary night might, at least on this one occasion, make +Downe’s forecast true. Hence it was in a suspense that he could hardly +have believed possible that he halted at his door. On entering his wife was +nowhere to be seen, and he inquired for her. The servant informed him that her +mistress had the dressmaker with her, and would be engaged for some time. +</p> + +<p> +‘Dressmaker at this time of day!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘She dined early, sir, and hopes you will excuse her joining you this +evening.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But she knew I was coming to-night?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O yes, sir.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Go up and tell her I am come.’ +</p> + +<p> +The servant did so; but the mistress of the house merely transmitted her former +words. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet said nothing more, and presently sat down to his lonely meal, which was +eaten abstractedly, the domestic scene he had lately witnessed still impressing +him by its contrast with the situation here. His mind fell back into past years +upon a certain pleasing and gentle being whose face would loom out of their +shades at such times as these. Barnet turned in his chair, and looked with +unfocused eyes in a direction southward from where he sat, as if he saw not the +room but a long way beyond. ‘I wonder if she lives there still!’ he +said. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<p> +He rose with a sudden rebelliousness, put on his hat and coat, and went out of +the house, pursuing his way along the glistening pavement while eight +o’clock was striking from St. Mary’s tower, and the apprentices and +shopmen were slamming up the shutters from end to end of the town. In two +minutes only those shops which could boast of no attendant save the master or +the mistress remained with open eyes. These were ever somewhat less prompt to +exclude customers than the others: for their owners’ ears the closing +hour had scarcely the cheerfulness that it possessed for the hired servants of +the rest. Yet the night being dreary the delay was not for long, and their +windows, too, blinked together one by one. +</p> + +<p> +During this time Barnet had proceeded with decided step in a direction at right +angles to the broad main thoroughfare of the town, by a long street leading due +southward. Here, though his family had no more to do with the flax manufacture, +his own name occasionally greeted him on gates and warehouses, being used +allusively by small rising tradesmen as a recommendation, in such words as +‘Smith, from Barnet & Co.’—‘Robinson, late manager +at Barnet’s.’ The sight led him to reflect upon his father’s +busy life, and he questioned if it had not been far happier than his own. +</p> + +<p> +The houses along the road became fewer, and presently open ground appeared +between them on either side, the track on the right hand rising to a higher +level till it merged in a knoll. On the summit a row of builders’ +scaffold-poles probed the indistinct sky like spears, and at their bases could +be discerned the lower courses of a building lately begun. Barnet slackened his +pace and stood for a few moments without leaving the centre of the road, +apparently not much interested in the sight, till suddenly his eye was caught +by a post in the fore part of the ground bearing a white board at the top. He +went to the rails, vaulted over, and walked in far enough to discern painted +upon the board ‘Château Ringdale.’ +</p> + +<p> +A dismal irony seemed to lie in the words, and its effect was to irritate him. +Downe, then, had spoken truly. He stuck his umbrella into the sod, and seized +the post with both hands, as if intending to loosen and throw it down. Then, +like one bewildered by an opposition which would exist none the less though its +manifestations were removed, he allowed his arms to sink to his side. +</p> + +<p> +‘Let it be,’ he said to himself. ‘I have declared there shall +be peace—if possible.’ +</p> + +<p> +Taking up his umbrella he quietly left the enclosure, and went on his way, +still keeping his back to the town. He had advanced with more decision since +passing the new building, and soon a hoarse murmur rose upon the gloom; it was +the sound of the sea. The road led to the harbour, at a distance of a mile from +the town, from which the trade of the district was fed. After seeing the +obnoxious name-board Barnet had forgotten to open his umbrella, and the rain +tapped smartly on his hat, and occasionally stroked his face as he went on. +</p> + +<p> +Though the lamps were still continued at the roadside, they stood at wider +intervals than before, and the pavement had given place to common road. Every +time he came to a lamp an increasing shine made itself visible upon his +shoulders, till at last they quite glistened with wet. The murmur from the +shore grew stronger, but it was still some distance off when he paused before +one of the smallest of the detached houses by the wayside, standing in its own +garden, the latter being divided from the road by a row of wooden palings. +Scrutinizing the spot to ensure that he was not mistaken, he opened the gate +and gently knocked at the cottage door. +</p> + +<p> +When he had patiently waited minutes enough to lead any man in ordinary cases +to knock again, the door was heard to open, though it was impossible to see by +whose hand, there being no light in the passage. Barnet said at random, +‘Does Miss Savile live here?’ +</p> + +<p> +A youthful voice assured him that she did live there, and by a sudden +afterthought asked him to come in. It would soon get a light, it said: but the +night being wet, mother had not thought it worth while to trim the passage +lamp. +</p> + +<p> +‘Don’t trouble yourself to get a light for me,’ said Barnet +hastily; ‘it is not necessary at all. Which is Miss Savile’s +sitting-room?’ +</p> + +<p> +The young person, whose white pinafore could just be discerned, signified a +door in the side of the passage, and Barnet went forward at the same moment, so +that no light should fall upon his face. On entering the room he closed the +door behind him, pausing till he heard the retreating footsteps of the child. +</p> + +<p> +He found himself in an apartment which was simply and neatly, though not poorly +furnished; everything, from the miniature chiffonnier to the shining little +daguerreotype which formed the central ornament of the mantelpiece, being in +scrupulous order. The picture was enclosed by a frame of embroidered +card-board—evidently the work of feminine hands—and it was the +portrait of a thin faced, elderly lieutenant in the navy. From behind the lamp +on the table a female form now rose into view, that of a young girl, and a +resemblance between her and the portrait was early discoverable. She had been +so absorbed in some occupation on the other side of the lamp as to have barely +found time to realize her visitor’s presence. +</p> + +<p> +They both remained standing for a few seconds without speaking. The face that +confronted Barnet had a beautiful outline; the Raffaelesque oval of its contour +was remarkable for an English countenance, and that countenance housed in a +remote country-road to an unheard-of harbour. But her features did not do +justice to this splendid beginning: Nature had recollected that she was not in +Italy; and the young lady’s lineaments, though not so inconsistent as to +make her plain, would have been accepted rather as pleasing than as correct. +The preoccupied expression which, like images on the retina, remained with her +for a moment after the state that caused it had ceased, now changed into a +reserved, half-proud, and slightly indignant look, in which the blood diffused +itself quickly across her cheek, and additional brightness broke the shade of +her rather heavy eyes. +</p> + +<p> +‘I know I have no business here,’ he said, answering the look. +‘But I had a great wish to see you, and inquire how you were. You can +give your hand to me, seeing how often I have held it in past days?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I would rather forget than remember all that, Mr. Barnet,’ she +answered, as she coldly complied with the request. ‘When I think of the +circumstances of our last meeting, I can hardly consider it kind of you to +allude to such a thing as our past—or, indeed, to come here at +all.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘There was no harm in it surely? I don’t trouble you often, +Lucy.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I have not had the honour of a visit from you for a very long time, +certainly, and I did not expect it now,’ she said, with the same +stiffness in her air. ‘I hope Mrs. Barnet is very well?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes!’ he impatiently returned. ‘At least I suppose +so—though I only speak from inference!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But she is your wife, sir,’ said the young girl tremulously. +</p> + +<p> +The unwonted tones of a man’s voice in that feminine chamber had startled +a canary that was roosting in its cage by the window; the bird awoke hastily, +and fluttered against the bars. She went and stilled it by laying her face +against the cage and murmuring a coaxing sound. It might partly have been done +to still herself. +</p> + +<p> +‘I didn’t come to talk of Mrs. Barnet,’ he pursued; ‘I +came to talk of you, of yourself alone; to inquire how you are getting on since +your great loss.’ And he turned towards the portrait of her father. +</p> + +<p> +‘I am getting on fairly well, thank you.’ +</p> + +<p> +The force of her utterance was scarcely borne out by her look; but Barnet +courteously reproached himself for not having guessed a thing so natural; and +to dissipate all embarrassment, added, as he bent over the table, ‘What +were you doing when I came?—painting flowers, and by candlelight?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O no,’ she said, ‘not painting them—only sketching the +outlines. I do that at night to save time—I have to get three dozen done +by the end of the month.’ +</p> + +<p> +Barnet looked as if he regretted it deeply. ‘You will wear your poor eyes +out,’ he said, with more sentiment than he had hitherto shown. ‘You +ought not to do it. There was a time when I should have said you must not. +Well—I almost wish I had never seen light with my own eyes when I think +of that!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Is this a time or place for recalling such matters?’ she asked, +with dignity. ‘You used to have a gentlemanly respect for me, and for +yourself. Don’t speak any more as you have spoken, and don’t come +again. I cannot think that this visit is serious, or was closely considered by +you.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Considered: well, I came to see you as an old and good friend—not +to mince matters, to visit a woman I loved. Don’t be angry! I could not +help doing it, so many things brought you into my mind . . . This evening I +fell in with an acquaintance, and when I saw how happy he was with his wife and +family welcoming him home, though with only one-tenth of my income and chances, +and thought what might have been in my case, it fairly broke down my +discretion, and off I came here. Now I am here I feel that I am wrong to some +extent. But the feeling that I should like to see you, and talk of those we +used to know in common, was very strong.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Before that can be the case a little more time must pass,’ said +Miss Savile quietly; ‘a time long enough for me to regard with some +calmness what at present I remember far too impatiently—though it may be +you almost forget it. Indeed you must have forgotten it long before you acted +as you did.’ Her voice grew stronger and more vivacious as she added: +‘But I am doing my best to forget it too, and I know I shall succeed from +the progress I have made already!’ +</p> + +<p> +She had remained standing till now, when she turned and sat down, facing half +away from him. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet watched her moodily. ‘Yes, it is only what I deserve,’ he +said. ‘Ambition pricked me on—no, it was not ambition, it was +wrongheadedness! Had I but reflected . . . ’ He broke out vehemently: +‘But always remember this, Lucy: if you had written to me only one little +line after that misunderstanding, I declare I should have come back to you. +That ruined me!’ he slowly walked as far as the little room would allow +him to go, and remained with his eyes on the skirting. +</p> + +<p> +‘But, Mr. Barnet, how could I write to you? There was no opening for my +doing so.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then there ought to have been,’ said Barnet, turning. ‘That +was my fault!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I don’t know anything about that; but as there had been +nothing said by me which required any explanation by letter, I did not send +one. Everything was so indefinite, and feeling your position to be so much +wealthier than mine, I fancied I might have mistaken your meaning. And when I +heard of the other lady—a woman of whose family even you might be +proud—I thought how foolish I had been, and said nothing.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then I suppose it was destiny—accident—I don’t know +what, that separated us, dear Lucy. Anyhow you were the woman I ought to have +made my wife—and I let you slip, like the foolish man that I was!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O, Mr. Barnet,’ she said, almost in tears, ‘don’t +revive the subject to me; I am the wrong one to console you—think, +sir,—you should not be here—it would be so bad for me if it were +known!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It would—it would, indeed,’ he said hastily. ‘I am not +right in doing this, and I won’t do it again.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is a very common folly of human nature, you know, to think the course +you did <i>not</i> adopt must have been the best,’ she continued, with +gentle solicitude, as she followed him to the door of the room. ‘And you +don’t know that I should have accepted you, even if you had asked me to +be your wife.’ At this his eye met hers, and she dropped her gaze. She +knew that her voice belied her. There was a silence till she looked up to add, +in a voice of soothing playfulness, ‘My family was so much poorer than +yours, even before I lost my dear father, that—perhaps your companions +would have made it unpleasant for us on account of my deficiencies.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Your disposition would soon have won them round,’ said Barnet. +</p> + +<p> +She archly expostulated: ‘Now, never mind my disposition; try to make it +up with your wife! Those are my commands to you. And now you are to leave me at +once.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I will. I must make the best of it all, I suppose,’ he replied, +more cheerfully than he had as yet spoken. ‘But I shall never again meet +with such a dear girl as you!’ And he suddenly opened the door, and left +her alone. When his glance again fell on the lamps that were sparsely ranged +along the dreary level road, his eyes were in a state which showed straw-like +motes of light radiating from each flame into the surrounding air. +</p> + +<p> +On the other side of the way Barnet observed a man under an umbrella, walking +parallel with himself. Presently this man left the footway, and gradually +converged on Barnet’s course. The latter then saw that it was Charlson, a +surgeon of the town, who owed him money. Charlson was a man not without +ability; yet he did not prosper. Sundry circumstances stood in his way as a +medical practitioner: he was needy; he was not a coddle; he gossiped with men +instead of with women; he had married a stranger instead of one of the town +young ladies; and he was given to conversational buffoonery. Moreover, his look +was quite erroneous. Those only proper features in the family doctor, the quiet +eye, and the thin straight passionless lips which never curl in public either +for laughter or for scorn, were not his; he had a full-curved mouth, and a bold +black eye that made timid people nervous. His companions were what in old times +would have been called boon companions—an expression which, though of +irreproachable root, suggests fraternization carried to the point of +unscrupulousness. All this was against him in the little town of his adoption. +</p> + +<p> +Charlson had been in difficulties, and to oblige him Barnet had put his name to +a bill; and, as he had expected, was called upon to meet it when it fell due. +It had been only a matter of fifty pounds, which Barnet could well afford to +lose, and he bore no ill-will to the thriftless surgeon on account of it. But +Charlson had a little too much brazen indifferentism in his composition to be +altogether a desirable acquaintance. +</p> + +<p> +‘I hope to be able to make that little bill-business right with you in +the course of three weeks, Mr. Barnet,’ said Charlson with hail-fellow +friendliness. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet replied good-naturedly that there was no hurry. +</p> + +<p> +This particular three weeks had moved on in advance of Charlson’s present +with the precision of a shadow for some considerable time. +</p> + +<p> +‘I’ve had a dream,’ Charlson continued. Barnet knew from his +tone that the surgeon was going to begin his characteristic nonsense, and did +not encourage him. ‘I’ve had a dream,’ repeated Charlson, who +required no encouragement. ‘I dreamed that a gentleman, who has been very +kind to me, married a haughty lady in haste, before he had quite forgotten a +nice little girl he knew before, and that one wet evening, like the present, as +I was walking up the harbour-road, I saw him come out of that dear little +girl’s present abode.’ +</p> + +<p> +Barnet glanced towards the speaker. The rays from a neighbouring lamp struck +through the drizzle under Charlson’s umbrella, so as just to illumine his +face against the shade behind, and show that his eye was turned up under the +outer corner of its lid, whence it leered with impish jocoseness as he thrust +his tongue into his cheek. +</p> + +<p> +‘Come,’ said Barnet gravely, ‘we’ll have no more of +that.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, no—of course not,’ Charlson hastily answered, seeing +that his humour had carried him too far, as it had done many times before. He +was profuse in his apologies, but Barnet did not reply. Of one thing he was +certain—that scandal was a plant of quick root, and that he was bound to +obey Lucy’s injunction for Lucy’s own sake. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<p> +He did so, to the letter; and though, as the crocus followed the snowdrop and +the daffodil the crocus in Lucy’s garden, the harbour-road was a not +unpleasant place to walk in, Barnet’s feet never trod its stones, much +less approached her door. He avoided a saunter that way as he would have +avoided a dangerous dram, and took his airings a long distance northward, among +severely square and brown ploughed fields, where no other townsman came. +Sometimes he went round by the lower lanes of the borough, where the rope-walks +stretched in which his family formerly had share, and looked at the rope-makers +walking backwards, overhung by apple-trees and bushes, and intruded on by cows +and calves, as if trade had established itself there at considerable +inconvenience to Nature. +</p> + +<p> +One morning, when the sun was so warm as to raise a steam from the +south-eastern slopes of those flanking hills that looked so lovely above the +old roofs, but made every low-chimneyed house in the town as smoky as Tophet, +Barnet glanced from the windows of the town-council room for lack of interest +in what was proceeding within. Several members of the corporation were present, +but there was not much business doing, and in a few minutes Downe came +leisurely across to him, saying that he seldom saw Barnet now. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet owned that he was not often present. +</p> + +<p> +Downe looked at the crimson curtain which hung down beside the panes, +reflecting its hot hues into their faces, and then out of the window. At that +moment there passed along the street a tall commanding lady, in whom the +solicitor recognized Barnet’s wife. Barnet had done the same thing, and +turned away. +</p> + +<p> +‘It will be all right some day,’ said Downe, with cheering +sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +‘You have heard, then, of her last outbreak?’ +</p> + +<p> +Downe depressed his cheerfulness to its very reverse in a moment. ‘No, I +have not heard of anything serious,’ he said, with as long a face as one +naturally round could be turned into at short notice. ‘I only hear vague +reports of such things.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You may think it will be all right,’ said Barnet drily. ‘But +I have a different opinion . . . No, Downe, we must look the thing in the face. +Not poppy nor mandragora—however, how are your wife and children?’ +</p> + +<p> +Downe said that they were all well, thanks; they were out that morning +somewhere; he was just looking to see if they were walking that way. Ah, there +they were, just coming down the street; and Downe pointed to the figures of two +children with a nursemaid, and a lady walking behind them. +</p> + +<p> +‘You will come out and speak to her?’ he asked. +</p> + +<p> +‘Not this morning. The fact is I don’t care to speak to anybody +just now.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You are too sensitive, Mr. Barnet. At school I remember you used to get +as red as a rose if anybody uttered a word that hurt your feelings.’ +</p> + +<p> +Barnet mused. ‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘there is a grain of truth +in that. It is because of that I often try to make peace at home. Life would be +tolerable then at any rate, even if not particularly bright.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I have thought more than once of proposing a little plan to you,’ +said Downe with some hesitation. ‘I don’t know whether it will meet +your views, but take it or leave it, as you choose. In fact, it was my wife who +suggested it: that she would be very glad to call on Mrs. Barnet and get into +her confidence. She seems to think that Mrs. Barnet is rather alone in the +town, and without advisers. Her impression is that your wife will listen to +reason. Emily has a wonderful way of winning the hearts of people of her own +sex.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And of the other sex too, I think. She is a charming woman, and you were +a lucky fellow to find her.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, perhaps I was,’ simpered Downe, trying to wear an aspect of +being the last man in the world to feel pride. ‘However, she will be +likely to find out what ruffles Mrs. Barnet. Perhaps it is some +misunderstanding, you know—something that she is too proud to ask you to +explain, or some little thing in your conduct that irritates her because she +does not fully comprehend you. The truth is, Emily would have been more ready +to make advances if she had been quite sure of her fitness for Mrs. +Barnet’s society, who has of course been accustomed to London people of +good position, which made Emily fearful of intruding.’ +</p> + +<p> +Barnet expressed his warmest thanks for the well-intentioned proposition. There +was reason in Mrs. Downe’s fear—that he owned. ‘But do let +her call,’ he said. ‘There is no woman in England I would so soon +trust on such an errand. I am afraid there will not be any brilliant result; +still I shall take it as the kindest and nicest thing if she will try it, and +not be frightened at a repulse.’ +</p> + +<p> +When Barnet and Downe had parted, the former went to the Town Savings-Bank, of +which he was a trustee, and endeavoured to forget his troubles in the +contemplation of low sums of money, and figures in a network of red and blue +lines. He sat and watched the working-people making their deposits, to which at +intervals he signed his name. Before he left in the afternoon Downe put his +head inside the door. +</p> + +<p> +‘Emily has seen Mrs. Barnet,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘She +has got Mrs. Barnet’s promise to take her for a drive down to the shore +to-morrow, if it is fine. Good afternoon!’ +</p> + +<p> +Barnet shook Downe by the hand without speaking, and Downe went away. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<p> +The next day was as fine as the arrangement could possibly require. As the sun +passed the meridian and declined westward, the tall shadows from the +scaffold-poles of Barnet’s rising residence streaked the ground as far as +to the middle of the highway. Barnet himself was there inspecting the progress +of the works for the first time during several weeks. A building in an +old-fashioned town five-and-thirty years ago did not, as in the modern fashion, +rise from the sod like a booth at a fair. The foundations and lower courses +were put in and allowed to settle for many weeks before the superstructure was +built up, and a whole summer of drying was hardly sufficient to do justice to +the important issues involved. Barnet stood within a window-niche which had as +yet received no frame, and thence looked down a slope into the road. The wheels +of a chaise were heard, and then his handsome Xantippe, in the company of Mrs. +Downe, drove past on their way to the shore. They were driving slowly; there +was a pleasing light in Mrs. Downe’s face, which seemed faintly to +reflect itself upon the countenance of her companion—that <i>politesse du +coeur</i> which was so natural to her having possibly begun already to work +results. But whatever the situation, Barnet resolved not to interfere, or do +anything to hazard the promise of the day. He might well afford to trust the +issue to another when he could never direct it but to ill himself. His +wife’s clenched rein-hand in its lemon-coloured glove, her stiff erect +figure, clad in velvet and lace, and her boldly-outlined face, passed on, +exhibiting their owner as one fixed for ever above the level of her +companion—socially by her early breeding, and materially by her higher +cushion. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet decided to allow them a proper time to themselves, and then stroll down +to the shore and drive them home. After lingering on at the house for another +hour he started with this intention. A few hundred yards below +‘Château Ringdale’ stood the cottage in which the late +lieutenant’s daughter had her lodging. Barnet had not been so far that +way for a long time, and as he approached the forbidden ground a curious warmth +passed into him, which led him to perceive that, unless he were careful, he +might have to fight the battle with himself about Lucy over again. A tenth of +his present excuse would, however, have justified him in travelling by that +road to-day. +</p> + +<p> +He came opposite the dwelling, and turned his eyes for a momentary glance into +the little garden that stretched from the palings to the door. Lucy was in the +enclosure; she was walking and stooping to gather some flowers, possibly for +the purpose of painting them, for she moved about quickly, as if anxious to +save time. She did not see him; he might have passed unnoticed; but a sensation +which was not in strict unison with his previous sentiments that day led him to +pause in his walk and watch her. She went nimbly round and round the beds of +anemones, tulips, jonquils, polyanthuses, and other old-fashioned flowers, +looking a very charming figure in her half-mourning bonnet, and with an +incomplete nosegay in her left hand. Raising herself to pull down a lilac +blossom she observed him. +</p> + +<p> +‘Mr. Barnet!’ she said, innocently smiling. ‘Why, I have been +thinking of you many times since Mrs. Barnet went by in the pony-carriage, and +now here you are!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, Lucy,’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +Then she seemed to recall particulars of their last meeting, and he believed +that she flushed, though it might have been only the fancy of his own +supersensitivenesss. +</p> + +<p> +‘I am going to the harbour,’ he added. +</p> + +<p> +‘Are you?’ Lucy remarked simply. ‘A great many people begin +to go there now the summer is drawing on.’ +</p> + +<p> +Her face had come more into his view as she spoke, and he noticed how much +thinner and paler it was than when he had seen it last. ‘Lucy, how weary +you look! tell me, can I help you?’ he was going to cry +out.—‘If I do,’ he thought, ‘it will be the ruin of us +both!’ He merely said that the afternoon was fine, and went on his way. +</p> + +<p> +As he went a sudden blast of air came over the hill as if in contradiction to +his words, and spoilt the previous quiet of the scene. The wind had already +shifted violently, and now smelt of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +The harbour-road soon began to justify its name. A gap appeared in the rampart +of hills which shut out the sea, and on the left of the opening rose a vertical +cliff, coloured a burning orange by the sunlight, the companion cliff on the +right being livid in shade. Between these cliffs, like the Libyan bay which +sheltered the shipwrecked Trojans, was a little haven, seemingly a beginning +made by Nature herself of a perfect harbour, which appealed to the passer-by as +only requiring a little human industry to finish it and make it famous, the +ground on each side as far back as the daisied slopes that bounded the interior +valley being a mere layer of blown sand. But the Port-Bredy burgesses a mile +inland had, in the course of ten centuries, responded many times to that mute +appeal, with the result that the tides had invariably choked up their works +with sand and shingle as soon as completed. There were but few houses here: a +rough pier, a few boats, some stores, an inn, a residence or two, a ketch +unloading in the harbour, were the chief features of the settlement. On the +open ground by the shore stood his wife’s pony-carriage, empty, the boy +in attendance holding the horse. +</p> + +<p> +When Barnet drew nearer, he saw an indigo-coloured spot moving swiftly along +beneath the radiant base of the eastern cliff, which proved to be a man in a +jersey, running with all his might. He held up his hand to Barnet, as it +seemed, and they approached each other. The man was local, but a stranger to +him. +</p> + +<p> +‘What is it, my man?’ said Barnet. +</p> + +<p> +‘A terrible calamity!’ the boatman hastily explained. Two ladies +had been capsized in a boat—they were Mrs. Downe and Mrs. Barnet of the +old town; they had driven down there that afternoon—they had alighted, +and it was so fine, that, after walking about a little while, they had been +tempted to go out for a short sail round the cliff. Just as they were putting +in to the shore, the wind shifted with a sudden gust, the boat listed over, and +it was thought they were both drowned. How it could have happened was beyond +his mind to fathom, for John Green knew how to sail a boat as well as any man +there. +</p> + +<p> +‘Which is the way to the place?’ said Barnet. +</p> + +<p> +It was just round the cliff. +</p> + +<p> +‘Run to the carriage and tell the boy to bring it to the place as soon as +you can. Then go to the Harbour Inn and tell them to ride to town for a doctor. +Have they been got out of the water?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘One lady has.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Which?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Mrs. Barnet. Mrs. Downe, it is feared, has fleeted out to sea.’ +</p> + +<p> +Barnet ran on to that part of the shore which the cliff had hitherto obscured +from his view, and there discerned, a long way ahead, a group of fishermen +standing. As soon as he came up one or two recognized him, and, not liking to +meet his eye, turned aside with misgiving. He went amidst them and saw a small +sailing-boat lying draggled at the water’s edge; and, on the sloping +shingle beside it, a soaked and sandy woman’s form in the velvet dress +and yellow gloves of his wife. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<p> +All had been done that could be done. Mrs. Barnet was in her own house under +medical hands, but the result was still uncertain. Barnet had acted as if +devotion to his wife were the dominant passion of his existence. There had been +much to decide—whether to attempt restoration of the apparently lifeless +body as it lay on the shore—whether to carry her to the Harbour +Inn—whether to drive with her at once to his own house. The first course, +with no skilled help or appliances near at hand, had seemed hopeless. The +second course would have occupied nearly as much time as a drive to the town, +owing to the intervening ridges of shingle, and the necessity of crossing the +harbour by boat to get to the house, added to which much time must have elapsed +before a doctor could have arrived down there. By bringing her home in the +carriage some precious moments had slipped by; but she had been laid in her own +bed in seven minutes, a doctor called to her side, and every possible +restorative brought to bear upon her. +</p> + +<p> +At what a tearing pace he had driven up that road, through the yellow evening +sunlight, the shadows flapping irksomely into his eyes as each wayside object +rushed past between him and the west! Tired workmen with their baskets at their +backs had turned on their homeward journey to wonder at his speed. Halfway +between the shore and Port-Bredy town he had met Charlson, who had been the +first surgeon to hear of the accident. He was accompanied by his assistant in a +gig. Barnet had sent on the latter to the coast in case that Downe’s poor +wife should by that time have been reclaimed from the waves, and had brought +Charlson back with him to the house. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet’s presence was not needed here, and he felt it to be his next duty +to set off at once and find Downe, that no other than himself might break the +news to him. +</p> + +<p> +He was quite sure that no chance had been lost for Mrs. Downe by his leaving +the shore. By the time that Mrs. Barnet had been laid in the carriage, a much +larger group had assembled to lend assistance in finding her friend, rendering +his own help superfluous. But the duty of breaking the news was made doubly +painful by the circumstance that the catastrophe which had befallen Mrs. Downe +was solely the result of her own and her husband’s loving-kindness +towards himself. +</p> + +<p> +He found Downe in his office. When the solicitor comprehended the intelligence +he turned pale, stood up, and remained for a moment perfectly still, as if +bereft of his faculties; then his shoulders heaved, he pulled out his +handkerchief and began to cry like a child. His sobs might have been heard in +the next room. He seemed to have no idea of going to the shore, or of doing +anything; but when Barnet took him gently by the hand and proposed to start at +once, he quietly acquiesced, neither uttering any further word nor making any +effort to repress his tears. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet accompanied him to the shore, where, finding that no trace had as yet +been seen of Mrs. Downe, and that his stay would be of no avail, he left Downe +with his friends and the young doctor, and once more hastened back to his own +house. +</p> + +<p> +At the door he met Charlson. ‘Well!’ Barnet said. +</p> + +<p> +‘I have just come down,’ said the doctor; ‘we have done +everything, but without result. I sympathize with you in your +bereavement.’ +</p> + +<p> +Barnet did not much appreciate Charlson’s sympathy, which sounded to his +ears as something of a mockery from the lips of a man who knew what Charlson +knew about their domestic relations. Indeed there seemed an odd spark in +Charlson’s full black eye as he said the words; but that might have been +imaginary. +</p> + +<p> +‘And, Mr. Barnet,’ Charlson resumed, ‘that little matter +between us—I hope to settle it finally in three weeks at least.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Never mind that now,’ said Barnet abruptly. He directed the +surgeon to go to the harbour in case his services might even now be necessary +there: and himself entered the house. +</p> + +<p> +The servants were coming from his wife’s chamber, looking helplessly at +each other and at him. He passed them by and entered the room, where he stood +mutely regarding the bed for a few minutes, after which he walked into his own +dressing-room adjoining, and there paced up and down. In a minute or two he +noticed what a strange and total silence had come over the upper part of the +house; his own movements, muffled as they were by the carpet, seemed noisy, and +his thoughts to disturb the air like articulate utterances. His eye glanced +through the window. Far down the road to the harbour a roof detained his gaze: +out of it rose a red chimney, and out of the red chimney a curl of smoke, as +from a fire newly kindled. He had often seen such a sight before. In that house +lived Lucy Savile; and the smoke was from the fire which was regularly lighted +at this time to make her tea. +</p> + +<p> +After that he went back to the bedroom, and stood there some time regarding his +wife’s silent form. She was a woman some years older than himself, but +had not by any means overpassed the maturity of good looks and vigour. Her +passionate features, well-defined, firm, and statuesque in life, were doubly so +now: her mouth and brow, beneath her purplish black hair, showed only too +clearly that the turbulency of character which had made a bear-garden of his +house had been no temporary phase of her existence. While he reflected, he +suddenly said to himself, I wonder if all has been done? +</p> + +<p> +The thought was led up to by his having fancied that his wife’s features +lacked in its complete form the expression which he had been accustomed to +associate with the faces of those whose spirits have fled for ever. The +effacement of life was not so marked but that, entering uninformed, he might +have supposed her sleeping. Her complexion was that seen in the numerous faded +portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds; it was pallid in comparison with life, but +there was visible on a close inspection the remnant of what had once been a +flush; the keeping between the cheeks and the hollows of the face being thus +preserved, although positive colour was gone. Long orange rays of evening sun +stole in through chinks in the blind, striking on the large mirror, and being +thence reflected upon the crimson hangings and woodwork of the heavy bedstead, +so that the general tone of light was remarkably warm; and it was probable that +something might be due to this circumstance. Still the fact impressed him as +strange. Charlson had been gone more than a quarter of an hour: could it be +possible that he had left too soon, and that his attempts to restore her had +operated so sluggishly as only now to have made themselves felt? Barnet laid +his hand upon her chest, and fancied that ever and anon a faint flutter of +palpitation, gentle as that of a butterfly’s wing, disturbed the +stillness there—ceasing for a time, then struggling to go on, then +breaking down in weakness and ceasing again. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet’s mother had been an active practitioner of the healing art among +her poorer neighbours, and her inspirations had all been derived from an octavo +volume of Domestic Medicine, which at this moment was lying, as it had lain for +many years, on a shelf in Barnet’s dressing-room. He hastily fetched it, +and there read under the head ‘Drowning:’- +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +‘Exertions for the recovery of any person who has not been immersed for a +longer period than half-an-hour should be continued for at least four hours, as +there have been many cases in which returning life has made itself visible even +after a longer interval.<br /> + +‘Should, however, a weak action of any of the organs show itself when the +case seems almost hopeless, our efforts must be redoubled; the feeble spark in +this case requires to be solicited; it will certainly disappear under a +relaxation of labour.’ +</p> + +<p> +Barnet looked at his watch; it was now barely two hours and a half from the +time when he had first heard of the accident. He threw aside the book and +turned quickly to reach a stimulant which had previously been used. Pulling up +the blind for more light, his eye glanced out of the window. There he saw that +red chimney still smoking cheerily, and that roof, and through the roof that +somebody. His mechanical movements stopped, his hand remained on the +blind-cord, and he seemed to become breathless, as if he had suddenly found +himself treading a high rope. +</p> + +<p> +While he stood a sparrow lighted on the windowsill, saw him, and flew away. +Next a man and a dog walked over one of the green hills which bulged above the +roofs of the town. But Barnet took no notice. +</p> + +<p> +We may wonder what were the exact images that passed through his mind during +those minutes of gazing upon Lucy Savile’s house, the sparrow, the man +and the dog, and Lucy Savile’s house again. There are honest men who will +not admit to their thoughts, even as idle hypotheses, views of the future that +assume as done a deed which they would recoil from doing; and there are other +honest men for whom morality ends at the surface of their own heads, who will +deliberate what the first will not so much as suppose. Barnet had a wife whose +pretence distracted his home; she now lay as in death; by merely doing +nothing—by letting the intelligence which had gone forth to the world lie +undisturbed—he would effect such a deliverance for himself as he had +never hoped for, and open up an opportunity of which till now he had never +dreamed. Whether the conjuncture had arisen through any unscrupulous, +ill-considered impulse of Charlson to help out of a strait the friend who was +so kind as never to press him for what was due could not be told; there was +nothing to prove it; and it was a question which could never be asked. The +triangular situation—himself—his wife—Lucy Savile—was +the one clear thing. +</p> + +<p> +From Barnet’s actions we may infer that he <i>supposed</i> such and such +a result, for a moment, but did not deliberate. He withdrew his hazel eyes from +the scene without, calmly turned, rang the bell for assistance, and vigorously +exerted himself to learn if life still lingered in that motionless frame. In a +short time another surgeon was in attendance; and then Barnet’s surmise +proved to be true. The slow life timidly heaved again; but much care and +patience were needed to catch and retain it, and a considerable period elapsed +before it could be said with certainty that Mrs. Barnet lived. When this was +the case, and there was no further room for doubt, Barnet left the chamber. The +blue evening smoke from Lucy’s chimney had died down to an imperceptible +stream, and as he walked about downstairs he murmured to himself, ‘My +wife was dead, and she is alive again.’ +</p> + +<p> +It was not so with Downe. After three hours’ immersion his wife’s +body had been recovered, life, of course, being quite extinct. Barnet on +descending, went straight to his friend’s house, and there learned the +result. Downe was helpless in his wild grief, occasionally even hysterical. +Barnet said little, but finding that some guiding hand was necessary in the +sorrow-stricken household, took upon him to supervise and manage till Downe +should be in a state of mind to do so for himself. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<p> +One September evening, four months later, when Mrs. Barnet was in perfect +health, and Mrs. Downe but a weakening memory, an errand-boy paused to rest +himself in front of Mr. Barnet’s old house, depositing his basket on one +of the window-sills. The street was not yet lighted, but there were lights in +the house, and at intervals a flitting shadow fell upon the blind at his elbow. +Words also were audible from the same apartment, and they seemed to be those of +persons in violent altercation. But the boy could not gather their purport, and +he went on his way. +</p> + +<p> +Ten minutes afterwards the door of Barnet’s house opened, and a tall +closely-veiled lady in a travelling-dress came out and descended the freestone +steps. The servant stood in the doorway watching her as she went with a +measured tread down the street. When she had been out of sight for some minutes +Barnet appeared at the door from within. +</p> + +<p> +‘Did your mistress leave word where she was going?’ he asked. +</p> + +<p> +‘No, sir.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Is the carriage ordered to meet her anywhere?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, sir.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Did she take a latch-key?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, sir.’ +</p> + +<p> +Barnet went in again, sat down in his chair, and leaned back. Then in solitude +and silence he brooded over the bitter emotions that filled his heart. It was +for this that he had gratuitously restored her to life, and made his union with +another impossible! The evening drew on, and nobody came to disturb him. At +bedtime he told the servants to retire, that he would sit up for Mrs. Barnet +himself; and when they were gone he leaned his head upon his hand and mused for +hours. +</p> + +<p> +The clock struck one, two; still his wife came not, and, with impatience added +to depression, he went from room to room till another weary hour had passed. +This was not altogether a new experience for Barnet; but she had never before +so prolonged her absence. At last he sat down again and fell asleep. +</p> + +<p> +He awoke at six o’clock to find that she had not returned. In searching +about the rooms he discovered that she had taken a case of jewels which had +been hers before her marriage. At eight a note was brought him; it was from his +wife, in which she stated that she had gone by the coach to the house of a +distant relative near London, and expressed a wish that certain boxes, articles +of clothing, and so on, might be sent to her forthwith. The note was brought to +him by a waiter at the Black-Bull Hotel, and had been written by Mrs. Barnet +immediately before she took her place in the stage. +</p> + +<p> +By the evening this order was carried out, and Barnet, with a sense of relief, +walked out into the town. A fair had been held during the day, and the large +clear moon which rose over the most prominent hill flung its light upon the +booths and standings that still remained in the street, mixing its rays +curiously with those from the flaring naphtha lamps. The town was full of +country-people who had come in to enjoy themselves, and on this account Barnet +strolled through the streets unobserved. With a certain recklessness he made +for the harbour-road, and presently found himself by the shore, where he walked +on till he came to the spot near which his friend the kindly Mrs. Downe had +lost her life, and his own wife’s life had been preserved. A tremulous +pathway of bright moonshine now stretched over the water which had engulfed +them, and not a living soul was near. +</p> + +<p> +Here he ruminated on their characters, and next on the young girl in whom he +now took a more sensitive interest than at the time when he had been free to +marry her. Nothing, so far as he was aware, had ever appeared in his own +conduct to show that such an interest existed. He had made it a point of the +utmost strictness to hinder that feeling from influencing in the faintest +degree his attitude towards his wife; and this was made all the more easy for +him by the small demand Mrs. Barnet made upon his attentions, for which she +ever evinced the greatest contempt; thus unwittingly giving him the +satisfaction of knowing that their severance owed nothing to jealousy, or, +indeed, to any personal behaviour of his at all. Her concern was not with him +or his feelings, as she frequently told him; but that she had, in a moment of +weakness, thrown herself away upon a common burgher when she might have aimed +at, and possibly brought down, a peer of the realm. Her frequent depreciation +of Barnet in these terms had at times been so intense that he was sorely +tempted to retaliate on her egotism by owning that he loved at the same low +level on which he lived; but prudence had prevailed, for which he was now +thankful. +</p> + +<p> +Something seemed to sound upon the shingle behind him over and above the raking +of the wave. He looked round, and a slight girlish shape appeared quite close +to him, He could not see her face because it was in the direction of the moon. +</p> + +<p> +‘Mr. Barnet?’ the rambler said, in timid surprise. The voice was +the voice of Lucy Savile. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said Barnet. ‘How can I repay you for this +pleasure?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I only came because the night was so clear. I am now on my way +home.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I am glad we have met. I want to know if you will let me do something +for you, to give me an occupation, as an idle man? I am sure I ought to help +you, for I know you are almost without friends.’ +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated. ‘Why should you tell me that?’ she said. +</p> + +<p> +‘In the hope that you will be frank with me.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I am not altogether without friends here. But I am going to make a +little change in my life—to go out as a teacher of freehand drawing and +practical perspective, of course I mean on a comparatively humble scale, +because I have not been specially educated for that profession. But I am sure I +shall like it much.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You have an opening?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I have not exactly got it, but I have advertised for one.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Lucy, you must let me help you!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Not at all.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You need not think it would compromise you, or that I am indifferent to +delicacy. I bear in mind how we stand. It is very unlikely that you will +succeed as teacher of the class you mention, so let me do something of a +different kind for you. Say what you would like, and it shall be done.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No; if I can’t be a drawing-mistress or governess, or something of +that sort, I shall go to India and join my brother.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I wish I could go abroad, anywhere, everywhere with you, Lucy, and leave +this place and its associations for ever!’ +</p> + +<p> +She played with the end of her bonnet-string, and hastily turned aside. +‘Don’t ever touch upon that kind of topic again,’ she said, +with a quick severity not free from anger. ‘It simply makes it impossible +for me to see you, much less receive any guidance from you. No, thank you, Mr. +Barnet; you can do nothing for me at present; and as I suppose my uncertainty +will end in my leaving for India, I fear you never will. If ever I think you +<i>can</i> do anything, I will take the trouble to ask you. Till then, +good-bye.’ +</p> + +<p> +The tone of her latter words was equivocal, and while he remained in doubt +whether a gentle irony was or was not inwrought with their sound, she swept +lightly round and left him alone. He saw her form get smaller and smaller along +the damp belt of sea-sand between ebb and flood; and when she had vanished +round the cliff into the harbour-road, he himself followed in the same +direction. +</p> + +<p> +That her hopes from an advertisement should be the single thread which held +Lucy Savile in England was too much for Barnet. On reaching the town he went +straight to the residence of Downe, now a widower with four children. The young +motherless brood had been sent to bed about a quarter of an hour earlier, and +when Barnet entered he found Downe sitting alone. It was the same room as that +from which the family had been looking out for Downe at the beginning of the +year, when Downe had slipped into the gutter and his wife had been so enviably +tender towards him. The old neatness had gone from the house; articles lay in +places which could show no reason for their presence, as if momentarily +deposited there some months ago, and forgotten ever since; there were no +flowers; things were jumbled together on the furniture which should have been +in cupboards; and the place in general had that stagnant, unrenovated air which +usually pervades the maimed home of the widower. +</p> + +<p> +Downe soon renewed his customary full-worded lament over his wife, and even +when he had worked himself up to tears, went on volubly, as if a listener were +a luxury to be enjoyed whenever he could be caught. +</p> + +<p> +‘She was a treasure beyond compare, Mr. Barnet! I shall never see such +another. Nobody now to nurse me—nobody to console me in those daily +troubles, you know, Barnet, which make consolation so necessary to a nature +like mine. It would be unbecoming to repine, for her spirit’s home was +elsewhere—the tender light in her eyes always showed it; but it is a long +dreary time that I have before me, and nobody else can ever fill the void left +in my heart by her loss—nobody—nobody!’ And Downe wiped his +eyes again. +</p> + +<p> +‘She was a good woman in the highest sense,’ gravely answered +Barnet, who, though Downe’s words drew genuine compassion from his heart, +could not help feeling that a tender reticence would have been a finer tribute +to Mrs. Downe’s really sterling virtues than such a second-class lament +as this. +</p> + +<p> +‘I have something to show you,’ Downe resumed, producing from a +drawer a sheet of paper on which was an elaborate design for a canopied tomb. +‘This has been sent me by the architect, but it is not exactly what I +want.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You have got Jones to do it, I see, the man who is carrying out my +house,’ said Barnet, as he glanced at the signature to the drawing. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, but it is not quite what I want. I want something more +striking—more like a tomb I have seen in St. Paul’s Cathedral. +Nothing less will do justice to my feelings, and how far short of them that +will fall!’ +</p> + +<p> +Barnet privately thought the design a sufficiently imposing one as it stood, +even extravagantly ornate; but, feeling that he had no right to criticize, he +said gently, ‘Downe, should you not live more in your children’s +lives at the present time, and soften the sharpness of regret for your own past +by thinking of their future?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes; but what can I do more?’ asked Downe, wrinkling his +forehead hopelessly. +</p> + +<p> +It was with anxious slowness that Barnet produced his reply—the secret +object of his visit to-night. ‘Did you not say one day that you ought by +rights to get a governess for the children?’ +</p> + +<p> +Downe admitted that he had said so, but that he could not see his way to it. +‘The kind of woman I should like to have,’ he said, ‘would be +rather beyond my means. No; I think I shall send them to school in the town +when they are old enough to go out alone.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Now, I know of something better than that. The late Lieutenant +Savile’s daughter, Lucy, wants to do something for herself in the way of +teaching. She would be inexpensive, and would answer your purpose as well as +anybody for six or twelve months. She would probably come daily if you were to +ask her, and so your housekeeping arrangements would not be much +affected.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I thought she had gone away,’ said the solicitor, musing. +‘Where does she live?’ +</p> + +<p> +Barnet told him, and added that, if Downe should think of her as suitable, he +would do well to call as soon as possible, or she might be on the wing. +‘If you do see her,’ he said, ‘it would be advisable not to +mention my name. She is rather stiff in her ideas of me, and it might prejudice +her against a course if she knew that I recommended it.’ +</p> + +<p> +Downe promised to give the subject his consideration, and nothing more was said +about it just then. But when Barnet rose to go, which was not till nearly +bedtime, he reminded Downe of the suggestion and went up the street to his own +solitary home with a sense of satisfaction at his promising diplomacy in a +charitable cause. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3> + +<p> +The walls of his new house were carried up nearly to their full height. By a +curious though not infrequent reaction, Barnet’s feelings about that +unnecessary structure had undergone a change; he took considerable interest in +its progress as a long-neglected thing, his wife before her departure having +grown quite weary of it as a hobby. Moreover, it was an excellent distraction +for a man in the unhappy position of having to live in a provincial town with +nothing to do. He was probably the first of his line who had ever passed a day +without toil, and perhaps something like an inherited instinct disqualifies +such men for a life of pleasant inaction, such as lies in the power of those +whose leisure is not a personal accident, but a vast historical accretion which +has become part of their natures. +</p> + +<p> +Thus Barnet got into a way of spending many of his leisure hours on the site of +the new building, and he might have been seen on most days at this time trying +the temper of the mortar by punching the joints with his stick, looking at the +grain of a floor-board, and meditating where it grew, or picturing under what +circumstances the last fire would be kindled in the at present sootless +chimneys. One day when thus occupied he saw three children pass by in the +company of a fair young woman, whose sudden appearance caused him to flush +perceptibly. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, she is there,’ he thought. ‘That’s a blessed +thing.’ +</p> + +<p> +Casting an interested glance over the rising building and the busy workmen, +Lucy Savile and the little Downes passed by; and after that time it became a +regular though almost unconscious custom of Barnet to stand in the +half-completed house and look from the ungarnished windows at the governess as +she tripped towards the sea-shore with her young charges, which she was in the +habit of doing on most fine afternoons. It was on one of these occasions, when +he had been loitering on the first-floor landing, near the hole left for the +staircase, not yet erected, that there appeared above the edge of the floor a +little hat, followed by a little head. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet withdrew through a doorway, and the child came to the top of the ladder, +stepping on to the floor and crying to her sisters and Miss Savile to follow. +Another head rose above the floor, and another, and then Lucy herself came into +view. The troop ran hither and thither through the empty, shaving-strewn rooms, +and Barnet came forward. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy uttered a small exclamation: she was very sorry that she had intruded; she +had not the least idea that Mr. Barnet was there: the children had come up, and +she had followed. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet replied that he was only too glad to see them there. ‘And now, let +me show you the rooms,’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +She passively assented, and he took her round. There was not much to show in +such a bare skeleton of a house, but he made the most of it, and explained the +different ornamental fittings that were soon to be fixed here and there. Lucy +made but few remarks in reply, though she seemed pleased with her visit, and +stole away down the ladder, followed by her companions. +</p> + +<p> +After this the new residence became yet more of a hobby for Barnet. +Downe’s children did not forget their first visit, and when the windows +were glazed, and the handsome staircase spread its broad low steps into the +hall, they came again, prancing in unwearied succession through every room from +ground-floor to attics, while Lucy stood waiting for them at the door. Barnet, +who rarely missed a day in coming to inspect progress, stepped out from the +drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +‘I could not keep them out,’ she said, with an apologetic blush. +‘I tried to do so very much: but they are rather wilful, and we are +directed to walk this way for the sea air.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Do let them make the house their regular playground, and you +yours,’ said Barnet. ‘There is no better place for children to romp +and take their exercise in than an empty house, particularly in muddy or damp +weather such as we shall get a good deal of now; and this place will not be +furnished for a long long time—perhaps never. I am not at all decided +about it.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O, but it must!’ replied Lucy, looking round at the hall. +‘The rooms are excellent, twice as high as ours; and the views from the +windows are so lovely.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I daresay, I daresay,’ he said absently. +</p> + +<p> +‘Will all the furniture be new?’ she asked. +</p> + +<p> +‘All the furniture be new—that’s a thing I have not thought +of. In fact I only come here and look on. My father’s house would have +been large enough for me, but another person had a voice in the matter, and it +was settled that we should build. However, the place grows upon me; its recent +associations are cheerful, and I am getting to like it fast.’ +</p> + +<p> +A certain uneasiness in Lucy’s manner showed that the conversation was +taking too personal a turn for her. ‘Still, as modern tastes develop, +people require more room to gratify them in,’ she said, withdrawing to +call the children; and serenely bidding him good afternoon she went on her way. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet’s life at this period was singularly lonely, and yet he was +happier than he could have expected. His wife’s estrangement and absence, +which promised to be permanent, left him free as a boy in his movements, and +the solitary walks that he took gave him ample opportunity for chastened +reflection on what might have been his lot if he had only shown wisdom enough +to claim Lucy Savile when there was no bar between their lives, and she was to +be had for the asking. He would occasionally call at the house of his friend +Downe; but there was scarcely enough in common between their two natures to +make them more than friends of that excellent sort whose personal knowledge of +each other’s history and character is always in excess of intimacy, +whereby they are not so likely to be severed by a clash of sentiment as in +cases where intimacy springs up in excess of knowledge. Lucy was never visible +at these times, being either engaged in the school-room, or in taking an airing +out of doors; but, knowing that she was now comfortable, and had given up the, +to him, depressing idea of going off to the other side of the globe, he was +quite content. +</p> + +<p> +The new house had so far progressed that the gardeners were beginning to grass +down the front. During an afternoon which he was passing in marking the curve +for the carriage-drive, he beheld her coming in boldly towards him from the +road. Hitherto Barnet had only caught her on the premises by stealth; and this +advance seemed to show that at last her reserve had broken down. +</p> + +<p> +A smile gained strength upon her face as she approached, and it was quite +radiant when she came up, and said, without a trace of embarrassment, ‘I +find I owe you a hundred thanks—and it comes to me quite as a surprise! +It was through your kindness that I was engaged by Mr. Downe. Believe me, Mr. +Barnet, I did not know it until yesterday, or I should have thanked you long +and long ago!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I had offended you—just a trifle—at the time, I +think?’ said Barnet, smiling, ‘and it was best that you should not +know.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes,’ she returned hastily. ‘Don’t allude to +that; it is past and over, and we will let it be. The house is finished almost, +is it not? How beautiful it will look when the evergreens are grown! Do you +call the style Palladian, Mr. Barnet?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I—really don’t quite know what it is. Yes, it must be +Palladian, certainly. But I’ll ask Jones, the architect; for, to tell the +truth, I had not thought much about the style: I had nothing to do with +choosing it, I am sorry to say.’ +</p> + +<p> +She would not let him harp on this gloomy refrain, and talked on bright matters +till she said, producing a small roll of paper which he had noticed in her hand +all the while, ‘Mr. Downe wished me to bring you this revised drawing of +the late Mrs. Downe’s tomb, which the architect has just sent him. He +would like you to look it over.’ +</p> + +<p> +The children came up with their hoops, and she went off with them down the +harbour-road as usual. Barnet had been glad to get those words of thanks; he +had been thinking for many months that he would like her to know of his share +in finding her a home such as it was; and what he could not do for himself, +Downe had now kindly done for him. He returned to his desolate house with a +lighter tread; though in reason he hardly knew why his tread should be light. +</p> + +<p> +On examining the drawing, Barnet found that, instead of the vast altar-tomb and +canopy Downe had determined on at their last meeting, it was to be a more +modest memorial even than had been suggested by the architect; a coped tomb of +good solid construction, with no useless elaboration at all. Barnet was truly +glad to see that Downe had come to reason of his own accord; and he returned +the drawing with a note of approval. +</p> + +<p> +He followed up the house-work as before, and as he walked up and down the +rooms, occasionally gazing from the windows over the bulging green hills and +the quiet harbour that lay between them, he murmured words and fragments of +words, which, if listened to, would have revealed all the secrets of his +existence. Whatever his reason in going there, Lucy did not call again: the +walk to the shore seemed to be abandoned: he must have thought it as well for +both that it should be so, for he did not go anywhere out of his accustomed +ways to endeavour to discover her. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3> + +<p> +The winter and the spring had passed, and the house was complete. It was a fine +morning in the early part of June, and Barnet, though not in the habit of +rising early, had taken a long walk before breakfast; returning by way of the +new building. A sufficiently exciting cause of his restlessness to-day might +have been the intelligence which had reached him the night before, that Lucy +Savile was going to India after all, and notwithstanding the representations of +her friends that such a journey was unadvisable in many ways for an unpractised +girl, unless some more definite advantage lay at the end of it than she could +show to be the case. Barnet’s walk up the slope to the building betrayed +that he was in a dissatisfied mood. He hardly saw that the dewy time of day +lent an unusual freshness to the bushes and trees which had so recently put on +their summer habit of heavy leafage, and made his newly-laid lawn look as well +established as an old manorial meadow. The house had been so adroitly placed +between six tall elms which were growing on the site beforehand, that they +seemed like real ancestral trees; and the rooks, young and old, cawed +melodiously to their visitor. +</p> + +<p> +The door was not locked, and he entered. No workmen appeared to be present, and +he walked from sunny window to sunny window of the empty rooms, with a sense of +seclusion which might have been very pleasant but for the antecedent knowledge +that his almost paternal care of Lucy Savile was to be thrown away by her +wilfulness. Footsteps echoed through an adjoining room; and bending his eyes in +that direction, he perceived Mr. Jones, the architect. He had come to look over +the building before giving the contractor his final certificate. They walked +over the house together. Everything was finished except the papering: there +were the latest improvements of the period in bell-hanging, ventilating, +smoke-jacks, fire-grates, and French windows. The business was soon ended, and +Jones, having directed Barnet’s attention to a roll of wall-paper +patterns which lay on a bench for his choice, was leaving to keep another +engagement, when Barnet said, ‘Is the tomb finished yet for Mrs. +Downe?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well—yes: it is at last,’ said the architect, coming back +and speaking as if he were in a mood to make a confidence. ‘I have had no +end of trouble in the matter, and, to tell the truth, I am heartily glad it is +over.’ +</p> + +<p> +Barnet expressed his surprise. ‘I thought poor Downe had given up those +extravagant notions of his? then he has gone back to the altar and canopy after +all? Well, he is to be excused, poor fellow!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O no—he has not at all gone back to them—quite the +reverse,’ Jones hastened to say. ‘He has so reduced design after +design, that the whole thing has been nothing but waste labour for me; till in +the end it has become a common headstone, which a mason put up in half a +day.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A common headstone?’ said Barnet. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes. I held out for some time for the addition of a footstone at least. +But he said, “O no—he couldn’t afford it.”’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, well—his family is growing up, poor fellow, and his expenses +are getting serious.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, exactly,’ said Jones, as if the subject were none of his. And +again directing Barnet’s attention to the wall-papers, the bustling +architect left him to keep some other engagement. +</p> + +<p> +‘A common headstone,’ murmured Barnet, left again to himself. He +mused a minute or two, and next began looking over and selecting from the +patterns; but had not long been engaged in the work when he heard another +footstep on the gravel without, and somebody enter the open porch. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet went to the door—it was his manservant in search of him. +</p> + +<p> +‘I have been trying for some time to find you, sir,’ he said. +‘This letter has come by the post, and it is marked immediate. And +there’s this one from Mr. Downe, who called just now wanting to see +you.’ He searched his pocket for the second. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet took the first letter—it had a black border, and bore the London +postmark. It was not in his wife’s handwriting, or in that of any person +he knew; but conjecture soon ceased as he read the page, wherein he was briefly +informed that Mrs. Barnet had died suddenly on the previous day, at the +furnished villa she had occupied near London. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet looked vaguely round the empty hall, at the blank walls, out of the +doorway. Drawing a long palpitating breath, and with eyes downcast, he turned +and climbed the stairs slowly, like a man who doubted their stability. The fact +of his wife having, as it were, died once already, and lived on again, had +entirely dislodged the possibility of her actual death from his conjecture. He +went to the landing, leant over the balusters, and after a reverie, of whose +duration he had but the faintest notion, turned to the window and stretched his +gaze to the cottage further down the road, which was visible from his landing, +and from which Lucy still walked to the solicitor’s house by a cross +path. The faint words that came from his moving lips were simply, ‘At +last!’ +</p> + +<p> +Then, almost involuntarily, Barnet fell down on his knees and murmured some +incoherent words of thanksgiving. Surely his virtue in restoring his wife to +life had been rewarded! But, as if the impulse struck uneasily on his +conscience, he quickly rose, brushed the dust from his trousers and set himself +to think of his next movements. He could not start for London for some hours; +and as he had no preparations to make that could not be made in half-an-hour, +he mechanically descended and resumed his occupation of turning over the +wall-papers. They had all got brighter for him, those papers. It was all +changed—who would sit in the rooms that they were to line? He went on to +muse upon Lucy’s conduct in so frequently coming to the house with the +children; her occasional blush in speaking to him; her evident interest in him. +What woman can in the long run avoid being interested in a man whom she knows +to be devoted to her? If human solicitation could ever effect anything, there +should be no going to India for Lucy now. All the papers previously chosen +seemed wrong in their shades, and he began from the beginning to choose again. +</p> + +<p> +While entering on the task he heard a forced ‘Ahem!’ from without +the porch, evidently uttered to attract his attention, and footsteps again +advancing to the door. His man, whom he had quite forgotten in his mental +turmoil, was still waiting there. +</p> + +<p> +‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ the man said from round the doorway; +‘but here’s the note from Mr. Downe that you didn’t take. He +called just after you went out, and as he couldn’t wait, he wrote this on +your study-table.’ +</p> + +<p> +He handed in the letter—no black-bordered one now, but a +practical-looking note in the well-known writing of the solicitor. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +‘DEAR BARNET’—it ran—‘Perhaps you will be +prepared for the information I am about to give—that Lucy Savile and +myself are going to be married this morning. I have hitherto said nothing as to +my intention to any of my friends, for reasons which I am sure you will fully +appreciate. The crisis has been brought about by her expressing her intention +to join her brother in India. I then discovered that I could not do without +her.<br /> + +‘It is to be quite a private wedding; but it is my particular wish that +you come down here quietly at ten, and go to church with us; it will add +greatly to the pleasure I shall experience in the ceremony, and, I believe, to +Lucy’s also. I have called on you very early to make the request, in the +belief that I should find you at home; but you are beforehand with me in your +early rising.—Yours sincerely, C. Downe.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Need I wait, sir?’ said the servant after a dead silence. +</p> + +<p> +‘That will do, William. No answer,’ said Barnet calmly. +</p> + +<p> +When the man had gone Barnet re-read the letter. Turning eventually to the +wall-papers, which he had been at such pains to select, he deliberately tore +them into halves and quarters, and threw them into the empty fireplace. Then he +went out of the house; locked the door, and stood in the front awhile. Instead +of returning into the town, he went down the harbour-road and thoughtfully +lingered about by the sea, near the spot where the body of Downe’s late +wife had been found and brought ashore. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet was a man with a rich capacity for misery, and there is no doubt that he +exercised it to its fullest extent now. The events that had, as it were, dashed +themselves together into one half-hour of this day showed that curious +refinement of cruelty in their arrangement which often proceeds from the bosom +of the whimsical god at other times known as blind Circumstance. That his few +minutes of hope, between the reading of the first and second letters, had +carried him to extraordinary heights of rapture was proved by the immensity of +his suffering now. The sun blazing into his face would have shown a close +watcher that a horizontal line, which he had never noticed before, but which +was never to be gone thereafter, was somehow gradually forming itself in the +smooth of his forehead. His eyes, of a light hazel, had a curious look which +can only be described by the word bruised; the sorrow that looked from them +being largely mixed with the surprise of a man taken unawares. +</p> + +<p> +The secondary particulars of his present position, too, were odd enough, though +for some time they appeared to engage little of his attention. Not a soul in +the town knew, as yet, of his wife’s death; and he almost owed Downe the +kindness of not publishing it till the day was over: the conjuncture, taken +with that which had accompanied the death of Mrs. Downe, being so singular as +to be quite sufficient to darken the pleasure of the impressionable solicitor +to a cruel extent, if made known to him. But as Barnet could not set out on his +journey to London, where his wife lay, for some hours (there being at this date +no railway within a distance of many miles), no great reason existed why he +should leave the town. +</p> + +<p> +Impulse in all its forms characterized Barnet, and when he heard the distant +clock strike the hour of ten his feet began to carry him up the harbour-road +with the manner of a man who must do something to bring himself to life. He +passed Lucy Savile’s old house, his own new one, and came in view of the +church. Now he gave a perceptible start, and his mechanical condition went +away. Before the church-gate were a couple of carriages, and Barnet then could +perceive that the marriage between Downe and Lucy was at that moment being +solemnized within. A feeling of sudden, proud self-confidence, an indocile wish +to walk unmoved in spite of grim environments, plainly possessed him, and when +he reached the wicket-gate he turned in without apparent effort. Pacing up the +paved footway he entered the church and stood for a while in the nave passage. +A group of people was standing round the vestry door; Barnet advanced through +these and stepped into the vestry. +</p> + +<p> +There they were, busily signing their names. Seeing Downe about to look round, +Barnet averted his somewhat disturbed face for a second or two; when he turned +again front to front he was calm and quite smiling; it was a creditable triumph +over himself, and deserved to be remembered in his native town. He greeted +Downe heartily, offering his congratulations. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed as if Barnet expected a half-guilty look upon Lucy’s face; but +no, save the natural flush and flurry engendered by the service just performed, +there was nothing whatever in her bearing which showed a disturbed mind: her +gray-brown eyes carried in them now as at other times the well-known expression +of common-sensed rectitude which never went so far as to touch on hardness. She +shook hands with him, and Downe said warmly, ‘I wish you could have come +sooner: I called on purpose to ask you. You’ll drive back with us +now?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, no,’ said Barnet; ‘I am not at all prepared; but I +thought I would look in upon you for a moment, even though I had not time to go +home and dress. I’ll stand back and see you pass out, and observe the +effect of the spectacle upon myself as one of the public.’ +</p> + +<p> +Then Lucy and her husband laughed, and Barnet laughed and retired; and the +quiet little party went gliding down the nave and towards the porch, +Lucy’s new silk dress sweeping with a smart rustle round the +base-mouldings of the ancient font, and Downe’s little daughters +following in a state of round-eyed interest in their position, and that of +Lucy, their teacher and friend. +</p> + +<p> +So Downe was comforted after his Emily’s death, which had taken place +twelve months, two weeks, and three days before that time. +</p> + +<p> +When the two flys had driven off and the spectators had vanished, Barnet +followed to the door, and went out into the sun. He took no more trouble to +preserve a spruce exterior; his step was unequal, hesitating, almost +convulsive; and the slight changes of colour which went on in his face seemed +refracted from some inward flame. In the churchyard he became pale as a summer +cloud, and finding it not easy to proceed he sat down on one of the tombstones +and supported his head with his hand. +</p> + +<p> +Hard by was a sexton filling up a grave which he had not found time to finish +on the previous evening. Observing Barnet, he went up to him, and recognizing +him, said, ‘Shall I help you home, sir?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O no, thank you,’ said Barnet, rousing himself and standing up. +The sexton returned to his grave, followed by Barnet, who, after watching him +awhile, stepped into the grave, now nearly filled, and helped to tread in the +earth. +</p> + +<p> +The sexton apparently thought his conduct a little singular, but he made no +observation, and when the grave was full, Barnet suddenly stopped, looked far +away, and with a decided step proceeded to the gate and vanished. The sexton +rested on his shovel and looked after him for a few moments, and then began +banking up the mound. +</p> + +<p> +In those short minutes of treading in the dead man Barnet had formed a design, +but what it was the inhabitants of that town did not for some long time +imagine. He went home, wrote several letters of business, called on his lawyer, +an old man of the same place who had been the legal adviser of Barnet’s +father before him, and during the evening overhauled a large quantity of +letters and other documents in his possession. By eleven o’clock the heap +of papers in and before Barnet’s grate had reached formidable dimensions, +and he began to burn them. This, owing to their quantity, it was not so easy to +do as he had expected, and he sat long into the night to complete the task. +</p> + +<p> +The next morning Barnet departed for London, leaving a note for Downe to inform +him of Mrs. Barnet’s sudden death, and that he was gone to bury her; but +when a thrice-sufficient time for that purpose had elapsed, he was not seen +again in his accustomed walks, or in his new house, or in his old one. He was +gone for good, nobody knew whither. It was soon discovered that he had +empowered his lawyer to dispose of all his property, real and personal, in the +borough, and pay in the proceeds to the account of an unknown person at one of +the large London banks. The person was by some supposed to be himself under an +assumed name; but few, if any, had certain knowledge of that fact. +</p> + +<p> +The elegant new residence was sold with the rest of his possessions; and its +purchaser was no other than Downe, now a thriving man in the borough, and one +whose growing family and new wife required more roomy accommodation than was +afforded by the little house up the narrow side street. Barnet’s old +habitation was bought by the trustees of the Congregational Baptist body in +that town, who pulled down the time-honoured dwelling and built a new chapel on +its site. By the time the last hour of that, to Barnet, eventful year had +chimed, every vestige of him had disappeared from the precincts of his native +place, and the name became extinct in the borough of Port-Bredy, after having +been a living force therein for more than two hundred years. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3> + +<p> +Twenty-one years and six months do not pass without setting a mark even upon +durable stone and triple brass; upon humanity such a period works nothing less +than transformation. In Barnet’s old birthplace vivacious young children +with bones like india-rubber had grown up to be stable men and women, men and +women had dried in the skin, stiffened, withered, and sunk into decrepitude; +while selections from every class had been consigned to the outlying cemetery. +Of inorganic differences the greatest was that a railway had invaded the town, +tying it on to a main line at a junction a dozen miles off. Barnet’s +house on the harbour-road, once so insistently new, had acquired a respectable +mellowness, with ivy, Virginia creepers, lichens, damp patches, and even +constitutional infirmities of its own like its elder fellows. Its architecture, +once so very improved and modern, had already become stale in style, without +having reached the dignity of being old-fashioned. Trees about the harbour-road +had increased in circumference or disappeared under the saw; while the church +had had such a tremendous practical joke played upon it by some facetious +restorer or other as to be scarce recognizable by its dearest old friends. +</p> + +<p> +During this long interval George Barnet had never once been seen or heard of in +the town of his fathers. +</p> + +<p> +It was the evening of a market-day, and some half-dozen middle-aged farmers and +dairymen were lounging round the bar of the Black-Bull Hotel, occasionally +dropping a remark to each other, and less frequently to the two barmaids who +stood within the pewter-topped counter in a perfunctory attitude of attention, +these latter sighing and making a private observation to one another at odd +intervals, on more interesting experiences than the present. +</p> + +<p> +‘Days get shorter,’ said one of the dairymen, as he looked towards +the street, and noticed that the lamp-lighter was passing by. +</p> + +<p> +The farmers merely acknowledged by their countenances the propriety of this +remark, and finding that nobody else spoke, one of the barmaids said +‘yes,’ in a tone of painful duty. +</p> + +<p> +‘Come fair-day we shall have to light up before we start for +home-along.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘That’s true,’ his neighbour conceded, with a gaze of +blankness. +</p> + +<p> +‘And after that we shan’t see much further difference all’s +winter.’ +</p> + +<p> +The rest were not unwilling to go even so far as this. +</p> + +<p> +The barmaid sighed again, and raised one of her hands from the counter on which +they rested to scratch the smallest surface of her face with the smallest of +her fingers. She looked towards the door, and presently remarked, ‘I +think I hear the ‘bus coming in from station.’ +</p> + +<p> +The eyes of the dairymen and farmers turned to the glass door dividing the hall +from the porch, and in a minute or two the omnibus drew up outside. Then there +was a lumbering down of luggage, and then a man came into the hall, followed by +a porter with a portmanteau on his poll, which he deposited on a bench. +</p> + +<p> +The stranger was an elderly person, with curly ashen white hair, a +deeply-creviced outer corner to each eyelid, and a countenance baked by +innumerable suns to the colour of terra-cotta, its hue and that of his hair +contrasting like heat and cold respectively. He walked meditatively and gently, +like one who was fearful of disturbing his own mental equilibrium. But whatever +lay at the bottom of his breast had evidently made him so accustomed to its +situation there that it caused him little practical inconvenience. +</p> + +<p> +He paused in silence while, with his dubious eyes fixed on the barmaids, he +seemed to consider himself. In a moment or two he addressed them, and asked to +be accommodated for the night. As he waited he looked curiously round the hall, +but said nothing. As soon as invited he disappeared up the staircase, preceded +by a chambermaid and candle, and followed by a lad with his trunk. Not a soul +had recognized him. +</p> + +<p> +A quarter of an hour later, when the farmers and dairymen had driven off to +their homesteads in the country, he came downstairs, took a biscuit and one +glass of wine, and walked out into the town, where the radiance from the +shop-windows had grown so in volume of late years as to flood with cheerfulness +every standing cart, barrow, stall, and idler that occupied the wayside, +whether shabby or genteel. His chief interest at present seemed to lie in the +names painted over the shop-fronts and on door-ways, as far as they were +visible; these now differed to an ominous extent from what they had been +one-and-twenty years before. +</p> + +<p> +The traveller passed on till he came to the bookseller’s, where he looked +in through the glass door. A fresh-faced young man was standing behind the +counter, otherwise the shop was empty. The gray-haired observer entered, asked +for some periodical by way of paying for admission, and with his elbow on the +counter began to turn over the pages he had bought, though that he read nothing +was obvious. +</p> + +<p> +At length he said, ‘Is old Mr. Watkins still alive?’ in a voice +which had a curious youthful cadence in it even now. +</p> + +<p> +‘My father is dead, sir,’ said the young man. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, I am sorry to hear it,’ said the stranger. ‘But it is so +many years since I last visited this town that I could hardly expect it should +be otherwise.’ After a short silence he continued—‘And is the +firm of Barnet, Browse, and Company still in existence?<i>—</i>they used +to be large flax-merchants and twine-spinners here?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘The firm is still going on, sir, but they have dropped the name of +Barnet. I believe that was a sort of fancy name—at least, I never knew of +any living Barnet. ’Tis now Browse and Co.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And does Andrew Jones still keep on as architect?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He’s dead, sir.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And the Vicar of St. Mary’s—Mr. Melrose?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He’s been dead a great many years.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Dear me!’ He paused yet longer, and cleared his voice. ‘Is +Mr. Downe, the solicitor, still in practice?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, sir, he’s dead. He died about seven years ago.’ +</p> + +<p> +Here it was a longer silence still; and an attentive observer would have +noticed that the paper in the stranger’s hand increased its imperceptible +tremor to a visible shake. That gray-haired gentleman noticed it himself, and +rested the paper on the counter. ‘Is <i>Mrs</i>. Downe still +alive?’ he asked, closing his lips firmly as soon as the words were out +of his mouth, and dropping his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, sir, she’s alive and well. She’s living at the old +place.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘In East Street?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O no; at Château Ringdale. I believe it has been in the family for +some generations.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘She lives with her children, perhaps?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No; she has no children of her own. There were some Miss Downes; I think +they were Mr. Downe’s daughters by a former wife; but they are married +and living in other parts of the town. Mrs. Downe lives alone.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Quite alone?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, sir; quite alone.’ +</p> + +<p> +The newly-arrived gentleman went back to the hotel and dined; after which he +made some change in his dress, shaved back his beard to the fashion that had +prevailed twenty years earlier, when he was young and interesting, and once +more emerging, bent his steps in the direction of the harbour-road. Just before +getting to the point where the pavement ceased and the houses isolated +themselves, he overtook a shambling, stooping, unshaven man, who at first sight +appeared like a professional tramp, his shoulders having a perceptible +greasiness as they passed under the gaslight. Each pedestrian momentarily +turned and regarded the other, and the tramp-like gentleman started back. +</p> + +<p> +‘Good—why—is that Mr. Barnet? ’Tis Mr. Barnet, +surely!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes; and you are Charlson?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes—ah—you notice my appearance. The Fates have rather +ill-used me. By-the-bye, that fifty pounds. I never paid it, did I? . . . But I +was not ungrateful!’ Here the stooping man laid one hand emphatically on +the palm of the other. ‘I gave you a chance, Mr. George Barnet, which +many men would have thought full value received—the chance to marry your +Lucy. As far as the world was concerned, your wife was a <i>drowned woman</i>, +hey?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Heaven forbid all that, Charlson!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, well, ’twas a wrong way of showing gratitude, I suppose. And +now a drop of something to drink for old acquaintance’ sake! And Mr. +Barnet, she’s again free—there’s a chance now if you care for +it—ha, ha!’ And the speaker pushed his tongue into his hollow cheek +and slanted his eye in the old fashion. +</p> + +<p> +‘I know all,’ said Barnet quickly; and slipping a small present +into the hands of the needy, saddening man, he stepped ahead and was soon in +the outskirts of the town. +</p> + +<p> +He reached the harbour-road, and paused before the entrance to a well-known +house. It was so highly bosomed in trees and shrubs planted since the erection +of the building that one would scarcely have recognized the spot as that which +had been a mere neglected slope till chosen as a site for a dwelling. He opened +the swing-gate, closed it noiselessly, and gently moved into the semicircular +drive, which remained exactly as it had been marked out by Barnet on the +morning when Lucy Savile ran in to thank him for procuring her the post of +governess to Downe’s children. But the growth of trees and bushes which +revealed itself at every step was beyond all expectation; sun-proof and +moon-proof bowers vaulted the walks, and the walls of the house were uniformly +bearded with creeping plants as high as the first-floor windows. +</p> + +<p> +After lingering for a few minutes in the dusk of the bending boughs, the +visitor rang the door-bell, and on the servant appearing, he announced himself +as ‘an old friend of Mrs. Downe’s.’ +</p> + +<p> +The hall was lighted, but not brightly, the gas being turned low, as if +visitors were rare. There was a stagnation in the dwelling; it seemed to be +waiting. Could it really be waiting for him? The partitions which had been +probed by Barnet’s walking-stick when the mortar was green, were now +quite brown with the antiquity of their varnish, and the ornamental woodwork of +the staircase, which had glistened with a pale yellow newness when first +erected, was now of a rich wine-colour. During the servant’s absence the +following colloquy could be dimly heard through the nearly closed door of the +drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +‘He didn’t give his name?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He only said “an old friend,” ma’am.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What kind of gentleman is he?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A staidish gentleman, with gray hair.’ +</p> + +<p> +The voice of the second speaker seemed to affect the listener greatly. After a +pause, the lady said, ‘Very well, I will see him.’ +</p> + +<p> +And the stranger was shown in face to face with the Lucy who had once been Lucy +Savile. The round cheek of that formerly young lady had, of course, alarmingly +flattened its curve in her modern representative; a pervasive grayness +overspread her once dark brown hair, like morning rime on heather. The parting +down the middle was wide and jagged; once it had been a thin white line, a +narrow crevice between two high banks of shade. But there was still enough left +to form a handsome knob behind, and some curls beneath inwrought with a few +hairs like silver wires were very becoming. In her eyes the only modification +was that their originally mild rectitude of expression had become a little more +stringent than heretofore. Yet she was still girlish—a girl who had been +gratuitously weighted by destiny with a burden of five-and-forty years instead +of her proper twenty. +</p> + +<p> +‘Lucy, don’t you know me?’ he said, when the servant had +closed the door. +</p> + +<p> +‘I knew you the instant I saw you!’ she returned cheerfully. +‘I don’t know why, but I always thought you would come back to your +old town again.’ +</p> + +<p> +She gave him her hand, and then they sat down. ‘They said you were +dead,’ continued Lucy, ‘but I never thought so. We should have +heard of it for certain if you had been.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is a very long time since we met.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes; what you must have seen, Mr. Barnet, in all these roving years, in +comparison with what I have seen in this quiet place!’ Her face grew more +serious. ‘You know my husband has been dead a long time? I am a lonely +old woman now, considering what I have been; though Mr. Downe’s +daughters—all married—manage to keep me pretty cheerful.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And I am a lonely old man, and have been any time these twenty +years.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But where have you kept yourself? And why did you go off so +mysteriously?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, Lucy, I have kept myself a little in America, and a little in +Australia, a little in India, a little at the Cape, and so on; I have not +stayed in any place for a long time, as it seems to me, and yet more than +twenty years have flown. But when people get to my age two years go like +one!—Your second question, why did I go away so mysteriously, is surely +not necessary. You guessed why, didn’t you?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, I never once guessed,’ she said simply; ‘nor did +Charles, nor did anybody as far as I know.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, indeed! Now think it over again, and then look at me, and say if +you can’t guess?’ +</p> + +<p> +She looked him in the face with an inquiring smile. ‘Surely not because +of me?’ she said, pausing at the commencement of surprise. +</p> + +<p> +Barnet nodded, and smiled again; but his smile was sadder than hers. +</p> + +<p> +‘Because I married Charles?’ she asked. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes; solely because you married him on the day I was free to ask you to +marry me. My wife died four-and-twenty hours before you went to church with +Downe. The fixing of my journey at that particular moment was because of her +funeral; but once away I knew I should have no inducement to come back, and +took my steps accordingly.’ +</p> + +<p> +Her face assumed an aspect of gentle reflection, and she looked up and down his +form with great interest in her eyes. ‘I never thought of it!’ she +said. ‘I knew, of course, that you had once implied some warmth of +feeling towards me, but I concluded that it passed off. And I have always been +under the impression that your wife was alive at the time of my marriage. Was +it not stupid of me!—But you will have some tea or something? I have +never dined late, you know, since my husband’s death. I have got into the +way of making a regular meal of tea. You will have some tea with me, will you +not?’ +</p> + +<p> +The travelled man assented quite readily, and tea was brought in. They sat and +chatted over the meal, regardless of the flying hour. ‘Well, well!’ +said Barnet presently, as for the first time he leisurely surveyed the room; +‘how like it all is, and yet how different! Just where your piano stands +was a board on a couple of trestles, bearing the patterns of wall-papers, when +I was last here. I was choosing them—standing in this way, as it might +be. Then my servant came in at the door, and handed me a note, so. It was from +Downe, and announced that you were just going to be married to him. I chose no +more wall-papers—tore up all those I had selected, and left the house. I +never entered it again till now.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, at last I understand it all,’ she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +They had both risen and gone to the fireplace. The mantel came almost on a +level with her shoulder, which gently rested against it, and Barnet laid his +hand upon the shelf close beside her shoulder. ‘Lucy,’ he said, +‘better late than never. Will you marry me now?’ +</p> + +<p> +She started back, and the surprise which was so obvious in her wrought even +greater surprise in him that it should be so. It was difficult to believe that +she had been quite blind to the situation, and yet all reason and common sense +went to prove that she was not acting. +</p> + +<p> +‘You take me quite unawares by such a question!’ she said, with a +forced laugh of uneasiness. It was the first time she had shown any +embarrassment at all. ‘Why,’ she added, ‘I couldn’t +marry you for the world.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Not after all this! Why not?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is—I would—I really think I may say it—I would upon +the whole rather marry you, Mr. Barnet, than any other man I have ever met, if +I ever dreamed of marriage again. But I don’t dream of it—it is +quite out of my thoughts; I have not the least intention of marrying +again.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But—on my account—couldn’t you alter your plans a +little? Come!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Dear Mr. Barnet,’ she said with a little flutter, ‘I would +on your account if on anybody’s in existence. But you don’t know in +the least what it is you are asking—such an impracticable thing—I +won’t say ridiculous, of course, because I see that you are really in +earnest, and earnestness is never ridiculous to my mind.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, yes,’ said Barnet more slowly, dropping her hand, which he +had taken at the moment of pleading, ‘I am in earnest. The resolve, two +months ago, at the Cape, to come back once more was, it is true, rather sudden, +and as I see now, not well considered. But I am in earnest in asking.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And I in declining. With all good feeling and all kindness, let me say +that I am quite opposed to the idea of marrying a second time.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, no harm has been done,’ he answered, with the same subdued +and tender humorousness that he had shown on such occasions in early life. +‘If you really won’t accept me, I must put up with it, I +suppose.’ His eye fell on the clock as he spoke. ‘Had you any +notion that it was so late?’ he asked. ‘How absorbed I have +been!’ +</p> + +<p> +She accompanied him to the hall, helped him to put on his overcoat, and let him +out of the house herself. +</p> + +<p> +‘Good-night,’ said Barnet, on the doorstep, as the lamp shone in +his face. ‘You are not offended with me?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Certainly not. Nor you with me?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I’ll consider whether I am or not,’ he pleasantly replied. +‘Good-night.’ +</p> + +<p> +She watched him safely through the gate; and when his footsteps had died away +upon the road, closed the door softly and returned to the room. Here the modest +widow long pondered his speeches, with eyes dropped to an unusually low level. +Barnet’s urbanity under the blow of her refusal greatly impressed her. +After having his long period of probation rendered useless by her decision, he +had shown no anger, and had philosophically taken her words as if he deserved +no better ones. It was very gentlemanly of him, certainly; it was more than +gentlemanly; it was heroic and grand. The more she meditated, the more she +questioned the virtue of her conduct in checking him so peremptorily; and went +to her bedroom in a mood of dissatisfaction. On looking in the glass she was +reminded that there was not so much remaining of her former beauty as to make +his frank declaration an impulsive natural homage to her cheeks and eyes; it +must undoubtedly have arisen from an old staunch feeling of his, deserving +tenderest consideration. She recalled to her mind with much pleasure that he +had told her he was staying at the Black-Bull Hotel; so that if, after waiting +a day or two, he should not, in his modesty, call again, she might then send +him a nice little note. To alter her views for the present was far from her +intention; but she would allow herself to be induced to reconsider the case, as +any generous woman ought to do. +</p> + +<p> +The morrow came and passed, and Mr. Barnet did not drop in. At every knock, +light youthful hues flew across her cheek; and she was abstracted in the +presence of her other visitors. In the evening she walked about the house, not +knowing what to do with herself; the conditions of existence seemed totally +different from those which ruled only four-and-twenty short hours ago. What had +been at first a tantalizing elusive sentiment was getting acclimatized within +her as a definite hope, and her person was so informed by that emotion that she +might almost have stood as its emblematical representative by the time the +clock struck ten. In short, an interest in Barnet precisely resembling that of +her early youth led her present heart to belie her yesterday’s words to +him, and she longed to see him again. +</p> + +<p> +The next day she walked out early, thinking she might meet him in the street. +The growing beauty of her romance absorbed her, and she went from the street to +the fields, and from the fields to the shore, without any consciousness of +distance, till reminded by her weariness that she could go no further. He had +nowhere appeared. In the evening she took a step which under the circumstances +seemed justifiable; she wrote a note to him at the hotel, inviting him to tea +with her at six precisely, and signing her note ‘Lucy.’ +</p> + +<p> +In a quarter of an hour the messenger came back. Mr. Barnet had left the hotel +early in the morning of the day before, but he had stated that he would +probably return in the course of the week. +</p> + +<p> +The note was sent back, to be given to him immediately on his arrival. +</p> + +<p> +There was no sign from the inn that this desired event had occurred, either on +the next day or the day following. On both nights she had been restless, and +had scarcely slept half-an-hour. +</p> + +<p> +On the Saturday, putting off all diffidence, Lucy went herself to the +Black-Bull, and questioned the staff closely. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Barnet had cursorily remarked when leaving that he might return on the +Thursday or Friday, but they were directed not to reserve a room for him unless +he should write. +</p> + +<p> +He had left no address. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy sorrowfully took back her note went home, and resolved to wait. +</p> + +<p> +She did wait—years and years—but Barnet never reappeared. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +<i>April</i> 1880. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>INTERLOPERS AT THE KNAP</h2> + +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<p> +The north road from Casterbridge is tedious and lonely, especially in +winter-time. Along a part of its course it connects with Long-Ash Lane, a +monotonous track without a village or hamlet for many miles, and with very +seldom a turning. Unapprized wayfarers who are too old, or too young, or in +other respects too weak for the distance to be traversed, but who, +nevertheless, have to walk it, say, as they look wistfully ahead, ‘Once +at the top of that hill, and I must surely see the end of Long-Ash Lane!’ +But they reach the hilltop, and Long-Ash Lane stretches in front as mercilessly +as before. +</p> + +<p> +Some few years ago a certain farmer was riding through this lane in the gloom +of a winter evening. The farmer’s friend, a dairyman, was riding beside +him. A few paces in the rear rode the farmer’s man. All three were well +horsed on strong, round-barrelled cobs; and to be well horsed was to be in +better spirits about Long-Ash Lane than poor pedestrians could attain to during +its passage. +</p> + +<p> +But the farmer did not talk much to his friend as he rode along. The enterprise +which had brought him there filled his mind; for in truth it was important. Not +altogether so important was it, perhaps, when estimated by its value to society +at large; but if the true measure of a deed be proportionate to the space it +occupies in the heart of him who undertakes it, Farmer Charles Darton’s +business to-night could hold its own with the business of kings. +</p> + +<p> +He was a large farmer. His turnover, as it is called, was probably thirty +thousand pounds a year. He had a great many draught horses, a great many milch +cows, and of sheep a multitude. This comfortable position was, however, none of +his own making. It had been created by his father, a man of a very different +stamp from the present representative of the line. +</p> + +<p> +Darton, the father, had been a one-idea’d character, with a buttoned-up +pocket and a chink-like eye brimming with commercial subtlety. In Darton the +son, this trade subtlety had become transmuted into emotional, and the +harshness had disappeared; he would have been called a sad man but for his +constant care not to divide himself from lively friends by piping notes out of +harmony with theirs. Contemplative, he allowed his mind to be a quiet +meeting-place for memories and hopes. So that, naturally enough, since +succeeding to the agricultural calling, and up to his present age of +thirty-two, he had neither advanced nor receded as a capitalist—a +stationary result which did not agitate one of his unambitious, unstrategic +nature, since he had all that he desired. The motive of his expedition to-night +showed the same absence of anxious regard for Number One. +</p> + +<p> +The party rode on in the slow, safe trot proper to night-time and bad roads, +Farmer Darton’s head jigging rather unromantically up and down against +the sky, and his motions being repeated with bolder emphasis by his friend +Japheth Johns; while those of the latter were travestied in jerks still less +softened by art in the person of the lad who attended them. A pair of whitish +objects hung one on each side of the latter, bumping against him at each step, +and still further spoiling the grace of his seat. On close inspection they +might have been perceived to be open rush baskets—one containing a +turkey, and the other some bottles of wine. +</p> + +<p> +‘D’ye feel ye can meet your fate like a man, neighbour +Darton?’ asked Johns, breaking a silence which had lasted while +five-and-twenty hedgerow trees had glided by. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Darton with a half-laugh murmured, ‘Ay—call it my fate! Hanging +and wiving go by destiny.’ And then they were silent again. +</p> + +<p> +The darkness thickened rapidly, at intervals shutting down on the land in a +perceptible flap, like the wave of a wing. The customary close of day was +accelerated by a simultaneous blurring of the air. With the fall of night had +come a mist just damp enough to incommode, but not sufficient to saturate them. +Countrymen as they were—born, as may be said, with only an open door +between them and the four seasons—they regarded the mist but as an added +obscuration, and ignored its humid quality. +</p> + +<p> +They were travelling in a direction that was enlivened by no modern current of +traffic, the place of Darton’s pilgrimage being an old-fashioned +village—one of the Hintocks (several villages of that name, with a +distinctive prefix or affix, lying thereabout)—where the people make the +best cider and cider-wine in all Wessex, and where the dunghills smell of +pomace instead of stable refuse as elsewhere. The lane was sometimes so narrow +that the brambles of the hedge, which hung forward like anglers’ rods +over a stream, scratched their hats and curry-combed their whiskers as they +passed. Yet this neglected lane had been a highway to Queen Elizabeth’s +subjects and the cavalcades of the past. Its day was over now, and its history +as a national artery done for ever. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why I have decided to marry her,’ resumed Darton (in a measured +musical voice of confidence which revealed a good deal of his composition), as +he glanced round to see that the lad was not too near, ‘is not only that +I like her, but that I can do no better, even from a fairly practical point of +view. That I might ha’ looked higher is possibly true, though it is +really all nonsense. I have had experience enough in looking above me. +“No more superior women for me,” said I—you know when. Sally +is a comely, independent, simple character, with no make-up about her, +who’ll think me as much a superior to her as I used to think—you +know who I mean—was to me.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ay,’ said Johns. ‘However, I shouldn’t call Sally Hall +simple. Primary, because no Sally is; secondary, because if some could be, this +one wouldn’t. ’Tis a wrong denomination to apply to a woman, +Charles, and affects me, as your best man, like cold water. ’Tis like +recommending a stage play by saying there’s neither murder, villainy, nor +harm of any sort in it, when that’s what you’ve paid your +half-crown to see.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well; may your opinion do you good. Mine’s a different one.’ +And turning the conversation from the philosophical to the practical, Darton +expressed a hope that the said Sally had received what he’d sent on by +the carrier that day. +</p> + +<p> +Johns wanted to know what that was. +</p> + +<p> +‘It is a dress,’ said Darton. ‘Not exactly a wedding-dress; +though she may use it as one if she likes. It is rather serviceable than +showy—suitable for the winter weather.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Good,’ said Johns. ‘Serviceable is a wise word in a +bridegroom. I commend ye, Charles.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘For,’ said Darton, ‘why should a woman dress up like a +rope-dancer because she’s going to do the most solemn deed of her life +except dying?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Faith, why? But she will, because she will, I suppose,’ said +Dairyman Johns. +</p> + +<p> +‘H’m,’ said Darton. +</p> + +<p> +The lane they followed had been nearly straight for several miles, but it now +took a turn, and winding uncertainly for some distance forked into two. By +night country roads are apt to reveal ungainly qualities which pass without +observation during day; and though Darton had travelled this way before, he had +not done so frequently, Sally having been wooed at the house of a relative near +his own. He never remembered seeing at this spot a pair of alternative ways +looking so equally probable as these two did now. Johns rode on a few steps. +</p> + +<p> +‘Don’t be out of heart, sonny,’ he cried. ‘Here’s +a handpost. Enoch—come and climm this post, and tell us the way.’ +</p> + +<p> +The lad dismounted, and jumped into the hedge where the post stood under a +tree. +</p> + +<p> +‘Unstrap the baskets, or you’ll smash up that wine!’ cried +Darton, as the young man began spasmodically to climb the post, baskets and +all. +</p> + +<p> +‘Was there ever less head in a brainless world?’ said Johns. +‘Here, simple Nocky, I’ll do it.’ He leapt off, and with much +puffing climbed the post, striking a match when he reached the top, and moving +the light along the arm, the lad standing and gazing at the spectacle. +</p> + +<p> +‘I have faced tantalization these twenty years with a temper as mild as +milk!’ said Japheth; ‘but such things as this don’t come +short of devilry!’ And flinging the match away, he slipped down to the +ground. +</p> + +<p> +‘What’s the matter?’ asked Darton. +</p> + +<p> +‘Not a letter, sacred or heathen—not so much as would tell us the +way to the great fireplace—ever I should sin to say it! Either the moss +and mildew have eat away the words, or we have arrived in a land where the +natyves have lost the art o’ writing, and should ha’ brought our +compass like Christopher Columbus.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Let us take the straightest road,’ said Darton placidly; ‘I +shan’t be sorry to get there—’tis a tiresome ride. I would +have driven if I had known.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Nor I neither, sir,’ said Enoch. ‘These straps plough my +shoulder like a zull. If ’tis much further to your lady’s home, +Maister Darton, I shall ask to be let carry half of these good things in my +innerds—hee, hee!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Don’t you be such a reforming radical, Enoch,’ said Johns +sternly. ‘Here, I’ll take the turkey.’ +</p> + +<p> +This being done, they went forward by the right-hand lane, which ascended a +hill, the left winding away under a plantation. The pit-a-pat of their +horses’ hoofs lessened up the slope; and the ironical directing-post +stood in solitude as before, holding out its blank arms to the raw breeze, +which brought a snore from the wood as if Skrymir the Giant were sleeping +there. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<p> +Three miles to the left of the travellers, along the road they had not +followed, rose an old house with mullioned windows of Ham-hill stone, and +chimneys of lavish solidity. It stood at the top of a slope beside +King’s-Hintock village-street; and immediately in front of it grew a +large sycamore-tree, whose bared roots formed a convenient staircase from the +road below to the front door of the dwelling. Its situation gave the house what +little distinctive name it possessed, namely, ‘The Knap.’ Some +forty yards off a brook dribbled past, which, for its size, made a great deal +of noise. At the back was a dairy barton, accessible for vehicles and +live-stock by a side ‘drong.’ Thus much only of the character of +the homestead could be divined out of doors at this shady evening-time. +</p> + +<p> +But within there was plenty of light to see by, as plenty was construed at +Hintock. Beside a Tudor fireplace, whose moulded four-centred arch was nearly +hidden by a figured blue-cloth blower, were seated two women—mother and +daughter—Mrs. Hall, and Sarah, or Sally; for this was a part of the world +where the latter modification had not as yet been effaced as a vulgarity by the +march of intellect. The owner of the name was the young woman by whose means +Mr. Darton proposed to put an end to his bachelor condition on the approaching +day. +</p> + +<p> +The mother’s bereavement had been so long ago as not to leave much mark +of its occurrence upon her now, either in face or clothes. She had resumed the +mob-cap of her early married life, enlivening its whiteness by a few +rose-du-Barry ribbons. Sally required no such aids to pinkness. Roseate +good-nature lit up her gaze; her features showed curves of decision and +judgment; and she might have been regarded without much mistake as a +warm-hearted, quick-spirited, handsome girl. +</p> + +<p> +She did most of the talking, her mother listening with a half-absent air, as +she picked up fragments of red-hot wood ember with the tongs, and piled them +upon the brands. But the number of speeches that passed was very small in +proportion to the meanings exchanged. Long experience together often enabled +them to see the course of thought in each other’s minds without a word +being spoken. Behind them, in the centre of the room, the table was spread for +supper, certain whiffs of air laden with fat vapours, which ever and anon +entered from the kitchen, denoting its preparation there. +</p> + +<p> +‘The new gown he was going to send you stays about on the way like +himself,’ Sally’s mother was saying. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, not finished, I daresay,’ cried Sally independently. +‘Lord, I shouldn’t be amazed if it didn’t come at all! Young +men make such kind promises when they are near you, and forget ’em when +they go away. But he doesn’t intend it as a wedding-gown—he gives +it to me merely as a gown to wear when I like—a travelling-dress is what +it would be called by some. Come rathe or come late it don’t much matter, +as I have a dress of my own to fall back upon. But what time is it?’ +</p> + +<p> +She went to the family clock and opened the glass, for the hour was not +otherwise discernible by night, and indeed at all times was rather a thing to +be investigated than beheld, so much more wall than window was there in the +apartment. ‘It is nearly eight,’ said she. +</p> + +<p> +‘Eight o’clock, and neither dress nor man,’ said Mrs. Hall. +</p> + +<p> +‘Mother, if you think to tantalize me by talking like that, you are much +mistaken! Let him be as late as he will—or stay away altogether—I +don’t care,’ said Sally. But a tender, minute quaver in the +negation showed that there was something forced in that statement. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hall perceived it, and drily observed that she was not so sure about Sally +not caring. ‘But perhaps you don’t care so much as I do, after +all,’ she said. ‘For I see what you don’t, that it is a good +and flourishing match for you; a very honourable offer in Mr. Darton. And I +think I see a kind husband in him. So pray God ’twill go smooth, and wind +up well.’ +</p> + +<p> +Sally would not listen to misgivings. Of course it would go smoothly, she +asserted. ‘How you are up and down, mother!’ she went on. ‘At +this moment, whatever hinders him, we are not so anxious to see him as he is to +be here, and his thought runs on before him, and settles down upon us like the +star in the east. Hark!’ she exclaimed, with a breath of relief, her eyes +sparkling. ‘I heard something. Yes—here they are!’ +</p> + +<p> +The next moment her mother’s slower ear also distinguished the familiar +reverberation occasioned by footsteps clambering up the roots of the sycamore. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes it sounds like them at last,’ she said. ‘Well, it is not +so very late after all, considering the distance.’ +</p> + +<p> +The footfall ceased, and they arose, expecting a knock. They began to think it +might have been, after all, some neighbouring villager under Bacchic influence, +giving the centre of the road a wide berth, when their doubts were dispelled by +the new-comer’s entry into the passage. The door of the room was gently +opened, and there appeared, not the pair of travellers with whom we have +already made acquaintance, but a pale-faced man in the garb of extreme +poverty—almost in rags. +</p> + +<p> +‘O, it’s a tramp—gracious me!’ said Sally, starting +back. +</p> + +<p> +His cheeks and eye-orbits were deep concaves—rather, it might be, from +natural weakness of constitution than irregular living, though there were +indications that he had led no careful life. He gazed at the two women fixedly +for a moment: then with an abashed, humiliated demeanour, dropped his glance to +the floor, and sank into a chair without uttering a word. +</p> + +<p> +Sally was in advance of her mother, who had remained standing by the fire. She +now tried to discern the visitor across the candles. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why—mother,’ said Sally faintly, turning back to Mrs. Hall. +‘It is Phil, from Australia!’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hall started, and grew pale, and a fit of coughing seized the man with the +ragged clothes. ‘To come home like this!’ she said. ‘O, +Philip—are you ill?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, no, mother,’ replied he impatiently, as soon as he could +speak. +</p> + +<p> +‘But for God’s sake how do you come here—and just now +too?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I am here,’ said the man. ‘How it is I hardly know. +I’ve come home, mother, because I was driven to it. Things were against +me out there, and went from bad to worse.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then why didn’t you let us know?—you’ve not writ a +line for the last two or three years.’ +</p> + +<p> +The son admitted sadly that he had not. He said that he had hoped and thought +he might fetch up again, and be able to send good news. Then he had been +obliged to abandon that hope, and had finally come home from sheer +necessity—previously to making a new start. ‘Yes, things are very +bad with me,’ he repeated, perceiving their commiserating glances at his +clothes. +</p> + +<p> +They brought him nearer the fire, took his hat from his thin hand, which was so +small and smooth as to show that his attempts to fetch up again had not been in +a manual direction. His mother resumed her inquiries, and dubiously asked if he +had chosen to come that particular night for any special reason. +</p> + +<p> +For no reason, he told her. His arrival had been quite at random. Then Philip +Hall looked round the room, and saw for the first time that the table was laid +somewhat luxuriously, and for a larger number than themselves; and that an air +of festivity pervaded their dress. He asked quickly what was going on. +</p> + +<p> +‘Sally is going to be married in a day or two,’ replied the mother; +and she explained how Mr. Darton, Sally’s intended husband, was coming +there that night with the groomsman, Mr. Johns, and other details. ‘We +thought it must be their step when we heard you,’ said Mrs. Hall. +</p> + +<p> +The needy wanderer looked again on the floor. ‘I see—I see,’ +he murmured. ‘Why, indeed, should I have come to-night? Such folk as I +are not wanted here at these times, naturally. And I have no business +here—spoiling other people’s happiness.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Phil,’ said his mother, with a tear in her eye, but with a +thinness of lip and severity of manner which were presumably not more than past +events justified; ‘since you speak like that to me, I’ll speak +honestly to you. For these three years you have taken no thought for us. You +left home with a good supply of money, and strength and education, and you +ought to have made good use of it all. But you come back like a beggar; and +that you come in a very awkward time for us cannot be denied. Your return +to-night may do us much harm. But mind—you are welcome to this home as +long as it is mine. I don’t wish to turn you adrift. We will make the +best of a bad job; and I hope you are not seriously ill?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O no. I have only this infernal cough.’ +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him anxiously. ‘I think you had better go to bed at +once,’ she said. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well—I shall be out of the way there,’ said the son wearily. +‘Having ruined myself, don’t let me ruin you by being seen in these +togs, for Heaven’s sake. Who do you say Sally is going to be married +to—a Farmer Darton?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes—a gentleman-farmer—quite a wealthy man. Far better in +station than she could have expected. It is a good thing, altogether.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well done, little Sal!’ said her brother, brightening and looking +up at her with a smile. ‘I ought to have written; but perhaps I have +thought of you all the more. But let me get out of sight. I would rather go and +jump into the river than be seen here. But have you anything I can drink? I am +confoundedly thirsty with my long tramp.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes, we will bring something upstairs to you,’ said Sally, +with grief in her face. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ay, that will do nicely. But, Sally and mother—’ He stopped, +and they waited. ‘Mother, I have not told you all,’ he resumed +slowly, still looking on the floor between his knees. ‘Sad as what you +see of me is, there’s worse behind.’ +</p> + +<p> +His mother gazed upon him in grieved suspense, and Sally went and leant upon +the bureau, listening for every sound, and sighing. Suddenly she turned round, +saying, ‘Let them come, I don’t care! Philip, tell the worst, and +take your time.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, then,’ said the unhappy Phil, ‘I am not the only one +in this mess. Would to Heaven I were! But—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O, Phil!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I have a wife as destitute as I.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A wife?’ said his mother. +</p> + +<p> +‘Unhappily!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A wife! Yes, that is the way with sons!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And besides—’ said he. +</p> + +<p> +‘Besides! O, Philip, surely—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I have two little children.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Wife and children!’ whispered Mrs. Hall, sinking down confounded. +</p> + +<p> +‘Poor little things!’ said Sally involuntarily. +</p> + +<p> +His mother turned again to him. ‘I suppose these helpless beings are left +in Australia?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No. They are in England.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I can only hope you’ve left them in a respectable +place.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I have not left them at all. They are here—within a few yards of +us. In short, they are in the stable.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Where?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘In the stable. I did not like to bring them indoors till I had seen you, +mother, and broken the bad news a bit to you. They were very tired, and are +resting out there on some straw.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hall’s fortitude visibly broke down. She had been brought up not +without refinement, and was even more moved by such a collapse of genteel aims +as this than a substantial dairyman’s widow would in ordinary have been +moved. ‘Well, it must be borne,’ she said, in a low voice, with her +hands tightly joined. ‘A starving son, a starving wife, starving +children! Let it be. But why is this come to us now, to-day, to-night? Could no +other misfortune happen to helpless women than this, which will quite upset my +poor girl’s chance of a happy life? Why have you done us this wrong, +Philip? What respectable man will come here, and marry open-eyed into a family +of vagabonds?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Nonsense, mother!’ said Sally vehemently, while her face flushed. +‘Charley isn’t the man to desert me. But if he should be, and +won’t marry me because Phil’s come, let him go and marry elsewhere. +I won’t be ashamed of my own flesh and blood for any man in +England—not I!’ And then Sally turned away and burst into tears. +</p> + +<p> +‘Wait till you are twenty years older and you will tell a different +tale,’ replied her mother. +</p> + +<p> +The son stood up. ‘Mother,’ he said bitterly, ‘as I have +come, so I will go. All I ask of you is that you will allow me and mine to lie +in your stable to-night. I give you my word that we’ll be gone by break +of day, and trouble you no further!’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hall, the mother, changed at that. ‘O no,’ she answered +hastily; ‘never shall it be said that I sent any of my own family from my +door. Bring ’em in, Philip, or take me out to them.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘We will put ’em all into the large bedroom,’ said Sally, +brightening, ‘and make up a large fire. Let’s go and help them in, +and call Rebekah.’ (Rebekah was the woman who assisted at the dairy and +housework; she lived in a cottage hard by with her husband, who attended to the +cows.) +</p> + +<p> +Sally went to fetch a lantern from the back-kitchen, but her brother said, +‘You won’t want a light. I lit the lantern that was hanging +there.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What must we call your wife?’ asked Mrs. Hall. +</p> + +<p> +‘Helena,’ said Philip. +</p> + +<p> +With shawls over their heads they proceeded towards the back door. +</p> + +<p> +‘One minute before you go,’ interrupted Philip. ‘I—I +haven’t confessed all.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then Heaven help us!’ said Mrs. Hall, pushing to the door and +clasping her hands in calm despair. +</p> + +<p> +‘We passed through Evershead as we came,’ he continued, ‘and +I just looked in at the “Sow-and-Acorn” to see if old Mike still +kept on there as usual. The carrier had come in from Sherton Abbas at that +moment, and guessing that I was bound for this place—for I think he knew +me—he asked me to bring on a dressmaker’s parcel for Sally that was +marked “immediate.” My wife had walked on with the children. +’Twas a flimsy parcel, and the paper was torn, and I found on looking at +it that it was a thick warm gown. I didn’t wish you to see poor Helena in +a shabby state. I was ashamed that you should—’twas not what she +was born to. I untied the parcel in the road, took it on to her where she was +waiting in the Lower Barn, and told her I had managed to get it for her, and +that she was to ask no question. She, poor thing, must have supposed I obtained +it on trust, through having reached a place where I was known, for she put it +on gladly enough. She has it on now. Sally has other gowns, I daresay.’ +</p> + +<p> +Sally looked at her mother, speechless. +</p> + +<p> +‘You have others, I daresay!’ repeated Phil, with a sick +man’s impatience. ‘I thought to myself, “Better Sally cry +than Helena freeze.” Well, is the dress of great consequence? ’Twas +nothing very ornamental, as far as I could see.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No—no; not of consequence,’ returned Sally sadly, adding in +a gentle voice, ‘You will not mind if I lend her another instead of that +one, will you?’ +</p> + +<p> +Philip’s agitation at the confession had brought on another attack of the +cough, which seemed to shake him to pieces. He was so obviously unfit to sit in +a chair that they helped him upstairs at once; and having hastily given him a +cordial and kindled the bedroom fire, they descended to fetch their unhappy new +relations. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<p> +It was with strange feelings that the girl and her mother, lately so cheerful, +passed out of the back door into the open air of the barton, laden with hay +scents and the herby breath of cows. A fine sleet had begun to fall, and they +trotted across the yard quickly. The stable-door was open; a light shone from +it—from the lantern which always hung there, and which Philip had +lighted, as he said. Softly nearing the door, Mrs. Hall pronounced the name +‘Helena!’ +</p> + +<p> +There was no answer for the moment. Looking in she was taken by surprise. Two +people appeared before her. For one, instead of the drabbish woman she had +expected, Mrs. Hall saw a pale, dark-eyed, ladylike creature, whose personality +ruled her attire rather than was ruled by it. She was in a new and handsome +gown, of course, and an old bonnet. She was standing up, agitated; her hand was +held by her companion—none else than Sally’s affianced, Farmer +Charles Darton, upon whose fine figure the pale stranger’s eyes were +fixed, as his were fixed upon her. His other hand held the rein of his horse, +which was standing saddled as if just led in. +</p> + +<p> +At sight of Mrs. Hall they both turned, looking at her in a way neither quite +conscious nor unconscious, and without seeming to recollect that words were +necessary as a solution to the scene. In another moment Sally entered also, +when Mr. Darton dropped his companion’s hand, led the horse aside, and +came to greet his betrothed and Mrs. Hall. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah!’ he said, smiling—with something like forced +composure—‘this is a roundabout way of arriving, you will say, my +dear Mrs. Hall. But we lost our way, which made us late. I saw a light here, +and led in my horse at once—my friend Johns and my man have gone back to +the little inn with theirs, not to crowd you too much. No sooner had I entered +than I saw that this lady had taken temporary shelter here—and found I +was intruding.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘She is my daughter-in-law,’ said Mrs. Hall calmly. ‘My son, +too, is in the house, but he has gone to bed unwell.’ +</p> + +<p> +Sally had stood staring wonderingly at the scene until this moment, hardly +recognizing Darton’s shake of the hand. The spell that bound her was +broken by her perceiving the two little children seated on a heap of hay. She +suddenly went forward, spoke to them, and took one on her arm and the other in +her hand. +</p> + +<p> +‘And two children?’ said Mr. Darton, showing thus that he had not +been there long enough as yet to understand the situation. +</p> + +<p> +‘My grandchildren,’ said Mrs. Hall, with as much affected ease as +before. +</p> + +<p> +Philip Hall’s wife, in spite of this interruption to her first +rencounter, seemed scarcely so much affected by it as to feel any one’s +presence in addition to Mr. Darton’s. However, arousing herself by a +quick reflection, she threw a sudden critical glance of her sad eyes upon Mrs. +Hall; and, apparently finding her satisfactory, advanced to her in a meek +initiative. Then Sally and the stranger spoke some friendly words to each +other, and Sally went on with the children into the house. Mrs. Hall and Helena +followed, and Mr. Darton followed these, looking at Helena’s dress and +outline, and listening to her voice like a man in a dream. +</p> + +<p> +By the time the others reached the house Sally had already gone upstairs with +the tired children. She rapped against the wall for Rebekah to come in and help +to attend to them, Rebekah’s house being a little +‘spit-and-dab’ cabin leaning against the substantial stone-work of +Mrs. Hall’s taller erection. When she came a bed was made up for the +little ones, and some supper given to them. On descending the stairs after +seeing this done Sally went to the sitting-room. Young Mrs. Hall entered it +just in advance of her, having in the interim retired with her mother-in-law to +take off her bonnet, and otherwise make herself presentable. Hence it was +evident that no further communication could have passed between her and Mr. +Darton since their brief interview in the stable. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Japheth Johns now opportunely arrived, and broke up the restraint of the +company, after a few orthodox meteorological commentaries had passed between +him and Mrs. Hall by way of introduction. They at once sat down to supper, the +present of wine and turkey not being produced for consumption to-night, lest +the premature display of those gifts should seem to throw doubt on Mrs. +Hall’s capacities as a provider. +</p> + +<p> +‘Drink hearty, Mr. Johns—drink hearty,’ said that matron +magnanimously. ‘Such as it is there’s plenty of. But perhaps +cider-wine is not to your taste?—though there’s body in it.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Quite the contrairy, ma’am—quite the contrairy,’ said +the dairyman. ‘For though I inherit the malt-liquor principle from my +father, I am a cider-drinker on my mother’s side. She came from these +parts, you know. And there’s this to be said for’t—’tis +a more peaceful liquor, and don’t lie about a man like your hotter +drinks. With care, one may live on it a twelvemonth without knocking down a +neighbour, or getting a black eye from an old acquaintance.’ +</p> + +<p> +The general conversation thus begun was continued briskly, though it was in the +main restricted to Mrs. Hall and Japheth, who in truth required but little help +from anybody. There being slight call upon Sally’s tongue, she had ample +leisure to do what her heart most desired, namely, watch her intended husband +and her sister-in-law with a view of elucidating the strange momentary scene in +which her mother and herself had surprised them in the stable. If that scene +meant anything, it meant, at least, that they had met before. That there had +been no time for explanations Sally could see, for their manner was still one +of suppressed amazement at each other’s presence there. Darton’s +eyes, too, fell continually on the gown worn by Helena as if this were an added +riddle to his perplexity; though to Sally it was the one feature in the case +which was no mystery. He seemed to feel that fate had impishly changed his +vis-à-vis in the lover’s jig he was about to foot; that while the +gown had been expected to enclose a Sally, a Helena’s face looked out +from the bodice; that some long-lost hand met his own from the sleeves. +</p> + +<p> +Sally could see that whatever Helena might know of Darton, she knew nothing of +how the dress entered into his embarrassment. And at moments the young girl +would have persuaded herself that Darton’s looks at her sister-in-law +were entirely the fruit of the clothes query. But surely at other times a more +extensive range of speculation and sentiment was expressed by her lover’s +eye than that which the changed dress would account for. +</p> + +<p> +Sally’s independence made her one of the least jealous of women. But +there was something in the relations of these two visitors which ought to be +explained. +</p> + +<p> +Japheth Johns continued to converse in his well-known style, interspersing his +talk with some private reflections on the position of Darton and Sally, which, +though the sparkle in his eye showed them to be highly entertaining to himself, +were apparently not quite communicable to the company. At last he withdrew for +the night, going off to the roadside inn half-a-mile back, whither Darton +promised to follow him in a few minutes. +</p> + +<p> +Half-an-hour passed, and then Mr. Darton also rose to leave, Sally and her +sister-in-law simultaneously wishing him good-night as they retired upstairs to +their rooms. But on his arriving at the front door with Mrs. Hall a sharp +shower of rain began to come down, when the widow suggested that he should +return to the fire-side till the storm ceased. +</p> + +<p> +Darton accepted her proposal, but insisted that, as it was getting late, and +she was obviously tired, she should not sit up on his account, since he could +let himself out of the house, and would quite enjoy smoking a pipe by the +hearth alone. Mrs. Hall assented; and Darton was left by himself. He spread his +knees to the brands, lit up his tobacco as he had said, and sat gazing into the +fire, and at the notches of the chimney-crook which hung above. +</p> + +<p> +An occasional drop of rain rolled down the chimney with a hiss, and still he +smoked on; but not like a man whose mind was at rest. In the long run, however, +despite his meditations, early hours afield and a long ride in the open air +produced their natural result. He began to doze. +</p> + +<p> +How long he remained in this half-unconscious state he did not know. He +suddenly opened his eyes. The back-brand had burnt itself in two, and ceased to +flame; the light which he had placed on the mantelpiece had nearly gone out. +But in spite of these deficiencies there was a light in the apartment, and it +came from elsewhere. Turning his head he saw Philip Hall’s wife standing +at the entrance of the room with a bed-candle in one hand, a small brass +tea-kettle in the other, and <i>his</i> gown, as it certainly seemed, still +upon her. +</p> + +<p> +‘Helena!’ said Darton, starting up. +</p> + +<p> +Her countenance expressed dismay, and her first words were an apology. +‘I—did not know you were here, Mr. Darton,’ she said, while a +blush flashed to her cheek. ‘I thought every one had retired—I was +coming to make a little water boil; my husband seems to be worse. But perhaps +the kitchen fire can be lighted up again.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Don’t go on my account. By all means put it on here as you +intended,’ said Darton. ‘Allow me to help you.’ He went +forward to take the kettle from her hand, but she did not allow him, and placed +it on the fire herself. +</p> + +<p> +They stood some way apart, one on each side of the fireplace, waiting till the +water should boil, the candle on the mantel between them, and Helena with her +eyes on the kettle. Darton was the first to break the silence. ‘Shall I +call Sally?’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +‘O no,’ she quickly returned. ‘We have given trouble enough +already. We have no right here. But we are the sport of fate, and were obliged +to come.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No right here!’ said he in surprise. +</p> + +<p> +‘None. I can’t explain it now,’ answered Helena. ‘This +kettle is very slow.’ +</p> + +<p> +There was another pause; the proverbial dilatoriness of watched pots was never +more clearly exemplified. +</p> + +<p> +Helena’s face was of that sort which seems to ask for assistance without +the owner’s knowledge—the very antipodes of Sally’s, which +was self-reliance expressed. Darton’s eyes travelled from the kettle to +Helena’s face, then back to the kettle, then to the face for rather a +longer time. ‘So I am not to know anything of the mystery that has +distracted me all the evening?’ he said. ‘How is it that a woman, +who refused me because (as I supposed) my position was not good enough for her +taste, is found to be the wife of a man who certainly seems to be worse off +than I?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He had the prior claim,’ said she. +</p> + +<p> +‘What! you knew him at that time?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes! Please say no more,’ she implored. +</p> + +<p> +‘Whatever my errors, I have paid for them during the last five +years!’ +</p> + +<p> +The heart of Darton was subject to sudden overflowings. He was kind to a fault. +‘I am sorry from my soul,’ he said, involuntarily approaching her. +Helena withdrew a step or two, at which he became conscious of his movement, +and quickly took his former place. Here he stood without speaking, and the +little kettle began to sing. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, you might have been my wife if you had chosen,’ he said at +last. ‘But that’s all past and gone. However, if you are in any +trouble or poverty I shall be glad to be of service, and as your relation by +marriage I shall have a right to be. Does your uncle know of your +distress?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘My uncle is dead. He left me without a farthing. And now we have two +children to maintain.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What, left you nothing? How could he be so cruel as that?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I disgraced myself in his eyes.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Now,’ said Darton earnestly, ‘let me take care of the +children, at least while you are so unsettled. <i>You</i> belong to another, so +I cannot take care of you.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes you can,’ said a voice; and suddenly a third figure stood +beside them. It was Sally. ‘You can, since you seem to wish to?’ +she repeated. ‘She no longer belongs to another . . . My poor brother is +dead!’ +</p> + +<p> +Her face was red, her eyes sparkled, and all the woman came to the front. +‘I have heard it!’ she went on to him passionately. ‘You can +protect her now as well as the children!’ She turned then to her agitated +sister-in-law. ‘I heard something,’ said Sally (in a gentle murmur, +differing much from her previous passionate words), ‘and I went into his +room. It must have been the moment you left. He went off so quickly, and +weakly, and it was so unexpected, that I couldn’t leave even to call +you.’ +</p> + +<p> +Darton was just able to gather from the confused discourse which followed that, +during his sleep by the fire, this brother whom he had never seen had become +worse; and that during Helena’s absence for water the end had +unexpectedly come. The two young women hastened upstairs, and he was again left +alone. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +After standing there a short time he went to the front door and looked out; +till, softly closing it behind him, he advanced and stood under the large +sycamore-tree. The stars were flickering coldly, and the dampness which had +just descended upon the earth in rain now sent up a chill from it. Darton was +in a strange position, and he felt it. The unexpected appearance, in deep +poverty, of Helena—a young lady, daughter of a deceased naval officer, +who had been brought up by her uncle, a solicitor, and had refused Darton in +marriage years ago—the passionate, almost angry demeanour of Sally at +discovering them, the abrupt announcement that Helena was a widow; all this +coming together was a conjuncture difficult to cope with in a moment, and made +him question whether he ought to leave the house or offer assistance. But for +Sally’s manner he would unhesitatingly have done the latter. +</p> + +<p> +He was still standing under the tree when the door in front of him opened, and +Mrs. Hall came out. She went round to the garden-gate at the side without +seeing him. Darton followed her, intending to speak. +</p> + +<p> +Pausing outside, as if in thought, she proceeded to a spot where the sun came +earliest in spring-time, and where the north wind never blew; it was where the +row of beehives stood under the wall. Discerning her object, he waited till she +had accomplished it. +</p> + +<p> +It was the universal custom thereabout to wake the bees by tapping at their +hives whenever a death occurred in the household, under the belief that if this +were not done the bees themselves would pine away and perish during the ensuing +year. As soon as an interior buzzing responded to her tap at the first hive +Mrs. Hall went on to the second, and thus passed down the row. As soon as she +came back he met her. +</p> + +<p> +‘What can I do in this trouble, Mrs. Hall?’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +‘O—nothing, thank you, nothing,’ she said in a tearful voice, +now just perceiving him. ‘We have called Rebekah and her husband, and +they will do everything necessary.’ She told him in a few words the +particulars of her son’s arrival, broken in health—indeed, at +death’s very door, though they did not suspect it—and suggested, as +the result of a conversation between her and her daughter, that the wedding +should be postponed. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, of course,’ said Darton. ‘I think now to go straight to +the inn and tell Johns what has happened.’ It was not till after he had +shaken hands with her that he turned hesitatingly and added, ‘Will you +tell the mother of his children that, as they are now left fatherless, I shall +be glad to take the eldest of them, if it would be any convenience to her and +to you?’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hall promised that her son’s widow should he told of the offer, and +they parted. He retired down the rooty slope and disappeared in the direction +of the inn, where he informed Johns of the circumstances. Meanwhile Mrs. Hall +had entered the house, Sally was downstairs in the sitting-room alone, and her +mother explained to her that Darton had readily assented to the postponement. +</p> + +<p> +‘No doubt he has,’ said Sally, with sad emphasis. ‘It is not +put off for a week, or a month, or a year. I shall never marry him, and she +will!’ +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<p> +Time passed, and the household on the Knap became again serene under the +composing influences of daily routine. A desultory, very desultory +correspondence, dragged on between Sally Hall and Darton, who, not quite +knowing how to take her petulant words on the night of her brother’s +death, had continued passive thus long. Helena and her children remained at the +dairy-house, almost of necessity, and Darton therefore deemed it advisable to +stay away. +</p> + +<p> +One day, seven months later on, when Mr. Darton was as usual at his farm, +twenty miles from Hintock, a note reached him from Helena. She thanked him for +his kind offer about her children, which her mother-in-law had duly +communicated, and stated that she would be glad to accept it as regarded the +eldest, the boy. Helena had, in truth, good need to do so, for her uncle had +left her penniless, and all application to some relatives in the north had +failed. There was, besides, as she said, no good school near Hintock to which +she could send the child. +</p> + +<p> +On a fine summer day the boy came. He was accompanied half-way by Sally and his +mother—to the ‘White Horse,’ at Chalk Newton—where he +was handed over to Darton’s bailiff in a shining spring-cart, who met +them there. +</p> + +<p> +He was entered as a day-scholar at a popular school at Casterbridge, three or +four miles from Darton’s, having first been taught by Darton to ride a +forest-pony, on which he cantered to and from the aforesaid fount of knowledge, +and (as Darton hoped) brought away a promising headful of the same at each +diurnal expedition. The thoughtful taciturnity into which Darton had latterly +fallen was quite dissipated by the presence of this boy. +</p> + +<p> +When the Christmas holidays came it was arranged that he should spend them with +his mother. The journey was, for some reason or other, performed in two stages, +as at his coming, except that Darton in person took the place of the bailiff, +and that the boy and himself rode on horseback. +</p> + +<p> +Reaching the renowned ‘White Horse,’ Darton inquired if Miss and +young Mrs. Hall were there to meet little Philip (as they had agreed to be). He +was answered by the appearance of Helena alone at the door. +</p> + +<p> +‘At the last moment Sally would not come,’ she faltered. +</p> + +<p> +That meeting practically settled the point towards which these long-severed +persons were converging. But nothing was broached about it for some time yet. +Sally Hall had, in fact, imparted the first decisive motion to events by +refusing to accompany Helena. She soon gave them a second move by writing the +following note +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +‘[Private.]<br /> + +‘DEAR CHARLES,—Living here so long and intimately with Helena, I +have naturally learnt her history, especially that of it which refers to you. I +am sure she would accept you as a husband at the proper time, and I think you +ought to give her the opportunity. You inquire in an old note if I am sorry +that I showed temper (which it wasn’t) that night when I heard you +talking to her. No, Charles, I am not sorry at all for what I said +then.—Yours sincerely, SALLY HALL.’ +</p> + +<p> +Thus set in train, the transfer of Darton’s heart back to its original +quarters proceeded by mere lapse of time. In the following July, Darton went to +his friend Japheth to ask him at last to fulfil the bridal office which had +been in abeyance since the previous January twelvemonths. +</p> + +<p> +‘With all my heart, man o’ constancy!’ said Dairyman Johns +warmly. ‘I’ve lost most of my genteel fair complexion haymaking +this hot weather, ’tis true, but I’ll do your business as well as +them that look better. There be scents and good hair-oil in the world yet, +thank God, and they’ll take off the roughest o’ my edge. I’ll +compliment her. “Better late than never, Sally Hall,” I’ll +say.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is not Sally,’ said Darton hurriedly. ‘It is young Mrs. +Hall.’ +</p> + +<p> +Japheth’s face, as soon as he really comprehended, became a picture of +reproachful dismay. ‘Not Sally?’ he said. ‘Why not Sally? I +can’t believe it! Young Mrs. Hall! Well, well—where’s your +wisdom?’ +</p> + +<p> +Darton shortly explained particulars; but Johns would not be reconciled. +‘She was a woman worth having if ever woman was,’ he cried. +‘And now to let her go!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But I suppose I can marry where I like,’ said Darton. +</p> + +<p> +‘H’m,’ replied the dairyman, lifting his eyebrows +expressively. ‘This don’t become you, Charles—it really do +not. If I had done such a thing you would have sworn I was a curst +no’thern fool to be drawn off the scent by such a red-herring +doll-oll-oll.’ +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Darton responded in such sharp terms to this laconic opinion that the +two friends finally parted in a way they had never parted before. Johns was to +be no groomsman to Darton after all. He had flatly declined. Darton went off +sorry, and even unhappy, particularly as Japheth was about to leave that side +of the county, so that the words which had divided them were not likely to be +explained away or softened down. +</p> + +<p> +A short time after the interview Darton was united to Helena at a simple +matter-of fact wedding; and she and her little girl joined the boy who had +already grown to look on Darton’s house as home. +</p> + +<p> +For some months the farmer experienced an unprecedented happiness and +satisfaction. There had been a flaw in his life, and it was as neatly mended as +was humanly possible. But after a season the stream of events followed less +clearly, and there were shades in his reveries. Helena was a fragile woman, of +little staying power, physically or morally, and since the time that he had +originally known her—eight or ten years before—she had been +severely tried. She had loved herself out, in short, and was now occasionally +given to moping. Sometimes she spoke regretfully of the gentilities of her +early life, and instead of comparing her present state with her condition as +the wife of the unlucky Hall, she mused rather on what it had been before she +took the first fatal step of clandestinely marrying him. She did not care to +please such people as those with whom she was thrown as a thriving +farmer’s wife. She allowed the pretty trifles of agricultural domesticity +to glide by her as sorry details, and had it not been for the children +Darton’s house would have seemed but little brighter than it had been +before. +</p> + +<p> +This led to occasional unpleasantness, until Darton sometimes declared to +himself that such endeavours as his to rectify early deviations of the heart by +harking back to the old point mostly failed of success. ‘Perhaps Johns +was right,’ he would say. ‘I should have gone on with Sally. Better +go with the tide and make the best of its course than stem it at the risk of a +capsize.’ But he kept these unmelodious thoughts to himself, and was +outwardly considerate and kind. +</p> + +<p> +This somewhat barren tract of his life had extended to less than a year and a +half when his ponderings were cut short by the loss of the woman they +concerned. When she was in her grave he thought better of her than when she had +been alive; the farm was a worse place without her than with her, after all. No +woman short of divine could have gone through such an experience as hers with +her first husband without becoming a little soured. Her stagnant sympathies, +her sometimes unreasonable manner, had covered a heart frank and well meaning, +and originally hopeful and warm. She left him a tiny red infant in white +wrappings. To make life as easy as possible to this touching object became at +once his care. +</p> + +<p> +As this child learnt to walk and talk Darton learnt to see feasibility in a +scheme which pleased him. Revolving the experiment which he had hitherto made +upon life, he fancied he had gained wisdom from his mistakes and caution from +his miscarriages. +</p> + +<p> +What the scheme was needs no penetration to discover. Once more he had +opportunity to recast and rectify his ill-wrought situations by returning to +Sally Hall, who still lived quietly on under her mother’s roof at +Hintock. Helena had been a woman to lend pathos and refinement to a home; Sally +was the woman to brighten it. She would not, as Helena did, despise the rural +simplicities of a farmer’s fireside. Moreover, she had a pre-eminent +qualification for Darton’s household; no other woman could make so +desirable a mother to her brother’s two children and Darton’s one +as Sally—while Darton, now that Helena had gone, was a more promising +husband for Sally than he had ever been when liable to reminders from an +uncured sentimental wound. +</p> + +<p> +Darton was not a man to act rapidly, and the working out of his reparative +designs might have been delayed for some time. But there came a winter evening +precisely like the one which had darkened over that former ride to Hintock, and +he asked himself why he should postpone longer, when the very landscape called +for a repetition of that attempt. +</p> + +<p> +He told his man to saddle the mare, booted and spurred himself with a younger +horseman’s nicety, kissed the two youngest children, and rode off. To +make the journey a complete parallel to the first, he would fain have had his +old acquaintance Japheth Johns with him. But Johns, alas! was missing. His +removal to the other side of the county had left unrepaired the breach which +had arisen between him and Darton; and though Darton had forgiven him a hundred +times, as Johns had probably forgiven Darton, the effort of reunion in present +circumstances was one not likely to be made. +</p> + +<p> +He screwed himself up to as cheerful a pitch as he could without his former +crony, and became content with his own thoughts as he rode, instead of the +words of a companion. The sun went down; the boughs appeared scratched in like +an etching against the sky; old crooked men with faggots at their backs said +‘Good-night, sir,’ and Darton replied ‘Good-night’ +right heartily. +</p> + +<p> +By the time he reached the forking roads it was getting as dark as it had been +on the occasion when Johns climbed the directing-post. Darton made no mistake +this time. ‘Nor shall I be able to mistake, thank Heaven, when I +arrive,’ he murmured. It gave him peculiar satisfaction to think that the +proposed marriage, like his first, was of the nature of setting in order things +long awry, and not a momentary freak of fancy. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing hindered the smoothness of his journey, which seemed not half its +former length. Though dark, it was only between five and six o’clock when +the bulky chimneys of Mrs. Hall’s residence appeared in view behind the +sycamore-tree. On second thoughts he retreated and put up at the ale-house as +in former time; and when he had plumed himself before the inn mirror, called +for something to drink, and smoothed out the incipient wrinkles of care, he +walked on to the Knap with a quick step. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<p> +That evening Sally was making ‘pinners’ for the milkers, who were +now increased by two, for her mother and herself no longer joined in milking +the cows themselves. But upon the whole there was little change in the +household economy, and not much in its appearance, beyond such minor +particulars as that the crack over the window, which had been a hundred years +coming, was a trifle wider; that the beams were a shade blacker; that the +influence of modernism had supplanted the open chimney corner by a grate; that +Rebekah, who had worn a cap when she had plenty of hair, had left it off now +she had scarce any, because it was reported that caps were not fashionable; and +that Sally’s face had naturally assumed a more womanly and experienced +cast. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hall was actually lifting coals with the tongs, as she had used to do. +</p> + +<p> +‘Five years ago this very night, if I am not mistaken—’ she +said, laying on an ember. +</p> + +<p> +‘Not this very night—though ’twas one night this week,’ +said the correct Sally. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, ’tis near enough. Five years ago Mr. Darton came to marry +you, and my poor boy Phil came home to die.’ She sighed. ‘Ah, +Sally,’ she presently said, ‘if you had managed well Mr. Darton +would have had you, Helena or none.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Don’t be sentimental about that, mother,’ begged Sally. +‘I didn’t care to manage well in such a case. Though I liked him, I +wasn’t so anxious. I would never have married the man in the midst of +such a hitch as that was,’ she added with decision; ‘and I +don’t think I would if he were to ask me now.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I am not sure about that, unless you have another in your eye.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I wouldn’t; and I’ll tell you why. I could hardly marry him +for love at this time o’ day. And as we’ve quite enough to live on +if we give up the dairy to-morrow, I should have no need to marry for any +meaner reason . . . I am quite happy enough as I am, and there’s an end +of it.’ +</p> + +<p> +Now it was not long after this dialogue that there came a mild rap at the door, +and in a moment there entered Rebekah, looking as though a ghost had arrived. +The fact was that that accomplished skimmer and churner (now a resident in the +house) had overheard the desultory observations between mother and daughter, +and on opening the door to Mr. Darton thought the coincidence must have a +grisly meaning in it. Mrs. Hall welcomed the farmer with warm surprise, as did +Sally, and for a moment they rather wanted words. +</p> + +<p> +‘Can you push up the chimney-crook for me, Mr Darton? the notches +hitch,’ said the matron. He did it, and the homely little act bridged +over the awkward consciousness that he had been a stranger for four years. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hall soon saw what he had come for, and left the principals together while +she went to prepare him a late tea, smiling at Sally’s recent hasty +assertions of indifference, when she saw how civil Sally was. When tea was +ready she joined them. She fancied that Darton did not look so confident as +when he had arrived; but Sally was quite light-hearted, and the meal passed +pleasantly. +</p> + +<p> +About seven he took his leave of them. Mrs. Hall went as far as the door to +light him down the slope. On the doorstep he said frankly—‘I came +to ask your daughter to marry me; chose the night and everything, with an eye +to a favourable answer. But she won’t.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then she’s a very ungrateful girl!’ emphatically said Mrs. +Hall. +</p> + +<p> +Darton paused to shape his sentence, and asked, ‘I—I suppose +there’s nobody else more favoured?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I can’t say that there is, or that there isn’t,’ +answered Mrs. Hall. ‘She’s private in some things. I’m on +your side, however, Mr. Darton, and I’ll talk to her.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Thank ‘ee, thank ‘ee!’ said the farmer in a gayer +accent; and with this assurance the not very satisfactory visit came to an end. +Darton descended the roots of the sycamore, the light was withdrawn, and the +door closed. At the bottom of the slope he nearly ran against a man about to +ascend. +</p> + +<p> +‘Can a jack-o’-lent believe his few senses on such a dark night, or +can’t he?’ exclaimed one whose utterance Darton recognized in a +moment, despite its unexpectedness. ‘I dare not swear he can, though I +fain would!’ The speaker was Johns. +</p> + +<p> +Darton said he was glad of this opportunity, bad as it was, of putting an end +to the silence of years, and asked the dairyman what he was travelling that way +for. +</p> + +<p> +Japheth showed the old jovial confidence in a moment. ‘I’m going to +see your—relations—as they always seem to me,’ he +said—‘Mrs. Hall and Sally. Well, Charles, the fact is I find the +natural barbarousness of man is much increased by a bachelor life, and, as your +leavings were always good enough for me, I’m trying civilization +here.’ He nodded towards the house. +</p> + +<p> +‘Not with Sally—to marry her?’ said Darton, feeling something +like a rill of ice water between his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, by the help of Providence and my personal charms. And I think I +shall get her. I am this road every week—my present dairy is only four +miles off, you know, and I see her through the window. ’Tis rather odd +that I was going to speak practical to-night to her for the first time. +You’ve just called?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, for a short while. But she didn’t say a word about +you.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A good sign, a good sign. Now that decides me. I’ll swing the +mallet and get her answer this very night as I planned.’ +</p> + +<p> +A few more remarks, and Darton, wishing his friend joy of Sally in a slightly +hollow tone of jocularity, bade him good-bye. Johns promised to write +particulars, and ascended, and was lost in the shade of the house and tree. A +rectangle of light appeared when Johns was admitted, and all was dark again. +</p> + +<p> +‘Happy Japheth!’ said Darton. ‘This then is the +explanation!’ +</p> + +<p> +He determined to return home that night. In a quarter of an hour he passed out +of the village, and the next day went about his swede-lifting and storing as if +nothing had occurred. +</p> + +<p> +He waited and waited to hear from Johns whether the wedding-day was fixed: but +no letter came. He learnt not a single particular till, meeting Johns one day +at a horse-auction, Darton exclaimed genially—rather more genially than +he felt—‘When is the joyful day to be?’ +</p> + +<p> +To his great surprise a reciprocity of gladness was not conspicuous in Johns. +‘Not at all,’ he said, in a very subdued tone. ‘’Tis a +bad job; she won’t have me.’ +</p> + +<p> +Darton held his breath till he said with treacherous solicitude, ‘Try +again—’tis coyness.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O no,’ said Johns decisively. ‘There’s been none of +that. We talked it over dozens of times in the most fair and square way. She +tells me plainly, I don’t suit her. ’Twould be simply annoying her +to ask her again. Ah, Charles, you threw a prize away when you let her slip +five years ago.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I did—I did,’ said Darton. +</p> + +<p> +He returned from that auction with a new set of feelings in play. He had +certainly made a surprising mistake in thinking Johns his successful rival. It +really seemed as if he might hope for Sally after all. +</p> + +<p> +This time, being rather pressed by business, Darton had recourse to +pen-and-ink, and wrote her as manly and straightforward a proposal as any woman +could wish to receive. The reply came promptly:- +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +‘DEAR MR. DARTON,—I am as sensible as any woman can be of the +goodness that leads you to make me this offer a second time. Better women than +I would be proud of the honour, for when I read your nice long speeches on +mangold-wurzel, and such like topics, at the Casterbridge Farmers’ Club, +I do feel it an honour, I assure you. But my answer is just the same as before. +I will not try to explain what, in truth, I cannot explain—my reasons; I +will simply say that I must decline to be married to you. With good wishes as +in former times, I am, your faithful friend, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +‘SALLY HALL.’ +</p> + +<p> +Darton dropped the letter hopelessly. Beyond the negative, there was just a +possibility of sarcasm in it—‘nice long speeches on +mangold-wurzel’ had a suspicious sound. However, sarcasm or none, there +was the answer, and he had to be content. +</p> + +<p> +He proceeded to seek relief in a business which at this time engrossed much of +his attention—that of clearing up a curious mistake just current in the +county, that he had been nearly ruined by the recent failure of a local bank. A +farmer named Darton had lost heavily, and the similarity of name had probably +led to the error. Belief in it was so persistent that it demanded several days +of letter-writing to set matters straight, and persuade the world that he was +as solvent as ever he had been in his life. He had hardly concluded this +worrying task when, to his delight, another letter arrived in the handwriting +of Sally. +</p> + +<p> +Darton tore it open; it was very short. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +‘DEAR MR. DARTON,—We have been so alarmed these last few days by +the report that you were ruined by the stoppage of —‘s Bank, that, +now it is contradicted I hasten, by my mother’s wish, to say how truly +glad we are to find there is no foundation for the report. After your kindness +to my poor brother’s children, I can do no less than write at such a +moment. We had a letter from each of them a few days ago.—Your faithful +friend, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +‘SALLY HALL.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Mercenary little woman!’ said Darton to himself with a smile. +‘Then that was the secret of her refusal this time—she thought I +was ruined.’ +</p> + +<p> +Now, such was Darton, that as hours went on he could not help feeling too +generously towards Sally to condemn her in this. What did he want in a wife? he +asked himself. Love and integrity. What next? Worldly wisdom. And was there +really more than worldly wisdom in her refusal to go aboard a sinking ship? She +now knew it was otherwise. ‘Begad,’ he said, ‘I’ll try +her again.’ +</p> + +<p> +The fact was he had so set his heart upon Sally, and Sally alone, that nothing +was to be allowed to baulk him; and his reasoning was purely formal. +</p> + +<p> +Anniversaries having been unpropitious, he waited on till a bright day late in +May—a day when all animate nature was fancying, in its trusting, foolish +way, that it was going to bask out of doors for evermore. As he rode through +Long-Ash Lane it was scarce recognizable as the track of his two winter +journeys. No mistake could be made now, even with his eyes shut. The +cuckoo’s note was at its best, between April tentativeness and midsummer +decrepitude, and the reptiles in the sun behaved as winningly as kittens on a +hearth. Though afternoon, and about the same time as on the last occasion, it +was broad day and sunshine when he entered Hintock, and the details of the Knap +dairy-house were visible far up the road. He saw Sally in the garden, and was +set vibrating. He had first intended to go on to the inn; but ‘No,’ +he said; ‘I’ll tie my horse to the garden-gate. If all goes well it +can soon be taken round: if not, I mount and ride away’ +</p> + +<p> +The tall shade of the horseman darkened the room in which Mrs. Hall sat, and +made her start, for he had ridden by a side path to the top of the slope, where +riders seldom came. In a few seconds he was in the garden with Sally. +</p> + +<p> +Five—ay, three minutes—did the business at the back of that row of +bees. Though spring had come, and heavenly blue consecrated the scene, Darton +succeeded not. ‘<i>No</i>,’ said Sally firmly. ‘I will never, +never marry you, Mr. Darton. I would have done it once; but now I never +can.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But!’—implored Mr. Darton. And with a burst of real +eloquence he went on to declare all sorts of things that he would do for her. +He would drive her to see her mother every week—take her to +London—settle so much money upon her—Heaven knows what he did not +promise, suggest, and tempt her with. But it availed nothing. She interposed +with a stout negative, which closed the course of his argument like an iron +gate across a highway. Darton paused. +</p> + +<p> +‘Then,’ said he simply, ‘you hadn’t heard of my +supposed failure when you declined last time?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I had not,’ she said. ‘But if I had ’twould have been +all the same.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And ’tis not because of any soreness from my slighting you years +ago?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No. That soreness is long past.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah—then you despise me, Sally?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No,’ she slowly answered. ‘I don’t altogether despise +you. I don’t think you quite such a hero as I once did—that’s +all. The truth is, I am happy enough as I am; and I don’t mean to marry +at all. Now, may <i>I</i> ask a favour, sir?’ She spoke with an ineffable +charm, which, whenever he thought of it, made him curse his loss of her as long +as he lived. +</p> + +<p> +‘To any extent.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Please do not put this question to me any more. Friends as long as you +like, but lovers and married never.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I never will,’ said Darton. ‘Not if I live a hundred +years.’ +</p> + +<p> +And he never did. That he had worn out his welcome in her heart was only too +plain. +</p> + +<p> +When his step-children had grown up, and were placed out in life, all +communication between Darton and the Hall family ceased. It was only by chance +that, years after, he learnt that Sally, notwithstanding the solicitations her +attractions drew down upon her, had refused several offers of marriage, and +steadily adhered to her purpose of leading a single life +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +May 1884. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>THE DISTRACTED PREACHER</h2> + +<h3>CHAPTER I—HOW HIS COLD WAS CURED</h3> + +<p> +Something delayed the arrival of the Wesleyan minister, and a young man came +temporarily in his stead. It was on the thirteenth of January 183- that Mr. +Stockdale, the young man in question, made his humble entry into the village, +unknown, and almost unseen. But when those of the inhabitants who styled +themselves of his connection became acquainted with him, they were rather +pleased with the substitute than otherwise, though he had scarcely as yet +acquired ballast of character sufficient to steady the consciences of the +hundred-and-forty Methodists of pure blood who, at this time, lived in +Nether-Moynton, and to give in addition supplementary support to the mixed race +which went to church in the morning and chapel in the evening, or when there +was a tea—as many as a hundred-and-ten people more, all told, and +including the parish-clerk in the winter-time, when it was too dark for the +vicar to observe who passed up the street at seven o’clock—which, +to be just to him, he was never anxious to do. +</p> + +<p> +It was owing to this overlapping of creeds that the celebrated +population-puzzle arose among the denser gentry of the district around +Nether-Moynton: how could it be that a parish containing fifteen score of +strong full-grown Episcopalians, and nearly thirteen score of well-matured +Dissenters, numbered barely two-and-twenty score adults in all? +</p> + +<p> +The young man being personally interesting, those with whom he came in contact +were content to waive for a while the graver question of his sufficiency. It is +said that at this time of his life his eyes were affectionate, though without a +ray of levity; that his hair was curly, and his figure tall; that he was, in +short, a very lovable youth, who won upon his female hearers as soon as they +saw and heard him, and caused them to say, ‘Why didn’t we know of +this before he came, that we might have gied him a warmer welcome!’ +</p> + +<p> +The fact was that, knowing him to be only provisionally selected, and expecting +nothing remarkable in his person or doctrine, they and the rest of his flock in +Nether-Moynton had felt almost as indifferent about his advent as if they had +been the soundest church-going parishioners in the country, and he their true +and appointed parson. Thus when Stockdale set foot in the place nobody had +secured a lodging for him, and though his journey had given him a bad cold in +the head, he was forced to attend to that business himself. On inquiry he +learnt that the only possible accommodation in the village would be found at +the house of one Mrs. Lizzy Newberry, at the upper end of the street. +</p> + +<p> +It was a youth who gave this information, and Stockdale asked him who Mrs. +Newberry might be. +</p> + +<p> +The boy said that she was a widow-woman, who had got no husband, because he was +dead. Mr. Newberry, he added, had been a well-to-do man enough, as the saying +was, and a farmer; but he had gone off in a decline. As regarded Mrs. +Newberry’s serious side, Stockdale gathered that she was one of the +trimmers who went to church and chapel both. +</p> + +<p> +‘I’ll go there,’ said Stockdale, feeling that, in the absence +of purely sectarian lodgings, he could do no better. +</p> + +<p> +‘She’s a little particular, and won’t hae gover’ment +folks, or curates, or the pa’son’s friends, or such like,’ +said the lad dubiously. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, that may be a promising sign: I’ll call. Or no; just you go up +and ask first if she can find room for me. I have to see one or two persons on +another matter. You will find me down at the carrier’s.’ +</p> + +<p> +In a quarter of an hour the lad came back, and said that Mrs. Newberry would +have no objection to accommodate him, whereupon Stockdale called at the house. +</p> + +<p> +It stood within a garden-hedge, and seemed to be roomy and comfortable. He saw +an elderly woman, with whom he made arrangements to come the same night, since +there was no inn in the place, and he wished to house himself as soon as +possible; the village being a local centre from which he was to radiate at once +to the different small chapels in the neighbourhood. He forthwith sent his +luggage to Mrs. Newberry’s from the carrier’s, where he had taken +shelter, and in the evening walked up to his temporary home. +</p> + +<p> +As he now lived there, Stockdale felt it unnecessary to knock at the door; and +entering quietly he had the pleasure of hearing footsteps scudding away like +mice into the back quarters. He advanced to the parlour, as the front room was +called, though its stone floor was scarcely disguised by the carpet, which only +over-laid the trodden areas, leaving sandy deserts under the bulging mouldings +of the table-legs, playing with brass furniture. But the room looked snug and +cheerful. The firelight shone out brightly, trembling on the knobs and handles, +and lurking in great strength on the under surface of the chimney-piece. A deep +arm-chair, covered with horsehair, and studded with a countless throng of brass +nails, was pulled up on one side of the fireplace. The tea-things were on the +table, the teapot cover was open, and a little hand-bell had been laid at that +precise point towards which a person seated in the great chair might be +expected instinctively to stretch his hand. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale sat down, not objecting to his experience of the room thus far, and +began his residence by tinkling the bell. A little girl crept in at the +summons, and made tea for him. Her name, she said, was Marther Sarer, and she +lived out there, nodding towards the road and village generally. Before +Stockdale had got far with his meal, a tap sounded on the door behind him, and +on his telling the inquirer to come in, a rustle of garments caused him to turn +his head. He saw before him a fine and extremely well-made young woman, with +dark hair, a wide, sensible, beautiful forehead, eyes that warmed him before he +knew it, and a mouth that was in itself a picture to all appreciative souls. +</p> + +<p> +‘Can I get you anything else for tea?’ she said, coming forward a +step or two, an expression of liveliness on her features, and her hand waving +the door by its edge. +</p> + +<p> +‘Nothing, thank you,’ said Stockdale, thinking less of what he +replied than of what might be her relation to the household. +</p> + +<p> +‘You are quite sure?’ said the young woman, apparently aware that +he had not considered his answer. +</p> + +<p> +He conscientiously examined the tea-things, and found them all there. +‘Quite sure, Miss Newberry,’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +‘It is Mrs. Newberry,’ she said. ‘Lizzy Newberry, I used to +be Lizzy Simpkins.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Newberry.’ And before he had occasion +to say more she left the room. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale remained in some doubt till Martha Sarah came to clear the table. +‘Whose house is this, my little woman,’ said he. +</p> + +<p> +‘Mrs. Lizzy Newberry’s, sir.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then Mrs. Newberry is not the old lady I saw this afternoon?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No. That’s Mrs. Newberry’s mother. It was Mrs. Newberry who +comed in to you just by now, because she wanted to see if you was +good-looking.’ +</p> + +<p> +Later in the evening, when Stockdale was about to begin supper, she came again. +‘I have come myself, Mr. Stockdale,’ she said. The minister stood +up in acknowledgment of the honour. ‘I am afraid little Marther might not +make you understand. What will you have for supper?—there’s cold +rabbit, and there’s a ham uncut.’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale said he could get on nicely with those viands, and supper was laid. +He had no more than cut a slice when tap-tap came to the door again. The +minister had already learnt that this particular rhythm in taps denoted the +fingers of his enkindling landlady, and the doomed young fellow buried his +first mouthful under a look of receptive blandness. +</p> + +<p> +‘We have a chicken in the house, Mr. Stockdale—I quite forgot to +mention it just now. Perhaps you would like Marther Sarer to bring it +up?’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale had advanced far enough in the art of being a young man to say that +he did not want the chicken, unless she brought it up herself; but when it was +uttered he blushed at the daring gallantry of the speech, perhaps a shade too +strong for a serious man and a minister. In three minutes the chicken appeared, +but, to his great surprise, only in the hands of Martha Sarah. Stockdale was +disappointed, which perhaps it was intended that he should be. +</p> + +<p> +He had finished supper, and was not in the least anticipating Mrs. Newberry +again that night, when she tapped and entered as before. Stockdale’s +gratified look told that she had lost nothing by not appearing when expected. +It happened that the cold in the head from which the young man suffered had +increased with the approach of night, and before she had spoken he was seized +with a violent fit of sneezing which he could not anyhow repress. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Newberry looked full of pity. ‘Your cold is very bad to-night, Mr. +Stockdale.’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale replied that it was rather troublesome. +</p> + +<p> +‘And I’ve a good mind’—she added archly, looking at the +cheerless glass of water on the table, which the abstemious minister was going +to drink. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, Mrs. Newberry?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I’ve a good mind that you should have something more likely to +cure it than that cold stuff.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well,’ said Stockdale, looking down at the glass, ‘as there +is no inn here, and nothing better to be got in the village, of course it will +do.’ +</p> + +<p> +To this she replied, ‘There is something better, not far off, though not +in the house. I really think you must try it, or you may be ill. Yes, Mr. +Stockdale, you shall.’ She held up her finger, seeing that he was about +to speak. ‘Don’t ask what it is; wait, and you shall see.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lizzy went away, and Stockdale waited in a pleasant mood. Presently she +returned with her bonnet and cloak on, saying, ‘I am so sorry, but you +must help me to get it. Mother has gone to bed. Will you wrap yourself up, and +come this way, and please bring that cup with you?’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale, a lonely young fellow, who had for weeks felt a great craving for +somebody on whom to throw away superfluous interest, and even tenderness, was +not sorry to join her; and followed his guide through the back door, across the +garden, to the bottom, where the boundary was a wall. This wall was low, and +beyond it Stockdale discerned in the night shades several grey headstones, and +the outlines of the church roof and tower. +</p> + +<p> +‘It is easy to get up this way,’ she said, stepping upon a bank +which abutted on the wall; then putting her foot on the top of the stonework, +and descending a spring inside, where the ground was much higher, as is the +manner of graveyards to be. Stockdale did the same, and followed her in the +dusk across the irregular ground till they came to the tower door, which, when +they had entered, she softly closed behind them. +</p> + +<p> +‘You can keep a secret?’ she said, in a musical voice. +</p> + +<p> +‘Like an iron chest!’ said he fervently. +</p> + +<p> +Then from under her cloak she produced a small lighted lantern, which the +minister had not noticed that she carried at all. The light showed them to be +close to the singing-gallery stairs, under which lay a heap of lumber of all +sorts, but consisting mostly of decayed framework, pews, panels, and pieces of +flooring, that from time to time had been removed from their original fixings +in the body of the edifice and replaced by new. +</p> + +<p> +‘Perhaps you will drag some of those boards aside?’ she said, +holding the lantern over her head to light him better. ‘Or will you take +the lantern while I move them?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I can manage it,’ said the young man, and acting as she ordered, +he uncovered, to his surprise, a row of little barrels bound with wood hoops, +each barrel being about as large as the nave of a heavy waggon-wheel. +</p> + +<p> +When they were laid open Lizzy fixed her eyes on him, as if she wondered what +he would say. +</p> + +<p> +‘You know what they are?’ she asked, finding that he did not speak. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, barrels,’ said Stockdale simply. He was an inland man, the +son of highly respectable parents, and brought up with a single eye to the +ministry; and the sight suggested nothing beyond the fact that such articles +were there. +</p> + +<p> +‘You are quite right, they are barrels,’ she said, in an emphatic +tone of candour that was not without a touch of irony. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale looked at her with an eye of sudden misgiving. ‘Not +smugglers’ liquor?’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said she. ‘They are tubs of spirit that have +accidentally come over in the dark from France.’ +</p> + +<p> +In Nether-Moynton and its vicinity at this date people always smiled at the +sort of sin called in the outside world illicit trading; and these little kegs +of gin and brandy were as well known to the inhabitants as turnips. So that +Stockdale’s innocent ignorance, and his look of alarm when he guessed the +sinister mystery, seemed to strike Lizzy first as ludicrous, and then as very +awkward for the good impression that she wished to produce upon him. +</p> + +<p> +‘Smuggling is carried on here by some of the people,’ she said in a +gentle, apologetic voice. ‘It has been their practice for generations, +and they think it no harm. Now, will you roll out one of the tubs?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What to do with it?’ said the minister. +</p> + +<p> +‘To draw a little from it to cure your cold,’ she answered. +‘It is so ‘nation strong that it drives away that sort of thing in +a jiffy. O, it is all right about our taking it. I may have what I like; the +owner of the tubs says so. I ought to have had some in the house, and then I +shouldn’t ha’ been put to this trouble; but I drink none myself, +and so I often forget to keep it indoors.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You are allowed to help yourself, I suppose, that you may not inform +where their hiding-place is?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, no; not that particularly; but I may take any if I want it. So +help yourself.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I will, to oblige you, since you have a right to it,’ murmured the +minister; and though he was not quite satisfied with his part in the +performance, he rolled one of the ‘tubs’ out from the corner into +the middle of the tower floor. ‘How do you wish me to get it +out—with a gimlet, I suppose?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, I’ll show you,’ said his interesting companion; and she +held up with her other hand a shoemaker’s awl and a hammer. ‘You +must never do these things with a gimlet, because the wood-dust gets in; and +when the buyers pour out the brandy that would tell them that the tub had been +broached. An awl makes no dust, and the hole nearly closes up again. Now tap +one of the hoops forward.’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale took the hammer and did so. +</p> + +<p> +‘Now make the hole in the part that was covered by the hoop.’ +</p> + +<p> +He made the hole as directed. ‘It won’t run out,’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +‘O yes it will,’ said she. ‘Take the tub between your knees, +and squeeze the heads; and I’ll hold the cup.’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale obeyed; and the pressure taking effect upon the tub, which seemed, to +be thin, the spirit spirted out in a stream. When the cup was full he ceased +pressing, and the flow immediately stopped. ‘Now we must fill up the keg +with water,’ said Lizzy, ‘or it will cluck like forty hens when it +is handled, and show that ’tis not full.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But they tell you you may take it?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, the <i>smugglers</i>: but the <i>buyers</i> must not know that the +smugglers have been kind to me at their expense.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I see,’ said Stockdale doubtfully. ‘I much question the +honesty of this proceeding.’ +</p> + +<p> +By her direction he held the tub with the hole upwards, and while he went +through the process of alternately pressing and ceasing to press, she produced +a bottle of water, from which she took mouthfuls, conveying each to the keg by +putting her pretty lips to the hole, where it was sucked in at each recovery of +the cask from pressure. When it was again full he plugged the hole, knocked the +hoop down to its place, and buried the tub in the lumber as before. +</p> + +<p> +‘Aren’t the smugglers afraid that you will tell?’ he asked, +as they recrossed the churchyard. +</p> + +<p> +‘O no; they are not afraid of that. I couldn’t do such a +thing.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘They have put you into a very awkward corner,’ said Stockdale +emphatically. ‘You must, of course, as an honest person, sometimes feel +that it is your duty to inform—really you must.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I have never particularly felt it as a duty; and, besides, my +first husband—’ She stopped, and there was some confusion in her +voice. Stockdale was so honest and unsophisticated that he did not at once +discern why she paused: but at last he did perceive that the words were a slip, +and that no woman would have uttered ‘first husband’ by accident +unless she had thought pretty frequently of a second. He felt for her +confusion, and allowed her time to recover and proceed. ‘My +husband,’ she said, in a self-corrected tone, ‘used to know of +their doings, and so did my father, and kept the secret. I cannot inform, in +fact, against anybody.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I see the hardness of it,’ he continued, like a man who looked far +into the moral of things. ‘And it is very cruel that you should be tossed +and tantalized between your memories and your conscience. I do hope, Mrs. +Newberry, that you will soon see your way out of this unpleasant +position.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I don’t just now,’ she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +By this time they had passed over the wall and entered the house, where she +brought him a glass and hot water, and left him to his own reflections. He +looked after her vanishing form, asking himself whether he, as a respectable +man, and a minister, and a shining light, even though as yet only of the +halfpenny-candle sort, were quite justified in doing this thing. A sneeze +settled the question; and he found that when the fiery liquor was lowered by +the addition of twice or thrice the quantity of water, it was one of the +prettiest cures for a cold in the head that he had ever known, particularly at +this chilly time of the year. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale sat in the deep chair about twenty minutes sipping and meditating, +till he at length took warmer views of things, and longed for the morrow, when +he would see Mrs. Newberry again. He then felt that, though chronologically at +a short distance, it would in an emotional sense be very long before to-morrow +came, and walked restlessly round the room. His eye was attracted by a framed +and glazed sampler in which a running ornament of fir-trees and peacocks +surrounded the following pretty bit of sentiment:- +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘Rose-leaves smell when roses thrive,<br /> +Here’s my work while I’m alive;<br /> +Rose-leaves smell when shrunk and shed,<br /> +Here’s my work when I am dead. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +‘Lizzy Simpkins. Fear God. Honour the King.<br /> + ‘Aged 11 years. +</p> + +<p> +‘’Tis hers,’ he said to himself. ‘Heavens, how I like +that name!’ +</p> + +<p> +Before he had done thinking that no other name from Abigail to Zenobia would +have suited his young landlady so well, tap-tap came again upon the door; and +the minister started as her face appeared yet another time, looking so +disinterested that the most ingenious would have refrained from asserting that +she had come to affect his feelings by her seductive eyes. +</p> + +<p> +‘Would you like a fire in your room, Mr. Stockdale, on account of your +cold?’ +</p> + +<p> +The minister, being still a little pricked in the conscience for countenancing +her in watering the spirits, saw here a way to self-chastisement. ‘No, I +thank you,’ he said firmly; ‘it is not necessary. I have never been +used to one in my life, and it would be giving way to luxury too far.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then I won’t insist,’ she said, and disconcerted him by +vanishing instantly. +</p> + +<p> +Wondering if she was vexed by his refusal, he wished that he had chosen to have +a fire, even though it should have scorched him out of bed and endangered his +self-discipline for a dozen days. However, he consoled himself with what was in +truth a rare consolation for a budding lover, that he was under the same roof +with Lizzy; her guest, in fact, to take a poetical view of the term lodger; and +that he would certainly see her on the morrow. +</p> + +<p> +The morrow came, and Stockdale rose early, his cold quite gone. He had never in +his life so longed for the breakfast hour as he did that day, and punctually at +eight o’clock, after a short walk, to reconnoitre the premises, he +re-entered the door of his dwelling. Breakfast passed, and Martha Sarah +attended, but nobody came voluntarily as on the night before to inquire if +there were other wants which he had not mentioned, and which she would attempt +to gratify. He was disappointed, and went out, hoping to see her at dinner. +Dinner time came; he sat down to the meal, finished it, lingered on for a whole +hour, although two new teachers were at that moment waiting at the chapel-door +to speak to him by appointment. It was useless to wait longer, and he slowly +went his way down the lane, cheered by the thought that, after all, he would +see her in the evening, and perhaps engage again in the delightful +tub-broaching in the neighbouring church tower, which proceeding he resolved to +render more moral by steadfastly insisting that no water should be introduced +to fill up, though the tub should cluck like all the hens in Christendom. But +nothing could disguise the fact that it was a queer business; and his +countenance fell when he thought how much more his mind was interested in that +matter than in his serious duties. +</p> + +<p> +However, compunction vanished with the decline of day. Night came, and his tea +and supper; but no Lizzy Newberry, and no sweet temptations. At last the +minister could bear it no longer, and said to his quaint little attendant, +‘Where is Mrs. Newberry to-day?’ judiciously handing a penny as he +spoke. +</p> + +<p> +‘She’s busy,’ said Martha. +</p> + +<p> +‘Anything serious happened?’ he asked, handing another penny, and +revealing yet additional pennies in the background. +</p> + +<p> +‘O no—nothing at all!’ said she, with breathless confidence. +‘Nothing ever happens to her. She’s only biding upstairs in bed +because ’tis her way sometimes.’ +</p> + +<p> +Being a young man of some honour, he would not question further, and assuming +that Lizzy must have a bad headache, or other slight ailment, in spite of what +the girl had said, he went to bed dissatisfied, not even setting eyes on old +Mrs. Simpkins. ‘I said last night that I should see her to-morrow,’ +he reflected; ‘but that was not to be!’ +</p> + +<p> +Next day he had better fortune, or worse, meeting her at the foot of the stairs +in the morning, and being favoured by a visit or two from her during the +day—once for the purpose of making kindly inquiries about his comfort, as +on the first evening, and at another time to place a bunch of winter-violets on +his table, with a promise to renew them when they drooped. On these occasions +there was something in her smile which showed how conscious she was of the +effect she produced, though it must be said that it was rather a humorous than +a designing consciousness, and savoured more of pride than of vanity. +</p> + +<p> +As for Stockdale, he clearly perceived that he possessed unlimited capacity for +backsliding, and wished that tutelary saints were not denied to Dissenters. He +set a watch upon his tongue and eyes for the space of one hour and a half, +after which he found it was useless to struggle further, and gave himself up to +the situation. ‘The other minister will be here in a month,’ he +said to himself when sitting over the fire. ‘Then I shall be off, and she +will distract my mind no more! . . . And then, shall I go on living by myself +for ever? No; when my two years of probation are finished, I shall have a +furnished house to live in, with a varnished door and a brass knocker; and +I’ll march straight back to her, and ask her flat, as soon as the last +plate is on the dresser! +</p> + +<p> +Thus a titillating fortnight was passed by young Stockdale, during which time +things proceeded much as such matters have done ever since the beginning of +history. He saw the object of attachment several times one day, did not see her +at all the next, met her when he least expected to do so, missed her when hints +and signs as to where she should be at a given hour almost amounted to an +appointment. This mild coquetry was perhaps fair enough under the circumstances +of their being so closely lodged, and Stockdale put up with it as +philosophically as he was able. Being in her own house, she could, after vexing +him or disappointing him of her presence, easily win him back by suddenly +surrounding him with those little attentions which her position as his landlady +put it in her power to bestow. When he had waited indoors half the day to see +her, and on finding that she would not be seen, had gone off in a huff to the +dreariest and dampest walk he could discover, she would restore equilibrium in +the evening with ‘Mr. Stockdale, I have fancied you must feel draught +o’ nights from your bedroom window, and so I have been putting up thicker +curtains this afternoon while you were out;’ or, ‘I noticed that +you sneezed twice again this morning, Mr. Stockdale. Depend upon it that cold +is hanging about you yet; I am sure it is—I have thought of it +continually; and you must let me make a posset for you.’ +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes in coming home he found his sitting-room rearranged, chairs placed +where the table had stood, and the table ornamented with the few fresh flowers +and leaves that could be obtained at this season, so as to add a novelty to the +room. At times she would be standing on a chair outside the house, trying to +nail up a branch of the monthly rose which the winter wind had blown down; and +of course he stepped forward to assist her, when their hands got mixed in +passing the shreds and nails. Thus they became friends again after a +disagreement. She would utter on these occasions some pretty and deprecatory +remark on the necessity of her troubling him anew; and he would straightway say +that he would do a hundred times as much for her if she should so require. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER II—HOW HE SAW TWO OTHER MEN</h3> + +<p> +Matters being in this advancing state, Stockdale was rather surprised one +cloudy evening, while sitting in his room, at hearing her speak in low tones of +expostulation to some one at the door. It was nearly dark, but the shutters +were not yet closed, nor the candles lighted; and Stockdale was tempted to +stretch his head towards the window. He saw outside the door a young man in +clothes of a whitish colour, and upon reflection judged their wearer to be the +well-built and rather handsome miller who lived below. The miller’s voice +was alternately low and firm, and sometimes it reached the level of positive +entreaty; but what the words were Stockdale could in no way hear. +</p> + +<p> +Before the colloquy had ended, the minister’s attention was attracted by +a second incident. Opposite Lizzy’s home grew a clump of laurels, forming +a thick and permanent shade. One of the laurel boughs now quivered against the +light background of sky, and in a moment the head of a man peered out, and +remained still. He seemed to be also much interested in the conversation at the +door, and was plainly lingering there to watch and listen. Had Stockdale stood +in any other relation to Lizzy than that of a lover, he might have gone out and +investigated the meaning of this: but being as yet but an unprivileged ally, he +did nothing more than stand up and show himself against the firelight, +whereupon the listener disappeared, and Lizzy and the miller spoke in lower +tones. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale was made so uneasy by the circumstance, that as soon as the miller +was gone, he said, ‘Mrs. Newberry, are you aware that you were watched +just now, and your conversation heard?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘When?’ she said. +</p> + +<p> +‘When you were talking to that miller. A man was looking from the +laurel-tree as jealously as if he could have eaten you.’ +</p> + +<p> +She showed more concern than the trifling event seemed to demand, and he added, +‘Perhaps you were talking of things you did not wish to be +overheard?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I was talking only on business,’ she said. +</p> + +<p> +‘Lizzy, be frank!’ said the young man. ‘If it was only on +business, why should anybody wish to listen to you?’ +</p> + +<p> +She looked curiously at him. ‘What else do you think it could be, +then?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well—the only talk between a young woman and man that is likely to +amuse an eavesdropper.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah yes,’ she said, smiling in spite of her preoccupation. +‘Well, my cousin Owlett has spoken to me about matrimony, every now and +then, that’s true; but he was not speaking of it then. I wish he had been +speaking of it, with all my heart. It would have been much less serious for +me.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O Mrs. Newberry!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It would. Not that I should ha’ chimed in with him, of course. I +wish it for other reasons. I am glad, Mr. Stockdale, that you have told me of +that listener. It is a timely warning, and I must see my cousin again.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But don’t go away till I have spoken,’ said the minister. +‘I’ll out with it at once, and make no more ado. Let it be Yes or +No between us, Lizzy; please do!’ And he held out his hand, in which she +freely allowed her own to rest, but without speaking. +</p> + +<p> +‘You mean Yes by that?’ he asked, after waiting a while. +</p> + +<p> +‘You may be my sweetheart, if you will.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Why not say at once you will wait for me until I have a house and can +come back to marry you.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Because I am thinking—thinking of something else,’ she said +with embarrassment. ‘It all comes upon me at once, and I must settle one +thing at a time.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘At any rate, dear Lizzy, you can assure me that the miller shall not be +allowed to speak to you except on business? You have never directly encouraged +him?’ +</p> + +<p> +She parried the question by saying, ‘You see, he and his party have been +in the habit of leaving things on my premises sometimes, and as I have not +denied him, it makes him rather forward.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Things—what things?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Tubs—they are called Things here.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But why don’t you deny him, my dear Lizzy?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I cannot well.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You are too timid. It is unfair of him to impose so upon you, and get +your good name into danger by his smuggling tricks. Promise me that the next +time he wants to leave his tubs here you will let me roll them into the +street?’ +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. ‘I would not venture to offend the neighbours so much +as that,’ said she, ‘or do anything that would be so likely to put +poor Owlett into the hands of the excisemen.’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale sighed, and said that he thought hers a mistaken generosity when it +extended to assisting those who cheated the king of his dues. ‘At any +rate, you will let me make him keep his distance as your lover, and tell him +flatly that you are not for him?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Please not, at present,’ she said. ‘I don’t wish to +offend my old neighbours. It is not only Owlett who is concerned.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘This is too bad,’ said Stockdale impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +‘On my honour, I won’t encourage him as my lover,’ Lizzy +answered earnestly. ‘A reasonable man will be satisfied with that.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, so I am,’ said Stockdale, his countenance clearing. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER III—THE MYSTERIOUS GREATCOAT</h3> + +<p> +Stockdale now began to notice more particularly a feature in the life of his +fair landlady, which he had casually observed but scarcely ever thought of +before. It was that she was markedly irregular in her hours of rising. For a +week or two she would be tolerably punctual, reaching the ground-floor within a +few minutes of half-past seven. Then suddenly she would not be visible till +twelve at noon, perhaps for three or four days in succession; and twice he had +certain proof that she did not leave her room till half-past three in the +afternoon. The second time that this extreme lateness came under his notice was +on a day when he had particularly wished to consult with her about his future +movements; and he concluded, as he always had done, that she had a cold, +headache, or other ailment, unless she had kept herself invisible to avoid +meeting and talking to him, which he could hardly believe. The former +supposition was disproved, however, by her innocently saying, some days later, +when they were speaking on a question of health, that she had never had a +moment’s heaviness, headache, or illness of any kind since the previous +January twelvemonth. +</p> + +<p> +‘I am glad to hear it,’ said he. ‘I thought quite +otherwise.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What, do I look sickly?’ she asked, turning up her face to show +the impossibility of his gazing on it and holding such a belief for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +‘Not at all; I merely thought so from your being sometimes obliged to +keep your room through the best part of the day.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O, as for that—it means nothing,’ she murmured, with a look +which some might have called cold, and which was the worst look that he liked +to see upon her. ‘It is pure sleepiness, Mr. Stockdale.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Never!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is, I tell you. When I stay in my room till half-past three in the +afternoon, you may always be sure that I slept soundly till three, or I +shouldn’t have stayed there.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is dreadful,’ said Stockdale, thinking of the disastrous +effects of such indulgence upon the household of a minister, should it become a +habit of everyday occurrence. +</p> + +<p> +‘But then,’ she said, divining his good and prescient thoughts, +‘it only happens when I stay awake all night. I don’t go to sleep +till five or six in the morning sometimes.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, that’s another matter,’ said Stockdale. +‘Sleeplessness to such an alarming extent is real illness. Have you +spoken to a doctor?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O no—there is no need for doing that—it is all natural to +me.’ And she went away without further remark. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale might have waited a long time to know the real cause of her +sleeplessness, had it not happened that one dark night he was sitting in his +bedroom jotting down notes for a sermon, which occupied him perfunctorily for a +considerable time after the other members of the household had retired. He did +not get to bed till one o’clock. Before he had fallen asleep he heard a +knocking at the front door, first rather timidly performed, and then louder. +Nobody answered it, and the person knocked again. As the house still remained +undisturbed, Stockdale got out of bed, went to his window, which overlooked the +door, and opening it, asked who was there. +</p> + +<p> +A young woman’s voice replied that Susan Wallis was there, and that she +had come to ask if Mrs. Newberry could give her some mustard to make a plaster +with, as her father was taken very ill on the chest. +</p> + +<p> +The minister, having neither bell nor servant, was compelled to act in person. +‘I will call Mrs. Newberry,’ he said. Partly dressing himself; he +went along the passage and tapped at Lizzy’s door. She did not answer, +and, thinking of her erratic habits in the matter of sleep, he thumped the door +persistently, when he discovered, by its moving ajar under his knocking, that +it had only been gently pushed to. As there was now a sufficient entry for the +voice, he knocked no longer, but said in firm tones, ‘Mrs. Newberry, you +are wanted.’ +</p> + +<p> +The room was quite silent; not a breathing, not a rustle, came from any part of +it. Stockdale now sent a positive shout through the open space of the door: +‘Mrs. Newberry!’—still no answer, or movement of any kind +within. Then he heard sounds from the opposite room, that of Lizzy’s +mother, as if she had been aroused by his uproar though Lizzy had not, and was +dressing herself hastily. Stockdale softly closed the younger woman’s +door and went on to the other, which was opened by Mrs. Simpkins before he +could reach it. She was in her ordinary clothes, and had a light in her hand. +</p> + +<p> +‘What’s the person calling about?’ she said in alarm. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale told the girl’s errand, adding seriously, ‘I cannot wake +Mrs. Newberry.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is no matter,’ said her mother. ‘I can let the girl have +what she wants as well as my daughter.’ And she came out of the room and +went downstairs. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale retired towards his own apartment, saying, however, to Mrs. Simpkins +from the landing, as if on second thoughts, ‘I suppose there is nothing +the matter with Mrs. Newberry, that I could not wake her?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O no,’ said the old lady hastily. ‘Nothing at all.’ +</p> + +<p> +Still the minister was not satisfied. ‘Will you go in and see?’ he +said. ‘I should be much more at ease.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Simpkins returned up the staircase, went to her daughter’s room, and +came out again almost instantly. ‘There is nothing at all the matter with +Lizzy,’ she said; and descended again to attend to the applicant, who, +having seen the light, had remained quiet during this interval. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale went into his room and lay down as before. He heard Lizzy’s +mother open the front door, admit the girl, and then the murmured discourse of +both as they went to the store-cupboard for the medicament required. The girl +departed, the door was fastened, Mrs. Simpkins came upstairs, and the house was +again in silence. Still the minister did not fall asleep. He could not get rid +of a singular suspicion, which was all the more harassing in being, if true, +the most unaccountable thing within his experience. That Lizzy Newberry was in +her bedroom when he made such a clamour at the door he could not possibly +convince himself; notwithstanding that he had heard her come upstairs at the +usual time, go into her chamber, and shut herself up in the usual way. Yet all +reason was so much against her being elsewhere, that he was constrained to go +back again to the unlikely theory of a heavy sleep, though he had heard neither +breath nor movement during a shouting and knocking loud enough to rouse the +Seven Sleepers. +</p> + +<p> +Before coming to any positive conclusion he fell asleep himself, and did not +awake till day. He saw nothing of Mrs. Newberry in the morning, before he went +out to meet the rising sun, as he liked to do when the weather was fine; but as +this was by no means unusual, he took no notice of it. At breakfast-time he +knew that she was not far off by hearing her in the kitchen, and though he saw +nothing of her person, that back apartment being rigorously closed against his +eyes, she seemed to be talking, ordering, and bustling about among the pots and +skimmers in so ordinary a manner, that there was no reason for his wasting more +time in fruitless surmise. +</p> + +<p> +The minister suffered from these distractions, and his extemporized sermons +were not improved thereby. Already he often said Romans for Corinthians in the +pulpit, and gave out hymns in strange cramped metres, that hitherto had always +been skipped, because the congregation could not raise a tune to fit them. He +fully resolved that as soon as his few weeks of stay approached their end he +would cut the matter short, and commit himself by proposing a definite +engagement, repenting at leisure if necessary. +</p> + +<p> +With this end in view, he suggested to her on the evening after her mysterious +sleep that they should take a walk together just before dark, the latter part +of the proposition being introduced that they might return home unseen. She +consented to go; and away they went over a stile, to a shrouded footpath suited +for the occasion. But, in spite of attempts on both sides, they were unable to +infuse much spirit into the ramble. She looked rather paler than usual, and +sometimes turned her head away. +</p> + +<p> +‘Lizzy,’ said Stockdale reproachfully, when they had walked in +silence a long distance. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said she. +</p> + +<p> +‘You yawned—much my company is to you!’ He put it in that +way, but he was really wondering whether her yawn could possibly have more to +do with physical weariness from the night before than mental weariness of that +present moment. Lizzy apologized, and owned that she was rather tired, which +gave him an opening for a direct question on the point; but his modesty would +not allow him to put it to her; and he uncomfortably resolved to wait. +</p> + +<p> +The month of February passed with alternations of mud and frost, rain and +sleet, east winds and north-westerly gales. The hollow places in the ploughed +fields showed themselves as pools of water, which had settled there from the +higher levels, and had not yet found time to soak away. The birds began to get +lively, and a single thrush came just before sunset each evening, and sang +hopefully on the large elm-tree which stood nearest to Mrs. Newberry’s +house. Cold blasts and brittle earth had given place to an oozing dampness more +unpleasant in itself than frost; but it suggested coming spring, and its +unpleasantness was of a bearable kind. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale had been going to bring about a practical understanding with Lizzy at +least half-a-dozen times; but, what with the mystery of her apparent absence on +the night of the neighbour’s call, and her curious way of lying in bed at +unaccountable times, he felt a check within him whenever he wanted to speak +out. Thus they still lived on as indefinitely affianced lovers, each of whom +hardly acknowledged the other’s claim to the name of chosen one. +Stockdale persuaded himself that his hesitation was owing to the postponement +of the ordained minister’s arrival, and the consequent delay in his own +departure, which did away with all necessity for haste in his courtship; but +perhaps it was only that his discretion was reasserting itself, and telling him +that he had better get clearer ideas of Lizzy before arranging for the grand +contract of his life with her. She, on her part, always seemed ready to be +urged further on that question than he had hitherto attempted to go; but she +was none the less independent, and to a degree which would have kept from +flagging the passion of a far more mutable man. +</p> + +<p> +On the evening of the first of March he went casually into his bedroom about +dusk, and noticed lying on a chair a greatcoat, hat, and breeches. Having no +recollection of leaving any clothes of his own in that spot, he went and +examined them as well as he could in the twilight, and found that they did not +belong to him. He paused for a moment to consider how they might have got +there. He was the only man living in the house; and yet these were not his +garments, unless he had made a mistake. No, they were not his. He called up +Martha Sarah. +</p> + +<p> +‘How did these things come in my room?’ he said, flinging the +objectionable articles to the floor. +</p> + +<p> +Martha said that Mrs. Newberry had given them to her to brush, and that she had +brought them up there thinking they must be Mr. Stockdale’s, as there was +no other gentleman a-lodging there. +</p> + +<p> +‘Of course you did,’ said Stockdale. ‘Now take them down to +your mis’ess, and say they are some clothes I have found here and know +nothing about.’ +</p> + +<p> +As the door was left open he heard the conversation downstairs. ‘How +stupid!’ said Mrs. Newberry, in a tone of confusion. ‘Why, Marther +Sarer, I did not tell you to take ’em to Mr. Stockdale’s +room?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I thought they must be his as they was so muddy,’ said Martha +humbly. +</p> + +<p> +‘You should have left ’em on the clothes-horse,’ said the +young mistress severely; and she came upstairs with the garments on her arm, +quickly passed Stockdale’s room, and threw them forcibly into a closet at +the end of a passage. With this the incident ended, and the house was silent +again. +</p> + +<p> +There would have been nothing remarkable in finding such clothes in a +widow’s house had they been clean; or moth-eaten, or creased, or mouldy +from long lying by; but that they should be splashed with recent mud bothered +Stockdale a good deal. When a young pastor is in the aspen stage of attachment, +and open to agitation at the merest trifles, a really substantial incongruity +of this complexion is a disturbing thing. However, nothing further occurred at +that time; but he became watchful, and given to conjecture, and was unable to +forget the circumstance. +</p> + +<p> +One morning, on looking from his window, he saw Mrs. Newberry herself brushing +the tails of a long drab greatcoat, which, if he mistook not, was the very same +garment as the one that had adorned the chair of his room. It was densely +splashed up to the hollow of the back with neighbouring Nether-Moynton mud, to +judge by its colour, the spots being distinctly visible to him in the sunlight. +The previous day or two having been wet, the inference was irresistible that +the wearer had quite recently been walking some considerable distance about the +lanes and fields. Stockdale opened the window and looked out, and Mrs. Newberry +turned her head. Her face became slowly red; she never had looked prettier, or +more incomprehensible, he waved his hand affectionately, and said good-morning; +she answered with embarrassment, having ceased her occupation on the instant +that she saw him, and rolled up the coat half-cleaned. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale shut the window. Some simple explanation of her proceeding was +doubtless within the bounds of possibility; but he himself could not think of +one; and he wished that she had placed the matter beyond conjecture by +voluntarily saying something about it there and then. +</p> + +<p> +But, though Lizzy had not offered an explanation at the moment, the subject was +brought forward by her at the next time of their meeting. She was chatting to +him concerning some other event, and remarked that it happened about the time +when she was dusting some old clothes that had belonged to her poor husband. +</p> + +<p> +‘You keep them clean out of respect to his memory?’ said Stockdale +tentatively. +</p> + +<p> +‘I air and dust them sometimes,’ she said, with the most charming +innocence in the world. +</p> + +<p> +‘Do dead men come out of their graves and walk in mud?’ murmured +the minister, in a cold sweat at the deception that she was practising. +</p> + +<p> +‘What did you say?’ asked Lizzy. +</p> + +<p> +‘Nothing, nothing,’ said he mournfully. ‘Mere words—a +phrase that will do for my sermon next Sunday.’ It was too plain that +Lizzy was unaware that he had seen actual pedestrian splashes upon the skirts +of the tell-tale overcoat, and that she imagined him to believe it had come +direct from some chest or drawer. +</p> + +<p> +The aspect of the case was now considerably darker. Stockdale was so much +depressed by it that he did not challenge her explanation, or threaten to go +off as a missionary to benighted islanders, or reproach her in any way +whatever. He simply parted from her when she had done talking, and lived on in +perplexity, till by degrees his natural manner became sad and constrained. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER IV—AT THE TIME OF THE NEW MOON</h3> + +<p> +The following Thursday was changeable, damp, and gloomy; and the night +threatened to be windy and unpleasant. Stockdale had gone away to Knollsea in +the morning, to be present at some commemoration service there, and on his +return he was met by the attractive Lizzy in the passage. Whether influenced by +the tide of cheerfulness which had attended him that day, or by the drive +through the open air, or whether from a natural disposition to let bygones +alone, he allowed himself to be fascinated into forgetfulness of the greatcoat +incident, and upon the whole passed a pleasant evening; not so much in her +society as within sound of her voice, as she sat talking in the back parlour to +her mother, till the latter went to bed. Shortly after this Mrs. Newberry +retired, and then Stockdale prepared to go upstairs himself. But before he left +the room he remained standing by the dying embers awhile, thinking long of one +thing and another; and was only aroused by the flickering of his candle in the +socket as it suddenly declined and went out. Knowing that there were a +tinder-box, matches, and another candle in his bedroom, he felt his way +upstairs without a light. On reaching his chamber he laid his hand on every +possible ledge and corner for the tinderbox, but for a long time in vain. +Discovering it at length, Stockdale produced a spark, and was kindling the +brimstone, when he fancied that he heard a movement in the passage. He blew +harder at the lint, the match flared up, and looking by aid of the blue light +through the door, which had been standing open all this time, he was surprised +to see a male figure vanishing round the top of the staircase with the evident +intention of escaping unobserved. The personage wore the clothes which Lizzy +had been brushing, and something in the outline and gait suggested to the +minister that the wearer was Lizzy herself. +</p> + +<p> +But he was not sure of this; and, greatly excited, Stockdale determined to +investigate the mystery, and to adopt his own way for doing it. He blew out the +match without lighting the candle, went into the passage, and proceeded on +tiptoe towards Lizzy’s room. A faint grey square of light in the +direction of the chamber-window as he approached told him that the door was +open, and at once suggested that the occupant was gone. He turned and brought +down his fist upon the handrail of the staircase: ‘It was she; in her +late husband’s coat and hat!’ +</p> + +<p> +Somewhat relieved to find that there was no intruder in the case, yet none the +less surprised, the minister crept down the stairs, softly put on his boots, +overcoat, and hat, and tried the front door. It was fastened as usual: he went +to the back door, found this unlocked, and emerged into the garden. The night +was mild and moonless, and rain had lately been falling, though for the present +it had ceased. There was a sudden dropping from the trees and bushes every now +and then, as each passing wind shook their boughs. Among these sounds Stockdale +heard the faint fall of feet upon the road outside, and he guessed from the +step that it was Lizzy’s. He followed the sound, and, helped by the +circumstance of the wind blowing from the direction in which the pedestrian +moved, he got nearly close to her, and kept there, without risk of being +overheard. While he thus followed her up the street or lane, as it might +indifferently be called, there being more hedge than houses on either side, a +figure came forward to her from one of the cottage doors. Lizzy stopped; the +minister stepped upon the grass and stopped also. +</p> + +<p> +‘Is that Mrs. Newberry?’ said the man who had come out, whose voice +Stockdale recognized as that of one of the most devout members of his +congregation. +</p> + +<p> +‘It is,’ said Lizzy. +</p> + +<p> +‘I be quite ready—I’ve been here this quarter-hour.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, John,’ said she, ‘I have bad news; there is danger +to-night for our venture.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And d’ye tell o’t! I dreamed there might be.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ she said hurriedly; ‘and you must go at once round to +where the chaps are waiting, and tell them they will not be wanted till +to-morrow night at the same time. I go to burn the lugger off.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I will,’ he said; and instantly went off through a gate, Lizzy +continuing her way. +</p> + +<p> +On she tripped at a quickening pace till the lane turned into the +turnpike-road, which she crossed, and got into the track for Ringsworth. Here +she ascended the hill without the least hesitation, passed the lonely hamlet of +Holworth, and went down the vale on the other side. Stockdale had never taken +any extensive walks in this direction, but he was aware that if she persisted +in her course much longer she would draw near to the coast, which was here +between two and three miles distant from Nether-Moynton; and as it had been +about a quarter-past eleven o’clock when they set out, her intention +seemed to be to reach the shore about midnight. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzy soon ascended a small mound, which Stockdale at the same time adroitly +skirted on the left; and a dull monotonous roar burst upon his ear. The hillock +was about fifty yards from the top of the cliffs, and by day it apparently +commanded a full view of the bay. There was light enough in the sky to show her +disguised figure against it when she reached the top, where she paused, and +afterwards sat down. Stockdale, not wishing on any account to alarm her at this +moment, yet desirous of being near her, sank upon his hands and knees, crept a +little higher up, and there stayed still. +</p> + +<p> +The wind was chilly, the ground damp, and his position one in which he did not +care to remain long. However, before he had decided to leave it, the young man +heard voices behind him. What they signified he did not know; but, fearing that +Lizzy was in danger, he was about to run forward and warn her that she might be +seen, when she crept to the shelter of a little bush which maintained a +precarious existence in that exposed spot; and her form was absorbed in its +dark and stunted outline as if she had become part of it. She had evidently +heard the men as well as he. They passed near him, talking in loud and careless +tones, which could be heard above the uninterrupted washings of the sea, and +which suggested that they were not engaged in any business at their own risk. +This proved to be the fact: some of their words floated across to him, and +caused him to forget at once the coldness of his situation. +</p> + +<p> +‘What’s the vessel?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A lugger, about fifty tons.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘From Cherbourg, I suppose?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, ’a b’lieve.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But it don’t all belong to Owlett?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O no. He’s only got a share. There’s another or two in +it—a farmer and such like, but the names I don’t know.’ +</p> + +<p> +The voices died away, and the heads and shoulders of the men diminished towards +the cliff, and dropped out of sight. +</p> + +<p> +‘My darling has been tempted to buy a share by that unbeliever +Owlett,’ groaned the minister, his honest affection for Lizzy having +quickened to its intensest point during these moments of risk to her person and +name. ‘That’s why she’s here,’ he said to himself. +‘O, it will be the ruin of her!’ +</p> + +<p> +His perturbation was interrupted by the sudden bursting out of a bright and +increasing light from the spot where Lizzy was in hiding. A few seconds later, +and before it had reached the height of a blaze, he heard her rush past him +down the hollow like a stone from a sling, in the direction of home. The light +now flared high and wide, and showed its position clearly. She had kindled a +bough of furze and stuck it into the bush under which she had been crouching; +the wind fanned the flame, which crackled fiercely, and threatened to consume +the bush as well as the bough. Stockdale paused just long enough to notice thus +much, and then followed rapidly the route taken by the young woman. His +intention was to overtake her, and reveal himself as a friend; but run as he +would he could see nothing of her. Thus he flew across the open country about +Holworth, twisting his legs and ankles in unexpected fissures and descents, +till, on coming to the gate between the downs and the road, he was forced to +pause to get breath. There was no audible movement either in front or behind +him, and he now concluded that she had not outrun him, but that, hearing him at +her heels, and believing him one of the excise party, she had hidden herself +somewhere on the way, and let him pass by. +</p> + +<p> +He went on at a more leisurely pace towards the village. On reaching the house +he found his surmise to be correct, for the gate was on the latch, and the door +unfastened, just as he had left them. Stockdale closed the door behind him, and +waited silently in the passage. In about ten minutes he heard the same light +footstep that he had heard in going out; it paused at the gate, which opened +and shut softly, and then the door-latch was lifted, and Lizzy came in. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale went forward and said at once, ‘Lizzy, don’t be +frightened. I have been waiting up for you.’ +</p> + +<p> +She started, though she had recognized the voice. ‘It is Mr. Stockdale, +isn’t it?’ she said. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ he answered, becoming angry now that she was safe indoors, +and not alarmed. ‘And a nice game I’ve found you out in to-night. +You are in man’s clothes, and I am ashamed of you!’ +</p> + +<p> +Lizzy could hardly find a voice to answer this unexpected reproach. +</p> + +<p> +‘I am only partly in man’s clothes,’ she faltered, shrinking +back to the wall. ‘It is only his greatcoat and hat and breeches that +I’ve got on, which is no harm, as he was my own husband; and I do it only +because a cloak blows about so, and you can’t use your arms. I have got +my own dress under just the same—it is only tucked in! Will you go away +upstairs and let me pass? I didn’t want you to see me at such a time as +this!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But I have a right to see you! How do you think there can be anything +between us now?’ Lizzy was silent. ‘You are a smuggler,’ he +continued sadly. +</p> + +<p> +‘I have only a share in the run,’ she said. +</p> + +<p> +‘That makes no difference. Whatever did you engage in such a trade as +that for, and keep it such a secret from me all this time?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t do it always. I only do it in winter-time when ’tis +new moon.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I suppose that’s because it can’t be done anywhen else +. . . You have regularly upset me, Lizzy.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I am sorry for that,’ Lizzy meekly replied. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well now,’ said he more tenderly, ‘no harm is done as yet. +Won’t you for the sake of me give up this blamable and dangerous practice +altogether?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I must do my best to save this run,’ said she, getting rather +husky in the throat. ‘I don’t want to give you up—you know +that; but I don’t want to lose my venture. I don’t know what to do +now! Why I have kept it so secret from you is that I was afraid you would be +angry if you knew.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I should think so! I suppose if I had married you without finding this +out you’d have gone on with it just the same?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t know. I did not think so far ahead. I only went to-night +to burn the folks off, because we found that the excisemen knew where the tubs +were to be landed.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is a pretty mess to be in altogether, is this,’ said the +distracted young minister. ‘Well, what will you do now?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lizzy slowly murmured the particulars of their plan, the chief of which were +that they meant to try their luck at some other point of the shore the next +night; that three landing-places were always agreed upon before the run was +attempted, with the understanding that, if the vessel was ‘burnt +off’ from the first point, which was Ringsworth, as it had been by her +to-night, the crew should attempt to make the second, which was Lulstead Cove, +on the second night; and if there, too, danger threatened, they should on the +third night try the third place, which was behind a headland further west. +</p> + +<p> +‘Suppose the officers hinder them landing there too?’ he said, his +attention to this interesting programme displacing for a moment his concern at +her share in it. +</p> + +<p> +‘Then we shan’t try anywhere else all this dark—that’s +what we call the time between moon and moon—and perhaps they’ll +string the tubs to a stray-line, and sink ’em a little-ways from shore, +and take the bearings; and then when they have a chance they’ll go to +creep for ’em.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What’s that?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O, they’ll go out in a boat and drag a creeper—that’s +a grapnel—along the bottom till it catch hold of the stray-line.’ +</p> + +<p> +The minister stood thinking; and there was no sound within doors but the tick +of the clock on the stairs, and the quick breathing of Lizzy, partly from her +walk and partly from agitation, as she stood close to the wall, not in such +complete darkness but that he could discern against its whitewashed surface the +greatcoat and broad hat which covered her. +</p> + +<p> +‘Lizzy, all this is very wrong,’ he said. ‘Don’t you +remember the lesson of the tribute-money? “Render unto Caesar the things +that are Caesar’s.” Surely you have heard that read times enough in +your growing up?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He’s dead,’ she pouted. +</p> + +<p> +‘But the spirit of the text is in force just the same.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘My father did it, and so did my grandfather, and almost everybody in +Nether-Moynton lives by it, and life would be so dull if it wasn’t for +that, that I should not care to live at all.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I am nothing to live for, of course,’ he replied bitterly. +‘You would not think it worth while to give up this wild business and +live for me alone?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I have never looked at it like that.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And you won’t promise and wait till I am ready?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I cannot give you my word to-night.’ And, looking thoughtfully +down, she gradually moved and moved away, going into the adjoining room, and +closing the door between them. She remained there in the dark till he was tired +of waiting, and had gone up to his own chamber. +</p> + +<p> +Poor Stockdale was dreadfully depressed all the next day by the discoveries of +the night before. Lizzy was unmistakably a fascinating young woman, but as a +minister’s wife she was hardly to be contemplated. ‘If I had only +stuck to father’s little grocery business, instead of going in for the +ministry, she would have suited me beautifully!’ he said sadly, until he +remembered that in that case he would never have come from his distant home to +Nether-Moynton, and never have known her. +</p> + +<p> +The estrangement between them was not complete, but it was sufficient to keep +them out of each other’s company. Once during the day he met her in the +garden-path, and said, turning a reproachful eye upon her, ‘Do you +promise, Lizzy?’ But she did not reply. The evening drew on, and he knew +well enough that Lizzy would repeat her excursion at night—her +half-offended manner had shown that she had not the slightest intention of +altering her plans at present. He did not wish to repeat his own share of the +adventure; but, act as he would, his uneasiness on her account increased with +the decline of day. Supposing that an accident should befall her, he would +never forgive himself for not being there to help, much as he disliked the idea +of seeming to countenance such unlawful escapades. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER V—HOW THEY WENT TO LULSTEAD COVE</h3> + +<p> +As he had expected, she left the house at the same hour at night, this time +passing his door without stealth, as if she knew very well that he would be +watching, and were resolved to brave his displeasure. He was quite ready, +opened the door quickly, and reached the back door almost as soon as she. +</p> + +<p> +‘Then you will go, Lizzy?’ he said as he stood on the step beside +her, who now again appeared as a little man with a face altogether unsuited to +his clothes. +</p> + +<p> +‘I must,’ she said, repressed by his stern manner. +</p> + +<p> +‘Then I shall go too,’ said he. +</p> + +<p> +‘And I am sure you will enjoy it!’ she exclaimed in more buoyant +tones. ‘Everybody does who tries it.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘God forbid that I should!’ he said. ‘But I must look after +you.’ +</p> + +<p> +They opened the wicket and went up the road abreast of each other, but at some +distance apart, scarcely a word passing between them. The evening was rather +less favourable to smuggling enterprise than the last had been, the wind being +lower, and the sky somewhat clear towards the north. +</p> + +<p> +‘It is rather lighter,’ said Stockdale. +</p> + +<p> +‘’Tis, unfortunately,’ said she. ‘But it is only from +those few stars over there. The moon was new to-day at four o’clock, and +I expected clouds. I hope we shall be able to do it this dark, for when we have +to sink ’em for long it makes the stuff taste bleachy, and folks +don’t like it so well.’ +</p> + +<p> +Her course was different from that of the preceding night, branching off to the +left over Lord’s Barrow as soon as they had got out of the lane and +crossed the highway. By the time they reached Chaldon Down, Stockdale, who had +been in perplexed thought as to what he should say to her, decided that he +would not attempt expostulation now, while she was excited by the adventure, +but wait till it was over, and endeavour to keep her from such practices in +future. It occurred to him once or twice, as they rambled on, that should they +be surprised by the excisemen, his situation would be more awkward than hers, +for it would be difficult to prove his true motive in coming to the spot; but +the risk was a slight consideration beside his wish to be with her. +</p> + +<p> +They now arrived at a ravine which lay on the outskirts of Chaldon, a village +two miles on their way towards the point of the shore they sought. Lizzy broke +the silence this time: ‘I have to wait here to meet the carriers. I +don’t know if they have come yet. As I told you, we go to Lulstead Cove +to-night, and it is two miles further than Ringsworth.’ +</p> + +<p> +It turned out that the men had already come; for while she spoke two or three +dozen heads broke the line of the slope, and a company of them at once +descended from the bushes where they had been lying in wait. These carriers +were men whom Lizzy and other proprietors regularly employed to bring the tubs +from the boat to a hiding-place inland. They were all young fellows of +Nether-Moynton, Chaldon, and the neighbourhood, quiet and inoffensive persons, +who simply engaged to carry the cargo for Lizzy and her cousin Owlett, as they +would have engaged in any other labour for which they were fairly well paid. +</p> + +<p> +At a word from her they closed in together. ‘You had better take it +now,’ she said to them; and handed to each a packet. It contained six +shillings, their remuneration for the night’s undertaking, which was paid +beforehand without reference to success or failure; but, besides this, they had +the privilege of selling as agents when the run was successfully made. As soon +as it was done, she said to them, ‘The place is the old one near Lulstead +Cove;’ the men till that moment not having been told whither they were +bound, for obvious reasons. ‘Owlett will meet you there,’ added +Lizzy. ‘I shall follow behind, to see that we are not watched.’ +</p> + +<p> +The carriers went on, and Stockdale and Mrs. Newberry followed at a distance of +a stone’s throw. ‘What do these men do by day?’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +‘Twelve or fourteen of them are labouring men. Some are brickmakers, some +carpenters, some shoe-makers, some thatchers. They are all known to me very +well. Nine of ’em are of your own congregation.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I can’t help that,’ said Stockdale. +</p> + +<p> +‘O, I know you can’t. I only told you. The others are more +church-inclined, because they supply the pa’son with all the spirits he +requires, and they don’t wish to show unfriendliness to a +customer.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘How do you choose ’em?’ said Stockdale. +</p> + +<p> +‘We choose ’em for their closeness, and because they are strong and +surefooted, and able to carry a heavy load a long way without being +tired.’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale sighed as she enumerated each particular, for it proved how far +involved in the business a woman must be who was so well acquainted with its +conditions and needs. And yet he felt more tenderly towards her at this moment +than he had felt all the foregoing day. Perhaps it was that her experienced +manner and hold indifference stirred his admiration in spite of himself. +</p> + +<p> +‘Take my arm, Lizzy,’ he murmured. +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t want it,’ she said. ‘Besides, we may never be +to each other again what we once have been.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘That depends upon you,’ said he, and they went on again as before. +</p> + +<p> +The hired carriers paced along over Chaldon Down with as little hesitation as +if it had been day, avoiding the cart-way, and leaving the village of East +Chaldon on the left, so as to reach the crest of the hill at a lonely trackless +place not far from the ancient earthwork called Round Pound. An hour’s +brisk walking brought them within sound of the sea, not many hundred yards from +Lulstead Cove. Here they paused, and Lizzy and Stockdale came up with them, +when they went on together to the verge of the cliff. One of the men now +produced an iron bar, which he drove firmly into the soil a yard from the edge, +and attached to it a rope that he had uncoiled from his body. They all began to +descend, partly stepping, partly sliding down the incline, as the rope slipped +through their hands. +</p> + +<p> +‘You will not go to the bottom, Lizzy?’ said Stockdale anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +‘No. I stay here to watch,’ she said. ‘Owlett is down +there.’ +</p> + +<p> +The men remained quite silent when they reached the shore; and the next thing +audible to the two at the top was the dip of heavy oars, and the dashing of +waves against a boat’s bow. In a moment the keel gently touched the +shingle, and Stockdale heard the footsteps of the thirty-six carriers running +forwards over the pebbles towards the point of landing. +</p> + +<p> +There was a sousing in the water as of a brood of ducks plunging in, showing +that the men had not been particular about keeping their legs, or even their +waists, dry from the brine: but it was impossible to see what they were doing, +and in a few minutes the shingle was trampled again. The iron bar sustaining +the rope, on which Stockdale’s hand rested, began to swerve a little, and +the carriers one by one appeared climbing up the sloping cliff; dripping +audibly as they came, and sustaining themselves by the guide-rope. Each man on +reaching the top was seen to be carrying a pair of tubs, one on his back and +one on his chest, the two being slung together by cords passing round the chine +hoops, and resting on the carrier’s shoulders. Some of the stronger men +carried three by putting an extra one on the top behind, but the customary load +was a pair, these being quite weighty enough to give their bearer the sensation +of having chest and backbone in contact after a walk of four or five miles. +</p> + +<p> +‘Where is Owlett?’ said Lizzy to one of them. +</p> + +<p> +‘He will not come up this way,’ said the carrier. ‘He’s +to bide on shore till we be safe off.’ Then, without waiting for the +rest, the foremost men plunged across the down; and, when the last had +ascended, Lizzy pulled up the rope, wound it round her arm, wriggled the bar +from the sod, and turned to follow the carriers. +</p> + +<p> +‘You are very anxious about Owlett’s safety,’ said the +minister. +</p> + +<p> +‘Was there ever such a man!’ said Lizzy. ‘Why, isn’t he +my cousin?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes. Well, it is a bad night’s work,’ said Stockdale +heavily. ‘But I’ll carry the bar and rope for you.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Thank God, the tubs have got so far all right,’ said she. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale shook his head, and, taking the bar, walked by her side towards the +downs; and the moan of the sea was heard no more. +</p> + +<p> +‘Is this what you meant the other day when you spoke of having business +with Owlett?’ the young man asked. +</p> + +<p> +‘This is it,’ she replied. ‘I never see him on any other +matter.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A partnership of that kind with a young man is very odd.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It was begun by my father and his, who were brother-laws.’ +</p> + +<p> +Her companion could not blind himself to the fact that where tastes and +pursuits were so akin as Lizzy’s and Owlett’s, and where risks were +shared, as with them, in every undertaking, there would be a peculiar +appropriateness in her answering Owlett’s standing question on matrimony +in the affirmative. This did not soothe Stockdale, its tendency being rather to +stimulate in him an effort to make the pair as inappropriate as possible, and +win her away from this nocturnal crew to correctness of conduct and a +minister’s parlour in some far-removed inland county. +</p> + +<p> +They had been walking near enough to the file of carriers for Stockdale to +perceive that, when they got into the road to the village, they split up into +two companies of unequal size, each of which made off in a direction of its +own. One company, the smaller of the two, went towards the church, and by the +time that Lizzy and Stockdale reached their own house these men had scaled the +churchyard wall, and were proceeding noiselessly over the grass within. +</p> + +<p> +‘I see that Owlett has arranged for one batch to be put in the church +again,’ observed Lizzy. ‘Do you remember my taking you there the +first night you came?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, of course,’ said Stockdale. ‘No wonder you had +permission to broach the tubs—they were his, I suppose?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, they were not—they were mine; I had permission from myself. +The day after that they went several miles inland in a waggon-load of manure, +and sold very well.’ +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the group of men who had made off to the left some time before +began leaping one by one from the hedge opposite Lizzy’s house, and the +first man, who had no tubs upon his shoulders, came forward. +</p> + +<p> +‘Mrs. Newberry, isn’t it?’ he said hastily. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, Jim,’ said she. ‘What’s the matter?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I find that we can’t put any in Badger’s Clump to-night, +Lizzy,’ said Owlett. ‘The place is watched. We must sling the +apple-tree in the orchet if there’s time. We can’t put any more +under the church lumber than I have sent on there, and my mixen hev already +more in en than is safe.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Be quick about it—that’s +all. What can I do?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Nothing at all, please. Ah, it is the minister!—you two that +can’t do anything had better get indoors and not be zeed.’ +</p> + +<p> +While Owlett thus conversed, in a tone so full of contraband anxiety and so +free from lover’s jealousy, the men who followed him had been descending +one by one from the hedge; and it unfortunately happened that when the hindmost +took his leap, the cord slipped which sustained his tubs: the result was that +both the kegs fell into the road, one of them being stove in by the blow. +</p> + +<p> +‘’Od drown it all!’ said Owlett, rushing back. +</p> + +<p> +‘It is worth a good deal, I suppose?’ said Stockdale. +</p> + +<p> +‘O no—about two guineas and half to us now,’ said Lizzy +excitedly. ‘It isn’t that—it is the smell! It is so blazing +strong before it has been lowered by water, that it smells dreadfully when +spilt in the road like that! I do hope Latimer won’t pass by till it is +gone off.’ +</p> + +<p> +Owlett and one or two others picked up the burst tub and began to scrape and +trample over the spot, to disperse the liquor as much as possible; and then +they all entered the gate of Owlett’s orchard, which adjoined +Lizzy’s garden on the right. Stockdale did not care to follow them, for +several on recognizing him had looked wonderingly at his presence, though they +said nothing. Lizzy left his side and went to the bottom of the garden, looking +over the hedge into the orchard, where the men could be dimly seen bustling +about, and apparently hiding the tubs. All was done noiselessly, and without a +light; and when it was over they dispersed in different directions, those who +had taken their cargoes to the church having already gone off to their homes. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzy returned to the garden-gate, over which Stockdale was still abstractedly +leaning. ‘It is all finished: I am going indoors now,’ she said +gently. ‘I will leave the door ajar for you.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O no—you needn’t,’ said Stockdale; ‘I am coming +too.’ +</p> + +<p> +But before either of them had moved, the faint clatter of horses’ hoofs +broke upon the ear, and it seemed to come from the point where the track across +the down joined the hard road. +</p> + +<p> +‘They are just too late!’ cried Lizzy exultingly. +</p> + +<p> +‘Who?’ said Stockdale. +</p> + +<p> +‘Latimer, the riding-officer, and some assistant of his. We had better go +indoors.’ +</p> + +<p> +They entered the house, and Lizzy bolted the door. ‘Please don’t +get a light, Mr. Stockdale,’ she said. +</p> + +<p> +‘Of course I will not,’ said he. +</p> + +<p> +‘I thought you might be on the side of the king,’ said Lizzy, with +faintest sarcasm. +</p> + +<p> +‘I am,’ said Stockdale. ‘But, Lizzy Newberry, I love you, and +you know it perfectly well; and you ought to know, if you do not, what I have +suffered in my conscience on your account these last few days!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I guess very well,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Yet I don’t +see why. Ah, you are better than I!’ +</p> + +<p> +The trotting of the horses seemed to have again died away, and the pair of +listeners touched each other’s fingers in the cold +‘Good-night’ of those whom something seriously divided. They were +on the landing, but before they had taken three steps apart, the tramp of the +horsemen suddenly revived, almost close to the house. Lizzy turned to the +staircase window, opened the casement about an inch, and put her face close to +the aperture. ‘Yes, one of ’em is Latimer,’ she whispered. +‘He always rides a white horse. One would think it was the last colour +for a man in that line.’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale looked, and saw the white shape of the animal as it passed by; but +before the riders had gone another ten yards, Latimer reined in his horse, and +said something to his companion which neither Stockdale nor Lizzy could hear. +Its drift was, however, soon made evident, for the other man stopped also; and +sharply turning the horses’ heads they cautiously retraced their steps. +When they were again opposite Mrs. Newberry’s garden, Latimer dismounted, +and the man on the dark horse did the same. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzy and Stockdale, intently listening and observing the proceedings, +naturally put their heads as close as possible to the slit formed by the +slightly opened casement; and thus it occurred that at last their cheeks came +positively into contact. They went on listening, as if they did not know of the +singular incident which had happened to their faces, and the pressure of each +to each rather increased than lessened with the lapse of time. +</p> + +<p> +They could hear the excisemen sniffing the air like hounds as they paced slowly +along. When they reached the spot where the tub had burst, both stopped on the +instant. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ay, ay, ’tis quite strong here,’ said the second officer. +‘Shall we knock at the door?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, no,’ said Latimer. ‘Maybe this is only a trick to put +us off the scent. They wouldn’t kick up this stink anywhere near their +hiding-place. I have known such things before.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Anyhow, the things, or some of ’em, must have been brought this +way,’ said the other. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said Latimer musingly. ‘Unless ’tis all done to +tole us the wrong way. I have a mind that we go home for to-night without +saying a word, and come the first thing in the morning with more hands. I know +they have storages about here, but we can do nothing by this owl’s light. +We will look round the parish and see if everybody is in bed, John; and if all +is quiet, we will do as I say.’ +</p> + +<p> +They went on, and the two inside the window could hear them passing leisurely +through the whole village, the street of which curved round at the bottom and +entered the turnpike road at another junction. This way the excisemen followed, +and the amble of their horses died quite away. +</p> + +<p> +‘What will you do?’ said Stockdale, withdrawing from his position. +</p> + +<p> +She knew that he alluded to the coming search by the officers, to divert her +attention from their own tender incident by the casement, which he wished to be +passed over as a thing rather dreamt of than done. ‘O, nothing,’ +she replied, with as much coolness as she could command under her +disappointment at his manner. ‘We often have such storms as this. You +would not be frightened if you knew what fools they are. Fancy riding o’ +horseback through the place: of course they will hear and see nobody while they +make that noise; but they are always afraid to get off, in case some of our +fellows should burst out upon ’em, and tie them up to the gate-post, as +they have done before now. Good-night, Mr. Stockdale.’ +</p> + +<p> +She closed the window and went to her room, where a tear fell from her eyes; +and that not because of the alertness of the riding-officers. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER VI—THE GREAT SEARCH AT NETHER-MOYNTON</h3> + +<p> +Stockdale was so excited by the events of the evening, and the dilemma that he +was placed in between conscience and love, that he did not sleep, or even doze, +but remained as broadly awake as at noonday. As soon as the grey light began to +touch ever so faintly the whiter objects in his bedroom he arose, dressed +himself, and went downstairs into the road. +</p> + +<p> +The village was already astir. Several of the carriers had heard the well-known +tramp of Latimer’s horse while they were undressing in the dark that +night, and had already communicated with each other and Owlett on the subject. +The only doubt seemed to be about the safety of those tubs which had been left +under the church gallery-stairs, and after a short discussion at the corner of +the mill, it was agreed that these should be removed before it got lighter, and +hidden in the middle of a double hedge bordering the adjoining field. However, +before anything could be carried into effect, the footsteps of many men were +heard coming down the lane from the highway. +</p> + +<p> +‘Damn it, here they be,’ said Owlett, who, having already drawn the +hatch and started his mill for the day, stood stolidly at the mill-door covered +with flour, as if the interest of his whole soul was bound up in the shaking +walls around him. +</p> + +<p> +The two or three with whom he had been talking dispersed to their usual work, +and when the excise officers, and the formidable body of men they had hired, +reached the village cross, between the mill and Mrs. Newberry’s house, +the village wore the natural aspect of a place beginning its morning labours. +</p> + +<p> +‘Now,’ said Latimer to his associates, who numbered thirteen men in +all, ‘what I know is that the things are somewhere in this here place. We +have got the day before us, and ’tis hard if we can’t light upon +’em and get ’em to Budmouth Custom-house before night. First we +will try the fuel-houses, and then we’ll work our way into the chimmers, +and then to the ricks and stables, and so creep round. You have nothing but +your noses to guide ye, mind, so use ’em to-day if you never did in your +lives before.’ +</p> + +<p> +Then the search began. Owlett, during the early part, watched from his +mill-window, Lizzy from the door of her house, with the greatest +self-possession. A farmer down below, who also had a share in the run, rode +about with one eye on his fields and the other on Latimer and his myrmidons, +prepared to put them off the scent if he should be asked a question. Stockdale, +who was no smuggler at all, felt more anxiety than the worst of them, and went +about his studies with a heavy heart, coming frequently to the door to ask +Lizzy some question or other on the consequences to her of the tubs being +found. +</p> + +<p> +‘The consequences,’ she said quietly, ‘are simply that I +shall lose ’em. As I have none in the house or garden, they can’t +touch me personally.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But you have some in the orchard?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Owlett rents that of me, and he lends it to others. So it will be hard +to say who put any tubs there if they should be found.’ +</p> + +<p> +There was never such a tremendous sniffing known as that which took place in +Nether-Moynton parish and its vicinity this day. All was done methodically, and +mostly on hands and knees. At different hours of the day they had different +plans. From daybreak to breakfast-time the officers used their sense of smell +in a direct and straightforward manner only, pausing nowhere but at such places +as the tubs might be supposed to be secreted in at that very moment, pending +their removal on the following night. Among the places tested and examined were +</p> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td>Hollow trees</td><td>Cupboards</td><td>Culverts</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Potato-graves</td><td>Clock-cases</td><td>Hedgerows</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Fuel-houses</td><td>Chimney-flues</td><td>Faggot-ricks</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Bedrooms</td><td>Rainwater-butts</td><td>Haystacks</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Apple-lofts</td><td>Pigsties</td><td>Coppers and ovens.</td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<p> +After breakfast they recommenced with renewed vigour, taking a new line; that +is to say, directing their attention to clothes that might be supposed to have +come in contact with the tubs in their removal from the shore, such garments +being usually tainted with the spirit, owing to its oozing between the staves. +They now sniffed at— +</p> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td>Smock-frocks</td><td>Smiths’ and shoemakers’ aprons</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Old shirts and waistcoats</td><td>Knee-naps and hedging-gloves</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Coats and hats</td><td>Tarpaulins</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Breeches and leggings</td><td>Market-cloaks</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Women’s shawls and gowns</td><td>Scarecrows</td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<p> +And as soon as the mid-day meal was over, they pushed their search into places +where the spirits might have been thrown away in alarm:- +</p> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td>Horse-ponds</td><td>Mixens</td><td>Sinks in yards</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Stable-drains</td><td>Wet ditches</td><td>Road-scrapings, and</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>Cinder-heaps</td><td>Cesspools</td><td>Back-door gutters.</td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<p> +But still these indefatigable excisemen discovered nothing more than the +original tell-tale smell in the road opposite Lizzy’s house, which even +yet had not passed off. +</p> + +<p> +‘I’ll tell ye what it is, men,’ said Latimer, about three +o’clock in the afternoon, ‘we must begin over again. Find them tubs +I will.’ +</p> + +<p> +The men, who had been hired for the day, looked at their hands and knees, muddy +with creeping on all fours so frequently, and rubbed their noses, as if they +had almost had enough of it; for the quantity of bad air which had passed into +each one’s nostril had rendered it nearly as insensible as a flue. +However, after a moment’s hesitation, they prepared to start anew, except +three, whose power of smell had quite succumbed under the excessive wear and +tear of the day. +</p> + +<p> +By this time not a male villager was to be seen in the parish. Owlett was not +at his mill, the farmers were not in their fields, the parson was not in his +garden, the smith had left his forge, and the wheelwright’s shop was +silent. +</p> + +<p> +‘Where the divil are the folk gone?’ said Latimer, waking up to the +fact of their absence, and looking round. ‘I’ll have ’em up +for this! Why don’t they come and help us? There’s not a man about +the place but the Methodist parson, and he’s an old woman. I demand +assistance in the king’s name!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘We must find the jineral public afore we can demand that,’ said +his lieutenant. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, well, we shall do better without ’em,’ said Latimer, +who changed his moods at a moment’s notice. ‘But there’s +great cause of suspicion in this silence and this keeping out of sight, and +I’ll bear it in mind. Now we will go across to Owlett’s orchard, +and see what we can find there.’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale, who heard this discussion from the garden-gate, over which he had +been leaning, was rather alarmed, and thought it a mistake of the villagers to +keep so completely out of the way. He himself, like the excisemen, had been +wondering for the last half-hour what could have become of them. Some labourers +were of necessity engaged in distant fields, but the master-workmen should have +been at home; though one and all, after just showing themselves at their shops, +had apparently gone off for the day. He went in to Lizzy, who sat at a back +window sewing, and said, ‘Lizzy, where are the men?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lizzy laughed. ‘Where they mostly are when they’re run so hard as +this.’ She cast her eyes to heaven. ‘Up there,’ she said. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale looked up. ‘What—on the top of the church tower?’ +he asked, seeing the direction of her glance. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I expect they will soon have to come down,’ said he gravely. +‘I have been listening to the officers, and they are going to search the +orchard over again, and then every nook in the church.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lizzy looked alarmed for the first time. ‘Will you go and tell our +folk?’ she said. ‘They ought to be let know.’ Seeing his +conscience struggling within him like a boiling pot, she added, ‘No, +never mind, I’ll go myself.’ +</p> + +<p> +She went out, descended the garden, and climbed over the churchyard wall at the +same time that the preventive-men were ascending the road to the orchard. +Stockdale could do no less than follow her. By the time that she reached the +tower entrance he was at her side, and they entered together. +</p> + +<p> +Nether-Moynton church-tower was, as in many villages, without a turret, and the +only way to the top was by going up to the singers’ gallery, and thence +ascending by a ladder to a square trap-door in the floor of the bell-loft, +above which a permanent ladder was fixed, passing through the bells to a hole +in the roof. When Lizzy and Stockdale reached the gallery and looked up, +nothing but the trap-door and the five holes for the bell-ropes appeared. The +ladder was gone. +</p> + +<p> +‘There’s no getting up,’ said Stockdale. +</p> + +<p> +‘O yes, there is,’ said she. ‘There’s an eye looking at +us at this moment through a knot-hole in that trap-door.’ +</p> + +<p> +And as she spoke the trap opened, and the dark line of the ladder was seen +descending against the white-washed wall. When it touched the bottom Lizzy +dragged it to its place, and said, ‘If you’ll go up, I’ll +follow.’ +</p> + +<p> +The young man ascended, and presently found himself among consecrated bells for +the first time in his life, nonconformity having been in the Stockdale blood +for some generations. He eyed them uneasily, and looked round for Lizzy. Owlett +stood here, holding the top of the ladder. +</p> + +<p> +‘What, be you really one of us?’ said the miller. +</p> + +<p> +‘It seems so,’ said Stockdale sadly. +</p> + +<p> +‘He’s not,’ said Lizzy, who overheard. ‘He’s +neither for nor against us. He’ll do us no harm.’ +</p> + +<p> +She stepped up beside them, and then they went on to the next stage, which, +when they had clambered over the dusty bell-carriages, was of easy ascent, +leading towards the hole through which the pale sky appeared, and into the open +air. Owlett remained behind for a moment, to pull up the lower ladder. +</p> + +<p> +‘Keep down your heads,’ said a voice, as soon as they set foot on +the flat. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale here beheld all the missing parishioners, lying on their stomachs on +the tower roof, except a few who, elevated on their hands and knees, were +peeping through the embrasures of the parapet. Stockdale did the same, and saw +the village lying like a map below him, over which moved the figures of the +excisemen, each foreshortened to a crablike object, the crown of his hat +forming a circular disc in the centre of him. Some of the men had turned their +heads when the young preacher’s figure arose among them. +</p> + +<p> +‘What, Mr. Stockdale?’ said Matt Grey, in a tone of surprise. +</p> + +<p> +‘I’d as lief that it hadn’t been,’ said Jim Clarke. +‘If the pa’son should see him a trespassing here in his tower, +’twould be none the better for we, seeing how ’a do hate +chapel-members. He’d never buy a tub of us again, and he’s as good +a customer as we have got this side o’ Warm’ll.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Where is the pa’son?’ said Lizzy. +</p> + +<p> +‘In his house, to be sure, that he mid see nothing of what’s going +on—where all good folks ought to be, and this young man likewise.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, he has brought some news,’ said Lizzy. ‘They are going +to search the orchet and church; can we do anything if they should find?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said her cousin Owlett. ‘That’s what we’ve +been talking o’, and we have settled our line. Well, be dazed!’ +</p> + +<p> +The exclamation was caused by his perceiving that some of the searchers, having +got into the orchard, and begun stooping and creeping hither and thither, were +pausing in the middle, where a tree smaller than the rest was growing. They +drew closer, and bent lower than ever upon the ground. +</p> + +<p> +‘O, my tubs!’ said Lizzy faintly, as she peered through the parapet +at them. +</p> + +<p> +‘They have got ’em, ’a b’lieve,’ said Owlett. +</p> + +<p> +The interest in the movements of the officers was so keen that not a single eye +was looking in any other direction; but at that moment a shout from the church +beneath them attracted the attention of the smugglers, as it did also of the +party in the orchard, who sprang to their feet and went towards the churchyard +wall. At the same time those of the Government men who had entered the church +unperceived by the smugglers cried aloud, ‘Here be some of ’em at +last.’ +</p> + +<p> +The smugglers remained in a blank silence, uncertain whether ‘some of +’em’ meant tubs or men; but again peeping cautiously over the edge +of the tower they learnt that tubs were the things descried; and soon these +fated articles were brought one by one into the middle of the churchyard from +their hiding-place under the gallery-stairs. +</p> + +<p> +‘They are going to put ’em on Hinton’s vault till they find +the rest!’ said Lizzy hopelessly. The excisemen had, in fact, begun to +pile up the tubs on a large stone slab which was fixed there; and when all were +brought out from the tower, two or three of the men were left standing by them, +the rest of the party again proceeding to the orchard. +</p> + +<p> +The interest of the smugglers in the next manoeuvres of their enemies became +painfully intense. Only about thirty tubs had been secreted in the lumber of +the tower, but seventy were hidden in the orchard, making up all that they had +brought ashore as yet, the remainder of the cargo having been tied to a sinker +and dropped overboard for another night’s operations. The excisemen, +having re-entered the orchard, acted as if they were positive that here lay +hidden the rest of the tubs, which they were determined to find before +nightfall. They spread themselves out round the field, and advancing on all +fours as before, went anew round every apple-tree in the enclosure. The young +tree in the middle again led them to pause, and at length the whole company +gathered there in a way which signified that a second chain of reasoning had +led to the same results as the first. +</p> + +<p> +When they had examined the sod hereabouts for some minutes, one of the men +rose, ran to a disused porch of the church where tools were kept, and returned +with the sexton’s pickaxe and shovel, with which they set to work. +</p> + +<p> +‘Are they really buried there?’ said the minister, for the grass +was so green and uninjured that it was difficult to believe it had been +disturbed. The smugglers were too interested to reply, and presently they saw, +to their chagrin, the officers stand several on each side of the tree; and, +stooping and applying their hands to the soil, they bodily lifted the tree and +the turf around it. The apple-tree now showed itself to be growing in a shallow +box, with handles for lifting at each of the four sides. Under the site of the +tree a square hole was revealed, and an exciseman went and looked down. +</p> + +<p> +‘It is all up now,’ said Owlett quietly. ‘And now all of ye +get down before they notice we are here; and be ready for our next move. I had +better bide here till dark, or they may take me on suspicion, as ’tis on +my ground. I’ll be with ye as soon as daylight begins to pink in.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And I?’ said Lizzy. +</p> + +<p> +‘You please look to the linch-pins and screws; then go indoors and know +nothing at all. The chaps will do the rest.’ +</p> + +<p> +The ladder was replaced, and all but Owlett descended, the men passing off one +by one at the back of the church, and vanishing on their respective errands. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzy walked boldly along the street, followed closely by the minister. +</p> + +<p> +‘You are going indoors, Mrs. Newberry?’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +She knew from the words ‘Mrs. Newberry’ that the division between +them had widened yet another degree. +</p> + +<p> +‘I am not going home,’ she said. ‘I have a little thing to do +before I go in. Martha Sarah will get your tea.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O, I don’t mean on that account,’ said Stockdale. +‘What <i>can</i> you have to do further in this unhallowed affair?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Only a little,’ she said. +</p> + +<p> +‘What is that? I’ll go with you.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, I shall go by myself. Will you please go indoors? I shall be there +in less than an hour.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You are not going to run any danger, Lizzy?’ said the young man, +his tenderness reasserting itself. +</p> + +<p> +‘None whatever—worth mentioning,’ answered she, and went down +towards the Cross. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale entered the garden gate, and stood behind it looking on. The +excisemen were still busy in the orchard, and at last he was tempted to enter, +and watch their proceedings. When he came closer he found that the secret +cellar, of whose existence he had been totally unaware, was formed by timbers +placed across from side to side about a foot under the ground, and grassed +over. +</p> + +<p> +The excisemen looked up at Stockdale’s fair and downy countenance, and +evidently thinking him above suspicion, went on with their work again. As soon +as all the tubs were taken out, they began tearing up the turf; pulling out the +timbers, and breaking in the sides, till the cellar was wholly dismantled and +shapeless, the apple-tree lying with its roots high to the air. But the hole +which had in its time held so much contraband merchandize was never completely +filled up, either then or afterwards, a depression in the greensward marking +the spot to this day. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER VII—THE WALK TO WARM’ELL CROSS AND AFTERWARDS</h3> + +<p> +As the goods had all to be carried to Budmouth that night, the +excisemen’s next object was to find horses and carts for the journey, and +they went about the village for that purpose. Latimer strode hither and thither +with a lump of chalk in his hand, marking broad-arrows so vigorously on every +vehicle and set of harness that he came across, that it seemed as if he would +chalk broad-arrows on the very hedges and roads. The owner of every conveyance +so marked was bound to give it up for Government purposes. Stockdale, who had +had enough of the scene, turned indoors thoughtful and depressed. Lizzy was +already there, having come in at the back, though she had not yet taken off her +bonnet. She looked tired, and her mood was not much brighter than his own. They +had but little to say to each other; and the minister went away and attempted +to read; but at this he could not succeed, and he shook the little bell for +tea. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzy herself brought in the tray, the girl having run off into the village +during the afternoon, too full of excitement at the proceedings to remember her +state of life. However, almost before the sad lovers had said anything to each +other, Martha came in in a steaming state. +</p> + +<p> +‘O, there’s such a stoor, Mrs. Newberry and Mr. Stockdale! The +king’s excisemen can’t get the carts ready nohow at all! They +pulled Thomas Ballam’s, and William Rogers’s, and Stephen +Sprake’s carts into the road, and off came the wheels, and down fell the +carts; and they found there was no linch-pins in the arms; and then they tried +Samuel Shane’s waggon, and found that the screws were gone from he, and +at last they looked at the dairyman’s cart, and he’s got none +neither! They have gone now to the blacksmith’s to get some made, but +he’s nowhere to be found!’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale looked at Lizzy, who blushed very slightly, and went out of the room, +followed by Martha Sarah. But before they had got through the passage there was +a rap at the front door, and Stockdale recognized Latimer’s voice +addressing Mrs. Newberry, who had turned back. +</p> + +<p> +‘For God’s sake, Mrs. Newberry, have you seen Hardman the +blacksmith up this way? If we could get hold of him, we’d e’en +a’most drag him by the hair of his head to his anvil, where he ought to +be.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He’s an idle man, Mr. Latimer,’ said Lizzy archly. +‘What do you want him for?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Why, there isn’t a horse in the place that has got more than three +shoes on, and some have only two. The waggon-wheels be without strakes, and +there’s no linch-pins to the carts. What with that, and the bother about +every set of harness being out of order, we shan’t be off before +nightfall—upon my soul we shan’t. ’Tis a rough lot, Mrs. +Newberry, that you’ve got about you here; but they’ll play at this +game once too often, mark my words they will! There’s not a man in the +parish that don’t deserve to be whipped.’ +</p> + +<p> +It happened that Hardman was at that moment a little further up the lane, +smoking his pipe behind a holly-bush. When Latimer had done speaking he went on +in this direction, and Hardman, hearing the exciseman’s steps, found +curiosity too strong for prudence. He peeped out from the bush at the very +moment that Latimer’s glance was on it. There was nothing left for him to +do but to come forward with unconcern. +</p> + +<p> +‘I’ve been looking for you for the last hour!’ said Latimer +with a glare in his eye. +</p> + +<p> +‘Sorry to hear that,’ said Hardman. ‘I’ve been out for +a stroll, to look for more hid tubs, to deliver ’em up to +Gover’ment.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘O yes, Hardman, we know it,’ said Latimer, with withering sarcasm. +‘We know that you’ll deliver ’em up to Gover’ment. We +know that all the parish is helping us, and have been all day! Now you please +walk along with me down to your shop, and kindly let me hire ye in the +king’s name.’ +</p> + +<p> +They went down the lane together; and presently there resounded from the smithy +the ring of a hammer not very briskly swung. However, the carts and horses were +got into some sort of travelling condition, but it was not until after the +clock had struck six, when the muddy roads were glistening under the horizontal +light of the fading day. The smuggled tubs were soon packed into the vehicles, +and Latimer, with three of his assistants, drove slowly out of the village in +the direction of the port of Budmouth, some considerable number of miles +distant, the other excisemen being left to watch for the remainder of the +cargo, which they knew to have been sunk somewhere between Ringsworth and +Lulstead Cove, and to unearth Owlett, the only person clearly implicated by the +discovery of the cave. +</p> + +<p> +Women and children stood at the doors as the carts, each chalked with the +Government pitchfork, passed in the increasing twilight; and as they stood they +looked at the confiscated property with a melancholy expression that told only +too plainly the relation which they bore to the trade. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, Lizzy,’ said Stockdale, when the crackle of the wheels had +nearly died away. ‘This is a fit finish to your adventure. I am truly +thankful that you have got off without suspicion, and the loss only of the +liquor. Will you sit down and let me talk to you?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘By and by,’ she said. ‘But I must go out now.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Not to that horrid shore again?’ he said blankly. +</p> + +<p> +‘No, not there. I am only going to see the end of this day’s +business.’ +</p> + +<p> +He did not answer to this, and she moved towards the door slowly, as if waiting +for him to say something more. +</p> + +<p> +‘You don’t offer to come with me,’ she added at last. +‘I suppose that’s because you hate me after all this?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Can you say it, Lizzy, when you know I only want to save you from such +practices? Come with you of course I will, if it is only to take care of you. +But why will you go out again?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Because I cannot rest indoors. Something is happening, and I must know +what. Now, come!’ And they went into the dusk together. +</p> + +<p> +When they reached the turnpike-road she turned to the right, and he soon +perceived that they were following the direction of the excisemen and their +load. He had given her his arm, and every now and then she suddenly pulled it +back, to signify that he was to halt a moment and listen. They had walked +rather quickly along the first quarter of a mile, and on the second or third +time of standing still she said, ‘I hear them ahead—don’t +you?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ he said; ‘I hear the wheels. But what of that?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I only want to know if they get clear away from the +neighbourhood.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah,’ said he, a light breaking upon him. ‘Something +desperate is to be attempted!—and now I remember there was not a man +about the village when we left.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Hark!’ she murmured. The noise of the cartwheels had stopped, and +given place to another sort of sound. +</p> + +<p> +‘’Tis a scuffle!’ said Stockdale. ‘There’ll be +murder! Lizzy, let go my arm; I am going on. On my conscience, I must not stay +here and do nothing!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘There’ll be no murder, and not even a broken head,’ she +said. ‘Our men are thirty to four of them: no harm will be done at +all.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then there <i>is</i> an attack!’ exclaimed Stockdale; ‘and +you knew it was to be. Why should you side with men who break the laws like +this?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Why should you side with men who take from country traders what they +have honestly bought wi’ their own money in France?’ said she +firmly. +</p> + +<p> +‘They are not honestly bought,’ said he. +</p> + +<p> +‘They are,’ she contradicted. ‘I and Owlett and the others +paid thirty shillings for every one of the tubs before they were put on board +at Cherbourg, and if a king who is nothing to us sends his people to steal our +property, we have a right to steal it back again.’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale did not stop to argue the matter, but went quickly in the direction +of the noise, Lizzy keeping at his side. ‘Don’t you interfere, will +you, dear Richard?’ she said anxiously, as they drew near. +‘Don’t let us go any closer: ’tis at Warm’ell Cross +where they are seizing ’em. You can do no good, and you may meet with a +hard blow!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Let us see first what is going on,’ he said. But before they had +got much further the noise of the cartwheels began again; and Stockdale soon +found that they were coming towards him. In another minute the three carts came +up, and Stockdale and Lizzy stood in the ditch to let them pass. +</p> + +<p> +Instead of being conducted by four men, as had happened when they went out of +the village, the horses and carts were now accompanied by a body of from twenty +to thirty, all of whom, as Stockdale perceived to his astonishment, had +blackened faces. Among them walked six or eight huge female figures, whom, from +their wide strides, Stockdale guessed to be men in disguise. As soon as the +party discerned Lizzy and her companion four or five fell back, and when the +carts had passed, came close to the pair. +</p> + +<p> +‘There is no walking up this way for the present,’ said one of the +gaunt women, who wore curls a foot long, dangling down the sides of her face, +in the fashion of the time. Stockdale recognized this lady’s voice as +Owlett’s. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why not?’ said Stockdale. ‘This is the public +highway.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Now look here, youngster,’ said Owlett. ‘O, ’tis the +Methodist parson!—what, and Mrs. Newberry! Well, you’d better not +go up that way, Lizzy. They’ve all run off, and folks have got their own +again.’ +</p> + +<p> +The miller then hastened on and joined his comrades. Stockdale and Lizzy also +turned back. ‘I wish all this hadn’t been forced upon us,’ +she said regretfully. ‘But if those excisemen had got off with the tubs, +half the people in the parish would have been in want for the next month or +two.’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale was not paying much attention to her words, and he said, ‘I +don’t think I can go back like this. Those four poor excisemen may be +murdered for all I know.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Murdered!’ said Lizzy impatiently. ‘We don’t do murder +here.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I shall go as far as Warm’ell Cross to see,’ said +Stockdale decisively; and, without wishing her safe home or anything else, the +minister turned back. Lizzy stood looking at him till his form was absorbed in +the shades; and then, with sadness, she went in the direction of +Nether-Moynton. +</p> + +<p> +The road was lonely, and after nightfall at this time of the year there was +often not a passer for hours. Stockdale pursued his way without hearing a sound +beyond that of his own footsteps; and in due time he passed beneath the trees +of the plantation which surrounded the Warm’ell Cross-road. Before he had +reached the point of intersection he heard voices from the thicket. +</p> + +<p> +‘Hoi-hoi-hoi! Help, help!’ +</p> + +<p> +The voices were not at all feeble or despairing, but they were unmistakably +anxious. Stockdale had no weapon, and before plunging into the pitchy darkness +of the plantation he pulled a stake from the hedge, to use in case of need. +When he got among the trees he shouted—‘What’s the +matter—where are you?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Here,’ answered the voices; and, pushing through the brambles in +that direction, he came near the objects of his search. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why don’t you come forward?’ said Stockdale. +</p> + +<p> +‘We be tied to the trees!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Who are you?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Poor Will Latimer the exciseman!’ said one plaintively. +‘Just come and cut these cords, there’s a good man. We were afraid +nobody would pass by to-night.’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale soon loosened them, upon which they stretched their limbs and stood +at their ease. +</p> + +<p> +‘The rascals!’ said Latimer, getting now into a rage, though he had +seemed quite meek when Stockdale first came up. ‘’Tis the same set +of fellows. I know they were Moynton chaps to a man.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But we can’t swear to ’em,’ said another. ‘Not +one of ’em spoke.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What are you going to do?’ said Stockdale. +</p> + +<p> +‘I’d fain go back to Moynton, and have at ’em again!’ +said Latimer. +</p> + +<p> +‘So would we!’ said his comrades. +</p> + +<p> +‘Fight till we die!’ said Latimer. +</p> + +<p> +‘We will, we will!’ said his men. +</p> + +<p> +‘But,’ said Latimer, more frigidly, as they came out of the +plantation, ‘we don’t <i>know</i> that these chaps with black faces +were Moynton men? And proof is a hard thing.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘So it is,’ said the rest. +</p> + +<p> +‘And therefore we won’t do nothing at all,’ said Latimer, +with complete dispassionateness. ‘For my part, I’d sooner be them +than we. The clitches of my arms are burning like fire from the cords those two +strapping women tied round ’em. My opinion is, now I have had time to +think o’t, that you may serve your Gover’ment at too high a price. +For these two nights and days I have not had an hour’s rest; and, please +God, here’s for home-along.’ +</p> + +<p> +The other officers agreed heartily to this course; and, thanking Stockdale for +his timely assistance, they parted from him at the Cross, taking themselves the +western road, and Stockdale going back to Nether-Moynton. +</p> + +<p> +During that walk the minister was lost in reverie of the most painful kind. As +soon as he got into the house, and before entering his own rooms, he advanced +to the door of the little back parlour in which Lizzy usually sat with her +mother. He found her there alone. Stockdale went forward, and, like a man in a +dream, looked down upon the table that stood between him and the young woman, +who had her bonnet and cloak still on. As he did not speak, she looked up from +her chair at him, with misgiving in her eye. +</p> + +<p> +‘Where are they gone?’ he then said listlessly. +</p> + +<p> +‘Who?—I don’t know. I have seen nothing of them since. I came +straight in here.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘If your men can manage to get off with those tubs, it will be a great +profit to you, I suppose?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A share will be mine, a share my cousin Owlett’s, a share to each +of the two farmers, and a share divided amongst the men who helped us.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And you still think,’ he went on slowly, ‘that you will not +give this business up?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lizzy rose, and put her hand upon his shoulder. ‘Don’t ask +that,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t know what you are asking. I +must tell you, though I meant not to do it. What I make by that trade is all I +have to keep my mother and myself with.’ +</p> + +<p> +He was astonished. ‘I did not dream of such a thing,’ he said. +‘I would rather have swept the streets, had I been you. What is money +compared with a clear conscience?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘My conscience is clear. I know my mother, but the king I have never +seen. His dues are nothing to me. But it is a great deal to me that my mother +and I should live.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Marry me, and promise to give it up. I will keep your mother.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is good of you,’ she said, trembling a little. ‘Let me +think of it by myself. I would rather not answer now.’ +</p> + +<p> +She reserved her answer till the next day, and came into his room with a solemn +face. ‘I cannot do what you wished!’ she said passionately. +‘It is too much to ask. My whole life ha’ been passed in this +way.’ Her words and manner showed that before entering she had been +struggling with herself in private, and that the contention had been strong. +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale turned pale, but he spoke quietly. ‘Then, Lizzy, we must part. +I cannot go against my principles in this matter, and I cannot make my +profession a mockery. You know how I love you, and what I would do for you; but +this one thing I cannot do.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But why should you belong to that profession?’ she burst out. +‘I have got this large house; why can’t you marry me, and live here +with us, and not be a Methodist preacher any more? I assure you, Richard, it is +no harm, and I wish you could only see it as I do! We only carry it on in +winter: in summer it is never done at all. It stirs up one’s dull life at +this time o’ the year, and gives excitement, which I have got so used to +now that I should hardly know how to do ‘ithout it. At nights, when the +wind blows, instead of being dull and stupid, and not noticing whether it do +blow or not, your mind is afield, even if you are not afield yourself; and you +are wondering how the chaps are getting on; and you walk up and down the room, +and look out o’ window, and then you go out yourself, and know your way +about as well by night as by day, and have hairbreadth escapes from old Latimer +and his fellows, who are too stupid ever to really frighten us, and only make +us a bit nimble.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He frightened you a little last night, anyhow: and I would advise you to +drop it before it is worse.’ +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. ‘No, I must go on as I have begun. I was born to it. +It is in my blood, and I can’t be cured. O, Richard, you cannot think +what a hard thing you have asked, and how sharp you try me when you put me +between this and my love for ‘ee!’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale was leaning with his elbow on the mantelpiece, his hands over his +eyes. ‘We ought never to have met, Lizzy,’ he said. ‘It was +an ill day for us! I little thought there was anything so hopeless and +impossible in our engagement as this. Well, it is too late now to regret +consequences in this way. I have had the happiness of seeing you and knowing +you at least.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You dissent from Church, and I dissent from State,’ she said. +‘And I don’t see why we are not well matched.’ +</p> + +<p> +He smiled sadly, while Lizzy remained looking down, her eyes beginning to +overflow. +</p> + +<p> +That was an unhappy evening for both of them, and the days that followed were +unhappy days. Both she and he went mechanically about their employments, and +his depression was marked in the village by more than one of his denomination +with whom he came in contact. But Lizzy, who passed her days indoors, was +unsuspected of being the cause: for it was generally understood that a quiet +engagement to marry existed between her and her cousin Owlett, and had existed +for some time. +</p> + +<p> +Thus uncertainly the week passed on; till one morning Stockdale said to her: +‘I have had a letter, Lizzy. I must call you that till I am gone.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Gone?’ said she blankly. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am going from this place. I felt it would +be better for us both that I should not stay after what has happened. In fact, +I couldn’t stay here, and look on you from day to day, without becoming +weak and faltering in my course. I have just heard of an arrangement by which +the other minister can arrive here in about a week; and let me go +elsewhere.’ +</p> + +<p> +That he had all this time continued so firmly fixed in his resolution came upon +her as a grievous surprise. ‘You never loved me!’ she said +bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +‘I might say the same,’ he returned; ‘but I will not. Grant +me one favour. Come and hear my last sermon on the day before I go.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lizzy, who was a church-goer on Sunday mornings, frequently attended +Stockdale’s chapel in the evening with the rest of the double-minded; and +she promised. +</p> + +<p> +It became known that Stockdale was going to leave, and a good many people +outside his own sect were sorry to hear it. The intervening days flew rapidly +away, and on the evening of the Sunday which preceded the morning of his +departure Lizzy sat in the chapel to hear him for the last time. The little +building was full to overflowing, and he took up the subject which all had +expected, that of the contraband trade so extensively practised among them. His +hearers, in laying his words to their own hearts, did not perceive that they +were most particularly directed against Lizzy, till the sermon waxed warm, and +Stockdale nearly broke down with emotion. In truth his own earnestness, and her +sad eyes looking up at him, were too much for the young man’s equanimity. +He hardly knew how he ended. He saw Lizzy, as through a mist, turn and go away +with the rest of the congregation; and shortly afterwards followed her home. +</p> + +<p> +She invited him to supper, and they sat down alone, her mother having, as was +usual with her on Sunday nights, gone to bed early. +</p> + +<p> +‘We will part friends, won’t we?’ said Lizzy, with forced +gaiety, and never alluding to the sermon: a reticence which rather disappointed +him. +</p> + +<p> +‘We will,’ he said, with a forced smile on his part; and they sat +down. +</p> + +<p> +It was the first meal that they had ever shared together in their lives, and +probably the last that they would so share. When it was over, and the +indifferent conversation could no longer be continued, he arose and took her +hand. ‘Lizzy,’ he said, ‘do you say we must part—do +you?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You do,’ she said solemnly. ‘I can say no more.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Nor I,’ said he. ‘If that is your answer, good-bye!’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale bent over her and kissed her, and she involuntarily returned his +kiss. ‘I shall go early,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I shall not see +you again.’ +</p> + +<p> +And he did leave early. He fancied, when stepping forth into the grey morning +light, to mount the van which was to carry him away, that he saw a face between +the parted curtains of Lizzy’s window, but the light was faint, and the +panes glistened with wet; so he could not be sure. Stockdale mounted the +vehicle, and was gone; and on the following Sunday the new minister preached in +the chapel of the Moynton Wesleyans. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +One day, two years after the parting, Stockdale, now settled in a midland town, +came into Nether-Moynton by carrier in the original way. Jogging along in the +van that afternoon he had put questions to the driver, and the answers that he +received interested the minister deeply. The result of them was that he went +without the least hesitation to the door of his former lodging. It was about +six o’clock in the evening, and the same time of year as when he had +left; now, too, the ground was damp and glistening, the west was bright, and +Lizzy’s snowdrops were raising their heads in the border under the wall. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzy must have caught sight of him from the window, for by the time that he +reached the door she was there holding it open: and then, as if she had not +sufficiently considered her act of coming out, she drew herself back, saying +with some constraint, ‘Mr. Stockdale!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You knew it was,’ said Stockdale, taking her hand. ‘I wrote +to say I should call.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, but you did not say when,’ she answered. +</p> + +<p> +‘I did not. I was not quite sure when my business would lead me to these +parts.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You only came because business brought you near?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, that is the fact; but I have often thought I should like to come +on purpose to see you . . . But what’s all this that has happened? I told +you how it would be, Lizzy, and you would not listen to me.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I would not,’ she said sadly. ‘But I had been brought up to +that life; and it was second nature to me. However, it is all over now. The +officers have blood-money for taking a man dead or alive, and the trade is +going to nothing. We were hunted down like rats.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Owlett is quite gone, I hear.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes. He is in America. We had a dreadful struggle that last time, when +they tried to take him. It is a perfect miracle that he lived through it; and +it is a wonder that I was not killed. I was shot in the hand. It was not by +aim; the shot was really meant for my cousin; but I was behind, looking on as +usual, and the bullet came to me. It bled terribly, but I got home without +fainting; and it healed after a time. You know how he suffered?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No,’ said Stockdale. ‘I only heard that he just escaped with +his life.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He was shot in the back; but a rib turned the ball. He was badly hurt. +We would not let him be took. The men carried him all night across the meads to +Kingsbere, and hid him in a barn, dressing his wound as well as they could, +till he was so far recovered as to be able to get about. He had gied up his +mill for some time; and at last he got to Bristol, and took a passage to +America, and he’s settled in Wisconsin.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What do you think of smuggling now?’ said the minister gravely. +</p> + +<p> +‘I own that we were wrong,’ said she. ‘But I have suffered +for it. I am very poor now, and my mother has been dead these twelve months . . +. But won’t you come in, Mr. Stockdale?’ +</p> + +<p> +Stockdale went in; and it is to be supposed that they came to an understanding; +for a fortnight later there was a sale of Lizzy’s furniture, and after +that a wedding at a chapel in a neighbouring town. +</p> + +<p> +He took her away from her old haunts to the home that he had made for himself +in his native county, where she studied her duties as a minister’s wife +with praiseworthy assiduity. It is said that in after years she wrote an +excellent tract called <i>Render unto Caesar; or, The Repentant Villagers</i>, +in which her own experience was anonymously used as the introductory story. +Stockdale got it printed, after making some corrections, and putting in a few +powerful sentences of his own; and many hundreds of copies were distributed by +the couple in the course of their married life. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +<i>April</i> 1879. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WESSEX TALES ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 3056-h.htm or 3056-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/5/3056/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c19c427 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #3056 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3056) diff --git a/old/3056.txt b/old/3056.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a7a15e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/3056.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9441 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Wessex Tales, by Thomas Hardy + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Wessex Tales + +Author: Thomas Hardy + +Release Date: November 2, 2004 [eBook #3056] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WESSEX TALES*** + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1919 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +WESSEX TALES + + +Contents: + +Preface +An Imaginative Woman +The Three Strangers +The Withered Arm +Fellow-Townsmen +Interlopers at the Knap +The Distracted Preacher + + + + +PREFACE + + +An apology is perhaps needed for the neglect of contrast which is shown +by presenting two consecutive stories of hangmen in such a small +collection as the following. But in the neighbourhood of county-towns +tales of executions used to form a large proportion of the local +traditions; and though never personally acquainted with any chief +operator at such scenes, the writer of these pages had as a boy the +privilege of being on speaking terms with a man who applied for the +office, and who sank into an incurable melancholy because he failed to +get it, some slight mitigation of his grief being to dwell upon striking +episodes in the lives of those happier ones who had held it with success +and renown. His tale of disappointment used to cause some wonder why his +ambition should have taken such an unfortunate form, but its nobleness +was never questioned. In those days, too, there was still living an old +woman who, for the cure of some eating disease, had been taken in her +youth to have her 'blood turned' by a convict's corpse, in the manner +described in 'The Withered Arm.' + +Since writing this story some years ago I have been reminded by an aged +friend who knew 'Rhoda Brook' that, in relating her dream, my +forgetfulness has weakened the facts our of which the tale grew. In +reality it was while lying down on a hot afternoon that the incubus +oppressed her and she flung it off, with the results upon the body of the +original as described. To my mind the occurrence of such a vision in the +daytime is more impressive than if it had happened in a midnight dream. +Readers are therefore asked to correct the misrelation, which affords an +instance of how our imperfect memories insensibly formalize the fresh +originality of living fact--from whose shape they slowly depart, as +machine-made castings depart by degrees from the sharp hand-work of the +mould. + +Among the many devices for concealing smuggled goods in caves and pits of +the earth, that of planting an apple-tree in a tray or box which was +placed over the mouth of the pit is, I believe, unique, and it is +detailed in one of the tales precisely as described by an old carrier of +'tubs'--a man who was afterwards in my father's employ for over thirty +years. I never gathered from his reminiscences what means were adopted +for lifting the tree, which, with its roots, earth, and receptacle, must +have been of considerable weight. There is no doubt, however, that the +thing was done through many years. My informant often spoke, too, of the +horribly suffocating sensation produced by the pair of spirit-tubs slung +upon the chest and back, after stumbling with the burden of them for +several miles inland over a rough country and in darkness. He said that +though years of his youth and young manhood were spent in this irregular +business, his profits from the same, taken all together, did not average +the wages he might have earned in a steady employment, whilst the +fatigues and risks were excessive. + +I may add that the first story in the series turns upon a physical +possibility that may attach to women of imaginative temperament, and that +is well supported by the experiences of medical men and other observers +of such manifestations. + +T. H. +April 1896. + + + + +AN IMAGINATIVE WOMAN + + +When William Marchmill had finished his inquiries for lodgings at a well- +known watering-place in Upper Wessex, he returned to the hotel to find +his wife. She, with the children, had rambled along the shore, and +Marchmill followed in the direction indicated by the military-looking +hall-porter + +'By Jove, how far you've gone! I am quite out of breath,' Marchmill +said, rather impatiently, when he came up with his wife, who was reading +as she walked, the three children being considerably further ahead with +the nurse. + +Mrs. Marchmill started out of the reverie into which the book had thrown +her. 'Yes,' she said, 'you've been such a long time. I was tired of +staying in that dreary hotel. But I am sorry if you have wanted me, +Will?' + +'Well, I have had trouble to suit myself. When you see the airy and +comfortable rooms heard of, you find they are stuffy and uncomfortable. +Will you come and see if what I've fixed on will do? There is not much +room, I am afraid; hut I can light on nothing better. The town is rather +full.' + +The pair left the children and nurse to continue their ramble, and went +back together. + +In age well-balanced, in personal appearance fairly matched, and in +domestic requirements conformable, in temper this couple differed, though +even here they did not often clash, he being equable, if not lymphatic, +and she decidedly nervous and sanguine. It was to their tastes and +fancies, those smallest, greatest particulars, that no common denominator +could be applied. Marchmill considered his wife's likes and inclinations +somewhat silly; she considered his sordid and material. The husband's +business was that of a gunmaker in a thriving city northwards, and his +soul was in that business always; the lady was best characterized by that +superannuated phrase of elegance 'a votary of the muse.' An +impressionable, palpitating creature was Ella, shrinking humanely from +detailed knowledge of her husband's trade whenever she reflected that +everything he manufactured had for its purpose the destruction of life. +She could only recover her equanimity by assuring herself that some, at +least, of his weapons were sooner or later used for the extermination of +horrid vermin and animals almost as cruel to their inferiors in species +as human beings were to theirs. + +She had never antecedently regarded this occupation of his as any +objection to having him for a husband. Indeed, the necessity of getting +life-leased at all cost, a cardinal virtue which all good mothers teach, +kept her from thinking of it at all till she had closed with William, had +passed the honeymoon, and reached the reflecting stage. Then, like a +person who has stumbled upon some object in the dark, she wondered what +she had got; mentally walked round it, estimated it; whether it were rare +or common; contained gold, silver, or lead; were a clog or a pedestal, +everything to her or nothing. + +She came to some vague conclusions, and since then had kept her heart +alive by pitying her proprietor's obtuseness and want of refinement, +pitying herself, and letting off her delicate and ethereal emotions in +imaginative occupations, day-dreams, and night-sighs, which perhaps would +not much have disturbed William if he had known of them. + +Her figure was small, elegant, and slight in build, tripping, or rather +bounding, in movement. She was dark-eyed, and had that marvellously +bright and liquid sparkle in each pupil which characterizes persons of +Ella's cast of soul, and is too often a cause of heartache to the +possessor's male friends, ultimately sometimes to herself. Her husband +was a tall, long-featured man, with a brown beard; he had a pondering +regard; and was, it must be added, usually kind and tolerant to her. He +spoke in squarely shaped sentences, and was supremely satisfied with a +condition of sublunary things which made weapons a necessity. + +Husband and wife walked till they had reached the house they were in +search of, which stood in a terrace facing the sea, and was fronted by a +small garden of wind-proof and salt-proof evergreens, stone steps leading +up to the porch. It had its number in the row, but, being rather larger +than the rest, was in addition sedulously distinguished as Coburg House +by its landlady, though everybody else called it 'Thirteen, New Parade.' +The spot was bright and lively now; but in winter it became necessary to +place sandbags against the door, and to stuff up the keyhole against the +wind and rain, which had worn the paint so thin that the priming and +knotting showed through. + +The householder, who bad been watching for the gentleman's return, met +them in the passage, and showed the rooms. She informed them that she +was a professional man's widow, left in needy circumstances by the rather +sudden death of her husband, and she spoke anxiously of the conveniences +of the establishment. + +Mrs. Marchmill said that she liked the situation and the house; but, it +being small, there would not be accommodation enough, unless she could +have all the rooms. + +The landlady mused with an air of disappointment. She wanted the +visitors to be her tenants very badly, she said, with obvious honesty. +But unfortunately two of the rooms were occupied permanently by a +bachelor gentleman. He did not pay season prices, it was true; but as he +kept on his apartments all the year round, and was an extremely nice and +interesting young man, who gave no trouble, she did not like to turn him +out for a month's 'let,' even at a high figure. 'Perhaps, however,' she +added, 'he might offer to go for a time.' + +They would not hear of this, and went back to the hotel, intending to +proceed to the agent's to inquire further. Hardly had they sat down to +tea when the landlady called. Her gentleman, she said, had been so +obliging as to offer to give up his rooms for three or four weeks rather +than drive the new-comers away. + +'It is very kind, but we won't inconvenience him in that way,' said the +Marchmills. + +'O, it won't inconvenience him, I assure you!' said the landlady +eloquently. 'You see, he's a different sort of young man from +most--dreamy, solitary, rather melancholy--and he cares more to be here +when the south-westerly gales are beating against the door, and the sea +washes over the Parade, and there's not a soul in the place, than he does +now in the season. He'd just as soon be where, in fact, he's going +temporarily, to a little cottage on the Island opposite, for a change.' +She hoped therefore that they would come. + +The Marchmill family accordingly took possession of the house next day, +and it seemed to suit them very well. After luncheon Mr. Marchmill +strolled out towards the pier, and Mrs. Marchmill, having despatched the +children to their outdoor amusements on the sands, settled herself in +more completely, examining this and that article, and testing the +reflecting powers of the mirror in the wardrobe door. + +In the small back sitting-room, which had been the young bachelor's, she +found furniture of a more personal nature than in the rest. Shabby +books, of correct rather than rare editions, were piled up in a queerly +reserved manner in corners, as if the previous occupant had not conceived +the possibility that any incoming person of the season's bringing could +care to look inside them. The landlady hovered on the threshold to +rectify anything that Mrs. Marchmill might not find to her satisfaction. + +'I'll make this my own little room,' said the latter, 'because the books +are here. By the way, the person who has left seems to have a good many. +He won't mind my reading some of them, Mrs. Hooper, I hope?' + +'O dear no, ma'am. Yes, he has a good many. You see, he is in the +literary line himself somewhat. He is a poet--yes, really a poet--and he +has a little income of his own, which is enough to write verses on, but +not enough for cutting a figure, even if he cared to.' + +'A poet! O, I did not know that.' + +Mrs. Marchmill opened one of the books, and saw the owner's name written +on the title-page. 'Dear me!' she continued; 'I know his name very +well--Robert Trewe--of course I do; and his writings! And it is his +rooms we have taken, and him we have turned out of his home?' + +Ella Marchmill, sitting down alone a few minutes later, thought with +interested surprise of Robert Trewe. Her own latter history will best +explain that interest. Herself the only daughter of a struggling man of +letters, she had during the last year or two taken to writing poems, in +an endeavour to find a congenial channel in which to let flow her +painfully embayed emotions, whose former limpidity and sparkle seemed +departing in the stagnation caused by the routine of a practical +household and the gloom of bearing children to a commonplace father. +These poems, subscribed with a masculine pseudonym, had appeared in +various obscure magazines, and in two cases in rather prominent ones. In +the second of the latter the page which bore her effusion at the bottom, +in smallish print, bore at the top, in large print, a few verses on the +same subject by this very man, Robert Trewe. Both of them had, in fact, +been struck by a tragic incident reported in the daily papers, and had +used it simultaneously as an inspiration, the editor remarking in a note +upon the coincidence, and that the excellence of both poems prompted him +to give them together. + +After that event Ella, otherwise 'John Ivy,' had watched with much +attention the appearance anywhere in print of verse bearing the signature +of Robert Trewe, who, with a man's unsusceptibility on the question of +sex, had never once thought of passing himself off as a woman. To be +sure, Mrs. Marchmill had satisfied herself with a sort of reason for +doing the contrary in her case; that nobody might believe in her +inspiration if they found that the sentiments came from a pushing +tradesman's wife, from the mother of three children by a matter-of-fact +small-arms manufacturer. + +Trewe's verse contrasted with that of the rank and file of recent minor +poets in being impassioned rather than ingenious, luxuriant rather than +finished. Neither symboliste nor decadent, he was a pessimist in so far +as that character applies to a man who looks at the worst contingencies +as well as the best in the human condition. Being little attracted by +excellences of form and rhythm apart from content, he sometimes, when +feeling outran his artistic speed, perpetrated sonnets in the loosely +rhymed Elizabethan fashion, which every right-minded reviewer said he +ought not to have done. + +With sad and hopeless envy, Ella Marchmill had often and often scanned +the rival poet's work, so much stronger as it always was than her own +feeble lines. She had imitated him, and her inability to touch his level +would send her into fits of despondency. Months passed away thus, till +she observed from the publishers' list that Trewe had collected his +fugitive pieces into a volume, which was duly issued, and was much or +little praised according to chance, and had a sale quite sufficient to +pay for the printing. + +This step onward had suggested to John Ivy the idea of collecting her +pieces also, or at any rate of making up a book of her rhymes by adding +many in manuscript to the few that had seen the light, for she had been +able to get no great number into print. A ruinous charge was made for +costs of publication; a few reviews noticed her poor little volume; but +nobody talked of it, nobody bought it, and it fell dead in a fortnight--if +it had ever been alive. + +The author's thoughts were diverted to another groove just then by the +discovery that she was going to have a third child, and the collapse of +her poetical venture had perhaps less effect upon her mind than it might +have done if she had been domestically unoccupied. Her husband had paid +the publisher's bill with the doctor's, and there it all had ended for +the time. But, though less than a poet of her century, Ella was more +than a mere multiplier of her kind, and latterly she had begun to feel +the old afflatus once more. And now by an odd conjunction she found +herself in the rooms of Robert Trewe. + +She thoughtfully rose from her chair and searched the apartment with the +interest of a fellow-tradesman. Yes, the volume of his own verse was +among the rest. Though quite familiar with its contents, she read it +here as if it spoke aloud to her, then called up Mrs. Hooper, the +landlady, for some trivial service, and inquired again about the young +man. + +'Well, I'm sure you'd be interested in him, ma'am, if you could see him, +only he's so shy that I don't suppose you will.' Mrs. Hooper seemed +nothing loth to minister to her tenant's curiosity about her predecessor. +'Lived here long? Yes, nearly two years. He keeps on his rooms even +when he's not here: the soft air of this place suits his chest, and he +likes to be able to come back at any time. He is mostly writing or +reading, and doesn't see many people, though, for the matter of that, he +is such a good, kind young fellow that folks would only be too glad to be +friendly with him if they knew him. You don't meet kind-hearted people +every day.' + +'Ah, he's kind-hearted . . . and good.' + +'Yes; he'll oblige me in anything if I ask him. "Mr. Trewe," I say to +him sometimes, "you are rather out of spirits." "Well, I am, Mrs. +Hooper," he'll say, "though I don't know how you should find it out." +"Why not take a little change?" I ask. Then in a day or two he'll say +that he will take a trip to Paris, or Norway, or somewhere; and I assure +you he comes back all the better for it.' + +'Ah, indeed! His is a sensitive nature, no doubt.' + +'Yes. Still he's odd in some things. Once when he had finished a poem +of his composition late at night he walked up and down the room +rehearsing it; and the floors being so thin--jerry-built houses, you +know, though I say it myself--he kept me awake up above him till I wished +him further . . . But we get on very well.' + +This was but the beginning of a series of conversations about the rising +poet as the days went on. On one of these occasions Mrs. Hooper drew +Ella's attention to what she had not noticed before: minute scribblings +in pencil on the wall-paper behind the curtains at the head of the bed. + +'O! let me look,' said Mrs. Marchmill, unable to conceal a rush of tender +curiosity as she bent her pretty face close to the wall. + +'These,' said Mrs. Hooper, with the manner of a woman who knew things, +'are the very beginnings and first thoughts of his verses. He has tried +to rub most of them out, but you can read them still. My belief is that +he wakes up in the night, you know, with some rhyme in his head, and jots +it down there on the wall lest he should forget it by the morning. Some +of these very lines you see here I have seen afterwards in print in the +magazines. Some are newer; indeed, I have not seen that one before. It +must have been done only a few days ago.' + +'O yes! . . . ' + +Ella Marchmill flushed without knowing why, and suddenly wished her +companion would go away, now that the information was imparted. An +indescribable consciousness of personal interest rather than literary +made her anxious to read the inscription alone; and she accordingly +waited till she could do so, with a sense that a great store of emotion +would be enjoyed in the act. + +Perhaps because the sea was choppy outside the Island, Ella's husband +found it much pleasanter to go sailing and steaming about without his +wife, who was a bad sailor, than with her. He did not disdain to go thus +alone on board the steamboats of the cheap-trippers, where there was +dancing by moonlight, and where the couples would come suddenly down with +a lurch into each other's arms; for, as he blandly told her, the company +was too mixed for him to take her amid such scenes. Thus, while this +thriving manufacturer got a great deal of change and sea-air out of his +sojourn here, the life, external at least, of Ella was monotonous enough, +and mainly consisted in passing a certain number of hours each day in +bathing and walking up and down a stretch of shore. But the poetic +impulse having again waxed strong, she was possessed by an inner flame +which left her hardly conscious of what was proceeding around her. + +She had read till she knew by heart Trewe's last little volume of verses, +and spent a great deal of time in vainly attempting to rival some of +them, till, in her failure, she burst into tears. The personal element +in the magnetic attraction exercised by this circumambient, +unapproachable master of hers was so much stronger than the intellectual +and abstract that she could not understand it. To be sure, she was +surrounded noon and night by his customary environment, which literally +whispered of him to her at every moment; but he was a man she had never +seen, and that all that moved her was the instinct to specialize a +waiting emotion on the first fit thing that came to hand did not, of +course, suggest itself to Ella. + +In the natural way of passion under the too practical conditions which +civilization has devised for its fruition, her husband's love for her had +not survived, except in the form of fitful friendship, any more than, or +even so much as, her own for him; and, being a woman of very living +ardours, that required sustenance of some sort, they were beginning to +feed on this chancing material, which was, indeed, of a quality far +better than chance usually offers. + +One day the children had been playing hide-and-seek in a closet, whence, +in their excitement, they pulled out some clothing. Mrs. Hooper +explained that it belonged to Mr. Trewe, and hung it up in the closet +again. Possessed of her fantasy, Ella went later in the afternoon, when +nobody was in that part of the house, opened the closet, unhitched one of +the articles, a mackintosh, and put it on, with the waterproof cap +belonging to it. + +'The mantle of Elijah!' she said. 'Would it might inspire me to rival +him, glorious genius that he is!' + +Her eyes always grew wet when she thought like that, and she turned to +look at herself in the glass. His heart had beat inside that coat, and +his brain had worked under that hat at levels of thought she would never +reach. The consciousness of her weakness beside him made her feel quite +sick. Before she had got the things off her the door opened, and her +husband entered the room. + +'What the devil--' + +She blushed, and removed them + +'I found them in the closet here,' she said, 'and put them on in a freak. +What have I else to do? You are always away!' + +'Always away? Well . . . ' + +That evening she had a further talk with the landlady, who might herself +have nourished a half-tender regard for the poet, so ready was she to +discourse ardently about him. + +'You are interested in Mr. Trewe, I know, ma'am,' she said; 'and he has +just sent to say that he is going to call to-morrow afternoon to look up +some books of his that he wants, if I'll be in, and he may select them +from your room?' + +'O yes!' + +'You could very well meet Mr Trewe then, if you'd like to be in the way!' + +She promised with secret delight, and went to bed musing of him. + +Next morning her husband observed: 'I've been thinking of what you said, +Ell: that I have gone about a good deal and left you without much to +amuse you. Perhaps it's true. To-day, as there's not much sea, I'll +take you with me on board the yacht.' + +For the first time in her experience of such an offer Ella was not glad. +But she accepted it for the moment. The time for setting out drew near, +and she went to get ready. She stood reflecting. The longing to see the +poet she was now distinctly in love with overpowered all other +considerations. + +'I don't want to go,' she said to herself. 'I can't bear to be away! And +I won't go.' + +She told her husband that she had changed her mind about wishing to sail. +He was indifferent, and went his way. + +For the rest of the day the house was quiet, the children having gone out +upon the sands. The blinds waved in the sunshine to the soft, steady +stroke of the sea beyond the wall; and the notes of the Green Silesian +band, a troop of foreign gentlemen hired for the season, had drawn almost +all the residents and promenaders away from the vicinity of Coburg House. +A knock was audible at the door. + +Mrs. Marchmill did not hear any servant go to answer it, and she became +impatient. The books were in the room where she sat; but nobody came up. +She rang the bell. + +'There is some person waiting at the door,' she said. + +'O no, ma'am! He's gone long ago. I answered it.' + +Mrs. Hooper came in herself. + +'So disappointing!' she said. 'Mr. Trewe not coming after all!' + +'But I heard him knock, I fancy!' + +'No; that was somebody inquiring for lodgings who came to the wrong +house. I forgot to tell you that Mr. Trewe sent a note just before lunch +to say I needn't get any tea for him, as he should not require the books, +and wouldn't come to select them.' + +Ella was miserable, and for a long time could not even re-read his +mournful ballad on 'Severed Lives,' so aching was her erratic little +heart, and so tearful her eyes. When the children came in with wet +stockings, and ran up to her to tell her of their adventures, she could +not feel that she cared about them half as much as usual. + +* * * * * + +'Mrs. Hooper, have you a photograph of--the gentleman who lived here?' +She was getting to be curiously shy in mentioning his name. + +'Why, yes. It's in the ornamental frame on the mantelpiece in your own +bedroom, ma'am.' + +'No; the Royal Duke and Duchess are in that.' + +'Yes, so they are; but he's behind them. He belongs rightly to that +frame, which I bought on purpose; but as he went away he said: "Cover me +up from those strangers that are coming, for God's sake. I don't want +them staring at me, and I am sure they won't want me staring at them." So +I slipped in the Duke and Duchess temporarily in front of him, as they +had no frame, and Royalties are more suitable for letting furnished than +a private young man. If you take 'em out you'll see him under. Lord, +ma'am, he wouldn't mind if he knew it! He didn't think the next tenant +would be such an attractive lady as you, or he wouldn't have thought of +hiding himself; perhaps.' + +'Is he handsome?' she asked timidly. + +'I call him so. Some, perhaps, wouldn't.' + +'Should I?' she asked, with eagerness. + +'I think you would, though some would say he's more striking than +handsome; a large-eyed thoughtful fellow, you know, with a very electric +flash in his eye when he looks round quickly, such as you'd expect a poet +to be who doesn't get his living by it.' + +'How old is he?' + +'Several years older than yourself, ma'am; about thirty-one or two, I +think.' + +Ella was, as a matter of fact, a few months over thirty herself; but she +did not look nearly so much. Though so immature in nature, she was +entering on that tract of life in which emotional women begin to suspect +that last love may be stronger than first love; and she would soon, alas, +enter on the still more melancholy tract when at least the vainer ones of +her sex shrink from receiving a male visitor otherwise than with their +backs to the window or the blinds half down. She reflected on Mrs. +Hooper's remark, and said no more about age. + +Just then a telegram was brought up. It came from her husband, who had +gone down the Channel as far as Budmouth with his friends in the yacht, +and would not be able to get back till next day. + +After her light dinner Ella idled about the shore with the children till +dusk, thinking of the yet uncovered photograph in her room, with a serene +sense of something ecstatic to come. For, with the subtle luxuriousness +of fancy in which this young woman was an adept, on learning that her +husband was to be absent that night she had refrained from incontinently +rushing upstairs and opening the picture-frame, preferring to reserve the +inspection till she could be alone, and a more romantic tinge be imparted +to the occasion by silence, candles, solemn sea and stars outside, than +was afforded by the garish afternoon sunlight. + +The children had been sent to bed, and Ella soon followed, though it was +not yet ten o'clock. To gratify her passionate curiosity she now made +her preparations, first getting rid of superfluous garments and putting +on her dressing-gown, then arranging a chair in front of the table and +reading several pages of Trewe's tenderest utterances. Then she fetched +the portrait-frame to the light, opened the back, took out the likeness, +and set it up before her. + +It was a striking countenance to look upon. The poet wore a luxuriant +black moustache and imperial, and a slouched hat which shaded the +forehead. The large dark eyes, described by the landlady, showed an +unlimited capacity for misery; they looked out from beneath well-shaped +brows as if they were reading the universe in the microcosm of the +confronter's face, and were not altogether overjoyed at what the +spectacle portended. + +Ella murmured in her lowest, richest, tenderest tone: 'And it's you +who've so cruelly eclipsed me these many times!' + +As she gazed long at the portrait she fell into thought, till her eyes +filled with tears, and she touched the cardboard with her lips. Then she +laughed with a nervous lightness, and wiped her eyes. + +She thought how wicked she was, a woman having a husband and three +children, to let her mind stray to a stranger in this unconscionable +manner. No, he was not a stranger! She knew his thoughts and feelings +as well as she knew her own; they were, in fact, the self-same thoughts +and feelings as hers, which her husband distinctly lacked; perhaps +luckily for himself; considering that he had to provide for family +expenses. + +'He's nearer my real self, he's more intimate with the real me than Will +is, after all, even though I've never seen him,' she said. + +She laid his book and picture on the table at the bedside, and when she +was reclining on the pillow she re-read those of Robert Trewe's verses +which she had marked from time to time as most touching and true. Putting +these aside, she set up the photograph on its edge upon the coverlet, and +contemplated it as she lay. Then she scanned again by the light of the +candle the half-obliterated pencillings on the wall-paper beside her +head. There they were--phrases, couplets, bouts-rimes, beginnings and +middles of lines, ideas in the rough, like Shelley's scraps, and the +least of them so intense, so sweet, so palpitating, that it seemed as if +his very breath, warm and loving, fanned her cheeks from those walls, +walls that had surrounded his head times and times as they surrounded her +own now. He must often have put up his hand so--with the pencil in it. +Yes, the writing was sideways, as it would be if executed by one who +extended his arm thus. + +These inscribed shapes of the poet's world, + + 'Forms more real than living man, + Nurslings of immortality,' + +were, no doubt, the thoughts and spirit-strivings which had come to him +in the dead of night, when he could let himself go and have no fear of +the frost of criticism. No doubt they had often been written up hastily +by the light of the moon, the rays of the lamp, in the blue-grey dawn, in +full daylight perhaps never. And now her hair was dragging where his arm +had lain when he secured the fugitive fancies; she was sleeping on a +poet's lips, immersed in the very essence of him, permeated by his spirit +as by an ether. + +While she was dreaming the minutes away thus, a footstep came upon the +stairs, and in a moment she heard her husband's heavy step on the landing +immediately without. + +'Ell, where are you?' + +What possessed her she could not have described, but, with an instinctive +objection to let her husband know what she had been doing, she slipped +the photograph under the pillow just as he flung open the door, with the +air of a man who had dined not badly. + +'O, I beg pardon,' said William Marchmill. 'Have you a headache? I am +afraid I have disturbed you.' + +'No, I've not got a headache,' said she. 'How is it you've come?' + +'Well, we found we could get back in very good time after all, and I +didn't want to make another day of it, because of going somewhere else to- +morrow.' + +'Shall I come down again?' + +'O no. I'm as tired as a dog. I've had a good feed, and I shall turn in +straight off. I want to get out at six o'clock to-morrow if I can . . . +I shan't disturb you by my getting up; it will be long before you are +awake.' And he came forward into the room. + +While her eyes followed his movements, Ella softly pushed the photograph +further out of sight. + +'Sure you're not ill?' he asked, bending over her. + +'No, only wicked!' + +'Never mind that.' And he stooped and kissed her. + +Next morning Marchmill was called at six o'clock; and in waking and +yawning she heard him muttering to himself: 'What the deuce is this +that's been crackling under me so?' Imagining her asleep he searched +round him and withdrew something. Through her half-opened eyes she +perceived it to be Mr. Trewe. + +'Well, I'm damned!' her husband exclaimed. + +'What, dear?' said she. + +'O, you are awake? Ha! ha!' + +'What do you mean?' + +'Some bloke's photograph--a friend of our landlady's, I suppose. I +wonder how it came here; whisked off the table by accident perhaps when +they were making the bed.' + +'I was looking at it yesterday, and it must have dropped in then.' + +'O, he's a friend of yours? Bless his picturesque heart!' + +Ella's loyalty to the object of her admiration could not endure to hear +him ridiculed. 'He's a clever man!' she said, with a tremor in her +gentle voice which she herself felt to be absurdly uncalled for. + +'He is a rising poet--the gentleman who occupied two of these rooms +before we came, though I've never seen him.' + +'How do you know, if you've never seen him?' + +'Mrs. Hooper told me when she showed me the photograph.' + +'O; well, I must up and be off. I shall be home rather early. Sorry I +can't take you to-day, dear. Mind the children don't go getting +drowned.' + +That day Mrs. Marchmill inquired if Mr. Trewe were likely to call at any +other time. + +'Yes,' said Mrs. Hooper. 'He's coming this day week to stay with a +friend near here till you leave. He'll be sure to call.' + +Marchmill did return quite early in the afternoon; and, opening some +letters which had arrived in his absence, declared suddenly that he and +his family would have to leave a week earlier than they had expected to +do--in short, in three days. + +'Surely we can stay a week longer?' she pleaded. 'I like it here.' + +'I don't. It is getting rather slow.' + +'Then you might leave me and the children!' + +'How perverse you are, Ell! What's the use? And have to come to fetch +you! No: we'll all return together; and we'll make out our time in North +Wales or Brighton a little later on. Besides, you've three days longer +yet.' + +It seemed to be her doom not to meet the man for whose rival talent she +had a despairing admiration, and to whose person she was now absolutely +attached. Yet she determined to make a last effort; and having gathered +from her landlady that Trewe was living in a lonely spot not far from the +fashionable town on the Island opposite, she crossed over in the packet +from the neighbouring pier the following afternoon. + +What a useless journey it was! Ella knew but vaguely where the house +stood, and when she fancied she had found it, and ventured to inquire of +a pedestrian if he lived there, the answer returned by the man was that +he did not know. And if he did live there, how could she call upon him? +Some women might have the assurance to do it, but she had not. How crazy +he would think her. She might have asked him to call upon her, perhaps; +but she had not the courage for that, either. She lingered mournfully +about the picturesque seaside eminence till it was time to return to the +town and enter the steamer for recrossing, reaching home for dinner +without having been greatly missed. + +At the last moment, unexpectedly enough, her husband said that he should +have no objection to letting her and the children stay on till the end of +the week, since she wished to do so, if she felt herself able to get home +without him. She concealed the pleasure this extension of time gave her; +and Marchmill went off the next morning alone. + +But the week passed, and Trewe did not call. + +On Saturday morning the remaining members of the Marchmill family +departed from the place which had been productive of so much fervour in +her. The dreary, dreary train; the sun shining in moted beams upon the +hot cushions; the dusty permanent way; the mean rows of wire--these +things were her accompaniment: while out of the window the deep blue sea- +levels disappeared from her gaze, and with them her poet's home. Heavy- +hearted, she tried to read, and wept instead. + +Mr. Marchmill was in a thriving way of business, and he and his family +lived in a large new house, which stood in rather extensive grounds a few +miles outside the city wherein he carried on his trade. Ella's life was +lonely here, as the suburban life is apt to be, particularly at certain +seasons; and she had ample time to indulge her taste for lyric and +elegiac composition. She had hardly got back when she encountered a +piece by Robert Trewe in the new number of her favourite magazine, which +must have been written almost immediately before her visit to Solentsea, +for it contained the very couplet she had seen pencilled on the wallpaper +by the bed, and Mrs. Hooper had declared to be recent. Ella could resist +no longer, but seizing a pen impulsively, wrote to him as a brother-poet, +using the name of John Ivy, congratulating him in her letter on his +triumphant executions in metre and rhythm of thoughts that moved his +soul, as compared with her own brow-beaten efforts in the same pathetic +trade. + +To this address there came a response in a few days, little as she had +dared to hope for it--a civil and brief note, in which the young poet +stated that, though he was not well acquainted with Mr. Ivy's verse, he +recalled the name as being one he had seen attached to some very +promising pieces; that he was glad to gain Mr. Ivy's acquaintance by +letter, and should certainly look with much interest for his productions +in the future. + +There must have been something juvenile or timid in her own epistle, as +one ostensibly coming from a man, she declared to herself; for Trewe +quite adopted the tone of an elder and superior in this reply. But what +did it matter? he had replied; he had written to her with his own hand +from that very room she knew so well, for he was now back again in his +quarters. + +The correspondence thus begun was continued for two months or more, Ella +Marchmill sending him from time to time some that she considered to be +the best of her pieces, which he very kindly accepted, though he did not +say he sedulously read them, nor did he send her any of his own in +return. Ella would have been more hurt at this than she was if she had +not known that Trewe laboured under the impression that she was one of +his own sex. + +Yet the situation was unsatisfactory. A flattering little voice told her +that, were he only to see her, matters would be otherwise. No doubt she +would have helped on this by making a frank confession of womanhood, to +begin with, if something had not happened, to her delight, to render it +unnecessary. A friend of her husband's, the editor of the most important +newspaper in the city and county, who was dining with them one day, +observed during their conversation about the poet that his (the editor's) +brother the landscape-painter was a friend of Mr. Trewe's, and that the +two men were at that very moment in Wales together. + +Ella was slightly acquainted with the editor's brother. The next morning +down she sat and wrote, inviting him to stay at her house for a short +time on his way back, and requesting him to bring with him, if +practicable, his companion Mr. Trewe, whose acquaintance she was anxious +to make. The answer arrived after some few days. Her correspondent and +his friend Trewe would have much satisfaction in accepting her invitation +on their way southward, which would be on such and such a day in the +following week. + +Ella was blithe and buoyant. Her scheme had succeeded; her beloved +though as yet unseen one was coming. "Behold, he standeth behind our +wall; he looked forth at the windows, showing himself through the +lattice," she thought ecstatically. "And, lo, the winter is past, the +rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the +singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our +land." + +But it was necessary to consider the details of lodging and feeding him. +This she did most solicitously, and awaited the pregnant day and hour. + +It was about five in the afternoon when she heard a ring at the door and +the editor's brother's voice in the hall. Poetess as she was, or as she +thought herself, she had not been too sublime that day to dress with +infinite trouble in a fashionable robe of rich material, having a faint +resemblance to the chiton of the Greeks, a style just then in vogue among +ladies of an artistic and romantic turn, which had been obtained by Ella +of her Bond Street dressmaker when she was last in London. Her visitor +entered the drawing-room. She looked towards his rear; nobody else came +through the door. Where, in the name of the God of Love, was Robert +Trewe? + +'O, I'm sorry,' said the painter, after their introductory words had been +spoken. 'Trewe is a curious fellow, you know, Mrs. Marchmill. He said +he'd come; then he said he couldn't. He's rather dusty. We've been +doing a few miles with knapsacks, you know; and he wanted to get on +home.' + +'He--he's not coming?' + +'He's not; and he asked me to make his apologies.' + +'When did you p-p-part from him?' she asked, her nether lip starting off +quivering so much that it was like a tremolo-stop opened in her speech. +She longed to run away from this dreadful bore and cry her eyes out. + +'Just now, in the turnpike road yonder there.' + +'What! he has actually gone past my gates?' + +'Yes. When we got to them--handsome gates they are, too, the finest bit +of modern wrought-iron work I have seen--when we came to them we stopped, +talking there a little while, and then he wished me good-bye and went on. +The truth is, he's a little bit depressed just now, and doesn't want to +see anybody. He's a very good fellow, and a warm friend, but a little +uncertain and gloomy sometimes; he thinks too much of things. His poetry +is rather too erotic and passionate, you know, for some tastes; and he +has just come in for a terrible slating from the --- Review that was +published yesterday; he saw a copy of it at the station by accident. +Perhaps you've read it?' + +'No.' + +'So much the better. O, it is not worth thinking of; just one of those +articles written to order, to please the narrow-minded set of subscribers +upon whom the circulation depends. But he's upset by it. He says it is +the misrepresentation that hurts him so; that, though he can stand a fair +attack, he can't stand lies that he's powerless to refute and stop from +spreading. That's just Trewe's weak point. He lives so much by himself +that these things affect him much more than they would if he were in the +bustle of fashionable or commercial life. So he wouldn't come here, +making the excuse that it all looked so new and monied--if you'll +pardon--' + +'But--he must have known--there was sympathy here! Has he never said +anything about getting letters from this address?' + +'Yes, yes, he has, from John Ivy--perhaps a relative of yours, he +thought, visiting here at the time?' + +'Did he--like Ivy, did he say?' + +'Well, I don't know that he took any great interest in Ivy.' + +'Or in his poems?' + +'Or in his poems--so far as I know, that is.' + +Robert Trewe took no interest in her house, in her poems, or in their +writer. As soon as she could get away she went into the nursery and +tried to let off her emotion by unnecessarily kissing the children, till +she had a sudden sense of disgust at being reminded how plain-looking +they were, like their father. + +The obtuse and single-minded landscape-painter never once perceived from +her conversation that it was only Trewe she wanted, and not himself. He +made the best of his visit, seeming to enjoy the society of Ella's +husband, who also took a great fancy to him, and showed him everywhere +about the neighbourhood, neither of them noticing Ella's mood. + +The painter had been gone only a day or two when, while sitting upstairs +alone one morning, she glanced over the London paper just arrived, and +read the following paragraph:- + + 'SUICIDE OF A POET + + 'Mr. Robert Trewe, who has been favourably known for some years as one + of our rising lyrists, committed suicide at his lodgings at Solentsea + on Saturday evening last by shooting himself in the right temple with + a revolver. Readers hardly need to be reminded that Mr. Trewe has + recently attracted the attention of a much wider public than had + hitherto known him, by his new volume of verse, mostly of an + impassioned kind, entitled "Lyrics to a Woman Unknown," which has been + already favourably noticed in these pages for the extraordinary gamut + of feeling it traverses, and which has been made the subject of a + severe, if not ferocious, criticism in the --- Review. It is + supposed, though not certainly known, that the article may have + partially conduced to the sad act, as a copy of the review in question + was found on his writing-table; and he has been observed to be in a + somewhat depressed state of mind since the critique appeared.' + +Then came the report of the inquest, at which the following letter was +read, it having been addressed to a friend at a distance:- + + 'DEAR -,--Before these lines reach your hands I shall be delivered + from the inconveniences of seeing, hearing, and knowing more of the + things around me. I will not trouble you by giving my reasons for the + step I have taken, though I can assure you they were sound and + logical. Perhaps had I been blessed with a mother, or a sister, or a + female friend of another sort tenderly devoted to me, I might have + thought it worth while to continue my present existence. I have long + dreamt of such an unattainable creature, as you know, and she, this + undiscoverable, elusive one, inspired my last volume; the imaginary + woman alone, for, in spite of what has been said in some quarters, + there is no real woman behind the title. She has continued to the + last unrevealed, unmet, unwon. I think it desirable to mention this + in order that no blame may attach to any real woman as having been the + cause of my decease by cruel or cavalier treatment of me. Tell my + landlady that I am sorry to have caused her this unpleasantness; but + my occupancy of the rooms will soon be forgotten. There are ample + funds in my name at the bank to pay all expenses. R. TREWE.' + +Ella sat for a while as if stunned, then rushed into the adjoining +chamber and flung herself upon her face on the bed. + +Her grief and distraction shook her to pieces; and she lay in this frenzy +of sorrow for more than an hour. Broken words came every now and then +from her quivering lips: 'O, if he had only known of me--known of me--me! +. . . O, if I had only once met him--only once; and put my hand upon his +hot forehead--kissed him--let him know how I loved him--that I would have +suffered shame and scorn, would have lived and died, for him! Perhaps it +would have saved his dear life! . . . But no--it was not allowed! God is +a jealous God; and that happiness was not for him and me!' + +All possibilities were over; the meeting was stultified. Yet it was +almost visible to her in her fantasy even now, though it could never be +substantiated - + + 'The hour which might have been, yet might not be, + Which man's and woman's heart conceived and bore, + Yet whereof life was barren.' + +* * * * * + +She wrote to the landlady at Solentsea in the third person, in as subdued +a style as she could command, enclosing a postal order for a sovereign, +and informing Mrs. Hooper that Mrs. Marchmill had seen in the papers the +sad account of the poet's death, and having been, as Mrs. Hooper was +aware, much interested in Mr. Trewe during her stay at Coburg House, she +would be obliged if Mrs. Hooper could obtain a small portion of his hair +before his coffin was closed down, and send it her as a memorial of him, +as also the photograph that was in the frame. + +By the return-post a letter arrived containing what had been requested. +Ella wept over the portrait and secured it in her private drawer; the +lock of hair she tied with white ribbon and put in her bosom, whence she +drew it and kissed it every now and then in some unobserved nook. + +'What's the matter?' said her husband, looking up from his newspaper on +one of these occasions. 'Crying over something? A lock of hair? Whose +is it?' + +'He's dead!' she murmured. + +'Who?' + +'I don't want to tell you, Will, just now, unless you insist!' she said, +a sob hanging heavy in her voice. + +'O, all right.' + +'Do you mind my refusing? I will tell you some day.' + +'It doesn't matter in the least, of course.' + +He walked away whistling a few bars of no tune in particular; and when he +had got down to his factory in the city the subject came into Marchmill's +head again. + +He, too, was aware that a suicide had taken place recently at the house +they had occupied at Solentsea. Having seen the volume of poems in his +wife's hand of late, and heard fragments of the landlady's conversation +about Trewe when they were her tenants, he all at once said to himself; +'Why of course it's he! How the devil did she get to know him? What sly +animals women are!' + +Then he placidly dismissed the matter, and went on with his daily +affairs. By this time Ella at home had come to a determination. Mrs. +Hooper, in sending the hair and photograph, had informed her of the day +of the funeral; and as the morning and noon wore on an overpowering wish +to know where they were laying him took possession of the sympathetic +woman. Caring very little now what her husband or any one else might +think of her eccentricities; she wrote Marchmill a brief note, stating +that she was called away for the afternoon and evening, but would return +on the following morning. This she left on his desk, and having given +the same information to the servants, went out of the house on foot. + +When Mr. Marchmill reached home early in the afternoon the servants +looked anxious. The nurse took him privately aside, and hinted that her +mistress's sadness during the past few days had been such that she feared +she had gone out to drown herself. Marchmill reflected. Upon the whole +he thought that she had not done that. Without saying whither he was +bound he also started off, telling them not to sit up for him. He drove +to the railway-station, and took a ticket for Solentsea. + +It was dark when he reached the place, though he had come by a fast +train, and he knew that if his wife had preceded him thither it could +only have been by a slower train, arriving not a great while before his +own. The season at Solentsea was now past: the parade was gloomy, and +the flys were few and cheap. He asked the way to the Cemetery, and soon +reached it. The gate was locked, but the keeper let him in, declaring, +however, that there was nobody within the precincts. Although it was not +late, the autumnal darkness had now become intense; and he found some +difficulty in keeping to the serpentine path which led to the quarter +where, as the man had told him, the one or two interments for the day had +taken place. He stepped upon the grass, and, stumbling over some pegs, +stooped now and then to discern if possible a figure against the sky. + +He could see none; but lighting on a spot where the soil was trodden, +beheld a crouching object beside a newly made grave. She heard him, and +sprang up. + +'Ell, how silly this is!' he said indignantly. 'Running away from home--I +never heard such a thing! Of course I am not jealous of this unfortunate +man; but it is too ridiculous that you, a married woman with three +children and a fourth coming, should go losing your head like this over a +dead lover! . . . Do you know you were locked in? You might not have +been able to get out all night.' + +She did not answer. + +'I hope it didn't go far between you and him, for your own sake.' + +'Don't insult me, Will.' + +'Mind, I won't have any more of this sort of thing; do you hear?' + +'Very well,' she said. + +He drew her arm within his own, and conducted her out of the Cemetery. It +was impossible to get back that night; and not wishing to be recognized +in their present sorry condition, he took her to a miserable little +coffee-house close to the station, whence they departed early in the +morning, travelling almost without speaking, under the sense that it was +one of those dreary situations occurring in married life which words +could not mend, and reaching their own door at noon. + +The months passed, and neither of the twain ever ventured to start a +conversation upon this episode. Ella seemed to be only too frequently in +a sad and listless mood, which might almost have been called pining. The +time was approaching when she would have to undergo the stress of +childbirth for a fourth time, and that apparently did not tend to raise +her spirits. + +'I don't think I shall get over it this time!' she said one day. + +'Pooh! what childish foreboding! Why shouldn't it be as well now as +ever?' + +She shook her head. 'I feel almost sure I am going to die; and I should +be glad, if it were not for Nelly, and Frank, and Tiny.' + +'And me!' + +'You'll soon find somebody to fill my place,' she murmured, with a sad +smile. 'And you'll have a perfect right to; I assure you of that.' + +'Ell, you are not thinking still about that--poetical friend of yours?' + +She neither admitted nor denied the charge. 'I am not going to get over +my illness this time,' she reiterated. 'Something tells me I shan't.' + +This view of things was rather a bad beginning, as it usually is; and, in +fact, six weeks later, in the month of May, she was lying in her room, +pulseless and bloodless, with hardly strength enough left to follow up +one feeble breath with another, the infant for whose unnecessary life she +was slowly parting with her own being fat and well. Just before her +death she spoke to Marchmill softly:- + +'Will, I want to confess to you the entire circumstances of that--about +you know what--that time we visited Solentsea. I can't tell what +possessed me--how I could forget you so, my husband! But I had got into +a morbid state: I thought you had been unkind; that you had neglected me; +that you weren't up to my intellectual level, while he was, and far above +it. I wanted a fuller appreciator, perhaps, rather than another lover--' + +She could get no further then for very exhaustion; and she went off in +sudden collapse a few hours later, without having said anything more to +her husband on the subject of her love for the poet. William Marchmill, +in truth, like most husbands of several years' standing, was little +disturbed by retrospective jealousies, and had not shown the least +anxiety to press her for confessions concerning a man dead and gone +beyond any power of inconveniencing him more. + +But when she had been buried a couple of years it chanced one day that, +in turning over some forgotten papers that he wished to destroy before +his second wife entered the house, he lighted on a lock of hair in an +envelope, with the photograph of the deceased poet, a date being written +on the back in his late wife's hand. It was that of the time they spent +at Solentsea. + +Marchmill looked long and musingly at the hair and portrait, for +something struck him. Fetching the little boy who had been the death of +his mother, now a noisy toddler, he took him on his knee, held the lock +of hair against the child's head, and set up the photograph on the table +behind, so that he could closely compare the features each countenance +presented. There were undoubtedly strong traces of resemblance; the +dreamy and peculiar expression of the poet's face sat, as the transmitted +idea, upon the child's, and the hair was of the same hue. + +'I'm damned if I didn't think so!' murmured Marchmill. 'Then she did +play me false with that fellow at the lodgings! Let me see: the +dates--the second week in August . . . the third week in May . . . Yes . +. . yes . . . Get away, you poor little brat! You are nothing to me!' + +1893. + + + + +THE THREE STRANGERS + + +Among the few features of agricultural England which retain an appearance +but little modified by the lapse of centuries, may be reckoned the high, +grassy and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as they are indifferently +called, that fill a large area of certain counties in the south and south- +west. If any mark of human occupation is met with hereon, it usually +takes the form of the solitary cottage of some shepherd. + +Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down, and may +possibly be standing there now. In spite of its loneliness, however, the +spot, by actual measurement, was not more than five miles from a county- +town. Yet that affected it little. Five miles of irregular upland, +during the long inimical seasons, with their sleets, snows, rains, and +mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon or a +Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please that less repellent +tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, and others who 'conceive and +meditate of pleasant things.' + +Some old earthen camp or barrow, some clump of trees, at least some +starved fragment of ancient hedge is usually taken advantage of in the +erection of these forlorn dwellings. But, in the present case, such a +kind of shelter had been disregarded. Higher Crowstairs, as the house +was called, stood quite detached and undefended. The only reason for its +precise situation seemed to be the crossing of two footpaths at right +angles hard by, which may have crossed there and thus for a good five +hundred years. Hence the house was exposed to the elements on all sides. +But, though the wind up here blew unmistakably when it did blow, and the +rain hit hard whenever it fell, the various weathers of the winter season +were not quite so formidable on the coomb as they were imagined to be by +dwellers on low ground. The raw rimes were not so pernicious as in the +hollows, and the frosts were scarcely so severe. When the shepherd and +his family who tenanted the house were pitied for their sufferings from +the exposure, they said that upon the whole they were less inconvenienced +by 'wuzzes and flames' (hoarses and phlegms) than when they had lived by +the stream of a snug neighbouring valley. + +The night of March 28, 182-, was precisely one of the nights that were +wont to call forth these expressions of commiseration. The level +rainstorm smote walls, slopes, and hedges like the clothyard shafts of +Senlac and Crecy. Such sheep and outdoor animals as had no shelter stood +with their buttocks to the winds; while the tails of little birds trying +to roost on some scraggy thorn were blown inside-out like umbrellas. The +gable-end of the cottage was stained with wet, and the eavesdroppings +flapped against the wall. Yet never was commiseration for the shepherd +more misplaced. For that cheerful rustic was entertaining a large party +in glorification of the christening of his second girl. + +The guests had arrived before the rain began to fall, and they were all +now assembled in the chief or living room of the dwelling. A glance into +the apartment at eight o'clock on this eventful evening would have +resulted in the opinion that it was as cosy and comfortable a nook as +could be wished for in boisterous weather. The calling of its inhabitant +was proclaimed by a number of highly-polished sheep-crooks without stems +that were hung ornamentally over the fireplace, the curl of each shining +crook varying from the antiquated type engraved in the patriarchal +pictures of old family Bibles to the most approved fashion of the last +local sheep-fair. The room was lighted by half-a-dozen candles, having +wicks only a trifle smaller than the grease which enveloped them, in +candlesticks that were never used but at high-days, holy-days, and family +feasts. The lights were scattered about the room, two of them standing +on the chimney-piece. This position of candles was in itself +significant. Candles on the chimney-piece always meant a party. + +On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire +of thorns, that crackled 'like the laughter of the fool.' + +Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns +of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy and not +shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge- +carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighbouring +dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man +and maid, who were blushing over tentative pourparlers on a +life-companionship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly +engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from spots where +his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoyment was pretty +general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by +conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other's good +opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, +amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the +absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in +the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever--which +nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two +extremes of the social scale. + +Shepherd Fennel had married well, his wife being a dairyman's daughter +from a vale at a distance, who brought fifty guineas in her pocket--and +kept them there, till they should be required for ministering to the +needs of a coming family. This frugal woman had been somewhat exercised +as to the character that should be given to the gathering. A sit-still +party had its advantages; but an undisturbed position of ease in chairs +and settles was apt to lead on the men to such an unconscionable deal of +toping that they would sometimes fairly drink the house dry. A dancing- +party was the alternative; but this, while avoiding the foregoing +objection on the score of good drink, had a counterbalancing disadvantage +in the matter of good victuals, the ravenous appetites engendered by the +exercise causing immense havoc in the buttery. Shepherdess Fennel fell +back upon the intermediate plan of mingling short dances with short +periods of talk and singing, so as to hinder any ungovernable rage in +either. But this scheme was entirely confined to her own gentle mind: +the shepherd himself was in the mood to exhibit the most reckless phases +of hospitality. + +The fiddler was a boy of those parts, about twelve years of age, who had +a wonderful dexterity in jigs and reels, though his fingers were so small +and short as to necessitate a constant shifting for the high notes, from +which he scrambled back to the first position with sounds not of unmixed +purity of tone. At seven the shrill tweedle-dee of this youngster had +begun, accompanied by a booming ground-bass from Elijah New, the parish- +clerk, who had thoughtfully brought with him his favourite musical +instrument, the serpent. Dancing was instantaneous, Mrs. Fennel +privately enjoining the players on no account to let the dance exceed the +length of a quarter of an hour. + +But Elijah and the boy, in the excitement of their position, quite forgot +the injunction. Moreover, Oliver Giles, a man of seventeen, one of the +dancers, who was enamoured of his partner, a fair girl of thirty-three +rolling years, had recklessly handed a new crown-piece to the musicians, +as a bribe to keep going as long as they had muscle and wind. Mrs. +Fennel, seeing the steam begin to generate on the countenances of her +guests, crossed over and touched the fiddler's elbow and put her hand on +the serpent's mouth. But they took no notice, and fearing she might lose +her character of genial hostess if she were to interfere too markedly, +she retired and sat down helpless. And so the dance whizzed on with +cumulative fury, the performers moving in their planet-like courses, +direct and retrograde, from apogee to perigee, till the hand of the well- +kicked clock at the bottom of the room had travelled over the +circumference of an hour. + +While these cheerful events were in course of enactment within Fennel's +pastoral dwelling, an incident having considerable bearing on the party +had occurred in the gloomy night without. Mrs. Fennel's concern about +the growing fierceness of the dance corresponded in point of time with +the ascent of a human figure to the solitary hill of Higher Crowstairs +from the direction of the distant town. This personage strode on through +the rain without a pause, following the little-worn path which, further +on in its course, skirted the shepherd's cottage. + +It was nearly the time of full moon, and on this account, though the sky +was lined with a uniform sheet of dripping cloud, ordinary objects out of +doors were readily visible. The sad wan light revealed the lonely +pedestrian to be a man of supple frame; his gait suggested that he had +somewhat passed the period of perfect and instinctive agility, though not +so far as to be otherwise than rapid of motion when occasion required. At +a rough guess, he might have been about forty years of age. He appeared +tall, but a recruiting sergeant, or other person accustomed to the +judging of men's heights by the eye, would have discerned that this was +chiefly owing to his gauntness, and that he was not more than five-feet- +eight or nine. + +Notwithstanding the regularity of his tread, there was caution in it, as +in that of one who mentally feels his way; and despite the fact that it +was not a black coat nor a dark garment of any sort that he wore, there +was something about him which suggested that he naturally belonged to the +black-coated tribes of men. His clothes were of fustian, and his boots +hobnailed, yet in his progress he showed not the mud-accustomed bearing +of hobnailed and fustianed peasantry. + +By the time that he had arrived abreast of the shepherd's premises the +rain came down, or rather came along, with yet more determined violence. +The outskirts of the little settlement partially broke the force of wind +and rain, and this induced him to stand still. The most salient of the +shepherd's domestic erections was an empty sty at the forward corner of +his hedgeless garden, for in these latitudes the principle of masking the +homelier features of your establishment by a conventional frontage was +unknown. The traveller's eye was attracted to this small building by the +pallid shine of the wet slates that covered it. He turned aside, and, +finding it empty, stood under the pent-roof for shelter. + +While he stood, the boom of the serpent within the adjacent house, and +the lesser strains of the fiddler, reached the spot as an accompaniment +to the surging hiss of the flying rain on the sod, its louder beating on +the cabbage-leaves of the garden, on the eight or ten beehives just +discernible by the path, and its dripping from the eaves into a row of +buckets and pans that had been placed under the walls of the cottage. For +at Higher Crowstairs, as at all such elevated domiciles, the grand +difficulty of housekeeping was an insufficiency of water; and a casual +rainfall was utilized by turning out, as catchers, every utensil that the +house contained. Some queer stories might be told of the contrivances +for economy in suds and dish-waters that are absolutely necessitated in +upland habitations during the droughts of summer. But at this season +there were no such exigencies; a mere acceptance of what the skies +bestowed was sufficient for an abundant store. + +At last the notes of the serpent ceased and the house was silent. This +cessation of activity aroused the solitary pedestrian from the reverie +into which he had lapsed, and, emerging from the shed, with an apparently +new intention, he walked up the path to the house-door. Arrived here, +his first act was to kneel down on a large stone beside the row of +vessels, and to drink a copious draught from one of them. Having +quenched his thirst he rose and lifted his hand to knock, but paused with +his eye upon the panel. Since the dark surface of the wood revealed +absolutely nothing, it was evident that he must be mentally looking +through the door, as if he wished to measure thereby all the +possibilities that a house of this sort might include, and how they might +bear upon the question of his entry. + +In his indecision he turned and surveyed the scene around. Not a soul +was anywhere visible. The garden-path stretched downward from his feet, +gleaming like the track of a snail; the roof of the little well (mostly +dry), the well-cover, the top rail of the garden-gate, were varnished +with the same dull liquid glaze; while, far away in the vale, a faint +whiteness of more than usual extent showed that the rivers were high in +the meads. Beyond all this winked a few bleared lamplights through the +beating drops--lights that denoted the situation of the county-town from +which he had appeared to come. The absence of all notes of life in that +direction seemed to clinch his intentions, and he knocked at the door. + +Within, a desultory chat had taken the place of movement and musical +sound. The hedge-carpenter was suggesting a song to the company, which +nobody just then was inclined to undertake, so that the knock afforded a +not unwelcome diversion. + +'Walk in!' said the shepherd promptly. + +The latch clicked upward, and out of the night our pedestrian appeared +upon the door-mat. The shepherd arose, snuffed two of the nearest +candles, and turned to look at him. + +Their light disclosed that the stranger was dark in complexion and not +unprepossessing as to feature. His hat, which for a moment he did not +remove, hung low over his eyes, without concealing that they were large, +open, and determined, moving with a flash rather than a glance round the +room. He seemed pleased with his survey, and, baring his shaggy head, +said, in a rich deep voice, 'The rain is so heavy, friends, that I ask +leave to come in and rest awhile.' + +'To be sure, stranger,' said the shepherd. 'And faith, you've been lucky +in choosing your time, for we are having a bit of a fling for a glad +cause--though, to be sure, a man could hardly wish that glad cause to +happen more than once a year.' + +'Nor less,' spoke up a woman. 'For 'tis best to get your family over and +done with, as soon as you can, so as to be all the earlier out of the fag +o't.' + +'And what may be this glad cause?' asked the stranger. + +'A birth and christening,' said the shepherd. + +The stranger hoped his host might not be made unhappy either by too many +or too few of such episodes, and being invited by a gesture to a pull at +the mug, he readily acquiesced. His manner, which, before entering, had +been so dubious, was now altogether that of a careless and candid man. + +'Late to be traipsing athwart this coomb--hey?' said the engaged man of +fifty. + +'Late it is, master, as you say.--I'll take a seat in the chimney-corner, +if you have nothing to urge against it, ma'am; for I am a little moist on +the side that was next the rain.' + +Mrs. Shepherd Fennel assented, and made room for the self-invited comer, +who, having got completely inside the chimney-corner, stretched out his +legs and his arms with the expansiveness of a person quite at home. + +'Yes, I am rather cracked in the vamp,' he said freely, seeing that the +eyes of the shepherd's wife fell upon his boots, 'and I am not well +fitted either. I have had some rough times lately, and have been forced +to pick up what I can get in the way of wearing, but I must find a suit +better fit for working-days when I reach home.' + +'One of hereabouts?' she inquired. + +'Not quite that--further up the country.' + +'I thought so. And so be I; and by your tongue you come from my +neighbourhood.' + +'But you would hardly have heard of me,' he said quickly. 'My time would +be long before yours, ma'am, you see.' + +This testimony to the youthfulness of his hostess had the effect of +stopping her cross-examination. + +'There is only one thing more wanted to make me happy,' continued the new- +comer. 'And that is a little baccy, which I am sorry to say I am out +of.' + +'I'll fill your pipe,' said the shepherd. + +'I must ask you to lend me a pipe likewise.' + +'A smoker, and no pipe about 'ee?' + +'I have dropped it somewhere on the road.' + +The shepherd filled and handed him a new clay pipe, saying, as he did so, +'Hand me your baccy-box--I'll fill that too, now I am about it.' + +The man went through the movement of searching his pockets. + +'Lost that too?' said his entertainer, with some surprise. + +'I am afraid so,' said the man with some confusion. 'Give it to me in a +screw of paper.' Lighting his pipe at the candle with a suction that +drew the whole flame into the bowl, he resettled himself in the corner +and bent his looks upon the faint steam from his damp legs, as if he +wished to say no more. + +Meanwhile the general body of guests had been taking little notice of +this visitor by reason of an absorbing discussion in which they were +engaged with the band about a tune for the next dance. The matter being +settled, they were about to stand up when an interruption came in the +shape of another knock at the door. + +At sound of the same the man in the chimney-corner took up the poker and +began stirring the brands as if doing it thoroughly were the one aim of +his existence; and a second time the shepherd said, 'Walk in!' In a +moment another man stood upon the straw-woven door-mat. He too was a +stranger. + +This individual was one of a type radically different from the first. +There was more of the commonplace in his manner, and a certain jovial +cosmopolitanism sat upon his features. He was several years older than +the first arrival, his hair being slightly frosted, his eyebrows bristly, +and his whiskers cut back from his cheeks. His face was rather full and +flabby, and yet it was not altogether a face without power. A few grog- +blossoms marked the neighbourhood of his nose. He flung back his long +drab greatcoat, revealing that beneath it he wore a suit of cinder-gray +shade throughout, large heavy seals, of some metal or other that would +take a polish, dangling from his fob as his only personal ornament. +Shaking the water-drops from his low-crowned glazed hat, he said, 'I must +ask for a few minutes' shelter, comrades, or I shall be wetted to my skin +before I get to Casterbridge.' + +'Make yourself at home, master,' said the shepherd, perhaps a trifle less +heartily than on the first occasion. Not that Fennel had the least tinge +of niggardliness in his composition; but the room was far from large, +spare chairs were not numerous, and damp companions were not altogether +desirable at close quarters for the women and girls in their +bright-coloured gowns. + +However, the second comer, after taking off his greatcoat, and hanging +his hat on a nail in one of the ceiling-beams as if he had been specially +invited to put it there, advanced and sat down at the table. This had +been pushed so closely into the chimney-corner, to give all available +room to the dancers, that its inner edge grazed the elbow of the man who +had ensconced himself by the fire; and thus the two strangers were +brought into close companionship. They nodded to each other by way of +breaking the ice of unacquaintance, and the first stranger handed his +neighbour the family mug--a huge vessel of brown ware, having its upper +edge worn away like a threshold by the rub of whole generations of +thirsty lips that had gone the way of all flesh, and bearing the +following inscription burnt upon its rotund side in yellow letters + + THERE IS NO FUN + UNTiLL i CUM. + +The other man, nothing loth, raised the mug to his lips, and drank on, +and on, and on--till a curious blueness overspread the countenance of the +shepherd's wife, who had regarded with no little surprise the first +stranger's free offer to the second of what did not belong to him to +dispense. + +'I knew it!' said the toper to the shepherd with much satisfaction. 'When +I walked up your garden before coming in, and saw the hives all of a row, +I said to myself; "Where there's bees there's honey, and where there's +honey there's mead." But mead of such a truly comfortable sort as this I +really didn't expect to meet in my older days.' He took yet another pull +at the mug, till it assumed an ominous elevation. + +'Glad you enjoy it!' said the shepherd warmly. + +'It is goodish mead,' assented Mrs. Fennel, with an absence of enthusiasm +which seemed to say that it was possible to buy praise for one's cellar +at too heavy a price. 'It is trouble enough to make--and really I hardly +think we shall make any more. For honey sells well, and we ourselves can +make shift with a drop o' small mead and metheglin for common use from +the comb-washings.' + +'O, but you'll never have the heart!' reproachfully cried the stranger in +cinder-gray, after taking up the mug a third time and setting it down +empty. 'I love mead, when 'tis old like this, as I love to go to church +o' Sundays, or to relieve the needy any day of the week.' + +'Ha, ha, ha!' said the man in the chimney-corner, who, in spite of the +taciturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, could not or would not +refrain from this slight testimony to his comrade's humour. + +Now the old mead of those days, brewed of the purest first-year or maiden +honey, four pounds to the gallon--with its due complement of white of +eggs, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, rosemary, yeast, and processes of +working, bottling, and cellaring--tasted remarkably strong; but it did +not taste so strong as it actually was. Hence, presently, the stranger +in cinder-gray at the table, moved by its creeping influence, unbuttoned +his waistcoat, threw himself back in his chair, spread his legs, and made +his presence felt in various ways. + +'Well, well, as I say,' he resumed, 'I am going to Casterbridge, and to +Casterbridge I must go. I should have been almost there by this time; +but the rain drove me into your dwelling, and I'm not sorry for it.' + +'You don't live in Casterbridge?' said the shepherd. + +'Not as yet; though I shortly mean to move there.' + +'Going to set up in trade, perhaps?' + +'No, no,' said the shepherd's wife. 'It is easy to see that the +gentleman is rich, and don't want to work at anything.' + +The cinder-gray stranger paused, as if to consider whether he would +accept that definition of himself. He presently rejected it by +answering, 'Rich is not quite the word for me, dame. I do work, and I +must work. And even if I only get to Casterbridge by midnight I must +begin work there at eight to-morrow morning. Yes, het or wet, blow or +snow, famine or sword, my day's work to-morrow must be done.' + +'Poor man! Then, in spite o' seeming, you be worse off than we?' replied +the shepherd's wife. + +''Tis the nature of my trade, men and maidens. 'Tis the nature of my +trade more than my poverty . . . But really and truly I must up and off, +or I shan't get a lodging in the town.' However, the speaker did not +move, and directly added, 'There's time for one more draught of +friendship before I go; and I'd perform it at once if the mug were not +dry.' + +'Here's a mug o' small,' said Mrs. Fennel. 'Small, we call it, though to +be sure 'tis only the first wash o' the combs.' + +'No,' said the stranger disdainfully. 'I won't spoil your first kindness +by partaking o' your second.' + +'Certainly not,' broke in Fennel. 'We don't increase and multiply every +day, and I'll fill the mug again.' He went away to the dark place under +the stairs where the barrel stood. The shepherdess followed him. + +'Why should you do this?' she said reproachfully, as soon as they were +alone. 'He's emptied it once, though it held enough for ten people; and +now he's not contented wi' the small, but must needs call for more o' the +strong! And a stranger unbeknown to any of us. For my part, I don't +like the look o' the man at all.' + +'But he's in the house, my honey; and 'tis a wet night, and a +christening. Daze it, what's a cup of mead more or less? There'll be +plenty more next bee-burning.' + +'Very well--this time, then,' she answered, looking wistfully at the +barrel. 'But what is the man's calling, and where is he one of; that he +should come in and join us like this?' + +'I don't know. I'll ask him again.' + +The catastrophe of having the mug drained dry at one pull by the stranger +in cinder-gray was effectually guarded against this time by Mrs. Fennel. +She poured out his allowance in a small cup, keeping the large one at a +discreet distance from him. When he had tossed off his portion the +shepherd renewed his inquiry about the stranger's occupation. + +The latter did not immediately reply, and the man in the chimney-corner, +with sudden demonstrativeness, said, 'Anybody may know my trade--I'm a +wheelwright.' + +'A very good trade for these parts,' said the shepherd. + +'And anybody may know mine--if they've the sense to find it out,' said +the stranger in cinder-gray. + +'You may generally tell what a man is by his claws,' observed the hedge- +carpenter, looking at his own hands. 'My fingers be as full of thorns as +an old pin-cushion is of pins.' + +The hands of the man in the chimney-corner instinctively sought the +shade, and he gazed into the fire as he resumed his pipe. The man at the +table took up the hedge-carpenter's remark, and added smartly, 'True; but +the oddity of my trade is that, instead of setting a mark upon me, it +sets a mark upon my customers.' + +No observation being offered by anybody in elucidation of this enigma, +the shepherd's wife once more called for a song. The same obstacles +presented themselves as at the former time--one had no voice, another had +forgotten the first verse. The stranger at the table, whose soul had now +risen to a good working temperature, relieved the difficulty by +exclaiming that, to start the company, he would sing himself. Thrusting +one thumb into the arm-hole of his waistcoat, he waved the other hand in +the air, and, with an extemporizing gaze at the shining sheep-crooks +above the mantelpiece, began:- + + 'O my trade it is the rarest one, + Simple shepherds all - + My trade is a sight to see; + For my customers I tie, and take them up on high, + And waft 'em to a far countree!' + +The room was silent when he had finished the verse--with one exception, +that of the man in the chimney-corner, who, at the singer's word, +'Chorus! 'joined him in a deep bass voice of musical relish - + + 'And waft 'em to a far countree!' + +Oliver Giles, John Pitcher the dairyman, the parish-clerk, the engaged +man of fifty, the row of young women against the wall, seemed lost in +thought not of the gayest kind. The shepherd looked meditatively on the +ground, the shepherdess gazed keenly at the singer, and with some +suspicion; she was doubting whether this stranger were merely singing an +old song from recollection, or was composing one there and then for the +occasion. All were as perplexed at the obscure revelation as the guests +at Belshazzar's Feast, except the man in the chimney-corner, who quietly +said, 'Second verse, stranger,' and smoked on. + +The singer thoroughly moistened himself from his lips inwards, and went +on with the next stanza as requested:- + + 'My tools are but common ones, + Simple shepherds all - + My tools are no sight to see: + A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing, + Are implements enough for me!' + +Shepherd Fennel glanced round. There was no longer any doubt that the +stranger was answering his question rhythmically. The guests one and all +started back with suppressed exclamations. The young woman engaged to +the man of fifty fainted half-way, and would have proceeded, but finding +him wanting in alacrity for catching her she sat down trembling. + +'O, he's the--!' whispered the people in the background, mentioning the +name of an ominous public officer. 'He's come to do it! 'Tis to be at +Casterbridge jail to-morrow--the man for sheep-stealing--the poor clock- +maker we heard of; who used to live away at Shottsford and had no work to +do--Timothy Summers, whose family were a-starving, and so he went out of +Shottsford by the high-road, and took a sheep in open daylight, defying +the farmer and the farmer's wife and the farmer's lad, and every man jack +among 'em. He' (and they nodded towards the stranger of the deadly +trade) 'is come from up the country to do it because there's not enough +to do in his own county-town, and he's got the place here now our own +county man's dead; he's going to live in the same cottage under the +prison wall.' + +The stranger in cinder-gray took no notice of this whispered string of +observations, but again wetted his lips. Seeing that his friend in the +chimney-corner was the only one who reciprocated his joviality in any +way, he held out his cup towards that appreciative comrade, who also held +out his own. They clinked together, the eyes of the rest of the room +hanging upon the singer's actions. He parted his lips for the third +verse; but at that moment another knock was audible upon the door. This +time the knock was faint and hesitating. + +The company seemed scared; the shepherd looked with consternation towards +the entrance, and it was with some effort that he resisted his alarmed +wife's deprecatory glance, and uttered for the third time the welcoming +words, 'Walk in!' + +The door was gently opened, and another man stood upon the mat. He, like +those who had preceded him, was a stranger. This time it was a short, +small personage, of fair complexion, and dressed in a decent suit of dark +clothes. + +'Can you tell me the way to--?' he began: when, gazing round the room to +observe the nature of the company amongst whom he had fallen, his eyes +lighted on the stranger in cinder-gray. It was just at the instant when +the latter, who had thrown his mind into his song with such a will that +he scarcely heeded the interruption, silenced all whispers and inquiries +by bursting into his third verse:- + + 'To-morrow is my working day, + Simple shepherds all - + To-morrow is a working day for me: + For the farmer's sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta'en, + And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!' + +The stranger in the chimney-corner, waving cups with the singer so +heartily that his mead splashed over on the hearth, repeated in his bass +voice as before:- + + 'And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!' + +All this time the third stranger had been standing in the doorway. +Finding now that he did not come forward or go on speaking, the guests +particularly regarded him. They noticed to their surprise that he stood +before them the picture of abject terror--his knees trembling, his hand +shaking so violently that the door-latch by which he supported himself +rattled audibly: his white lips were parted, and his eyes fixed on the +merry officer of justice in the middle of the room. A moment more and he +had turned, closed the door, and fled. + +'What a man can it be?' said the shepherd. + +The rest, between the awfulness of their late discovery and the odd +conduct of this third visitor, looked as if they knew not what to think, +and said nothing. Instinctively they withdrew further and further from +the grim gentleman in their midst, whom some of them seemed to take for +the Prince of Darkness himself; till they formed a remote circle, an +empty space of floor being left between them and him - + + ' . . . circulus, cujus centrum diabolus.' + +The room was so silent--though there were more than twenty people in +it--that nothing could be heard but the patter of the rain against the +window-shutters, accompanied by the occasional hiss of a stray drop that +fell down the chimney into the fire, and the steady puffing of the man in +the corner, who had now resumed his pipe of long clay. + +The stillness was unexpectedly broken. The distant sound of a gun +reverberated through the air--apparently from the direction of the county- +town. + +'Be jiggered!' cried the stranger who had sung the song, jumping up. + +'What does that mean?' asked several. + +'A prisoner escaped from the jail--that's what it means.' + +All listened. The sound was repeated, and none of them spoke but the man +in the chimney-corner, who said quietly, 'I've often been told that in +this county they fire a gun at such times; but I never heard it till +now.' + +'I wonder if it is my man?' murmured the personage in cinder-gray. + +'Surely it is!' said the shepherd involuntarily. 'And surely we've zeed +him! That little man who looked in at the door by now, and quivered like +a leaf when he zeed ye and heard your song!' + +'His teeth chattered, and the breath went out of his body,' said the +dairyman. + +'And his heart seemed to sink within him like a stone,' said Oliver +Giles. + +'And he bolted as if he'd been shot at,' said the hedge-carpenter. + +'True--his teeth chattered, and his heart seemed to sink; and he bolted +as if he'd been shot at,' slowly summed up the man in the chimney-corner. + +'I didn't notice it,' remarked the hangman. + +'We were all a-wondering what made him run off in such a fright,' +faltered one of the women against the wall, 'and now 'tis explained!' + +The firing of the alarm-gun went on at intervals, low and sullenly, and +their suspicions became a certainty. The sinister gentleman in cinder- +gray roused himself. 'Is there a constable here?' he asked, in thick +tones. 'If so, let him step forward.' + +The engaged man of fifty stepped quavering out from the wall, his +betrothed beginning to sob on the back of the chair. + +'You are a sworn constable?' + +'I be, sir.' + +'Then pursue the criminal at once, with assistance, and bring him back +here. He can't have gone far.' + +'I will, sir, I will--when I've got my staff. I'll go home and get it, +and come sharp here, and start in a body.' + +'Staff!--never mind your staff; the man'll be gone!' + +'But I can't do nothing without my staff--can I, William, and John, and +Charles Jake? No; for there's the king's royal crown a painted on en in +yaller and gold, and the lion and the unicorn, so as when I raise en up +and hit my prisoner, 'tis made a lawful blow thereby. I wouldn't 'tempt +to take up a man without my staff--no, not I. If I hadn't the law to gie +me courage, why, instead o' my taking up him he might take up me!' + +'Now, I'm a king's man myself; and can give you authority enough for +this,' said the formidable officer in gray. 'Now then, all of ye, be +ready. Have ye any lanterns?' + +'Yes--have ye any lanterns?--I demand it!' said the constable. + +'And the rest of you able-bodied--' + +'Able-bodied men--yes--the rest of ye!' said the constable. + +'Have you some good stout staves and pitch-forks--' + +'Staves and pitchforks--in the name o' the law! And take 'em in yer +hands and go in quest, and do as we in authority tell ye!' + +Thus aroused, the men prepared to give chase. The evidence was, indeed, +though circumstantial, so convincing, that but little argument was needed +to show the shepherd's guests that after what they had seen it would look +very much like connivance if they did not instantly pursue the unhappy +third stranger, who could not as yet have gone more than a few hundred +yards over such uneven country. + +A shepherd is always well provided with lanterns; and, lighting these +hastily, and with hurdle-staves in their hands, they poured out of the +door, taking a direction along the crest of the hill, away from the town, +the rain having fortunately a little abated. + +Disturbed by the noise, or possibly by unpleasant dreams of her baptism, +the child who had been christened began to cry heart-brokenly in the room +overhead. These notes of grief came down through the chinks of the floor +to the ears of the women below, who jumped up one by one, and seemed glad +of the excuse to ascend and comfort the baby, for the incidents of the +last half-hour greatly oppressed them. Thus in the space of two or three +minutes the room on the ground-floor was deserted quite. + +But it was not for long. Hardly had the sound of footsteps died away +when a man returned round the corner of the house from the direction the +pursuers had taken. Peeping in at the door, and seeing nobody there, he +entered leisurely. It was the stranger of the chimney-corner, who had +gone out with the rest. The motive of his return was shown by his +helping himself to a cut piece of skimmer-cake that lay on a ledge beside +where he had sat, and which he had apparently forgotten to take with him. +He also poured out half a cup more mead from the quantity that remained, +ravenously eating and drinking these as he stood. He had not finished +when another figure came in just as quietly--his friend in cinder-gray. + +'O--you here?' said the latter, smiling. 'I thought you had gone to help +in the capture.' And this speaker also revealed the object of his return +by looking solicitously round for the fascinating mug of old mead. + +'And I thought you had gone,' said the other, continuing his skimmer-cake +with some effort. + +'Well, on second thoughts, I felt there were enough without me,' said the +first confidentially, 'and such a night as it is, too. Besides, 'tis the +business o' the Government to take care of its criminals--not mine.' + +'True; so it is. And I felt as you did, that there were enough without +me.' + +'I don't want to break my limbs running over the humps and hollows of +this wild country.' + +'Nor I neither, between you and me.' + +'These shepherd-people are used to it--simple-minded souls, you know, +stirred up to anything in a moment. They'll have him ready for me before +the morning, and no trouble to me at all.' + +'They'll have him, and we shall have saved ourselves all labour in the +matter.' + +'True, true. Well, my way is to Casterbridge; and 'tis as much as my +legs will do to take me that far. Going the same way?' + +'No, I am sorry to say! I have to get home over there' (he nodded +indefinitely to the right), 'and I feel as you do, that it is quite +enough for my legs to do before bedtime.' + +The other had by this time finished the mead in the mug, after which, +shaking hands heartily at the door, and wishing each other well, they +went their several ways. + +In the meantime the company of pursuers had reached the end of the hog's- +back elevation which dominated this part of the down. They had decided +on no particular plan of action; and, finding that the man of the baleful +trade was no longer in their company, they seemed quite unable to form +any such plan now. They descended in all directions down the hill, and +straightway several of the party fell into the snare set by Nature for +all misguided midnight ramblers over this part of the cretaceous +formation. The 'lanchets,' or flint slopes, which belted the escarpment +at intervals of a dozen yards, took the less cautious ones unawares, and +losing their footing on the rubbly steep they slid sharply downwards, the +lanterns rolling from their hands to the bottom, and there lying on their +sides till the horn was scorched through. + +When they had again gathered themselves together, the shepherd, as the +man who knew the country best, took the lead, and guided them round these +treacherous inclines. The lanterns, which seemed rather to dazzle their +eyes and warn the fugitive than to assist them in the exploration, were +extinguished, due silence was observed; and in this more rational order +they plunged into the vale. It was a grassy, briery, moist defile, +affording some shelter to any person who had sought it; but the party +perambulated it in vain, and ascended on the other side. Here they +wandered apart, and after an interval closed together again to report +progress. + +At the second time of closing in they found themselves near a lonely ash, +the single tree on this part of the coomb, probably sown there by a +passing bird some fifty years before. And here, standing a little to one +side of the trunk, as motionless as the trunk itself; appeared the man +they were in quest of; his outline being well defined against the sky +beyond. The band noiselessly drew up and faced him. + +'Your money or your life!' said the constable sternly to the still +figure. + +'No, no,' whispered John Pitcher. ''Tisn't our side ought to say that. +That's the doctrine of vagabonds like him, and we be on the side of the +law.' + +'Well, well,' replied the constable impatiently; 'I must say something, +mustn't I? and if you had all the weight o' this undertaking upon your +mind, perhaps you'd say the wrong thing too!--Prisoner at the bar, +surrender, in the name of the Father--the Crown, I mane!' + +The man under the tree seemed now to notice them for the first time, and, +giving them no opportunity whatever for exhibiting their courage, he +strolled slowly towards them. He was, indeed, the little man, the third +stranger; but his trepidation had in a great measure gone. + +'Well, travellers,' he said, 'did I hear ye speak to me?' + +'You did: you've got to come and be our prisoner at once!' said the +constable. 'We arrest 'ee on the charge of not biding in Casterbridge +jail in a decent proper manner to be hung to-morrow morning. Neighbours, +do your duty, and seize the culpet!' + +On hearing the charge, the man seemed enlightened, and, saying not +another word, resigned himself with preternatural civility to the search- +party, who, with their staves in their hands, surrounded him on all +sides, and marched him back towards the shepherd's cottage. + +It was eleven o'clock by the time they arrived. The light shining from +the open door, a sound of men's voices within, proclaimed to them as they +approached the house that some new events had arisen in their absence. On +entering they discovered the shepherd's living room to be invaded by two +officers from Casterbridge jail, and a well-known magistrate who lived at +the nearest country-seat, intelligence of the escape having become +generally circulated. + +'Gentlemen,' said the constable, 'I have brought back your man--not +without risk and danger; but every one must do his duty! He is inside +this circle of able-bodied persons, who have lent me useful aid, +considering their ignorance of Crown work. Men, bring forward your +prisoner!' And the third stranger was led to the light. + +'Who is this?' said one of the officials. + +'The man,' said the constable. + +'Certainly not,' said the turnkey; and the first corroborated his +statement. + +'But how can it be otherwise?' asked the constable. 'Or why was he so +terrified at sight o' the singing instrument of the law who sat there?' +Here he related the strange behaviour of the third stranger on entering +the house during the hangman's song. + +'Can't understand it,' said the officer coolly. 'All I know is that it +is not the condemned man. He's quite a different character from this +one; a gauntish fellow, with dark hair and eyes, rather good-looking, and +with a musical bass voice that if you heard it once you'd never mistake +as long as you lived.' + +'Why, souls--'twas the man in the chimney-corner!' + +'Hey--what?' said the magistrate, coming forward after inquiring +particulars from the shepherd in the background. 'Haven't you got the +man after all?' + +'Well, sir,' said the constable, 'he's the man we were in search of, +that's true; and yet he's not the man we were in search of. For the man +we were in search of was not the man we wanted, sir, if you understand my +everyday way; for 'twas the man in the chimney-corner!' + +'A pretty kettle of fish altogether!' said the magistrate. 'You had +better start for the other man at once.' + +The prisoner now spoke for the first time. The mention of the man in the +chimney-corner seemed to have moved him as nothing else could do. 'Sir,' +he said, stepping forward to the magistrate, 'take no more trouble about +me. The time is come when I may as well speak. I have done nothing; my +crime is that the condemned man is my brother. Early this afternoon I +left home at Shottsford to tramp it all the way to Casterbridge jail to +bid him farewell. I was benighted, and called here to rest and ask the +way. When I opened the door I saw before me the very man, my brother, +that I thought to see in the condemned cell at Casterbridge. He was in +this chimney-corner; and jammed close to him, so that he could not have +got out if he had tried, was the executioner who'd come to take his life, +singing a song about it and not knowing that it was his victim who was +close by, joining in to save appearances. My brother looked a glance of +agony at me, and I knew he meant, "Don't reveal what you see; my life +depends on it." I was so terror-struck that I could hardly stand, and, +not knowing what I did, I turned and hurried away.' + +The narrator's manner and tone had the stamp of truth, and his story made +a great impression on all around. 'And do you know where your brother is +at the present time?' asked the magistrate. + +'I do not. I have never seen him since I closed this door.' + +'I can testify to that, for we've been between ye ever since,' said the +constable. + +'Where does he think to fly to?--what is his occupation?' + +'He's a watch-and-clock-maker, sir.' + +''A said 'a was a wheelwright--a wicked rogue,' said the constable. + +'The wheels of clocks and watches he meant, no doubt,' said Shepherd +Fennel. 'I thought his hands were palish for's trade.' + +'Well, it appears to me that nothing can be gained by retaining this poor +man in custody,' said the magistrate; 'your business lies with the other, +unquestionably.' + +And so the little man was released off-hand; but he looked nothing the +less sad on that account, it being beyond the power of magistrate or +constable to raze out the written troubles in his brain, for they +concerned another whom he regarded with more solicitude than himself. +When this was done, and the man had gone his way, the night was found to +be so far advanced that it was deemed useless to renew the search before +the next morning. + +Next day, accordingly, the quest for the clever sheep-stealer became +general and keen, to all appearance at least. But the intended +punishment was cruelly disproportioned to the transgression, and the +sympathy of a great many country-folk in that district was strongly on +the side of the fugitive. Moreover, his marvellous coolness and daring +in hob-and-nobbing with the hangman, under the unprecedented +circumstances of the shepherd's party, won their admiration. So that it +may be questioned if all those who ostensibly made themselves so busy in +exploring woods and fields and lanes were quite so thorough when it came +to the private examination of their own lofts and outhouses. Stories +were afloat of a mysterious figure being occasionally seen in some old +overgrown trackway or other, remote from turnpike roads; but when a +search was instituted in any of these suspected quarters nobody was +found. Thus the days and weeks passed without tidings. + +In brief; the bass-voiced man of the chimney-corner was never recaptured. +Some said that he went across the sea, others that he did not, but buried +himself in the depths of a populous city. At any rate, the gentleman in +cinder-gray never did his morning's work at Casterbridge, nor met +anywhere at all, for business purposes, the genial comrade with whom he +had passed an hour of relaxation in the lonely house on the coomb. + +The grass has long been green on the graves of Shepherd Fennel and his +frugal wife; the guests who made up the christening party have mainly +followed their entertainers to the tomb; the baby in whose honour they +all had met is a matron in the sere and yellow leaf. But the arrival of +the three strangers at the shepherd's that night, and the details +connected therewith, is a story as well known as ever in the country +about Higher Crowstairs. + +March 1883. + + + + +THE WITHERED ARM + + +CHAPTER I--A LORN MILKMAID + + +It was an eighty-cow dairy, and the troop of milkers, regular and +supernumerary, were all at work; for, though the time of year was as yet +but early April, the feed lay entirely in water-meadows, and the cows +were 'in full pail.' The hour was about six in the evening, and three- +fourths of the large, red, rectangular animals having been finished off, +there was opportunity for a little conversation. + +'He do bring home his bride to-morrow, I hear. They've come as far as +Anglebury to-day.' + +The voice seemed to proceed from the belly of the cow called Cherry, but +the speaker was a milking-woman, whose face was buried in the flank of +that motionless beast. + +'Hav' anybody seen her?' said another. + +There was a negative response from the first. 'Though they say she's a +rosy-cheeked, tisty-tosty little body enough,' she added; and as the +milkmaid spoke she turned her face so that she could glance past her +cow's tail to the other side of the barton, where a thin, fading woman of +thirty milked somewhat apart from the rest. + +'Years younger than he, they say,' continued the second, with also a +glance of reflectiveness in the same direction. + +'How old do you call him, then?' + +'Thirty or so.' + +'More like forty,' broke in an old milkman near, in a long white pinafore +or 'wropper,' and with the brim of his hat tied down, so that he looked +like a woman. ''A was born before our Great Weir was builded, and I +hadn't man's wages when I laved water there.' + +The discussion waxed so warm that the purr of the milk-streams became +jerky, till a voice from another cow's belly cried with authority, 'Now +then, what the Turk do it matter to us about Farmer Lodge's age, or +Farmer Lodge's new mis'ess? I shall have to pay him nine pound a year +for the rent of every one of these milchers, whatever his age or hers. +Get on with your work, or 'twill be dark afore we have done. The evening +is pinking in a'ready.' This speaker was the dairyman himself; by whom +the milkmaids and men were employed. + +Nothing more was said publicly about Farmer Lodge's wedding, but the +first woman murmured under her cow to her next neighbour, ''Tis hard for +she,' signifying the thin worn milkmaid aforesaid. + +'O no,' said the second. 'He ha'n't spoke to Rhoda Brook for years.' + +When the milking was done they washed their pails and hung them on a many- +forked stand made of the peeled limb of an oak-tree, set upright in the +earth, and resembling a colossal antlered horn. The majority then +dispersed in various directions homeward. The thin woman who had not +spoken was joined by a boy of twelve or thereabout, and the twain went +away up the field also. + +Their course lay apart from that of the others, to a lonely spot high +above the water-meads, and not far from the border of Egdon Heath, whose +dark countenance was visible in the distance as they drew nigh to their +home. + +'They've just been saying down in barton that your father brings his +young wife home from Anglebury to-morrow,' the woman observed. 'I shall +want to send you for a few things to market, and you'll be pretty sure to +meet 'em.' + +'Yes, mother,' said the boy. 'Is father married then?' + +'Yes . . . You can give her a look, and tell me what's she's like, if you +do see her.' + +'Yes, mother.' + +'If she's dark or fair, and if she's tall--as tall as I. And if she +seems like a woman who has ever worked for a living, or one that has been +always well off, and has never done anything, and shows marks of the lady +on her, as I expect she do.' + +'Yes.' + +They crept up the hill in the twilight, and entered the cottage. It was +built of mud-walls, the surface of which had been washed by many rains +into channels and depressions that left none of the original flat face +visible; while here and there in the thatch above a rafter showed like a +bone protruding through the skin. + +She was kneeling down in the chimney-corner, before two pieces of turf +laid together with the heather inwards, blowing at the red-hot ashes with +her breath till the turves flamed. The radiance lit her pale cheek, and +made her dark eyes, that had once been handsome, seem handsome anew. +'Yes,' she resumed, 'see if she is dark or fair, and if you can, notice +if her hands be white; if not, see if they look as though she had ever +done housework, or are milker's hands like mine.' + +The boy again promised, inattentively this time, his mother not observing +that he was cutting a notch with his pocket-knife in the beech-backed +chair. + + + +CHAPTER II--THE YOUNG WIFE + + +The road from Anglebury to Holmstoke is in general level; but there is +one place where a sharp ascent breaks its monotony. Farmers homeward- +bound from the former market-town, who trot all the rest of the way, walk +their horses up this short incline. + +The next evening, while the sun was yet bright, a handsome new gig, with +a lemon-coloured body and red wheels, was spinning westward along the +level highway at the heels of a powerful mare. The driver was a yeoman +in the prime of life, cleanly shaven like an actor, his face being toned +to that bluish-vermilion hue which so often graces a thriving farmer's +features when returning home after successful dealings in the town. +Beside him sat a woman, many years his junior--almost, indeed, a girl. +Her face too was fresh in colour, but it was of a totally different +quality--soft and evanescent, like the light under a heap of rose-petals. + +Few people travelled this way, for it was not a main road; and the long +white riband of gravel that stretched before them was empty, save of one +small scarce-moving speck, which presently resolved itself into the +figure of boy, who was creeping on at a snail's pace, and continually +looking behind him--the heavy bundle he carried being some excuse for, if +not the reason of, his dilatoriness. When the bouncing gig-party slowed +at the bottom of the incline above mentioned, the pedestrian was only a +few yards in front. Supporting the large bundle by putting one hand on +his hip, he turned and looked straight at the farmer's wife as though he +would read her through and through, pacing along abreast of the horse. + +The low sun was full in her face, rendering every feature, shade, and +contour distinct, from the curve of her little nostril to the colour of +her eyes. The farmer, though he seemed annoyed at the boy's persistent +presence, did not order him to get out of the way; and thus the lad +preceded them, his hard gaze never leaving her, till they reached the top +of the ascent, when the farmer trotted on with relief in his +lineaments--having taken no outward notice of the boy whatever. + +'How that poor lad stared at me!' said the young wife. + +'Yes, dear; I saw that he did.' + +'He is one of the village, I suppose?' + +'One of the neighbourhood. I think he lives with his mother a mile or +two off.' + +'He knows who we are, no doubt?' + +'O yes. You must expect to be stared at just at first, my pretty +Gertrude.' + +'I do,--though I think the poor boy may have looked at us in the hope we +might relieve him of his heavy load, rather than from curiosity.' + +'O no,' said her husband off-handedly. 'These country lads will carry a +hundredweight once they get it on their backs; besides his pack had more +size than weight in it. Now, then, another mile and I shall be able to +show you our house in the distance--if it is not too dark before we get +there.' The wheels spun round, and particles flew from their periphery +as before, till a white house of ample dimensions revealed itself, with +farm-buildings and ricks at the back. + +Meanwhile the boy had quickened his pace, and turning up a by-lane some +mile and half short of the white farmstead, ascended towards the leaner +pastures, and so on to the cottage of his mother. + +She had reached home after her day's milking at the outlying dairy, and +was washing cabbage at the doorway in the declining light. 'Hold up the +net a moment,' she said, without preface, as the boy came up. + +He flung down his bundle, held the edge of the cabbage-net, and as she +filled its meshes with the dripping leaves she went on, 'Well, did you +see her?' + +'Yes; quite plain.' + +'Is she ladylike?' + +'Yes; and more. A lady complete.' + +'Is she young?' + +'Well, she's growed up, and her ways be quite a woman's.' + +'Of course. What colour is her hair and face?' + +'Her hair is lightish, and her face as comely as a live doll's.' + +'Her eyes, then, are not dark like mine?' + +'No--of a bluish turn, and her mouth is very nice and red; and when she +smiles, her teeth show white.' + +'Is she tall?' said the woman sharply. + +'I couldn't see. She was sitting down.' + +'Then do you go to Holmstoke church to-morrow morning: she's sure to be +there. Go early and notice her walking in, and come home and tell me if +she's taller than I.' + +'Very well, mother. But why don't you go and see for yourself?' + +'I go to see her! I wouldn't look up at her if she were to pass my +window this instant. She was with Mr. Lodge, of course. What did he say +or do?' + +'Just the same as usual.' + +'Took no notice of you?' + +'None.' + +Next day the mother put a clean shirt on the boy, and started him off for +Holmstoke church. He reached the ancient little pile when the door was +just being opened, and he was the first to enter. Taking his seat by the +font, he watched all the parishioners file in. The well-to-do Farmer +Lodge came nearly last; and his young wife, who accompanied him, walked +up the aisle with the shyness natural to a modest woman who had appeared +thus for the first time. As all other eyes were fixed upon her, the +youth's stare was not noticed now. + +When he reached home his mother said, 'Well?' before he had entered the +room. + +'She is not tall. She is rather short,' he replied. + +'Ah!' said his mother, with satisfaction. + +'But she's very pretty--very. In fact, she's lovely.' + +The youthful freshness of the yeoman's wife had evidently made an +impression even on the somewhat hard nature of the boy. + +'That's all I want to hear,' said his mother quickly. 'Now, spread the +table-cloth. The hare you caught is very tender; but mind that nobody +catches you.--You've never told me what sort of hands she had.' + +'I have never seen 'em. She never took off her gloves.' + +'What did she wear this morning?' + +'A white bonnet and a silver-coloured gownd. It whewed and whistled so +loud when it rubbed against the pews that the lady coloured up more than +ever for very shame at the noise, and pulled it in to keep it from +touching; but when she pushed into her seat, it whewed more than ever. +Mr. Lodge, he seemed pleased, and his waistcoat stuck out, and his great +golden seals hung like a lord's; but she seemed to wish her noisy gownd +anywhere but on her.' + +'Not she! However, that will do now.' + +These descriptions of the newly-married couple were continued from time +to time by the boy at his mother's request, after any chance encounter he +had had with them. But Rhoda Brook, though she might easily have seen +young Mrs. Lodge for herself by walking a couple of miles, would never +attempt an excursion towards the quarter where the farmhouse lay. Neither +did she, at the daily milking in the dairyman's yard on Lodge's outlying +second farm, ever speak on the subject of the recent marriage. The +dairyman, who rented the cows of Lodge, and knew perfectly the tall +milkmaid's history, with manly kindliness always kept the gossip in the +cow-barton from annoying Rhoda. But the atmosphere thereabout was full +of the subject during the first days of Mrs. Lodge's arrival; and from +her boy's description and the casual words of the other milkers, Rhoda +Brook could raise a mental image of the unconscious Mrs Lodge that was +realistic as a photograph. + + + +CHAPTER III--A VISION + + +One night, two or three weeks after the bridal return, when the boy was +gone to bed, Rhoda sat a long time over the turf ashes that she had raked +out in front of her to extinguish them. She contemplated so intently the +new wife, as presented to her in her mind's eye over the embers, that she +forgot the lapse of time. At last, wearied with her day's work, she too +retired. + +But the figure which had occupied her so much during this and the +previous days was not to be banished at night. For the first time +Gertrude Lodge visited the supplanted woman in her dreams. Rhoda Brook +dreamed--since her assertion that she really saw, before falling asleep, +was not to be believed--that the young wife, in the pale silk dress and +white bonnet, but with features shockingly distorted, and wrinkled as by +age, was sitting upon her chest as she lay. The pressure of Mrs. Lodge's +person grew heavier; the blue eyes peered cruelly into her face; and then +the figure thrust forward its left hand mockingly, so as to make the +wedding-ring it wore glitter in Rhoda's eyes. Maddened mentally, and +nearly suffocated by pressure, the sleeper struggled; the incubus, still +regarding her, withdrew to the foot of the bed, only, however, to come +forward by degrees, resume her seat, and flash her left hand as before. + +Gasping for breath, Rhoda, in a last desperate effort, swung out her +right hand, seized the confronting spectre by its obtrusive left arm, and +whirled it backward to the floor, starting up herself as she did so with +a low cry. + +'O, merciful heaven!' she cried, sitting on the edge of the bed in a cold +sweat; 'that was not a dream--she was here!' + +She could feel her antagonist's arm within her grasp even now--the very +flesh and bone of it, as it seemed. She looked on the floor whither she +had whirled the spectre, but there was nothing to be seen. + +Rhoda Brook slept no more that night, and when she went milking at the +next dawn they noticed how pale and haggard she looked. The milk that +she drew quivered into the pail; her hand had not calmed even yet, and +still retained the feel of the arm. She came home to breakfast as +wearily as if it had been suppertime. + +'What was that noise in your chimmer, mother, last night?' said her son. +'You fell off the bed, surely?' + +'Did you hear anything fall? At what time?' + +'Just when the clock struck two.' + +She could not explain, and when the meal was done went silently about her +household work, the boy assisting her, for he hated going afield on the +farms, and she indulged his reluctance. Between eleven and twelve the +garden-gate clicked, and she lifted her eyes to the window. At the +bottom of the garden, within the gate, stood the woman of her vision. +Rhoda seemed transfixed. + +'Ah, she said she would come!' exclaimed the boy, also observing her. + +'Said so--when? How does she know us?' + +'I have seen and spoken to her. I talked to her yesterday.' + +'I told you,' said the mother, flushing indignantly, 'never to speak to +anybody in that house, or go near the place.' + +'I did not speak to her till she spoke to me. And I did not go near the +place. I met her in the road.' + +'What did you tell her?' + +'Nothing. She said, "Are you the poor boy who had to bring the heavy +load from market?" And she looked at my boots, and said they would not +keep my feet dry if it came on wet, because they were so cracked. I told +her I lived with my mother, and we had enough to do to keep ourselves, +and that's how it was; and she said then, "I'll come and bring you some +better boots, and see your mother." She gives away things to other folks +in the meads besides us.' + +Mrs. Lodge was by this time close to the door--not in her silk, as Rhoda +had seen her in the bed-chamber, but in a morning hat, and gown of common +light material, which became her better than silk. On her arm she +carried a basket. + +The impression remaining from the night's experience was still strong. +Brook had almost expected to see the wrinkles, the scorn, and the cruelty +on her visitor's face. + +She would have escaped an interview, had escape been possible. There +was, however, no backdoor to the cottage, and in an instant the boy had +lifted the latch to Mrs. Lodge's gentle knock. + +'I see I have come to the right house,' said she, glancing at the lad, +and smiling. 'But I was not sure till you opened the door.' + +The figure and action were those of the phantom; but her voice was so +indescribably sweet, her glance so winning, her smile so tender, so +unlike that of Rhoda's midnight visitant, that the latter could hardly +believe the evidence of her senses. She was truly glad that she had not +hidden away in sheer aversion, as she had been inclined to do. In her +basket Mrs. Lodge brought the pair of boots that she had promised to the +boy, and other useful articles. + +At these proofs of a kindly feeling towards her and hers Rhoda's heart +reproached her bitterly. This innocent young thing should have her +blessing and not her curse. When she left them a light seemed gone from +the dwelling. Two days later she came again to know if the boots fitted; +and less than a fortnight after that paid Rhoda another call. On this +occasion the boy was absent. + +'I walk a good deal,' said Mrs. Lodge, 'and your house is the nearest +outside our own parish. I hope you are well. You don't look quite +well.' + +Rhoda said she was well enough; and, indeed, though the paler of the two, +there was more of the strength that endures in her well-defined features +and large frame, than in the soft-cheeked young woman before her. The +conversation became quite confidential as regarded their powers and +weaknesses; and when Mrs. Lodge was leaving, Rhoda said, 'I hope you will +find this air agree with you, ma'am, and not suffer from the damp of the +water-meads.' + +The younger one replied that there was not much doubt of it, her general +health being usually good. 'Though, now you remind me,' she added, 'I +have one little ailment which puzzles me. It is nothing serious, but I +cannot make it out.' + +She uncovered her left hand and arm; and their outline confronted Rhoda's +gaze as the exact original of the limb she had beheld and seized in her +dream. Upon the pink round surface of the arm were faint marks of an +unhealthy colour, as if produced by a rough grasp. Rhoda's eyes became +riveted on the discolorations; she fancied that she discerned in them the +shape of her own four fingers. + +'How did it happen?' she said mechanically. + +'I cannot tell,' replied Mrs. Lodge, shaking her head. 'One night when I +was sound asleep, dreaming I was away in some strange place, a pain +suddenly shot into my arm there, and was so keen as to awaken me. I must +have struck it in the daytime, I suppose, though I don't remember doing +so.' She added, laughing, 'I tell my dear husband that it looks just as +if he had flown into a rage and struck me there. O, I daresay it will +soon disappear.' + +'Ha, ha! Yes . . . On what night did it come?' + +Mrs. Lodge considered, and said it would be a fortnight ago on the +morrow. 'When I awoke I could not remember where I was,' she added, +'till the clock striking two reminded me.' + +She had named the night and the hour of Rhoda's spectral encounter, and +Brook felt like a guilty thing. The artless disclosure startled her; she +did not reason on the freaks of coincidence; and all the scenery of that +ghastly night returned with double vividness to her mind. + +'O, can it be,' she said to herself, when her visitor had departed, 'that +I exercise a malignant power over people against my own will?' She knew +that she had been slily called a witch since her fall; but never having +understood why that particular stigma had been attached to her, it had +passed disregarded. Could this be the explanation, and had such things +as this ever happened before? + + + +CHAPTER IV--A SUGGESTION + + +The summer drew on, and Rhoda Brook almost dreaded to meet Mrs. Lodge +again, notwithstanding that her feeling for the young wife amounted well- +nigh to affection. Something in her own individuality seemed to convict +Rhoda of crime. Yet a fatality sometimes would direct the steps of the +latter to the outskirts of Holmstoke whenever she left her house for any +other purpose than her daily work; and hence it happened that their next +encounter was out of doors. Rhoda could not avoid the subject which had +so mystified her, and after the first few words she stammered, 'I hope +your--arm is well again, ma'am?' She had perceived with consternation +that Gertrude Lodge carried her left arm stiffly. + +'No; it is not quite well. Indeed it is no better at all; it is rather +worse. It pains me dreadfully sometimes.' + +'Perhaps you had better go to a doctor, ma'am.' + +She replied that she had already seen a doctor. Her husband had insisted +upon her going to one. But the surgeon had not seemed to understand the +afflicted limb at all; he had told her to bathe it in hot water, and she +had bathed it, but the treatment had done no good. + +'Will you let me see it?' said the milkwoman. + +Mrs. Lodge pushed up her sleeve and disclosed the place, which was a few +inches above the wrist. As soon as Rhoda Brook saw it, she could hardly +preserve her composure. There was nothing of the nature of a wound, but +the arm at that point had a shrivelled look, and the outline of the four +fingers appeared more distinct than at the former time. Moreover, she +fancied that they were imprinted in precisely the relative position of +her clutch upon the arm in the trance; the first finger towards +Gertrude's wrist, and the fourth towards her elbow. + +What the impress resembled seemed to have struck Gertrude herself since +their last meeting. 'It looks almost like finger-marks,' she said; +adding with a faint laugh, 'my husband says it is as if some witch, or +the devil himself, had taken hold of me there, and blasted the flesh.' + +Rhoda shivered. 'That's fancy,' she said hurriedly. 'I wouldn't mind +it, if I were you.' + +'I shouldn't so much mind it,' said the younger, with hesitation, 'if--if +I hadn't a notion that it makes my husband--dislike me--no, love me less. +Men think so much of personal appearance.' + +'Some do--he for one.' + +'Yes; and he was very proud of mine, at first.' + +'Keep your arm covered from his sight.' + +'Ah--he knows the disfigurement is there!' She tried to hide the tears +that filled her eyes. + +'Well, ma'am, I earnestly hope it will go away soon.' + +And so the milkwoman's mind was chained anew to the subject by a horrid +sort of spell as she returned home. The sense of having been guilty of +an act of malignity increased, affect as she might to ridicule her +superstition. In her secret heart Rhoda did not altogether object to a +slight diminution of her successor's beauty, by whatever means it had +come about; but she did not wish to inflict upon her physical pain. For +though this pretty young woman had rendered impossible any reparation +which Lodge might have made Rhoda for his past conduct, everything like +resentment at the unconscious usurpation had quite passed away from the +elder's mind. + +If the sweet and kindly Gertrude Lodge only knew of the scene in the bed- +chamber, what would she think? Not to inform her of it seemed treachery +in the presence of her friendliness; but tell she could not of her own +accord--neither could she devise a remedy. + +She mused upon the matter the greater part of the night; and the next +day, after the morning milking, set out to obtain another glimpse of +Gertrude Lodge if she could, being held to her by a gruesome fascination. +By watching the house from a distance the milkmaid was presently able to +discern the farmer's wife in a ride she was taking alone--probably to +join her husband in some distant field. Mrs. Lodge perceived her, and +cantered in her direction. + +'Good morning, Rhoda!' Gertrude said, when she had come up. 'I was going +to call.' + +Rhoda noticed that Mrs. Lodge held the reins with some difficulty. + +'I hope--the bad arm,' said Rhoda. + +'They tell me there is possibly one way by which I might be able to find +out the cause, and so perhaps the cure, of it,' replied the other +anxiously. 'It is by going to some clever man over in Egdon Heath. They +did not know if he was still alive--and I cannot remember his name at +this moment; but they said that you knew more of his movements than +anybody else hereabout, and could tell me if he were still to be +consulted. Dear me--what was his name? But you know.' + +'Not Conjuror Trendle?' said her thin companion, turning pale. + +'Trendle--yes. Is he alive?' + +'I believe so,' said Rhoda, with reluctance. + +'Why do you call him conjuror?' + +'Well--they say--they used to say he was a--he had powers other folks +have not.' + +'O, how could my people be so superstitious as to recommend a man of that +sort! I thought they meant some medical man. I shall think no more of +him.' + +Rhoda looked relieved, and Mrs. Lodge rode on. The milkwoman had +inwardly seen, from the moment she heard of her having been mentioned as +a reference for this man, that there must exist a sarcastic feeling among +the work-folk that a sorceress would know the whereabouts of the +exorcist. They suspected her, then. A short time ago this would have +given no concern to a woman of her common-sense. But she had a haunting +reason to be superstitious now; and she had been seized with sudden dread +that this Conjuror Trendle might name her as the malignant influence +which was blasting the fair person of Gertrude, and so lead her friend to +hate her for ever, and to treat her as some fiend in human shape. + +But all was not over. Two days after, a shadow intruded into the window- +pattern thrown on Rhoda Brook's floor by the afternoon sun. The woman +opened the door at once, almost breathlessly. + +'Are you alone?' said Gertrude. She seemed to be no less harassed and +anxious than Brook herself. + +'Yes,' said Rhoda. + +'The place on my arm seems worse, and troubles me!' the young farmer's +wife went on. 'It is so mysterious! I do hope it will not be an +incurable wound. I have again been thinking of what they said about +Conjuror Trendle. I don't really believe in such men, but I should not +mind just visiting him, from curiosity--though on no account must my +husband know. Is it far to where he lives?' + +'Yes--five miles,' said Rhoda backwardly. 'In the heart of Egdon.' + +'Well, I should have to walk. Could not you go with me to show me the +way--say to-morrow afternoon?' + +'O, not I--that is,' the milkwoman murmured, with a start of dismay. +Again the dread seized her that something to do with her fierce act in +the dream might be revealed, and her character in the eyes of the most +useful friend she had ever had be ruined irretrievably. + +Mrs. Lodge urged, and Rhoda finally assented, though with much misgiving. +Sad as the journey would be to her, she could not conscientiously stand +in the way of a possible remedy for her patron's strange affliction. It +was agreed that, to escape suspicion of their mystic intent, they should +meet at the edge of the heath at the corner of a plantation which was +visible from the spot where they now stood. + + + +CHAPTER V--CONJUROR TRENDLE + + +By the next afternoon Rhoda would have done anything to escape this +inquiry. But she had promised to go. Moreover, there was a horrid +fascination at times in becoming instrumental in throwing such possible +light on her own character as would reveal her to be something greater in +the occult world than she had ever herself suspected. + +She started just before the time of day mentioned between them, and half- +an-hour's brisk walking brought her to the south-eastern extension of the +Egdon tract of country, where the fir plantation was. A slight figure, +cloaked and veiled, was already there. Rhoda recognized, almost with a +shudder, that Mrs. Lodge bore her left arm in a sling. + +They hardly spoke to each other, and immediately set out on their climb +into the interior of this solemn country, which stood high above the rich +alluvial soil they had left half-an-hour before. It was a long walk; +thick clouds made the atmosphere dark, though it was as yet only early +afternoon; and the wind howled dismally over the hills of the heath--not +improbably the same heath which had witnessed the agony of the Wessex +King Ina, presented to after-ages as Lear. Gertrude Lodge talked most, +Rhoda replying with monosyllabic preoccupation. She had a strange +dislike to walking on the side of her companion where hung the afflicted +arm, moving round to the other when inadvertently near it. Much heather +had been brushed by their feet when they descended upon a cart-track, +beside which stood the house of the man they sought. + +He did not profess his remedial practices openly, or care anything about +their continuance, his direct interests being those of a dealer in furze, +turf, 'sharp sand,' and other local products. Indeed, he affected not to +believe largely in his own powers, and when warts that had been shown him +for cure miraculously disappeared--which it must be owned they infallibly +did--he would say lightly, 'O, I only drink a glass of grog upon +'em--perhaps it's all chance,' and immediately turn the subject. + +He was at home when they arrived, having in fact seen them descending +into his valley. He was a gray-bearded man, with a reddish face, and he +looked singularly at Rhoda the first moment he beheld her. Mrs. Lodge +told him her errand; and then with words of self-disparagement he +examined her arm. + +'Medicine can't cure it,' he said promptly. ''Tis the work of an enemy.' + +Rhoda shrank into herself, and drew back. + +'An enemy? What enemy?' asked Mrs. Lodge. + +He shook his head. 'That's best known to yourself,' he said. 'If you +like, I can show the person to you, though I shall not myself know who it +is. I can do no more; and don't wish to do that.' + +She pressed him; on which he told Rhoda to wait outside where she stood, +and took Mrs. Lodge into the room. It opened immediately from the door; +and, as the latter remained ajar, Rhoda Brook could see the proceedings +without taking part in them. He brought a tumbler from the dresser, +nearly filled it with water, and fetching an egg, prepared it in some +private way; after which he broke it on the edge of the glass, so that +the white went in and the yolk remained. As it was getting gloomy, he +took the glass and its contents to the window, and told Gertrude to watch +them closely. They leant over the table together, and the milkwoman +could see the opaline hue of the egg-fluid changing form as it sank in +the water, but she was not near enough to define the shape that it +assumed. + +'Do you catch the likeness of any face or figure as you look?' demanded +the conjuror of the young woman. + +She murmured a reply, in tones so low as to be inaudible to Rhoda, and +continued to gaze intently into the glass. Rhoda turned, and walked a +few steps away. + +When Mrs. Lodge came out, and her face was met by the light, it appeared +exceedingly pale--as pale as Rhoda's--against the sad dun shades of the +upland's garniture. Trendle shut the door behind her, and they at once +started homeward together. But Rhoda perceived that her companion had +quite changed. + +'Did he charge much?' she asked tentatively. + +'O no--nothing. He would not take a farthing,' said Gertrude. + +'And what did you see?' inquired Rhoda. + +'Nothing I--care to speak of.' The constraint in her manner was +remarkable; her face was so rigid as to wear an oldened aspect, faintly +suggestive of the face in Rhoda's bed-chamber. + +'Was it you who first proposed coming here?' Mrs. Lodge suddenly +inquired, after a long pause. 'How very odd, if you did!' + +'No. But I am not sorry we have come, all things considered,' she +replied. For the first time a sense of triumph possessed her, and she +did not altogether deplore that the young thing at her side should learn +that their lives had been antagonized by other influences than their own. + +The subject was no more alluded to during the long and dreary walk home. +But in some way or other a story was whispered about the many-dairied +lowland that winter that Mrs. Lodge's gradual loss of the use of her left +arm was owing to her being 'overlooked' by Rhoda Brook. The latter kept +her own counsel about the incubus, but her face grew sadder and thinner; +and in the spring she and her boy disappeared from the neighbourhood of +Holmstoke. + + + +CHAPTER VI--A SECOND ATTEMPT + + +Half-a-dozen years passed away, and Mr. and Mrs. Lodge's married +experience sank into prosiness, and worse. The farmer was usually gloomy +and silent: the woman whom he had wooed for her grace and beauty was +contorted and disfigured in the left limb; moreover, she had brought him +no child, which rendered it likely that he would be the last of a family +who had occupied that valley for some two hundred years. He thought of +Rhoda Brook and her son; and feared this might be a judgment from heaven +upon him. + +The once blithe-hearted and enlightened Gertrude was changing into an +irritable, superstitious woman, whose whole time was given to +experimenting upon her ailment with every quack remedy she came across. +She was honestly attached to her husband, and was ever secretly hoping +against hope to win back his heart again by regaining some at least of +her personal beauty. Hence it arose that her closet was lined with +bottles, packets, and ointment-pots of every description--nay, bunches of +mystic herbs, charms, and books of necromancy, which in her schoolgirl +time she would have ridiculed as folly. + +'Damned if you won't poison yourself with these apothecary messes and +witch mixtures some time or other,' said her husband, when his eye +chanced to fall upon the multitudinous array. + +She did not reply, but turned her sad, soft glance upon him in such heart- +swollen reproach that he looked sorry for his words, and added, 'I only +meant it for your good, you know, Gertrude.' + +'I'll clear out the whole lot, and destroy them,' said she huskily, 'and +try such remedies no more!' + +'You want somebody to cheer you,' he observed. 'I once thought of +adopting a boy; but he is too old now. And he is gone away I don't know +where.' + +She guessed to whom he alluded; for Rhoda Brook's story had in the course +of years become known to her; though not a word had ever passed between +her husband and herself on the subject. Neither had she ever spoken to +him of her visit to Conjuror Trendle, and of what was revealed to her, or +she thought was revealed to her, by that solitary heath-man. + +She was now five-and-twenty; but she seemed older. + +'Six years of marriage, and only a few months of love,' she sometimes +whispered to herself. And then she thought of the apparent cause, and +said, with a tragic glance at her withering limb, 'If I could only again +be as I was when he first saw me!' + +She obediently destroyed her nostrums and charms; but there remained a +hankering wish to try something else--some other sort of cure altogether. +She had never revisited Trendle since she had been conducted to the house +of the solitary by Rhoda against her will; but it now suddenly occurred +to Gertrude that she would, in a last desperate effort at deliverance +from this seeming curse, again seek out the man, if he yet lived. He was +entitled to a certain credence, for the indistinct form he had raised in +the glass had undoubtedly resembled the only woman in the world who--as +she now knew, though not then--could have a reason for bearing her ill- +will. The visit should be paid. + +This time she went alone, though she nearly got lost on the heath, and +roamed a considerable distance out of her way. Trendle's house was +reached at last, however: he was not indoors, and instead of waiting at +the cottage, she went to where his bent figure was pointed out to her at +work a long way off. Trendle remembered her, and laying down the handful +of furze-roots which he was gathering and throwing into a heap, he +offered to accompany her in her homeward direction, as the distance was +considerable and the days were short. So they walked together, his head +bowed nearly to the earth, and his form of a colour with it. + +'You can send away warts and other excrescences I know,' she said; 'why +can't you send away this?' And the arm was uncovered. + +'You think too much of my powers!' said Trendle; 'and I am old and weak +now, too. No, no; it is too much for me to attempt in my own person. +What have ye tried?' + +She named to him some of the hundred medicaments and counterspells which +she had adopted from time to time. He shook his head. + +'Some were good enough,' he said approvingly; 'but not many of them for +such as this. This is of the nature of a blight, not of the nature of a +wound; and if you ever do throw it off; it will be all at once.' + +'If I only could!' + +'There is only one chance of doing it known to me. It has never failed +in kindred afflictions,--that I can declare. But it is hard to carry +out, and especially for a woman.' + +'Tell me!' said she. + +'You must touch with the limb the neck of a man who's been hanged.' + +She started a little at the image he had raised. + +'Before he's cold--just after he's cut down,' continued the conjuror +impassively. + +'How can that do good?' + +'It will turn the blood and change the constitution. But, as I say, to +do it is hard. You must get into jail, and wait for him when he's +brought off the gallows. Lots have done it, though perhaps not such +pretty women as you. I used to send dozens for skin complaints. But +that was in former times. The last I sent was in '13--near twenty years +ago.' + +He had no more to tell her; and, when he had put her into a straight +track homeward, turned and left her, refusing all money as at first. + + + +CHAPTER VII--A RIDE + + +The communication sank deep into Gertrude's mind. Her nature was rather +a timid one; and probably of all remedies that the white wizard could +have suggested there was not one which would have filled her with so much +aversion as this, not to speak of the immense obstacles in the way of its +adoption. + +Casterbridge, the county-town, was a dozen or fifteen miles off; and +though in those days, when men were executed for horse-stealing, arson, +and burglary, an assize seldom passed without a hanging, it was not +likely that she could get access to the body of the criminal unaided. And +the fear of her husband's anger made her reluctant to breathe a word of +Trendle's suggestion to him or to anybody about him. + +She did nothing for months, and patiently bore her disfigurement as +before. But her woman's nature, craving for renewed love, through the +medium of renewed beauty (she was but twenty-five), was ever stimulating +her to try what, at any rate, could hardly do her any harm. 'What came +by a spell will go by a spell surely,' she would say. Whenever her +imagination pictured the act she shrank in terror from the possibility of +it: then the words of the conjuror, 'It will turn your blood,' were seen +to be capable of a scientific no less than a ghastly interpretation; the +mastering desire returned, and urged her on again. + +There was at this time but one county paper, and that her husband only +occasionally borrowed. But old-fashioned days had old-fashioned means, +and news was extensively conveyed by word of mouth from market to market, +or from fair to fair, so that, whenever such an event as an execution was +about to take place, few within a radius of twenty miles were ignorant of +the coming sight; and, so far as Holmstoke was concerned, some +enthusiasts had been known to walk all the way to Casterbridge and back +in one day, solely to witness the spectacle. The next assizes were in +March; and when Gertrude Lodge heard that they had been held, she +inquired stealthily at the inn as to the result, as soon as she could +find opportunity. + +She was, however, too late. The time at which the sentences were to be +carried out had arrived, and to make the journey and obtain admission at +such short notice required at least her husband's assistance. She dared +not tell him, for she had found by delicate experiment that these +smouldering village beliefs made him furious if mentioned, partly because +he half entertained them himself. It was therefore necessary to wait for +another opportunity. + +Her determination received a fillip from learning that two epileptic +children had attended from this very village of Holmstoke many years +before with beneficial results, though the experiment had been strongly +condemned by the neighbouring clergy. April, May, June, passed; and it +is no overstatement to say that by the end of the last-named month +Gertrude well-nigh longed for the death of a fellow-creature. Instead of +her formal prayers each night, her unconscious prayer was, 'O Lord, hang +some guilty or innocent person soon!' + +This time she made earlier inquiries, and was altogether more systematic +in her proceedings. Moreover, the season was summer, between the +haymaking and the harvest, and in the leisure thus afforded him her +husband had been holiday-taking away from home. + +The assizes were in July, and she went to the inn as before. There was +to be one execution--only one--for arson. + +Her greatest problem was not how to get to Casterbridge, but what means +she should adopt for obtaining admission to the jail. Though access for +such purposes had formerly never been denied, the custom had fallen into +desuetude; and in contemplating her possible difficulties, she was again +almost driven to fall back upon her husband. But, on sounding him about +the assizes, he was so uncommunicative, so more than usually cold, that +she did not proceed, and decided that whatever she did she would do +alone. + +Fortune, obdurate hitherto, showed her unexpected favour. On the +Thursday before the Saturday fixed for the execution, Lodge remarked to +her that he was going away from home for another day or two on business +at a fair, and that he was sorry he could not take her with him. + +She exhibited on this occasion so much readiness to stay at home that he +looked at her in surprise. Time had been when she would have shown deep +disappointment at the loss of such a jaunt. However, he lapsed into his +usual taciturnity, and on the day named left Holmstoke. + +It was now her turn. She at first had thought of driving, but on +reflection held that driving would not do, since it would necessitate her +keeping to the turnpike-road, and so increase by tenfold the risk of her +ghastly errand being found out. She decided to ride, and avoid the +beaten track, notwithstanding that in her husband's stables there was no +animal just at present which by any stretch of imagination could be +considered a lady's mount, in spite of his promise before marriage to +always keep a mare for her. He had, however, many cart-horses, fine ones +of their kind; and among the rest was a serviceable creature, an equine +Amazon, with a back as broad as a sofa, on which Gertrude had +occasionally taken an airing when unwell. This horse she chose. + +On Friday afternoon one of the men brought it round. She was dressed, +and before going down looked at her shrivelled arm. 'Ah!' she said to +it, 'if it had not been for you this terrible ordeal would have been +saved me!' + +When strapping up the bundle in which she carried a few articles of +clothing, she took occasion to say to the servant, 'I take these in case +I should not get back to-night from the person I am going to visit. Don't +be alarmed if I am not in by ten, and close up the house as usual. I +shall be at home to-morrow for certain.' She meant then to privately +tell her husband: the deed accomplished was not like the deed projected. +He would almost certainly forgive her. + +And then the pretty palpitating Gertrude Lodge went from her husband's +homestead; but though her goal was Casterbridge she did not take the +direct route thither through Stickleford. Her cunning course at first +was in precisely the opposite direction. As soon as she was out of +sight, however, she turned to the left, by a road which led into Egdon, +and on entering the heath wheeled round, and set out in the true course, +due westerly. A more private way down the county could not be imagined; +and as to direction, she had merely to keep her horse's head to a point a +little to the right of the sun. She knew that she would light upon a +furze-cutter or cottager of some sort from time to time, from whom she +might correct her bearing. + +Though the date was comparatively recent, Egdon was much less fragmentary +in character than now. The attempts--successful and otherwise--at +cultivation on the lower slopes, which intrude and break up the original +heath into small detached heaths, had not been carried far; Enclosure +Acts had not taken effect, and the banks and fences which now exclude the +cattle of those villagers who formerly enjoyed rights of commonage +thereon, and the carts of those who had turbary privileges which kept +them in firing all the year round, were not erected. Gertrude, +therefore, rode along with no other obstacles than the prickly furze +bushes, the mats of heather, the white water-courses, and the natural +steeps and declivities of the ground. + +Her horse was sure, if heavy-footed and slow, and though a draught +animal, was easy-paced; had it been otherwise, she was not a woman who +could have ventured to ride over such a bit of country with a half-dead +arm. It was therefore nearly eight o'clock when she drew rein to breathe +the mare on the last outlying high point of heath-land towards +Casterbridge, previous to leaving Egdon for the cultivated valleys. + +She halted before a pool called Rushy-pond, flanked by the ends of two +hedges; a railing ran through the centre of the pond, dividing it in +half. Over the railing she saw the low green country; over the green +trees the roofs of the town; over the roofs a white flat facade, denoting +the entrance to the county jail. On the roof of this front specks were +moving about; they seemed to be workmen erecting something. Her flesh +crept. She descended slowly, and was soon amid corn-fields and pastures. +In another half-hour, when it was almost dusk, Gertrude reached the White +Hart, the first inn of the town on that side. + +Little surprise was excited by her arrival; farmers' wives rode on +horseback then more than they do now; though, for that matter, Mrs. Lodge +was not imagined to be a wife at all; the innkeeper supposed her some +harum-skarum young woman who had come to attend 'hang-fair' next day. +Neither her husband nor herself ever dealt in Casterbridge market, so +that she was unknown. While dismounting she beheld a crowd of boys +standing at the door of a harness-maker's shop just above the inn, +looking inside it with deep interest. + +'What is going on there?' she asked of the ostler. + +'Making the rope for to-morrow.' + +She throbbed responsively, and contracted her arm. + +''Tis sold by the inch afterwards,' the man continued. 'I could get you +a bit, miss, for nothing, if you'd like?' + +She hastily repudiated any such wish, all the more from a curious +creeping feeling that the condemned wretch's destiny was becoming +interwoven with her own; and having engaged a room for the night, sat +down to think. + +Up to this time she had formed but the vaguest notions about her means of +obtaining access to the prison. The words of the cunning-man returned to +her mind. He had implied that she should use her beauty, impaired though +it was, as a pass-key. In her inexperience she knew little about jail +functionaries; she had heard of a high-sheriff and an under-sheriff; but +dimly only. She knew, however, that there must be a hangman, and to the +hangman she determined to apply. + + + +CHAPTER VIII--A WATER-SIDE HERMIT + + +At this date, and for several years after, there was a hangman to almost +every jail. Gertrude found, on inquiry, that the Casterbridge official +dwelt in a lonely cottage by a deep slow river flowing under the cliff on +which the prison buildings were situate--the stream being the self-same +one, though she did not know it, which watered the Stickleford and +Holmstoke meads lower down in its course. + +Having changed her dress, and before she had eaten or drunk--for she +could not take her ease till she had ascertained some +particulars--Gertrude pursued her way by a path along the water-side to +the cottage indicated. Passing thus the outskirts of the jail, she +discerned on the level roof over the gateway three rectangular lines +against the sky, where the specks had been moving in her distant view; +she recognized what the erection was, and passed quickly on. Another +hundred yards brought her to the executioner's house, which a boy pointed +out It stood close to the same stream, and was hard by a weir, the waters +of which emitted a steady roar. + +While she stood hesitating the door opened, and an old man came forth +shading a candle with one hand. Locking the door on the outside, he +turned to a flight of wooden steps fixed against the end of the cottage, +and began to ascend them, this being evidently the staircase to his +bedroom. Gertrude hastened forward, but by the time she reached the foot +of the ladder he was at the top. She called to him loudly enough to be +heard above the roar of the weir; he looked down and said, 'What d'ye +want here?' + +'To speak to you a minute.' + +The candle-light, such as it was, fell upon her imploring, pale, upturned +face, and Davies (as the hangman was called) backed down the ladder. 'I +was just going to bed,' he said; '"Early to bed and early to rise," but I +don't mind stopping a minute for such a one as you. Come into house.' He +reopened the door, and preceded her to the room within. + +The implements of his daily work, which was that of a jobbing gardener, +stood in a corner, and seeing probably that she looked rural, he said, +'If you want me to undertake country work I can't come, for I never leave +Casterbridge for gentle nor simple--not I. My real calling is officer of +justice,' he added formally. + +'Yes, yes! That's it. To-morrow!' + +'Ah! I thought so. Well, what's the matter about that? 'Tis no use to +come here about the knot--folks do come continually, but I tell 'em one +knot is as merciful as another if ye keep it under the ear. Is the +unfortunate man a relation; or, I should say, perhaps' (looking at her +dress) 'a person who's been in your employ?' + +'No. What time is the execution?' + +'The same as usual--twelve o'clock, or as soon after as the London mail- +coach gets in. We always wait for that, in case of a reprieve.' + +'O--a reprieve--I hope not!' she said involuntarily, + +'Well,--hee, hee!--as a matter of business, so do I! But still, if ever +a young fellow deserved to be let off, this one does; only just turned +eighteen, and only present by chance when the rick was fired. Howsomever, +there's not much risk of it, as they are obliged to make an example of +him, there having been so much destruction of property that way lately.' + +'I mean,' she explained, 'that I want to touch him for a charm, a cure of +an affliction, by the advice of a man who has proved the virtue of the +remedy.' + +'O yes, miss! Now I understand. I've had such people come in past +years. But it didn't strike me that you looked of a sort to require +blood-turning. What's the complaint? The wrong kind for this, I'll be +bound.' + +'My arm.' She reluctantly showed the withered skin. + +'Ah--'tis all a-scram!' said the hangman, examining it. + +'Yes,' said she. + +'Well,' he continued, with interest, 'that is the class o' subject, I'm +bound to admit! I like the look of the place; it is truly as suitable +for the cure as any I ever saw. 'Twas a knowing-man that sent 'ee, +whoever he was.' + +'You can contrive for me all that's necessary?' she said breathlessly. + +'You should really have gone to the governor of the jail, and your doctor +with 'ee, and given your name and address--that's how it used to be done, +if I recollect. Still, perhaps, I can manage it for a trifling fee.' + +'O, thank you! I would rather do it this way, as I should like it kept +private.' + +'Lover not to know, eh?' + +'No--husband.' + +'Aha! Very well. I'll get ee' a touch of the corpse.' + +'Where is it now?' she said, shuddering. + +'It?--he, you mean; he's living yet. Just inside that little small +winder up there in the glum.' He signified the jail on the cliff above. + +She thought of her husband and her friends. 'Yes, of course,' she said; +'and how am I to proceed?' + +He took her to the door. 'Now, do you be waiting at the little wicket in +the wall, that you'll find up there in the lane, not later than one +o'clock. I will open it from the inside, as I shan't come home to dinner +till he's cut down. Good-night. Be punctual; and if you don't want +anybody to know 'ee, wear a veil. Ah--once I had such a daughter as +you!' + +She went away, and climbed the path above, to assure herself that she +would be able to find the wicket next day. Its outline was soon visible +to her--a narrow opening in the outer wall of the prison precincts. The +steep was so great that, having reached the wicket, she stopped a moment +to breathe; and, looking back upon the water-side cot, saw the hangman +again ascending his outdoor staircase. He entered the loft or chamber to +which it led, and in a few minutes extinguished his light. + +The town clock struck ten, and she returned to the White Hart as she had +come. + + + +CHAPTER IX--A RENCOUNTER + + +It was one o'clock on Saturday. Gertrude Lodge, having been admitted to +the jail as above described, was sitting in a waiting-room within the +second gate, which stood under a classic archway of ashlar, then +comparatively modern, and bearing the inscription, 'COVNTY JAIL: 1793.' +This had been the facade she saw from the heath the day before. Near at +hand was a passage to the roof on which the gallows stood. + +The town was thronged, and the market suspended; but Gertrude had seen +scarcely a soul. Having kept her room till the hour of the appointment, +she had proceeded to the spot by a way which avoided the open space below +the cliff where the spectators had gathered; but she could, even now, +hear the multitudinous babble of their voices, out of which rose at +intervals the hoarse croak of a single voice uttering the words, 'Last +dying speech and confession!' There had been no reprieve, and the +execution was over; but the crowd still waited to see the body taken +down. + +Soon the persistent girl heard a trampling overhead, then a hand beckoned +to her, and, following directions, she went out and crossed the inner +paved court beyond the gatehouse, her knees trembling so that she could +scarcely walk. One of her arms was out of its sleeve, and only covered +by her shawl. + +On the spot at which she had now arrived were two trestles, and before +she could think of their purpose she heard heavy feet descending stairs +somewhere at her back. Turn her head she would not, or could not, and, +rigid in this position, she was conscious of a rough coffin passing her +shoulder, borne by four men. It was open, and in it lay the body of a +young man, wearing the smockfrock of a rustic, and fustian breeches. The +corpse had been thrown into the coffin so hastily that the skirt of the +smockfrock was hanging over. The burden was temporarily deposited on the +trestles. + +By this time the young woman's state was such that a gray mist seemed to +float before her eyes, on account of which, and the veil she wore, she +could scarcely discern anything: it was as though she had nearly died, +but was held up by a sort of galvanism. + +'Now!' said a voice close at hand, and she was just conscious that the +word had been addressed to her. + +By a last strenuous effort she advanced, at the same time hearing persons +approaching behind her. She bared her poor curst arm; and Davies, +uncovering the face of the corpse, took Gertrude's hand, and held it so +that her arm lay across the dead man's neck, upon a line the colour of an +unripe blackberry, which surrounded it. + +Gertrude shrieked: 'the turn o' the blood,' predicted by the conjuror, +had taken place. But at that moment a second shriek rent the air of the +enclosure: it was not Gertrude's, and its effect upon her was to make her +start round. + +Immediately behind her stood Rhoda Brook, her face drawn, and her eyes +red with weeping. Behind Rhoda stood Gertrude's own husband; his +countenance lined, his eyes dim, but without a tear. + +'D-n you! what are you doing here?' he said hoarsely. + +'Hussy--to come between us and our child now!' cried Rhoda. 'This is the +meaning of what Satan showed me in the vision! You are like her at +last!' And clutching the bare arm of the younger woman, she pulled her +unresistingly back against the wall. Immediately Brook had loosened her +hold the fragile young Gertrude slid down against the feet of her +husband. When he lifted her up she was unconscious. + +The mere sight of the twain had been enough to suggest to her that the +dead young man was Rhoda's son. At that time the relatives of an +executed convict had the privilege of claiming the body for burial, if +they chose to do so; and it was for this purpose that Lodge was awaiting +the inquest with Rhoda. He had been summoned by her as soon as the young +man was taken in the crime, and at different times since; and he had +attended in court during the trial. This was the 'holiday' he had been +indulging in of late. The two wretched parents had wished to avoid +exposure; and hence had come themselves for the body, a waggon and sheet +for its conveyance and covering being in waiting outside. + +Gertrude's case was so serious that it was deemed advisable to call to +her the surgeon who was at hand. She was taken out of the jail into the +town; but she never reached home alive. Her delicate vitality, sapped +perhaps by the paralyzed arm, collapsed under the double shock that +followed the severe strain, physical and mental, to which she had +subjected herself during the previous twenty-four hours. Her blood had +been 'turned' indeed--too far. Her death took place in the town three +days after. + +Her husband was never seen in Casterbridge again; once only in the old +market-place at Anglebury, which he had so much frequented, and very +seldom in public anywhere. Burdened at first with moodiness and remorse, +he eventually changed for the better, and appeared as a chastened and +thoughtful man. Soon after attending the funeral of his poor young wife +he took steps towards giving up the farms in Holmstoke and the adjoining +parish, and, having sold every head of his stock, he went away to Port- +Bredy, at the other end of the county, living there in solitary lodgings +till his death two years later of a painless decline. It was then found +that he had bequeathed the whole of his not inconsiderable property to a +reformatory for boys, subject to the payment of a small annuity to Rhoda +Brook, if she could be found to claim it. + +For some time she could not be found; but eventually she reappeared in +her old parish,--absolutely refusing, however, to have anything to do +with the provision made for her. Her monotonous milking at the dairy was +resumed, and followed for many long years, till her form became bent, and +her once abundant dark hair white and worn away at the forehead--perhaps +by long pressure against the cows. Here, sometimes, those who knew her +experiences would stand and observe her, and wonder what sombre thoughts +were beating inside that impassive, wrinkled brow, to the rhythm of the +alternating milk-streams. + +('Blackwood's Magazine,' January 1888.) + + + + +FELLOW-TOWNSMEN + + +CHAPTER I + + +The shepherd on the east hill could shout out lambing intelligence to the +shepherd on the west hill, over the intervening town chimneys, without +great inconvenience to his voice, so nearly did the steep pastures +encroach upon the burghers' backyards. And at night it was possible to +stand in the very midst of the town and hear from their native paddocks +on the lower levels of greensward the mild lowing of the farmer's +heifers, and the profound, warm blowings of breath in which those +creatures indulge. But the community which had jammed itself in the +valley thus flanked formed a veritable town, with a real mayor and +corporation, and a staple manufacture. + +During a certain damp evening five-and-thirty years ago, before the +twilight was far advanced, a pedestrian of professional appearance, +carrying a small bag in his hand and an elevated umbrella, was descending +one of these hills by the turnpike road when he was overtaken by a +phaeton. + +'Hullo, Downe--is that you?' said the driver of the vehicle, a young man +of pale and refined appearance. 'Jump up here with me, and ride down to +your door.' + +The other turned a plump, cheery, rather self-indulgent face over his +shoulder towards the hailer. + +'O, good evening, Mr. Barnet--thanks,' he said, and mounted beside his +acquaintance. + +They were fellow-burgesses of the town which lay beneath them, but though +old and very good friends, they were differently circumstanced. Barnet +was a richer man than the struggling young lawyer Downe, a fact which was +to some extent perceptible in Downe's manner towards his companion, +though nothing of it ever showed in Barnet's manner towards the +solicitor. Barnet's position in the town was none of his own making; his +father had been a very successful flax-merchant in the same place, where +the trade was still carried on as briskly as the small capacities of its +quarters would allow. Having acquired a fair fortune, old Mr. Barnet had +retired from business, bringing up his son as a gentleman-burgher, and, +it must be added, as a well-educated, liberal-minded young man. + +'How is Mrs. Barnet?' asked Downe. + +'Mrs. Barnet was very well when I left home,' the other answered +constrainedly, exchanging his meditative regard of the horse for one of +self-consciousness. + +Mr. Downe seemed to regret his inquiry, and immediately took up another +thread of conversation. He congratulated his friend on his election as a +council-man; he thought he had not seen him since that event took place; +Mrs. Downe had meant to call and congratulate Mrs. Barnet, but he feared +that she had failed to do so as yet. + +Barnet seemed hampered in his replies. 'We should have been glad to see +you. I--my wife would welcome Mrs. Downe at any time, as you know . . . +Yes, I am a member of the corporation--rather an inexperienced member, +some of them say. It is quite true; and I should have declined the +honour as premature--having other things on my hands just now, too--if it +had not been pressed upon me so very heartily.' + +'There is one thing you have on your hands which I can never quite see +the necessity for,' said Downe, with good-humoured freedom. 'What the +deuce do you want to build that new mansion for, when you have already +got such an excellent house as the one you live in?' + +Barnet's face acquired a warmer shade of colour; but as the question had +been idly asked by the solicitor while regarding the surrounding flocks +and fields, he answered after a moment with no apparent embarrassment - + +'Well, we wanted to get out of the town, you know: the house I am living +in is rather old and inconvenient.' Mr. Downe declared that he had +chosen a pretty site for the new building. They would be able to see for +miles and miles from the windows. Was he going to give it a name? He +supposed so. + +Barnet thought not. There was no other house near that was likely to be +mistaken for it. And he did not care for a name. + +'But I think it has a name!' Downe observed: 'I went past--when was +it?--this morning; and I saw something,--"Chateau Ringdale," I think it +was, stuck up on a board!' + +'It was an idea she--we had for a short time,' said Barnet hastily. 'But +we have decided finally to do without a name--at any rate such a name as +that. It must have been a week ago that you saw it. It was taken down +last Saturday . . . Upon that matter I am firm!' he added grimly. + +Downe murmured in an unconvinced tone that he thought he had seen it +yesterday. + +Talking thus they drove into the town. The street was unusually still +for the hour of seven in the evening; an increasing drizzle had prevailed +since the afternoon, and now formed a gauze across the yellow lamps, and +trickled with a gentle rattle down the heavy roofs of stone tile, that +bent the house-ridges hollow-backed with its weight, and in some +instances caused the walls to bulge outwards in the upper story. Their +route took them past the little town-hall, the Black-Bull Hotel, and +onward to the junction of a small street on the right, consisting of a +row of those two-and-two windowed brick residences of no particular age, +which are exactly alike wherever found, except in the people they +contain. + +'Wait--I'll drive you up to your door,' said Barnet, when Downe prepared +to alight at the corner. He thereupon turned into the narrow street, +when the faces of three little girls could be discerned close to the +panes of a lighted window a few yards ahead, surmounted by that of a +young matron, the gaze of all four being directed eagerly up the empty +street. 'You are a fortunate fellow, Downe,' Barnet continued, as mother +and children disappeared from the window to run to the door. 'You must +be happy if any man is. I would give a hundred such houses as my new one +to have a home like yours.' + +'Well--yes, we get along pretty comfortably,' replied Downe complacently. + +'That house, Downe, is none of my ordering,' Barnet broke out, revealing +a bitterness hitherto suppressed, and checking the horse a moment to +finish his speech before delivering up his passenger. 'The house I have +already is good enough for me, as you supposed. It is my own freehold; +it was built by my grandfather, and is stout enough for a castle. My +father was born there, lived there, and died there. I was born there, +and have always lived there; yet I must needs build a new one.' + +'Why do you?' said Downe. + +'Why do I? To preserve peace in the household. I do anything for that; +but I don't succeed. I was firm in resisting "Chateau Ringdale," +however; not that I would not have put up with the absurdity of the name, +but it was too much to have your house christened after Lord Ringdale, +because your wife once had a fancy for him. If you only knew everything, +you would think all attempt at reconciliation hopeless. In your happy +home you have had no such experiences; and God forbid that you ever +should. See, here they are all ready to receive you!' + +'Of course! And so will your wife be waiting to receive you,' said +Downe. 'Take my word for it she will! And with a dinner prepared for +you far better than mine.' + +'I hope so,' Barnet replied dubiously. + +He moved on to Downe's door, which the solicitor's family had already +opened. Downe descended, but being encumbered with his bag and umbrella, +his foot slipped, and he fell upon his knees in the gutter. + +'O, my dear Charles!' said his wife, running down the steps; and, quite +ignoring the presence of Barnet, she seized hold of her husband, pulled +him to his feet, and kissed him, exclaiming, 'I hope you are not hurt, +darling!' The children crowded round, chiming in piteously, 'Poor papa!' + +'He's all right,' said Barnet, perceiving that Downe was only a little +muddy, and looking more at the wife than at the husband. Almost at any +other time--certainly during his fastidious bachelor years--he would have +thought her a too demonstrative woman; but those recent circumstances of +his own life to which he had just alluded made Mrs. Downe's solicitude so +affecting that his eye grew damp as he witnessed it. Bidding the lawyer +and his family good-night he left them, and drove slowly into the main +street towards his own house. + +The heart of Barnet was sufficiently impressionable to be influenced by +Downe's parting prophecy that he might not be so unwelcome home as he +imagined: the dreary night might, at least on this one occasion, make +Downe's forecast true. Hence it was in a suspense that he could hardly +have believed possible that he halted at his door. On entering his wife +was nowhere to be seen, and he inquired for her. The servant informed +him that her mistress had the dressmaker with her, and would be engaged +for some time. + +'Dressmaker at this time of day!' + +'She dined early, sir, and hopes you will excuse her joining you this +evening.' + +'But she knew I was coming to-night?' + +'O yes, sir.' + +'Go up and tell her I am come.' + +The servant did so; but the mistress of the house merely transmitted her +former words. + +Barnet said nothing more, and presently sat down to his lonely meal, +which was eaten abstractedly, the domestic scene he had lately witnessed +still impressing him by its contrast with the situation here. His mind +fell back into past years upon a certain pleasing and gentle being whose +face would loom out of their shades at such times as these. Barnet +turned in his chair, and looked with unfocused eyes in a direction +southward from where he sat, as if he saw not the room but a long way +beyond. 'I wonder if she lives there still!' he said. + + + +CHAPTER II + + +He rose with a sudden rebelliousness, put on his hat and coat, and went +out of the house, pursuing his way along the glistening pavement while +eight o'clock was striking from St. Mary's tower, and the apprentices and +shopmen were slamming up the shutters from end to end of the town. In +two minutes only those shops which could boast of no attendant save the +master or the mistress remained with open eyes. These were ever somewhat +less prompt to exclude customers than the others: for their owners' ears +the closing hour had scarcely the cheerfulness that it possessed for the +hired servants of the rest. Yet the night being dreary the delay was not +for long, and their windows, too, blinked together one by one. + +During this time Barnet had proceeded with decided step in a direction at +right angles to the broad main thoroughfare of the town, by a long street +leading due southward. Here, though his family had no more to do with +the flax manufacture, his own name occasionally greeted him on gates and +warehouses, being used allusively by small rising tradesmen as a +recommendation, in such words as 'Smith, from Barnet & Co.'--'Robinson, +late manager at Barnet's.' The sight led him to reflect upon his +father's busy life, and he questioned if it had not been far happier than +his own. + +The houses along the road became fewer, and presently open ground +appeared between them on either side, the track on the right hand rising +to a higher level till it merged in a knoll. On the summit a row of +builders' scaffold-poles probed the indistinct sky like spears, and at +their bases could be discerned the lower courses of a building lately +begun. Barnet slackened his pace and stood for a few moments without +leaving the centre of the road, apparently not much interested in the +sight, till suddenly his eye was caught by a post in the fore part of the +ground bearing a white board at the top. He went to the rails, vaulted +over, and walked in far enough to discern painted upon the board 'Chateau +Ringdale.' + +A dismal irony seemed to lie in the words, and its effect was to irritate +him. Downe, then, had spoken truly. He stuck his umbrella into the sod, +and seized the post with both hands, as if intending to loosen and throw +it down. Then, like one bewildered by an opposition which would exist +none the less though its manifestations were removed, he allowed his arms +to sink to his side. + +'Let it be,' he said to himself. 'I have declared there shall be +peace--if possible.' + +Taking up his umbrella he quietly left the enclosure, and went on his +way, still keeping his back to the town. He had advanced with more +decision since passing the new building, and soon a hoarse murmur rose +upon the gloom; it was the sound of the sea. The road led to the +harbour, at a distance of a mile from the town, from which the trade of +the district was fed. After seeing the obnoxious name-board Barnet had +forgotten to open his umbrella, and the rain tapped smartly on his hat, +and occasionally stroked his face as he went on. + +Though the lamps were still continued at the roadside, they stood at +wider intervals than before, and the pavement had given place to common +road. Every time he came to a lamp an increasing shine made itself +visible upon his shoulders, till at last they quite glistened with wet. +The murmur from the shore grew stronger, but it was still some distance +off when he paused before one of the smallest of the detached houses by +the wayside, standing in its own garden, the latter being divided from +the road by a row of wooden palings. Scrutinizing the spot to ensure +that he was not mistaken, he opened the gate and gently knocked at the +cottage door. + +When he had patiently waited minutes enough to lead any man in ordinary +cases to knock again, the door was heard to open, though it was +impossible to see by whose hand, there being no light in the passage. +Barnet said at random, 'Does Miss Savile live here?' + +A youthful voice assured him that she did live there, and by a sudden +afterthought asked him to come in. It would soon get a light, it said: +but the night being wet, mother had not thought it worth while to trim +the passage lamp. + +'Don't trouble yourself to get a light for me,' said Barnet hastily; 'it +is not necessary at all. Which is Miss Savile's sitting-room?' + +The young person, whose white pinafore could just be discerned, signified +a door in the side of the passage, and Barnet went forward at the same +moment, so that no light should fall upon his face. On entering the room +he closed the door behind him, pausing till he heard the retreating +footsteps of the child. + +He found himself in an apartment which was simply and neatly, though not +poorly furnished; everything, from the miniature chiffonnier to the +shining little daguerreotype which formed the central ornament of the +mantelpiece, being in scrupulous order. The picture was enclosed by a +frame of embroidered card-board--evidently the work of feminine hands--and +it was the portrait of a thin faced, elderly lieutenant in the navy. From +behind the lamp on the table a female form now rose into view, that of a +young girl, and a resemblance between her and the portrait was early +discoverable. She had been so absorbed in some occupation on the other +side of the lamp as to have barely found time to realize her visitor's +presence. + +They both remained standing for a few seconds without speaking. The face +that confronted Barnet had a beautiful outline; the Raffaelesque oval of +its contour was remarkable for an English countenance, and that +countenance housed in a remote country-road to an unheard-of harbour. But +her features did not do justice to this splendid beginning: Nature had +recollected that she was not in Italy; and the young lady's lineaments, +though not so inconsistent as to make her plain, would have been accepted +rather as pleasing than as correct. The preoccupied expression which, +like images on the retina, remained with her for a moment after the state +that caused it had ceased, now changed into a reserved, half-proud, and +slightly indignant look, in which the blood diffused itself quickly +across her cheek, and additional brightness broke the shade of her rather +heavy eyes. + +'I know I have no business here,' he said, answering the look. 'But I +had a great wish to see you, and inquire how you were. You can give your +hand to me, seeing how often I have held it in past days?' + +'I would rather forget than remember all that, Mr. Barnet,' she answered, +as she coldly complied with the request. 'When I think of the +circumstances of our last meeting, I can hardly consider it kind of you +to allude to such a thing as our past--or, indeed, to come here at all.' + +'There was no harm in it surely? I don't trouble you often, Lucy.' + +'I have not had the honour of a visit from you for a very long time, +certainly, and I did not expect it now,' she said, with the same +stiffness in her air. 'I hope Mrs. Barnet is very well?' + +'Yes, yes!' he impatiently returned. 'At least I suppose so--though I +only speak from inference!' + +'But she is your wife, sir,' said the young girl tremulously. + +The unwonted tones of a man's voice in that feminine chamber had startled +a canary that was roosting in its cage by the window; the bird awoke +hastily, and fluttered against the bars. She went and stilled it by +laying her face against the cage and murmuring a coaxing sound. It might +partly have been done to still herself. + +'I didn't come to talk of Mrs. Barnet,' he pursued; 'I came to talk of +you, of yourself alone; to inquire how you are getting on since your +great loss.' And he turned towards the portrait of her father. + +'I am getting on fairly well, thank you.' + +The force of her utterance was scarcely borne out by her look; but Barnet +courteously reproached himself for not having guessed a thing so natural; +and to dissipate all embarrassment, added, as he bent over the table, +'What were you doing when I came?--painting flowers, and by candlelight?' + +'O no,' she said, 'not painting them--only sketching the outlines. I do +that at night to save time--I have to get three dozen done by the end of +the month.' + +Barnet looked as if he regretted it deeply. 'You will wear your poor +eyes out,' he said, with more sentiment than he had hitherto shown. 'You +ought not to do it. There was a time when I should have said you must +not. Well--I almost wish I had never seen light with my own eyes when I +think of that!' + +'Is this a time or place for recalling such matters?' she asked, with +dignity. 'You used to have a gentlemanly respect for me, and for +yourself. Don't speak any more as you have spoken, and don't come again. +I cannot think that this visit is serious, or was closely considered by +you.' + +'Considered: well, I came to see you as an old and good friend--not to +mince matters, to visit a woman I loved. Don't be angry! I could not +help doing it, so many things brought you into my mind . . . This evening +I fell in with an acquaintance, and when I saw how happy he was with his +wife and family welcoming him home, though with only one-tenth of my +income and chances, and thought what might have been in my case, it +fairly broke down my discretion, and off I came here. Now I am here I +feel that I am wrong to some extent. But the feeling that I should like +to see you, and talk of those we used to know in common, was very +strong.' + +'Before that can be the case a little more time must pass,' said Miss +Savile quietly; 'a time long enough for me to regard with some calmness +what at present I remember far too impatiently--though it may be you +almost forget it. Indeed you must have forgotten it long before you +acted as you did.' Her voice grew stronger and more vivacious as she +added: 'But I am doing my best to forget it too, and I know I shall +succeed from the progress I have made already!' + +She had remained standing till now, when she turned and sat down, facing +half away from him. + +Barnet watched her moodily. 'Yes, it is only what I deserve,' he said. +'Ambition pricked me on--no, it was not ambition, it was wrongheadedness! +Had I but reflected . . . ' He broke out vehemently: 'But always +remember this, Lucy: if you had written to me only one little line after +that misunderstanding, I declare I should have come back to you. That +ruined me!' he slowly walked as far as the little room would allow him to +go, and remained with his eyes on the skirting. + +'But, Mr. Barnet, how could I write to you? There was no opening for my +doing so.' + +'Then there ought to have been,' said Barnet, turning. 'That was my +fault!' + +'Well, I don't know anything about that; but as there had been nothing +said by me which required any explanation by letter, I did not send one. +Everything was so indefinite, and feeling your position to be so much +wealthier than mine, I fancied I might have mistaken your meaning. And +when I heard of the other lady--a woman of whose family even you might be +proud--I thought how foolish I had been, and said nothing.' + +'Then I suppose it was destiny--accident--I don't know what, that +separated us, dear Lucy. Anyhow you were the woman I ought to have made +my wife--and I let you slip, like the foolish man that I was!' + +'O, Mr. Barnet,' she said, almost in tears, 'don't revive the subject to +me; I am the wrong one to console you--think, sir,--you should not be +here--it would be so bad for me if it were known!' + +'It would--it would, indeed,' he said hastily. 'I am not right in doing +this, and I won't do it again.' + +'It is a very common folly of human nature, you know, to think the course +you did not adopt must have been the best,' she continued, with gentle +solicitude, as she followed him to the door of the room. 'And you don't +know that I should have accepted you, even if you had asked me to be your +wife.' At this his eye met hers, and she dropped her gaze. She knew +that her voice belied her. There was a silence till she looked up to +add, in a voice of soothing playfulness, 'My family was so much poorer +than yours, even before I lost my dear father, that--perhaps your +companions would have made it unpleasant for us on account of my +deficiencies.' + +'Your disposition would soon have won them round,' said Barnet. + +She archly expostulated: 'Now, never mind my disposition; try to make it +up with your wife! Those are my commands to you. And now you are to +leave me at once.' + +'I will. I must make the best of it all, I suppose,' he replied, more +cheerfully than he had as yet spoken. 'But I shall never again meet with +such a dear girl as you!' And he suddenly opened the door, and left her +alone. When his glance again fell on the lamps that were sparsely ranged +along the dreary level road, his eyes were in a state which showed straw- +like motes of light radiating from each flame into the surrounding air. + +On the other side of the way Barnet observed a man under an umbrella, +walking parallel with himself. Presently this man left the footway, and +gradually converged on Barnet's course. The latter then saw that it was +Charlson, a surgeon of the town, who owed him money. Charlson was a man +not without ability; yet he did not prosper. Sundry circumstances stood +in his way as a medical practitioner: he was needy; he was not a coddle; +he gossiped with men instead of with women; he had married a stranger +instead of one of the town young ladies; and he was given to +conversational buffoonery. Moreover, his look was quite erroneous. Those +only proper features in the family doctor, the quiet eye, and the thin +straight passionless lips which never curl in public either for laughter +or for scorn, were not his; he had a full-curved mouth, and a bold black +eye that made timid people nervous. His companions were what in old +times would have been called boon companions--an expression which, though +of irreproachable root, suggests fraternization carried to the point of +unscrupulousness. All this was against him in the little town of his +adoption. + +Charlson had been in difficulties, and to oblige him Barnet had put his +name to a bill; and, as he had expected, was called upon to meet it when +it fell due. It had been only a matter of fifty pounds, which Barnet +could well afford to lose, and he bore no ill-will to the thriftless +surgeon on account of it. But Charlson had a little too much brazen +indifferentism in his composition to be altogether a desirable +acquaintance. + +'I hope to be able to make that little bill-business right with you in +the course of three weeks, Mr. Barnet,' said Charlson with hail-fellow +friendliness. + +Barnet replied good-naturedly that there was no hurry. + +This particular three weeks had moved on in advance of Charlson's present +with the precision of a shadow for some considerable time. + +'I've had a dream,' Charlson continued. Barnet knew from his tone that +the surgeon was going to begin his characteristic nonsense, and did not +encourage him. 'I've had a dream,' repeated Charlson, who required no +encouragement. 'I dreamed that a gentleman, who has been very kind to +me, married a haughty lady in haste, before he had quite forgotten a nice +little girl he knew before, and that one wet evening, like the present, +as I was walking up the harbour-road, I saw him come out of that dear +little girl's present abode.' + +Barnet glanced towards the speaker. The rays from a neighbouring lamp +struck through the drizzle under Charlson's umbrella, so as just to +illumine his face against the shade behind, and show that his eye was +turned up under the outer corner of its lid, whence it leered with impish +jocoseness as he thrust his tongue into his cheek. + +'Come,' said Barnet gravely, 'we'll have no more of that.' + +'No, no--of course not,' Charlson hastily answered, seeing that his +humour had carried him too far, as it had done many times before. He was +profuse in his apologies, but Barnet did not reply. Of one thing he was +certain--that scandal was a plant of quick root, and that he was bound to +obey Lucy's injunction for Lucy's own sake. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +He did so, to the letter; and though, as the crocus followed the snowdrop +and the daffodil the crocus in Lucy's garden, the harbour-road was a not +unpleasant place to walk in, Barnet's feet never trod its stones, much +less approached her door. He avoided a saunter that way as he would have +avoided a dangerous dram, and took his airings a long distance northward, +among severely square and brown ploughed fields, where no other townsman +came. Sometimes he went round by the lower lanes of the borough, where +the rope-walks stretched in which his family formerly had share, and +looked at the rope-makers walking backwards, overhung by apple-trees and +bushes, and intruded on by cows and calves, as if trade had established +itself there at considerable inconvenience to Nature. + +One morning, when the sun was so warm as to raise a steam from the south- +eastern slopes of those flanking hills that looked so lovely above the +old roofs, but made every low-chimneyed house in the town as smoky as +Tophet, Barnet glanced from the windows of the town-council room for lack +of interest in what was proceeding within. Several members of the +corporation were present, but there was not much business doing, and in a +few minutes Downe came leisurely across to him, saying that he seldom saw +Barnet now. + +Barnet owned that he was not often present. + +Downe looked at the crimson curtain which hung down beside the panes, +reflecting its hot hues into their faces, and then out of the window. At +that moment there passed along the street a tall commanding lady, in whom +the solicitor recognized Barnet's wife. Barnet had done the same thing, +and turned away. + +'It will be all right some day,' said Downe, with cheering sympathy. + +'You have heard, then, of her last outbreak?' + +Downe depressed his cheerfulness to its very reverse in a moment. 'No, I +have not heard of anything serious,' he said, with as long a face as one +naturally round could be turned into at short notice. 'I only hear vague +reports of such things.' + +'You may think it will be all right,' said Barnet drily. 'But I have a +different opinion . . . No, Downe, we must look the thing in the face. +Not poppy nor mandragora--however, how are your wife and children?' + +Downe said that they were all well, thanks; they were out that morning +somewhere; he was just looking to see if they were walking that way. Ah, +there they were, just coming down the street; and Downe pointed to the +figures of two children with a nursemaid, and a lady walking behind them. + +'You will come out and speak to her?' he asked. + +'Not this morning. The fact is I don't care to speak to anybody just +now.' + +'You are too sensitive, Mr. Barnet. At school I remember you used to get +as red as a rose if anybody uttered a word that hurt your feelings.' + +Barnet mused. 'Yes,' he admitted, 'there is a grain of truth in that. It +is because of that I often try to make peace at home. Life would be +tolerable then at any rate, even if not particularly bright.' + +'I have thought more than once of proposing a little plan to you,' said +Downe with some hesitation. 'I don't know whether it will meet your +views, but take it or leave it, as you choose. In fact, it was my wife +who suggested it: that she would be very glad to call on Mrs. Barnet and +get into her confidence. She seems to think that Mrs. Barnet is rather +alone in the town, and without advisers. Her impression is that your +wife will listen to reason. Emily has a wonderful way of winning the +hearts of people of her own sex.' + +'And of the other sex too, I think. She is a charming woman, and you +were a lucky fellow to find her.' + +'Well, perhaps I was,' simpered Downe, trying to wear an aspect of being +the last man in the world to feel pride. 'However, she will be likely to +find out what ruffles Mrs. Barnet. Perhaps it is some misunderstanding, +you know--something that she is too proud to ask you to explain, or some +little thing in your conduct that irritates her because she does not +fully comprehend you. The truth is, Emily would have been more ready to +make advances if she had been quite sure of her fitness for Mrs. Barnet's +society, who has of course been accustomed to London people of good +position, which made Emily fearful of intruding.' + +Barnet expressed his warmest thanks for the well-intentioned proposition. +There was reason in Mrs. Downe's fear--that he owned. 'But do let her +call,' he said. 'There is no woman in England I would so soon trust on +such an errand. I am afraid there will not be any brilliant result; +still I shall take it as the kindest and nicest thing if she will try it, +and not be frightened at a repulse.' + +When Barnet and Downe had parted, the former went to the Town Savings- +Bank, of which he was a trustee, and endeavoured to forget his troubles +in the contemplation of low sums of money, and figures in a network of +red and blue lines. He sat and watched the working-people making their +deposits, to which at intervals he signed his name. Before he left in +the afternoon Downe put his head inside the door. + +'Emily has seen Mrs. Barnet,' he said, in a low voice. 'She has got Mrs. +Barnet's promise to take her for a drive down to the shore to-morrow, if +it is fine. Good afternoon!' + +Barnet shook Downe by the hand without speaking, and Downe went away. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The next day was as fine as the arrangement could possibly require. As +the sun passed the meridian and declined westward, the tall shadows from +the scaffold-poles of Barnet's rising residence streaked the ground as +far as to the middle of the highway. Barnet himself was there inspecting +the progress of the works for the first time during several weeks. A +building in an old-fashioned town five-and-thirty years ago did not, as +in the modern fashion, rise from the sod like a booth at a fair. The +foundations and lower courses were put in and allowed to settle for many +weeks before the superstructure was built up, and a whole summer of +drying was hardly sufficient to do justice to the important issues +involved. Barnet stood within a window-niche which had as yet received +no frame, and thence looked down a slope into the road. The wheels of a +chaise were heard, and then his handsome Xantippe, in the company of Mrs. +Downe, drove past on their way to the shore. They were driving slowly; +there was a pleasing light in Mrs. Downe's face, which seemed faintly to +reflect itself upon the countenance of her companion--that politesse du +coeur which was so natural to her having possibly begun already to work +results. But whatever the situation, Barnet resolved not to interfere, +or do anything to hazard the promise of the day. He might well afford to +trust the issue to another when he could never direct it but to ill +himself. His wife's clenched rein-hand in its lemon-coloured glove, her +stiff erect figure, clad in velvet and lace, and her boldly-outlined +face, passed on, exhibiting their owner as one fixed for ever above the +level of her companion--socially by her early breeding, and materially by +her higher cushion. + +Barnet decided to allow them a proper time to themselves, and then stroll +down to the shore and drive them home. After lingering on at the house +for another hour he started with this intention. A few hundred yards +below 'Chateau Ringdale' stood the cottage in which the late lieutenant's +daughter had her lodging. Barnet had not been so far that way for a long +time, and as he approached the forbidden ground a curious warmth passed +into him, which led him to perceive that, unless he were careful, he +might have to fight the battle with himself about Lucy over again. A +tenth of his present excuse would, however, have justified him in +travelling by that road to-day. + +He came opposite the dwelling, and turned his eyes for a momentary glance +into the little garden that stretched from the palings to the door. Lucy +was in the enclosure; she was walking and stooping to gather some +flowers, possibly for the purpose of painting them, for she moved about +quickly, as if anxious to save time. She did not see him; he might have +passed unnoticed; but a sensation which was not in strict unison with his +previous sentiments that day led him to pause in his walk and watch her. +She went nimbly round and round the beds of anemones, tulips, jonquils, +polyanthuses, and other old-fashioned flowers, looking a very charming +figure in her half-mourning bonnet, and with an incomplete nosegay in her +left hand. Raising herself to pull down a lilac blossom she observed +him. + +'Mr. Barnet!' she said, innocently smiling. 'Why, I have been thinking +of you many times since Mrs. Barnet went by in the pony-carriage, and now +here you are!' + +'Yes, Lucy,' he said. + +Then she seemed to recall particulars of their last meeting, and he +believed that she flushed, though it might have been only the fancy of +his own supersensitivenesss. + +'I am going to the harbour,' he added. + +'Are you?' Lucy remarked simply. 'A great many people begin to go there +now the summer is drawing on.' + +Her face had come more into his view as she spoke, and he noticed how +much thinner and paler it was than when he had seen it last. 'Lucy, how +weary you look! tell me, can I help you?' he was going to cry out.--'If I +do,' he thought, 'it will be the ruin of us both!' He merely said that +the afternoon was fine, and went on his way. + +As he went a sudden blast of air came over the hill as if in +contradiction to his words, and spoilt the previous quiet of the scene. +The wind had already shifted violently, and now smelt of the sea. + +The harbour-road soon began to justify its name. A gap appeared in the +rampart of hills which shut out the sea, and on the left of the opening +rose a vertical cliff, coloured a burning orange by the sunlight, the +companion cliff on the right being livid in shade. Between these cliffs, +like the Libyan bay which sheltered the shipwrecked Trojans, was a little +haven, seemingly a beginning made by Nature herself of a perfect harbour, +which appealed to the passer-by as only requiring a little human industry +to finish it and make it famous, the ground on each side as far back as +the daisied slopes that bounded the interior valley being a mere layer of +blown sand. But the Port-Bredy burgesses a mile inland had, in the +course of ten centuries, responded many times to that mute appeal, with +the result that the tides had invariably choked up their works with sand +and shingle as soon as completed. There were but few houses here: a +rough pier, a few boats, some stores, an inn, a residence or two, a ketch +unloading in the harbour, were the chief features of the settlement. On +the open ground by the shore stood his wife's pony-carriage, empty, the +boy in attendance holding the horse. + +When Barnet drew nearer, he saw an indigo-coloured spot moving swiftly +along beneath the radiant base of the eastern cliff, which proved to be a +man in a jersey, running with all his might. He held up his hand to +Barnet, as it seemed, and they approached each other. The man was local, +but a stranger to him. + +'What is it, my man?' said Barnet. + +'A terrible calamity!' the boatman hastily explained. Two ladies had +been capsized in a boat--they were Mrs. Downe and Mrs. Barnet of the old +town; they had driven down there that afternoon--they had alighted, and +it was so fine, that, after walking about a little while, they had been +tempted to go out for a short sail round the cliff. Just as they were +putting in to the shore, the wind shifted with a sudden gust, the boat +listed over, and it was thought they were both drowned. How it could +have happened was beyond his mind to fathom, for John Green knew how to +sail a boat as well as any man there. + +'Which is the way to the place?' said Barnet. + +It was just round the cliff. + +'Run to the carriage and tell the boy to bring it to the place as soon as +you can. Then go to the Harbour Inn and tell them to ride to town for a +doctor. Have they been got out of the water?' + +'One lady has.' + +'Which?' + +'Mrs. Barnet. Mrs. Downe, it is feared, has fleeted out to sea.' + +Barnet ran on to that part of the shore which the cliff had hitherto +obscured from his view, and there discerned, a long way ahead, a group of +fishermen standing. As soon as he came up one or two recognized him, +and, not liking to meet his eye, turned aside with misgiving. He went +amidst them and saw a small sailing-boat lying draggled at the water's +edge; and, on the sloping shingle beside it, a soaked and sandy woman's +form in the velvet dress and yellow gloves of his wife. + + + +CHAPTER V + + +All had been done that could be done. Mrs. Barnet was in her own house +under medical hands, but the result was still uncertain. Barnet had +acted as if devotion to his wife were the dominant passion of his +existence. There had been much to decide--whether to attempt restoration +of the apparently lifeless body as it lay on the shore--whether to carry +her to the Harbour Inn--whether to drive with her at once to his own +house. The first course, with no skilled help or appliances near at +hand, had seemed hopeless. The second course would have occupied nearly +as much time as a drive to the town, owing to the intervening ridges of +shingle, and the necessity of crossing the harbour by boat to get to the +house, added to which much time must have elapsed before a doctor could +have arrived down there. By bringing her home in the carriage some +precious moments had slipped by; but she had been laid in her own bed in +seven minutes, a doctor called to her side, and every possible +restorative brought to bear upon her. + +At what a tearing pace he had driven up that road, through the yellow +evening sunlight, the shadows flapping irksomely into his eyes as each +wayside object rushed past between him and the west! Tired workmen with +their baskets at their backs had turned on their homeward journey to +wonder at his speed. Halfway between the shore and Port-Bredy town he +had met Charlson, who had been the first surgeon to hear of the accident. +He was accompanied by his assistant in a gig. Barnet had sent on the +latter to the coast in case that Downe's poor wife should by that time +have been reclaimed from the waves, and had brought Charlson back with +him to the house. + +Barnet's presence was not needed here, and he felt it to be his next duty +to set off at once and find Downe, that no other than himself might break +the news to him. + +He was quite sure that no chance had been lost for Mrs. Downe by his +leaving the shore. By the time that Mrs. Barnet had been laid in the +carriage, a much larger group had assembled to lend assistance in finding +her friend, rendering his own help superfluous. But the duty of breaking +the news was made doubly painful by the circumstance that the catastrophe +which had befallen Mrs. Downe was solely the result of her own and her +husband's loving-kindness towards himself. + +He found Downe in his office. When the solicitor comprehended the +intelligence he turned pale, stood up, and remained for a moment +perfectly still, as if bereft of his faculties; then his shoulders +heaved, he pulled out his handkerchief and began to cry like a child. His +sobs might have been heard in the next room. He seemed to have no idea +of going to the shore, or of doing anything; but when Barnet took him +gently by the hand and proposed to start at once, he quietly acquiesced, +neither uttering any further word nor making any effort to repress his +tears. + +Barnet accompanied him to the shore, where, finding that no trace had as +yet been seen of Mrs. Downe, and that his stay would be of no avail, he +left Downe with his friends and the young doctor, and once more hastened +back to his own house. + +At the door he met Charlson. 'Well!' Barnet said. + +'I have just come down,' said the doctor; 'we have done everything, but +without result. I sympathize with you in your bereavement.' + +Barnet did not much appreciate Charlson's sympathy, which sounded to his +ears as something of a mockery from the lips of a man who knew what +Charlson knew about their domestic relations. Indeed there seemed an odd +spark in Charlson's full black eye as he said the words; but that might +have been imaginary. + +'And, Mr. Barnet,' Charlson resumed, 'that little matter between us--I +hope to settle it finally in three weeks at least.' + +'Never mind that now,' said Barnet abruptly. He directed the surgeon to +go to the harbour in case his services might even now be necessary there: +and himself entered the house. + +The servants were coming from his wife's chamber, looking helplessly at +each other and at him. He passed them by and entered the room, where he +stood mutely regarding the bed for a few minutes, after which he walked +into his own dressing-room adjoining, and there paced up and down. In a +minute or two he noticed what a strange and total silence had come over +the upper part of the house; his own movements, muffled as they were by +the carpet, seemed noisy, and his thoughts to disturb the air like +articulate utterances. His eye glanced through the window. Far down the +road to the harbour a roof detained his gaze: out of it rose a red +chimney, and out of the red chimney a curl of smoke, as from a fire newly +kindled. He had often seen such a sight before. In that house lived +Lucy Savile; and the smoke was from the fire which was regularly lighted +at this time to make her tea. + +After that he went back to the bedroom, and stood there some time +regarding his wife's silent form. She was a woman some years older than +himself, but had not by any means overpassed the maturity of good looks +and vigour. Her passionate features, well-defined, firm, and statuesque +in life, were doubly so now: her mouth and brow, beneath her purplish +black hair, showed only too clearly that the turbulency of character +which had made a bear-garden of his house had been no temporary phase of +her existence. While he reflected, he suddenly said to himself, I wonder +if all has been done? + +The thought was led up to by his having fancied that his wife's features +lacked in its complete form the expression which he had been accustomed +to associate with the faces of those whose spirits have fled for ever. +The effacement of life was not so marked but that, entering uninformed, +he might have supposed her sleeping. Her complexion was that seen in the +numerous faded portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds; it was pallid in +comparison with life, but there was visible on a close inspection the +remnant of what had once been a flush; the keeping between the cheeks and +the hollows of the face being thus preserved, although positive colour +was gone. Long orange rays of evening sun stole in through chinks in the +blind, striking on the large mirror, and being thence reflected upon the +crimson hangings and woodwork of the heavy bedstead, so that the general +tone of light was remarkably warm; and it was probable that something +might be due to this circumstance. Still the fact impressed him as +strange. Charlson had been gone more than a quarter of an hour: could it +be possible that he had left too soon, and that his attempts to restore +her had operated so sluggishly as only now to have made themselves felt? +Barnet laid his hand upon her chest, and fancied that ever and anon a +faint flutter of palpitation, gentle as that of a butterfly's wing, +disturbed the stillness there--ceasing for a time, then struggling to go +on, then breaking down in weakness and ceasing again. + +Barnet's mother had been an active practitioner of the healing art among +her poorer neighbours, and her inspirations had all been derived from an +octavo volume of Domestic Medicine, which at this moment was lying, as it +had lain for many years, on a shelf in Barnet's dressing-room. He +hastily fetched it, and there read under the head 'Drowning:'- + + 'Exertions for the recovery of any person who has not been immersed + for a longer period than half-an-hour should be continued for at least + four hours, as there have been many cases in which returning life has + made itself visible even after a longer interval. + + 'Should, however, a weak action of any of the organs show itself when + the case seems almost hopeless, our efforts must be redoubled; the + feeble spark in this case requires to be solicited; it will certainly + disappear under a relaxation of labour.' + +Barnet looked at his watch; it was now barely two hours and a half from +the time when he had first heard of the accident. He threw aside the +book and turned quickly to reach a stimulant which had previously been +used. Pulling up the blind for more light, his eye glanced out of the +window. There he saw that red chimney still smoking cheerily, and that +roof, and through the roof that somebody. His mechanical movements +stopped, his hand remained on the blind-cord, and he seemed to become +breathless, as if he had suddenly found himself treading a high rope. + +While he stood a sparrow lighted on the windowsill, saw him, and flew +away. Next a man and a dog walked over one of the green hills which +bulged above the roofs of the town. But Barnet took no notice. + +We may wonder what were the exact images that passed through his mind +during those minutes of gazing upon Lucy Savile's house, the sparrow, the +man and the dog, and Lucy Savile's house again. There are honest men who +will not admit to their thoughts, even as idle hypotheses, views of the +future that assume as done a deed which they would recoil from doing; and +there are other honest men for whom morality ends at the surface of their +own heads, who will deliberate what the first will not so much as +suppose. Barnet had a wife whose pretence distracted his home; she now +lay as in death; by merely doing nothing--by letting the intelligence +which had gone forth to the world lie undisturbed--he would effect such a +deliverance for himself as he had never hoped for, and open up an +opportunity of which till now he had never dreamed. Whether the +conjuncture had arisen through any unscrupulous, ill-considered impulse +of Charlson to help out of a strait the friend who was so kind as never +to press him for what was due could not be told; there was nothing to +prove it; and it was a question which could never be asked. The +triangular situation--himself--his wife--Lucy Savile--was the one clear +thing. + +From Barnet's actions we may infer that he supposed such and such a +result, for a moment, but did not deliberate. He withdrew his hazel eyes +from the scene without, calmly turned, rang the bell for assistance, and +vigorously exerted himself to learn if life still lingered in that +motionless frame. In a short time another surgeon was in attendance; and +then Barnet's surmise proved to be true. The slow life timidly heaved +again; but much care and patience were needed to catch and retain it, and +a considerable period elapsed before it could be said with certainty that +Mrs. Barnet lived. When this was the case, and there was no further room +for doubt, Barnet left the chamber. The blue evening smoke from Lucy's +chimney had died down to an imperceptible stream, and as he walked about +downstairs he murmured to himself, 'My wife was dead, and she is alive +again.' + +It was not so with Downe. After three hours' immersion his wife's body +had been recovered, life, of course, being quite extinct. Barnet on +descending, went straight to his friend's house, and there learned the +result. Downe was helpless in his wild grief, occasionally even +hysterical. Barnet said little, but finding that some guiding hand was +necessary in the sorrow-stricken household, took upon him to supervise +and manage till Downe should be in a state of mind to do so for himself. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +One September evening, four months later, when Mrs. Barnet was in perfect +health, and Mrs. Downe but a weakening memory, an errand-boy paused to +rest himself in front of Mr. Barnet's old house, depositing his basket on +one of the window-sills. The street was not yet lighted, but there were +lights in the house, and at intervals a flitting shadow fell upon the +blind at his elbow. Words also were audible from the same apartment, and +they seemed to be those of persons in violent altercation. But the boy +could not gather their purport, and he went on his way. + +Ten minutes afterwards the door of Barnet's house opened, and a tall +closely-veiled lady in a travelling-dress came out and descended the +freestone steps. The servant stood in the doorway watching her as she +went with a measured tread down the street. When she had been out of +sight for some minutes Barnet appeared at the door from within. + +'Did your mistress leave word where she was going?' he asked. + +'No, sir.' + +'Is the carriage ordered to meet her anywhere?' + +'No, sir.' + +'Did she take a latch-key?' + +'No, sir.' + +Barnet went in again, sat down in his chair, and leaned back. Then in +solitude and silence he brooded over the bitter emotions that filled his +heart. It was for this that he had gratuitously restored her to life, +and made his union with another impossible! The evening drew on, and +nobody came to disturb him. At bedtime he told the servants to retire, +that he would sit up for Mrs. Barnet himself; and when they were gone he +leaned his head upon his hand and mused for hours. + +The clock struck one, two; still his wife came not, and, with impatience +added to depression, he went from room to room till another weary hour +had passed. This was not altogether a new experience for Barnet; but she +had never before so prolonged her absence. At last he sat down again and +fell asleep. + +He awoke at six o'clock to find that she had not returned. In searching +about the rooms he discovered that she had taken a case of jewels which +had been hers before her marriage. At eight a note was brought him; it +was from his wife, in which she stated that she had gone by the coach to +the house of a distant relative near London, and expressed a wish that +certain boxes, articles of clothing, and so on, might be sent to her +forthwith. The note was brought to him by a waiter at the Black-Bull +Hotel, and had been written by Mrs. Barnet immediately before she took +her place in the stage. + +By the evening this order was carried out, and Barnet, with a sense of +relief, walked out into the town. A fair had been held during the day, +and the large clear moon which rose over the most prominent hill flung +its light upon the booths and standings that still remained in the +street, mixing its rays curiously with those from the flaring naphtha +lamps. The town was full of country-people who had come in to enjoy +themselves, and on this account Barnet strolled through the streets +unobserved. With a certain recklessness he made for the harbour-road, +and presently found himself by the shore, where he walked on till he came +to the spot near which his friend the kindly Mrs. Downe had lost her +life, and his own wife's life had been preserved. A tremulous pathway of +bright moonshine now stretched over the water which had engulfed them, +and not a living soul was near. + +Here he ruminated on their characters, and next on the young girl in whom +he now took a more sensitive interest than at the time when he had been +free to marry her. Nothing, so far as he was aware, had ever appeared in +his own conduct to show that such an interest existed. He had made it a +point of the utmost strictness to hinder that feeling from influencing in +the faintest degree his attitude towards his wife; and this was made all +the more easy for him by the small demand Mrs. Barnet made upon his +attentions, for which she ever evinced the greatest contempt; thus +unwittingly giving him the satisfaction of knowing that their severance +owed nothing to jealousy, or, indeed, to any personal behaviour of his at +all. Her concern was not with him or his feelings, as she frequently +told him; but that she had, in a moment of weakness, thrown herself away +upon a common burgher when she might have aimed at, and possibly brought +down, a peer of the realm. Her frequent depreciation of Barnet in these +terms had at times been so intense that he was sorely tempted to +retaliate on her egotism by owning that he loved at the same low level on +which he lived; but prudence had prevailed, for which he was now +thankful. + +Something seemed to sound upon the shingle behind him over and above the +raking of the wave. He looked round, and a slight girlish shape appeared +quite close to him, He could not see her face because it was in the +direction of the moon. + +'Mr. Barnet?' the rambler said, in timid surprise. The voice was the +voice of Lucy Savile. + +'Yes,' said Barnet. 'How can I repay you for this pleasure?' + +'I only came because the night was so clear. I am now on my way home.' + +'I am glad we have met. I want to know if you will let me do something +for you, to give me an occupation, as an idle man? I am sure I ought to +help you, for I know you are almost without friends.' + +She hesitated. 'Why should you tell me that?' she said. + +'In the hope that you will be frank with me.' + +'I am not altogether without friends here. But I am going to make a +little change in my life--to go out as a teacher of freehand drawing and +practical perspective, of course I mean on a comparatively humble scale, +because I have not been specially educated for that profession. But I am +sure I shall like it much.' + +'You have an opening?' + +'I have not exactly got it, but I have advertised for one.' + +'Lucy, you must let me help you!' + +'Not at all.' + +'You need not think it would compromise you, or that I am indifferent to +delicacy. I bear in mind how we stand. It is very unlikely that you +will succeed as teacher of the class you mention, so let me do something +of a different kind for you. Say what you would like, and it shall be +done.' + +'No; if I can't be a drawing-mistress or governess, or something of that +sort, I shall go to India and join my brother.' + +'I wish I could go abroad, anywhere, everywhere with you, Lucy, and leave +this place and its associations for ever!' + +She played with the end of her bonnet-string, and hastily turned aside. +'Don't ever touch upon that kind of topic again,' she said, with a quick +severity not free from anger. 'It simply makes it impossible for me to +see you, much less receive any guidance from you. No, thank you, Mr. +Barnet; you can do nothing for me at present; and as I suppose my +uncertainty will end in my leaving for India, I fear you never will. If +ever I think you can do anything, I will take the trouble to ask you. +Till then, good-bye.' + +The tone of her latter words was equivocal, and while he remained in +doubt whether a gentle irony was or was not inwrought with their sound, +she swept lightly round and left him alone. He saw her form get smaller +and smaller along the damp belt of sea-sand between ebb and flood; and +when she had vanished round the cliff into the harbour-road, he himself +followed in the same direction. + +That her hopes from an advertisement should be the single thread which +held Lucy Savile in England was too much for Barnet. On reaching the +town he went straight to the residence of Downe, now a widower with four +children. The young motherless brood had been sent to bed about a +quarter of an hour earlier, and when Barnet entered he found Downe +sitting alone. It was the same room as that from which the family had +been looking out for Downe at the beginning of the year, when Downe had +slipped into the gutter and his wife had been so enviably tender towards +him. The old neatness had gone from the house; articles lay in places +which could show no reason for their presence, as if momentarily +deposited there some months ago, and forgotten ever since; there were no +flowers; things were jumbled together on the furniture which should have +been in cupboards; and the place in general had that stagnant, +unrenovated air which usually pervades the maimed home of the widower. + +Downe soon renewed his customary full-worded lament over his wife, and +even when he had worked himself up to tears, went on volubly, as if a +listener were a luxury to be enjoyed whenever he could be caught. + +'She was a treasure beyond compare, Mr. Barnet! I shall never see such +another. Nobody now to nurse me--nobody to console me in those daily +troubles, you know, Barnet, which make consolation so necessary to a +nature like mine. It would be unbecoming to repine, for her spirit's +home was elsewhere--the tender light in her eyes always showed it; but it +is a long dreary time that I have before me, and nobody else can ever +fill the void left in my heart by her loss--nobody--nobody!' And Downe +wiped his eyes again. + +'She was a good woman in the highest sense,' gravely answered Barnet, +who, though Downe's words drew genuine compassion from his heart, could +not help feeling that a tender reticence would have been a finer tribute +to Mrs. Downe's really sterling virtues than such a second-class lament +as this. + +'I have something to show you,' Downe resumed, producing from a drawer a +sheet of paper on which was an elaborate design for a canopied tomb. +'This has been sent me by the architect, but it is not exactly what I +want.' + +'You have got Jones to do it, I see, the man who is carrying out my +house,' said Barnet, as he glanced at the signature to the drawing. + +'Yes, but it is not quite what I want. I want something more +striking--more like a tomb I have seen in St. Paul's Cathedral. Nothing +less will do justice to my feelings, and how far short of them that will +fall!' + +Barnet privately thought the design a sufficiently imposing one as it +stood, even extravagantly ornate; but, feeling that he had no right to +criticize, he said gently, 'Downe, should you not live more in your +children's lives at the present time, and soften the sharpness of regret +for your own past by thinking of their future?' + +'Yes, yes; but what can I do more?' asked Downe, wrinkling his forehead +hopelessly. + +It was with anxious slowness that Barnet produced his reply--the secret +object of his visit to-night. 'Did you not say one day that you ought by +rights to get a governess for the children?' + +Downe admitted that he had said so, but that he could not see his way to +it. 'The kind of woman I should like to have,' he said, 'would be rather +beyond my means. No; I think I shall send them to school in the town +when they are old enough to go out alone.' + +'Now, I know of something better than that. The late Lieutenant Savile's +daughter, Lucy, wants to do something for herself in the way of teaching. +She would be inexpensive, and would answer your purpose as well as +anybody for six or twelve months. She would probably come daily if you +were to ask her, and so your housekeeping arrangements would not be much +affected.' + +'I thought she had gone away,' said the solicitor, musing. 'Where does +she live?' + +Barnet told him, and added that, if Downe should think of her as +suitable, he would do well to call as soon as possible, or she might be +on the wing. 'If you do see her,' he said, 'it would be advisable not to +mention my name. She is rather stiff in her ideas of me, and it might +prejudice her against a course if she knew that I recommended it.' + +Downe promised to give the subject his consideration, and nothing more +was said about it just then. But when Barnet rose to go, which was not +till nearly bedtime, he reminded Downe of the suggestion and went up the +street to his own solitary home with a sense of satisfaction at his +promising diplomacy in a charitable cause. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +The walls of his new house were carried up nearly to their full height. +By a curious though not infrequent reaction, Barnet's feelings about that +unnecessary structure had undergone a change; he took considerable +interest in its progress as a long-neglected thing, his wife before her +departure having grown quite weary of it as a hobby. Moreover, it was an +excellent distraction for a man in the unhappy position of having to live +in a provincial town with nothing to do. He was probably the first of +his line who had ever passed a day without toil, and perhaps something +like an inherited instinct disqualifies such men for a life of pleasant +inaction, such as lies in the power of those whose leisure is not a +personal accident, but a vast historical accretion which has become part +of their natures. + +Thus Barnet got into a way of spending many of his leisure hours on the +site of the new building, and he might have been seen on most days at +this time trying the temper of the mortar by punching the joints with his +stick, looking at the grain of a floor-board, and meditating where it +grew, or picturing under what circumstances the last fire would be +kindled in the at present sootless chimneys. One day when thus occupied +he saw three children pass by in the company of a fair young woman, whose +sudden appearance caused him to flush perceptibly. + +'Ah, she is there,' he thought. 'That's a blessed thing.' + +Casting an interested glance over the rising building and the busy +workmen, Lucy Savile and the little Downes passed by; and after that time +it became a regular though almost unconscious custom of Barnet to stand +in the half-completed house and look from the ungarnished windows at the +governess as she tripped towards the sea-shore with her young charges, +which she was in the habit of doing on most fine afternoons. It was on +one of these occasions, when he had been loitering on the first-floor +landing, near the hole left for the staircase, not yet erected, that +there appeared above the edge of the floor a little hat, followed by a +little head. + +Barnet withdrew through a doorway, and the child came to the top of the +ladder, stepping on to the floor and crying to her sisters and Miss +Savile to follow. Another head rose above the floor, and another, and +then Lucy herself came into view. The troop ran hither and thither +through the empty, shaving-strewn rooms, and Barnet came forward. + +Lucy uttered a small exclamation: she was very sorry that she had +intruded; she had not the least idea that Mr. Barnet was there: the +children had come up, and she had followed. + +Barnet replied that he was only too glad to see them there. 'And now, +let me show you the rooms,' he said. + +She passively assented, and he took her round. There was not much to +show in such a bare skeleton of a house, but he made the most of it, and +explained the different ornamental fittings that were soon to be fixed +here and there. Lucy made but few remarks in reply, though she seemed +pleased with her visit, and stole away down the ladder, followed by her +companions. + +After this the new residence became yet more of a hobby for Barnet. +Downe's children did not forget their first visit, and when the windows +were glazed, and the handsome staircase spread its broad low steps into +the hall, they came again, prancing in unwearied succession through every +room from ground-floor to attics, while Lucy stood waiting for them at +the door. Barnet, who rarely missed a day in coming to inspect progress, +stepped out from the drawing-room. + +'I could not keep them out,' she said, with an apologetic blush. 'I +tried to do so very much: but they are rather wilful, and we are directed +to walk this way for the sea air.' + +'Do let them make the house their regular playground, and you yours,' +said Barnet. 'There is no better place for children to romp and take +their exercise in than an empty house, particularly in muddy or damp +weather such as we shall get a good deal of now; and this place will not +be furnished for a long long time--perhaps never. I am not at all +decided about it.' + +'O, but it must!' replied Lucy, looking round at the hall. 'The rooms +are excellent, twice as high as ours; and the views from the windows are +so lovely.' + +'I daresay, I daresay,' he said absently. + +'Will all the furniture be new?' she asked. + +'All the furniture be new--that's a thing I have not thought of. In fact +I only come here and look on. My father's house would have been large +enough for me, but another person had a voice in the matter, and it was +settled that we should build. However, the place grows upon me; its +recent associations are cheerful, and I am getting to like it fast.' + +A certain uneasiness in Lucy's manner showed that the conversation was +taking too personal a turn for her. 'Still, as modern tastes develop, +people require more room to gratify them in,' she said, withdrawing to +call the children; and serenely bidding him good afternoon she went on +her way. + +Barnet's life at this period was singularly lonely, and yet he was +happier than he could have expected. His wife's estrangement and +absence, which promised to be permanent, left him free as a boy in his +movements, and the solitary walks that he took gave him ample opportunity +for chastened reflection on what might have been his lot if he had only +shown wisdom enough to claim Lucy Savile when there was no bar between +their lives, and she was to be had for the asking. He would occasionally +call at the house of his friend Downe; but there was scarcely enough in +common between their two natures to make them more than friends of that +excellent sort whose personal knowledge of each other's history and +character is always in excess of intimacy, whereby they are not so likely +to be severed by a clash of sentiment as in cases where intimacy springs +up in excess of knowledge. Lucy was never visible at these times, being +either engaged in the school-room, or in taking an airing out of doors; +but, knowing that she was now comfortable, and had given up the, to him, +depressing idea of going off to the other side of the globe, he was quite +content. + +The new house had so far progressed that the gardeners were beginning to +grass down the front. During an afternoon which he was passing in +marking the curve for the carriage-drive, he beheld her coming in boldly +towards him from the road. Hitherto Barnet had only caught her on the +premises by stealth; and this advance seemed to show that at last her +reserve had broken down. + +A smile gained strength upon her face as she approached, and it was quite +radiant when she came up, and said, without a trace of embarrassment, 'I +find I owe you a hundred thanks--and it comes to me quite as a surprise! +It was through your kindness that I was engaged by Mr. Downe. Believe +me, Mr. Barnet, I did not know it until yesterday, or I should have +thanked you long and long ago!' + +'I had offended you--just a trifle--at the time, I think?' said Barnet, +smiling, 'and it was best that you should not know.' + +'Yes, yes,' she returned hastily. 'Don't allude to that; it is past and +over, and we will let it be. The house is finished almost, is it not? +How beautiful it will look when the evergreens are grown! Do you call +the style Palladian, Mr. Barnet?' + +'I--really don't quite know what it is. Yes, it must be Palladian, +certainly. But I'll ask Jones, the architect; for, to tell the truth, I +had not thought much about the style: I had nothing to do with choosing +it, I am sorry to say.' + +She would not let him harp on this gloomy refrain, and talked on bright +matters till she said, producing a small roll of paper which he had +noticed in her hand all the while, 'Mr. Downe wished me to bring you this +revised drawing of the late Mrs. Downe's tomb, which the architect has +just sent him. He would like you to look it over.' + +The children came up with their hoops, and she went off with them down +the harbour-road as usual. Barnet had been glad to get those words of +thanks; he had been thinking for many months that he would like her to +know of his share in finding her a home such as it was; and what he could +not do for himself, Downe had now kindly done for him. He returned to +his desolate house with a lighter tread; though in reason he hardly knew +why his tread should be light. + +On examining the drawing, Barnet found that, instead of the vast altar- +tomb and canopy Downe had determined on at their last meeting, it was to +be a more modest memorial even than had been suggested by the architect; +a coped tomb of good solid construction, with no useless elaboration at +all. Barnet was truly glad to see that Downe had come to reason of his +own accord; and he returned the drawing with a note of approval. + +He followed up the house-work as before, and as he walked up and down the +rooms, occasionally gazing from the windows over the bulging green hills +and the quiet harbour that lay between them, he murmured words and +fragments of words, which, if listened to, would have revealed all the +secrets of his existence. Whatever his reason in going there, Lucy did +not call again: the walk to the shore seemed to be abandoned: he must +have thought it as well for both that it should be so, for he did not go +anywhere out of his accustomed ways to endeavour to discover her. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The winter and the spring had passed, and the house was complete. It was +a fine morning in the early part of June, and Barnet, though not in the +habit of rising early, had taken a long walk before breakfast; returning +by way of the new building. A sufficiently exciting cause of his +restlessness to-day might have been the intelligence which had reached +him the night before, that Lucy Savile was going to India after all, and +notwithstanding the representations of her friends that such a journey +was unadvisable in many ways for an unpractised girl, unless some more +definite advantage lay at the end of it than she could show to be the +case. Barnet's walk up the slope to the building betrayed that he was in +a dissatisfied mood. He hardly saw that the dewy time of day lent an +unusual freshness to the bushes and trees which had so recently put on +their summer habit of heavy leafage, and made his newly-laid lawn look as +well established as an old manorial meadow. The house had been so +adroitly placed between six tall elms which were growing on the site +beforehand, that they seemed like real ancestral trees; and the rooks, +young and old, cawed melodiously to their visitor. + +The door was not locked, and he entered. No workmen appeared to be +present, and he walked from sunny window to sunny window of the empty +rooms, with a sense of seclusion which might have been very pleasant but +for the antecedent knowledge that his almost paternal care of Lucy Savile +was to be thrown away by her wilfulness. Footsteps echoed through an +adjoining room; and bending his eyes in that direction, he perceived Mr. +Jones, the architect. He had come to look over the building before +giving the contractor his final certificate. They walked over the house +together. Everything was finished except the papering: there were the +latest improvements of the period in bell-hanging, ventilating, smoke- +jacks, fire-grates, and French windows. The business was soon ended, and +Jones, having directed Barnet's attention to a roll of wall-paper +patterns which lay on a bench for his choice, was leaving to keep another +engagement, when Barnet said, 'Is the tomb finished yet for Mrs. Downe?' + +'Well--yes: it is at last,' said the architect, coming back and speaking +as if he were in a mood to make a confidence. 'I have had no end of +trouble in the matter, and, to tell the truth, I am heartily glad it is +over.' + +Barnet expressed his surprise. 'I thought poor Downe had given up those +extravagant notions of his? then he has gone back to the altar and canopy +after all? Well, he is to be excused, poor fellow!' + +'O no--he has not at all gone back to them--quite the reverse,' Jones +hastened to say. 'He has so reduced design after design, that the whole +thing has been nothing but waste labour for me; till in the end it has +become a common headstone, which a mason put up in half a day.' + +'A common headstone?' said Barnet. + +'Yes. I held out for some time for the addition of a footstone at least. +But he said, "O no--he couldn't afford it."' + +'Ah, well--his family is growing up, poor fellow, and his expenses are +getting serious.' + +'Yes, exactly,' said Jones, as if the subject were none of his. And +again directing Barnet's attention to the wall-papers, the bustling +architect left him to keep some other engagement. + +'A common headstone,' murmured Barnet, left again to himself. He mused a +minute or two, and next began looking over and selecting from the +patterns; but had not long been engaged in the work when he heard another +footstep on the gravel without, and somebody enter the open porch. + +Barnet went to the door--it was his manservant in search of him. + +'I have been trying for some time to find you, sir,' he said. 'This +letter has come by the post, and it is marked immediate. And there's +this one from Mr. Downe, who called just now wanting to see you.' He +searched his pocket for the second. + +Barnet took the first letter--it had a black border, and bore the London +postmark. It was not in his wife's handwriting, or in that of any person +he knew; but conjecture soon ceased as he read the page, wherein he was +briefly informed that Mrs. Barnet had died suddenly on the previous day, +at the furnished villa she had occupied near London. + +Barnet looked vaguely round the empty hall, at the blank walls, out of +the doorway. Drawing a long palpitating breath, and with eyes downcast, +he turned and climbed the stairs slowly, like a man who doubted their +stability. The fact of his wife having, as it were, died once already, +and lived on again, had entirely dislodged the possibility of her actual +death from his conjecture. He went to the landing, leant over the +balusters, and after a reverie, of whose duration he had but the faintest +notion, turned to the window and stretched his gaze to the cottage +further down the road, which was visible from his landing, and from which +Lucy still walked to the solicitor's house by a cross path. The faint +words that came from his moving lips were simply, 'At last!' + +Then, almost involuntarily, Barnet fell down on his knees and murmured +some incoherent words of thanksgiving. Surely his virtue in restoring +his wife to life had been rewarded! But, as if the impulse struck +uneasily on his conscience, he quickly rose, brushed the dust from his +trousers and set himself to think of his next movements. He could not +start for London for some hours; and as he had no preparations to make +that could not be made in half-an-hour, he mechanically descended and +resumed his occupation of turning over the wall-papers. They had all got +brighter for him, those papers. It was all changed--who would sit in the +rooms that they were to line? He went on to muse upon Lucy's conduct in +so frequently coming to the house with the children; her occasional blush +in speaking to him; her evident interest in him. What woman can in the +long run avoid being interested in a man whom she knows to be devoted to +her? If human solicitation could ever effect anything, there should be +no going to India for Lucy now. All the papers previously chosen seemed +wrong in their shades, and he began from the beginning to choose again. + +While entering on the task he heard a forced 'Ahem!' from without the +porch, evidently uttered to attract his attention, and footsteps again +advancing to the door. His man, whom he had quite forgotten in his +mental turmoil, was still waiting there. + +'I beg your pardon, sir,' the man said from round the doorway; 'but +here's the note from Mr. Downe that you didn't take. He called just +after you went out, and as he couldn't wait, he wrote this on your study- +table.' + +He handed in the letter--no black-bordered one now, but a +practical-looking note in the well-known writing of the solicitor. + + 'DEAR BARNET'--it ran--'Perhaps you will be prepared for the + information I am about to give--that Lucy Savile and myself are going + to be married this morning. I have hitherto said nothing as to my + intention to any of my friends, for reasons which I am sure you will + fully appreciate. The crisis has been brought about by her expressing + her intention to join her brother in India. I then discovered that I + could not do without her. + + 'It is to be quite a private wedding; but it is my particular wish + that you come down here quietly at ten, and go to church with us; it + will add greatly to the pleasure I shall experience in the ceremony, + and, I believe, to Lucy's also. I have called on you very early to + make the request, in the belief that I should find you at home; but + you are beforehand with me in your early rising.--Yours sincerely, C. + Downe.' + +'Need I wait, sir?' said the servant after a dead silence. + +'That will do, William. No answer,' said Barnet calmly. + +When the man had gone Barnet re-read the letter. Turning eventually to +the wall-papers, which he had been at such pains to select, he +deliberately tore them into halves and quarters, and threw them into the +empty fireplace. Then he went out of the house; locked the door, and +stood in the front awhile. Instead of returning into the town, he went +down the harbour-road and thoughtfully lingered about by the sea, near +the spot where the body of Downe's late wife had been found and brought +ashore. + +Barnet was a man with a rich capacity for misery, and there is no doubt +that he exercised it to its fullest extent now. The events that had, as +it were, dashed themselves together into one half-hour of this day showed +that curious refinement of cruelty in their arrangement which often +proceeds from the bosom of the whimsical god at other times known as +blind Circumstance. That his few minutes of hope, between the reading of +the first and second letters, had carried him to extraordinary heights of +rapture was proved by the immensity of his suffering now. The sun +blazing into his face would have shown a close watcher that a horizontal +line, which he had never noticed before, but which was never to be gone +thereafter, was somehow gradually forming itself in the smooth of his +forehead. His eyes, of a light hazel, had a curious look which can only +be described by the word bruised; the sorrow that looked from them being +largely mixed with the surprise of a man taken unawares. + +The secondary particulars of his present position, too, were odd enough, +though for some time they appeared to engage little of his attention. Not +a soul in the town knew, as yet, of his wife's death; and he almost owed +Downe the kindness of not publishing it till the day was over: the +conjuncture, taken with that which had accompanied the death of Mrs. +Downe, being so singular as to be quite sufficient to darken the pleasure +of the impressionable solicitor to a cruel extent, if made known to him. +But as Barnet could not set out on his journey to London, where his wife +lay, for some hours (there being at this date no railway within a +distance of many miles), no great reason existed why he should leave the +town. + +Impulse in all its forms characterized Barnet, and when he heard the +distant clock strike the hour of ten his feet began to carry him up the +harbour-road with the manner of a man who must do something to bring +himself to life. He passed Lucy Savile's old house, his own new one, and +came in view of the church. Now he gave a perceptible start, and his +mechanical condition went away. Before the church-gate were a couple of +carriages, and Barnet then could perceive that the marriage between Downe +and Lucy was at that moment being solemnized within. A feeling of +sudden, proud self-confidence, an indocile wish to walk unmoved in spite +of grim environments, plainly possessed him, and when he reached the +wicket-gate he turned in without apparent effort. Pacing up the paved +footway he entered the church and stood for a while in the nave passage. +A group of people was standing round the vestry door; Barnet advanced +through these and stepped into the vestry. + +There they were, busily signing their names. Seeing Downe about to look +round, Barnet averted his somewhat disturbed face for a second or two; +when he turned again front to front he was calm and quite smiling; it was +a creditable triumph over himself, and deserved to be remembered in his +native town. He greeted Downe heartily, offering his congratulations. + +It seemed as if Barnet expected a half-guilty look upon Lucy's face; but +no, save the natural flush and flurry engendered by the service just +performed, there was nothing whatever in her bearing which showed a +disturbed mind: her gray-brown eyes carried in them now as at other times +the well-known expression of common-sensed rectitude which never went so +far as to touch on hardness. She shook hands with him, and Downe said +warmly, 'I wish you could have come sooner: I called on purpose to ask +you. You'll drive back with us now?' + +'No, no,' said Barnet; 'I am not at all prepared; but I thought I would +look in upon you for a moment, even though I had not time to go home and +dress. I'll stand back and see you pass out, and observe the effect of +the spectacle upon myself as one of the public.' + +Then Lucy and her husband laughed, and Barnet laughed and retired; and +the quiet little party went gliding down the nave and towards the porch, +Lucy's new silk dress sweeping with a smart rustle round the +base-mouldings of the ancient font, and Downe's little daughters +following in a state of round-eyed interest in their position, and that +of Lucy, their teacher and friend. + +So Downe was comforted after his Emily's death, which had taken place +twelve months, two weeks, and three days before that time. + +When the two flys had driven off and the spectators had vanished, Barnet +followed to the door, and went out into the sun. He took no more trouble +to preserve a spruce exterior; his step was unequal, hesitating, almost +convulsive; and the slight changes of colour which went on in his face +seemed refracted from some inward flame. In the churchyard he became +pale as a summer cloud, and finding it not easy to proceed he sat down on +one of the tombstones and supported his head with his hand. + +Hard by was a sexton filling up a grave which he had not found time to +finish on the previous evening. Observing Barnet, he went up to him, and +recognizing him, said, 'Shall I help you home, sir?' + +'O no, thank you,' said Barnet, rousing himself and standing up. The +sexton returned to his grave, followed by Barnet, who, after watching him +awhile, stepped into the grave, now nearly filled, and helped to tread in +the earth. + +The sexton apparently thought his conduct a little singular, but he made +no observation, and when the grave was full, Barnet suddenly stopped, +looked far away, and with a decided step proceeded to the gate and +vanished. The sexton rested on his shovel and looked after him for a few +moments, and then began banking up the mound. + +In those short minutes of treading in the dead man Barnet had formed a +design, but what it was the inhabitants of that town did not for some +long time imagine. He went home, wrote several letters of business, +called on his lawyer, an old man of the same place who had been the legal +adviser of Barnet's father before him, and during the evening overhauled +a large quantity of letters and other documents in his possession. By +eleven o'clock the heap of papers in and before Barnet's grate had +reached formidable dimensions, and he began to burn them. This, owing to +their quantity, it was not so easy to do as he had expected, and he sat +long into the night to complete the task. + +The next morning Barnet departed for London, leaving a note for Downe to +inform him of Mrs. Barnet's sudden death, and that he was gone to bury +her; but when a thrice-sufficient time for that purpose had elapsed, he +was not seen again in his accustomed walks, or in his new house, or in +his old one. He was gone for good, nobody knew whither. It was soon +discovered that he had empowered his lawyer to dispose of all his +property, real and personal, in the borough, and pay in the proceeds to +the account of an unknown person at one of the large London banks. The +person was by some supposed to be himself under an assumed name; but few, +if any, had certain knowledge of that fact. + +The elegant new residence was sold with the rest of his possessions; and +its purchaser was no other than Downe, now a thriving man in the borough, +and one whose growing family and new wife required more roomy +accommodation than was afforded by the little house up the narrow side +street. Barnet's old habitation was bought by the trustees of the +Congregational Baptist body in that town, who pulled down the +time-honoured dwelling and built a new chapel on its site. By the time +the last hour of that, to Barnet, eventful year had chimed, every vestige +of him had disappeared from the precincts of his native place, and the +name became extinct in the borough of Port-Bredy, after having been a +living force therein for more than two hundred years. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Twenty-one years and six months do not pass without setting a mark even +upon durable stone and triple brass; upon humanity such a period works +nothing less than transformation. In Barnet's old birthplace vivacious +young children with bones like india-rubber had grown up to be stable men +and women, men and women had dried in the skin, stiffened, withered, and +sunk into decrepitude; while selections from every class had been +consigned to the outlying cemetery. Of inorganic differences the +greatest was that a railway had invaded the town, tying it on to a main +line at a junction a dozen miles off. Barnet's house on the +harbour-road, once so insistently new, had acquired a respectable +mellowness, with ivy, Virginia creepers, lichens, damp patches, and even +constitutional infirmities of its own like its elder fellows. Its +architecture, once so very improved and modern, had already become stale +in style, without having reached the dignity of being old-fashioned. +Trees about the harbour-road had increased in circumference or +disappeared under the saw; while the church had had such a tremendous +practical joke played upon it by some facetious restorer or other as to +be scarce recognizable by its dearest old friends. + +During this long interval George Barnet had never once been seen or heard +of in the town of his fathers. + +It was the evening of a market-day, and some half-dozen middle-aged +farmers and dairymen were lounging round the bar of the Black-Bull Hotel, +occasionally dropping a remark to each other, and less frequently to the +two barmaids who stood within the pewter-topped counter in a perfunctory +attitude of attention, these latter sighing and making a private +observation to one another at odd intervals, on more interesting +experiences than the present. + +'Days get shorter,' said one of the dairymen, as he looked towards the +street, and noticed that the lamp-lighter was passing by. + +The farmers merely acknowledged by their countenances the propriety of +this remark, and finding that nobody else spoke, one of the barmaids said +'yes,' in a tone of painful duty. + +'Come fair-day we shall have to light up before we start for home-along.' + +'That's true,' his neighbour conceded, with a gaze of blankness. + +'And after that we shan't see much further difference all's winter.' + +The rest were not unwilling to go even so far as this. + +The barmaid sighed again, and raised one of her hands from the counter on +which they rested to scratch the smallest surface of her face with the +smallest of her fingers. She looked towards the door, and presently +remarked, 'I think I hear the 'bus coming in from station.' + +The eyes of the dairymen and farmers turned to the glass door dividing +the hall from the porch, and in a minute or two the omnibus drew up +outside. Then there was a lumbering down of luggage, and then a man came +into the hall, followed by a porter with a portmanteau on his poll, which +he deposited on a bench. + +The stranger was an elderly person, with curly ashen white hair, a deeply- +creviced outer corner to each eyelid, and a countenance baked by +innumerable suns to the colour of terra-cotta, its hue and that of his +hair contrasting like heat and cold respectively. He walked meditatively +and gently, like one who was fearful of disturbing his own mental +equilibrium. But whatever lay at the bottom of his breast had evidently +made him so accustomed to its situation there that it caused him little +practical inconvenience. + +He paused in silence while, with his dubious eyes fixed on the barmaids, +he seemed to consider himself. In a moment or two he addressed them, and +asked to be accommodated for the night. As he waited he looked curiously +round the hall, but said nothing. As soon as invited he disappeared up +the staircase, preceded by a chambermaid and candle, and followed by a +lad with his trunk. Not a soul had recognized him. + +A quarter of an hour later, when the farmers and dairymen had driven off +to their homesteads in the country, he came downstairs, took a biscuit +and one glass of wine, and walked out into the town, where the radiance +from the shop-windows had grown so in volume of late years as to flood +with cheerfulness every standing cart, barrow, stall, and idler that +occupied the wayside, whether shabby or genteel. His chief interest at +present seemed to lie in the names painted over the shop-fronts and on +door-ways, as far as they were visible; these now differed to an ominous +extent from what they had been one-and-twenty years before. + +The traveller passed on till he came to the bookseller's, where he looked +in through the glass door. A fresh-faced young man was standing behind +the counter, otherwise the shop was empty. The gray-haired observer +entered, asked for some periodical by way of paying for admission, and +with his elbow on the counter began to turn over the pages he had bought, +though that he read nothing was obvious. + +At length he said, 'Is old Mr. Watkins still alive?' in a voice which had +a curious youthful cadence in it even now. + +'My father is dead, sir,' said the young man. + +'Ah, I am sorry to hear it,' said the stranger. 'But it is so many years +since I last visited this town that I could hardly expect it should be +otherwise.' After a short silence he continued--'And is the firm of +Barnet, Browse, and Company still in existence?--they used to be large +flax-merchants and twine-spinners here?' + +'The firm is still going on, sir, but they have dropped the name of +Barnet. I believe that was a sort of fancy name--at least, I never knew +of any living Barnet. 'Tis now Browse and Co.' + +'And does Andrew Jones still keep on as architect?' + +'He's dead, sir.' + +'And the Vicar of St. Mary's--Mr. Melrose?' + +'He's been dead a great many years.' + +'Dear me!' He paused yet longer, and cleared his voice. 'Is Mr. Downe, +the solicitor, still in practice?' + +'No, sir, he's dead. He died about seven years ago.' + +Here it was a longer silence still; and an attentive observer would have +noticed that the paper in the stranger's hand increased its imperceptible +tremor to a visible shake. That gray-haired gentleman noticed it +himself, and rested the paper on the counter. 'Is Mrs. Downe still +alive?' he asked, closing his lips firmly as soon as the words were out +of his mouth, and dropping his eyes. + +'Yes, sir, she's alive and well. She's living at the old place.' + +'In East Street?' + +'O no; at Chateau Ringdale. I believe it has been in the family for some +generations.' + +'She lives with her children, perhaps?' + +'No; she has no children of her own. There were some Miss Downes; I +think they were Mr. Downe's daughters by a former wife; but they are +married and living in other parts of the town. Mrs. Downe lives alone.' + +'Quite alone?' + +'Yes, sir; quite alone.' + +The newly-arrived gentleman went back to the hotel and dined; after which +he made some change in his dress, shaved back his beard to the fashion +that had prevailed twenty years earlier, when he was young and +interesting, and once more emerging, bent his steps in the direction of +the harbour-road. Just before getting to the point where the pavement +ceased and the houses isolated themselves, he overtook a shambling, +stooping, unshaven man, who at first sight appeared like a professional +tramp, his shoulders having a perceptible greasiness as they passed under +the gaslight. Each pedestrian momentarily turned and regarded the other, +and the tramp-like gentleman started back. + +'Good--why--is that Mr. Barnet? 'Tis Mr. Barnet, surely!' + +'Yes; and you are Charlson?' + +'Yes--ah--you notice my appearance. The Fates have rather ill-used me. +By-the-bye, that fifty pounds. I never paid it, did I? . . . But I was +not ungrateful!' Here the stooping man laid one hand emphatically on the +palm of the other. 'I gave you a chance, Mr. George Barnet, which many +men would have thought full value received--the chance to marry your +Lucy. As far as the world was concerned, your wife was a drowned woman, +hey?' + +'Heaven forbid all that, Charlson!' + +'Well, well, 'twas a wrong way of showing gratitude, I suppose. And now +a drop of something to drink for old acquaintance' sake! And Mr. Barnet, +she's again free--there's a chance now if you care for it--ha, ha!' And +the speaker pushed his tongue into his hollow cheek and slanted his eye +in the old fashion. + +'I know all,' said Barnet quickly; and slipping a small present into the +hands of the needy, saddening man, he stepped ahead and was soon in the +outskirts of the town. + +He reached the harbour-road, and paused before the entrance to a well- +known house. It was so highly bosomed in trees and shrubs planted since +the erection of the building that one would scarcely have recognized the +spot as that which had been a mere neglected slope till chosen as a site +for a dwelling. He opened the swing-gate, closed it noiselessly, and +gently moved into the semicircular drive, which remained exactly as it +had been marked out by Barnet on the morning when Lucy Savile ran in to +thank him for procuring her the post of governess to Downe's children. +But the growth of trees and bushes which revealed itself at every step +was beyond all expectation; sun-proof and moon-proof bowers vaulted the +walks, and the walls of the house were uniformly bearded with creeping +plants as high as the first-floor windows. + +After lingering for a few minutes in the dusk of the bending boughs, the +visitor rang the door-bell, and on the servant appearing, he announced +himself as 'an old friend of Mrs. Downe's.' + +The hall was lighted, but not brightly, the gas being turned low, as if +visitors were rare. There was a stagnation in the dwelling; it seemed to +be waiting. Could it really be waiting for him? The partitions which +had been probed by Barnet's walking-stick when the mortar was green, were +now quite brown with the antiquity of their varnish, and the ornamental +woodwork of the staircase, which had glistened with a pale yellow newness +when first erected, was now of a rich wine-colour. During the servant's +absence the following colloquy could be dimly heard through the nearly +closed door of the drawing-room. + +'He didn't give his name?' + +'He only said "an old friend," ma'am.' + +'What kind of gentleman is he?' + +'A staidish gentleman, with gray hair.' + +The voice of the second speaker seemed to affect the listener greatly. +After a pause, the lady said, 'Very well, I will see him.' + +And the stranger was shown in face to face with the Lucy who had once +been Lucy Savile. The round cheek of that formerly young lady had, of +course, alarmingly flattened its curve in her modern representative; a +pervasive grayness overspread her once dark brown hair, like morning rime +on heather. The parting down the middle was wide and jagged; once it had +been a thin white line, a narrow crevice between two high banks of shade. +But there was still enough left to form a handsome knob behind, and some +curls beneath inwrought with a few hairs like silver wires were very +becoming. In her eyes the only modification was that their originally +mild rectitude of expression had become a little more stringent than +heretofore. Yet she was still girlish--a girl who had been gratuitously +weighted by destiny with a burden of five-and-forty years instead of her +proper twenty. + +'Lucy, don't you know me?' he said, when the servant had closed the door. + +'I knew you the instant I saw you!' she returned cheerfully. 'I don't +know why, but I always thought you would come back to your old town +again.' + +She gave him her hand, and then they sat down. 'They said you were +dead,' continued Lucy, 'but I never thought so. We should have heard of +it for certain if you had been.' + +'It is a very long time since we met.' + +'Yes; what you must have seen, Mr. Barnet, in all these roving years, in +comparison with what I have seen in this quiet place!' Her face grew +more serious. 'You know my husband has been dead a long time? I am a +lonely old woman now, considering what I have been; though Mr. Downe's +daughters--all married--manage to keep me pretty cheerful.' + +'And I am a lonely old man, and have been any time these twenty years.' + +'But where have you kept yourself? And why did you go off so +mysteriously?' + +'Well, Lucy, I have kept myself a little in America, and a little in +Australia, a little in India, a little at the Cape, and so on; I have not +stayed in any place for a long time, as it seems to me, and yet more than +twenty years have flown. But when people get to my age two years go like +one!--Your second question, why did I go away so mysteriously, is surely +not necessary. You guessed why, didn't you?' + +'No, I never once guessed,' she said simply; 'nor did Charles, nor did +anybody as far as I know.' + +'Well, indeed! Now think it over again, and then look at me, and say if +you can't guess?' + +She looked him in the face with an inquiring smile. 'Surely not because +of me?' she said, pausing at the commencement of surprise. + +Barnet nodded, and smiled again; but his smile was sadder than hers. + +'Because I married Charles?' she asked. + +'Yes; solely because you married him on the day I was free to ask you to +marry me. My wife died four-and-twenty hours before you went to church +with Downe. The fixing of my journey at that particular moment was +because of her funeral; but once away I knew I should have no inducement +to come back, and took my steps accordingly.' + +Her face assumed an aspect of gentle reflection, and she looked up and +down his form with great interest in her eyes. 'I never thought of it!' +she said. 'I knew, of course, that you had once implied some warmth of +feeling towards me, but I concluded that it passed off. And I have +always been under the impression that your wife was alive at the time of +my marriage. Was it not stupid of me!--But you will have some tea or +something? I have never dined late, you know, since my husband's death. +I have got into the way of making a regular meal of tea. You will have +some tea with me, will you not?' + +The travelled man assented quite readily, and tea was brought in. They +sat and chatted over the meal, regardless of the flying hour. 'Well, +well!' said Barnet presently, as for the first time he leisurely surveyed +the room; 'how like it all is, and yet how different! Just where your +piano stands was a board on a couple of trestles, bearing the patterns of +wall-papers, when I was last here. I was choosing them--standing in this +way, as it might be. Then my servant came in at the door, and handed me +a note, so. It was from Downe, and announced that you were just going to +be married to him. I chose no more wall-papers--tore up all those I had +selected, and left the house. I never entered it again till now.' + +'Ah, at last I understand it all,' she murmured. + +They had both risen and gone to the fireplace. The mantel came almost on +a level with her shoulder, which gently rested against it, and Barnet +laid his hand upon the shelf close beside her shoulder. 'Lucy,' he said, +'better late than never. Will you marry me now?' + +She started back, and the surprise which was so obvious in her wrought +even greater surprise in him that it should be so. It was difficult to +believe that she had been quite blind to the situation, and yet all +reason and common sense went to prove that she was not acting. + +'You take me quite unawares by such a question!' she said, with a forced +laugh of uneasiness. It was the first time she had shown any +embarrassment at all. 'Why,' she added, 'I couldn't marry you for the +world.' + +'Not after all this! Why not?' + +'It is--I would--I really think I may say it--I would upon the whole +rather marry you, Mr. Barnet, than any other man I have ever met, if I +ever dreamed of marriage again. But I don't dream of it--it is quite out +of my thoughts; I have not the least intention of marrying again.' + +'But--on my account--couldn't you alter your plans a little? Come!' + +'Dear Mr. Barnet,' she said with a little flutter, 'I would on your +account if on anybody's in existence. But you don't know in the least +what it is you are asking--such an impracticable thing--I won't say +ridiculous, of course, because I see that you are really in earnest, and +earnestness is never ridiculous to my mind.' + +'Well, yes,' said Barnet more slowly, dropping her hand, which he had +taken at the moment of pleading, 'I am in earnest. The resolve, two +months ago, at the Cape, to come back once more was, it is true, rather +sudden, and as I see now, not well considered. But I am in earnest in +asking.' + +'And I in declining. With all good feeling and all kindness, let me say +that I am quite opposed to the idea of marrying a second time.' + +'Well, no harm has been done,' he answered, with the same subdued and +tender humorousness that he had shown on such occasions in early life. +'If you really won't accept me, I must put up with it, I suppose.' His +eye fell on the clock as he spoke. 'Had you any notion that it was so +late?' he asked. 'How absorbed I have been!' + +She accompanied him to the hall, helped him to put on his overcoat, and +let him out of the house herself. + +'Good-night,' said Barnet, on the doorstep, as the lamp shone in his +face. 'You are not offended with me?' + +'Certainly not. Nor you with me?' + +'I'll consider whether I am or not,' he pleasantly replied. 'Good-night.' + +She watched him safely through the gate; and when his footsteps had died +away upon the road, closed the door softly and returned to the room. Here +the modest widow long pondered his speeches, with eyes dropped to an +unusually low level. Barnet's urbanity under the blow of her refusal +greatly impressed her. After having his long period of probation +rendered useless by her decision, he had shown no anger, and had +philosophically taken her words as if he deserved no better ones. It was +very gentlemanly of him, certainly; it was more than gentlemanly; it was +heroic and grand. The more she meditated, the more she questioned the +virtue of her conduct in checking him so peremptorily; and went to her +bedroom in a mood of dissatisfaction. On looking in the glass she was +reminded that there was not so much remaining of her former beauty as to +make his frank declaration an impulsive natural homage to her cheeks and +eyes; it must undoubtedly have arisen from an old staunch feeling of his, +deserving tenderest consideration. She recalled to her mind with much +pleasure that he had told her he was staying at the Black-Bull Hotel; so +that if, after waiting a day or two, he should not, in his modesty, call +again, she might then send him a nice little note. To alter her views +for the present was far from her intention; but she would allow herself +to be induced to reconsider the case, as any generous woman ought to do. + +The morrow came and passed, and Mr. Barnet did not drop in. At every +knock, light youthful hues flew across her cheek; and she was abstracted +in the presence of her other visitors. In the evening she walked about +the house, not knowing what to do with herself; the conditions of +existence seemed totally different from those which ruled only four-and- +twenty short hours ago. What had been at first a tantalizing elusive +sentiment was getting acclimatized within her as a definite hope, and her +person was so informed by that emotion that she might almost have stood +as its emblematical representative by the time the clock struck ten. In +short, an interest in Barnet precisely resembling that of her early youth +led her present heart to belie her yesterday's words to him, and she +longed to see him again. + +The next day she walked out early, thinking she might meet him in the +street. The growing beauty of her romance absorbed her, and she went +from the street to the fields, and from the fields to the shore, without +any consciousness of distance, till reminded by her weariness that she +could go no further. He had nowhere appeared. In the evening she took a +step which under the circumstances seemed justifiable; she wrote a note +to him at the hotel, inviting him to tea with her at six precisely, and +signing her note 'Lucy.' + +In a quarter of an hour the messenger came back. Mr. Barnet had left the +hotel early in the morning of the day before, but he had stated that he +would probably return in the course of the week. + +The note was sent back, to be given to him immediately on his arrival. + +There was no sign from the inn that this desired event had occurred, +either on the next day or the day following. On both nights she had been +restless, and had scarcely slept half-an-hour. + +On the Saturday, putting off all diffidence, Lucy went herself to the +Black-Bull, and questioned the staff closely. + +Mr. Barnet had cursorily remarked when leaving that he might return on +the Thursday or Friday, but they were directed not to reserve a room for +him unless he should write. + +He had left no address. + +Lucy sorrowfully took back her note went home, and resolved to wait. + +She did wait--years and years--but Barnet never reappeared. + +April 1880. + + + + +INTERLOPERS AT THE KNAP + + +CHAPTER I + + +The north road from Casterbridge is tedious and lonely, especially in +winter-time. Along a part of its course it connects with Long-Ash Lane, +a monotonous track without a village or hamlet for many miles, and with +very seldom a turning. Unapprized wayfarers who are too old, or too +young, or in other respects too weak for the distance to be traversed, +but who, nevertheless, have to walk it, say, as they look wistfully +ahead, 'Once at the top of that hill, and I must surely see the end of +Long-Ash Lane!' But they reach the hilltop, and Long-Ash Lane stretches +in front as mercilessly as before. + +Some few years ago a certain farmer was riding through this lane in the +gloom of a winter evening. The farmer's friend, a dairyman, was riding +beside him. A few paces in the rear rode the farmer's man. All three +were well horsed on strong, round-barrelled cobs; and to be well horsed +was to be in better spirits about Long-Ash Lane than poor pedestrians +could attain to during its passage. + +But the farmer did not talk much to his friend as he rode along. The +enterprise which had brought him there filled his mind; for in truth it +was important. Not altogether so important was it, perhaps, when +estimated by its value to society at large; but if the true measure of a +deed be proportionate to the space it occupies in the heart of him who +undertakes it, Farmer Charles Darton's business to-night could hold its +own with the business of kings. + +He was a large farmer. His turnover, as it is called, was probably +thirty thousand pounds a year. He had a great many draught horses, a +great many milch cows, and of sheep a multitude. This comfortable +position was, however, none of his own making. It had been created by +his father, a man of a very different stamp from the present +representative of the line. + +Darton, the father, had been a one-idea'd character, with a buttoned-up +pocket and a chink-like eye brimming with commercial subtlety. In Darton +the son, this trade subtlety had become transmuted into emotional, and +the harshness had disappeared; he would have been called a sad man but +for his constant care not to divide himself from lively friends by piping +notes out of harmony with theirs. Contemplative, he allowed his mind to +be a quiet meeting-place for memories and hopes. So that, naturally +enough, since succeeding to the agricultural calling, and up to his +present age of thirty-two, he had neither advanced nor receded as a +capitalist--a stationary result which did not agitate one of his +unambitious, unstrategic nature, since he had all that he desired. The +motive of his expedition to-night showed the same absence of anxious +regard for Number One. + +The party rode on in the slow, safe trot proper to night-time and bad +roads, Farmer Darton's head jigging rather unromantically up and down +against the sky, and his motions being repeated with bolder emphasis by +his friend Japheth Johns; while those of the latter were travestied in +jerks still less softened by art in the person of the lad who attended +them. A pair of whitish objects hung one on each side of the latter, +bumping against him at each step, and still further spoiling the grace of +his seat. On close inspection they might have been perceived to be open +rush baskets--one containing a turkey, and the other some bottles of +wine. + +'D'ye feel ye can meet your fate like a man, neighbour Darton?' asked +Johns, breaking a silence which had lasted while five-and-twenty hedgerow +trees had glided by. + +Mr. Darton with a half-laugh murmured, 'Ay--call it my fate! Hanging and +wiving go by destiny.' And then they were silent again. + +The darkness thickened rapidly, at intervals shutting down on the land in +a perceptible flap, like the wave of a wing. The customary close of day +was accelerated by a simultaneous blurring of the air. With the fall of +night had come a mist just damp enough to incommode, but not sufficient +to saturate them. Countrymen as they were--born, as may be said, with +only an open door between them and the four seasons--they regarded the +mist but as an added obscuration, and ignored its humid quality. + +They were travelling in a direction that was enlivened by no modern +current of traffic, the place of Darton's pilgrimage being an +old-fashioned village--one of the Hintocks (several villages of that +name, with a distinctive prefix or affix, lying thereabout)--where the +people make the best cider and cider-wine in all Wessex, and where the +dunghills smell of pomace instead of stable refuse as elsewhere. The +lane was sometimes so narrow that the brambles of the hedge, which hung +forward like anglers' rods over a stream, scratched their hats and curry- +combed their whiskers as they passed. Yet this neglected lane had been a +highway to Queen Elizabeth's subjects and the cavalcades of the past. Its +day was over now, and its history as a national artery done for ever. + +'Why I have decided to marry her,' resumed Darton (in a measured musical +voice of confidence which revealed a good deal of his composition), as he +glanced round to see that the lad was not too near, 'is not only that I +like her, but that I can do no better, even from a fairly practical point +of view. That I might ha' looked higher is possibly true, though it is +really all nonsense. I have had experience enough in looking above me. +"No more superior women for me," said I--you know when. Sally is a +comely, independent, simple character, with no make-up about her, who'll +think me as much a superior to her as I used to think--you know who I +mean--was to me.' + +'Ay,' said Johns. 'However, I shouldn't call Sally Hall simple. Primary, +because no Sally is; secondary, because if some could be, this one +wouldn't. 'Tis a wrong denomination to apply to a woman, Charles, and +affects me, as your best man, like cold water. 'Tis like recommending a +stage play by saying there's neither murder, villainy, nor harm of any +sort in it, when that's what you've paid your half-crown to see.' + +'Well; may your opinion do you good. Mine's a different one.' And +turning the conversation from the philosophical to the practical, Darton +expressed a hope that the said Sally had received what he'd sent on by +the carrier that day. + +Johns wanted to know what that was. + +'It is a dress,' said Darton. 'Not exactly a wedding-dress; though she +may use it as one if she likes. It is rather serviceable than +showy--suitable for the winter weather.' + +'Good,' said Johns. 'Serviceable is a wise word in a bridegroom. I +commend ye, Charles.' + +'For,' said Darton, 'why should a woman dress up like a rope-dancer +because she's going to do the most solemn deed of her life except dying?' + +'Faith, why? But she will, because she will, I suppose,' said Dairyman +Johns. + +'H'm,' said Darton. + +The lane they followed had been nearly straight for several miles, but it +now took a turn, and winding uncertainly for some distance forked into +two. By night country roads are apt to reveal ungainly qualities which +pass without observation during day; and though Darton had travelled this +way before, he had not done so frequently, Sally having been wooed at the +house of a relative near his own. He never remembered seeing at this +spot a pair of alternative ways looking so equally probable as these two +did now. Johns rode on a few steps. + +'Don't be out of heart, sonny,' he cried. 'Here's a handpost. Enoch--come +and climm this post, and tell us the way.' + +The lad dismounted, and jumped into the hedge where the post stood under +a tree. + +'Unstrap the baskets, or you'll smash up that wine!' cried Darton, as the +young man began spasmodically to climb the post, baskets and all. + +'Was there ever less head in a brainless world?' said Johns. 'Here, +simple Nocky, I'll do it.' He leapt off, and with much puffing climbed +the post, striking a match when he reached the top, and moving the light +along the arm, the lad standing and gazing at the spectacle. + +'I have faced tantalization these twenty years with a temper as mild as +milk!' said Japheth; 'but such things as this don't come short of +devilry!' And flinging the match away, he slipped down to the ground. + +'What's the matter?' asked Darton. + +'Not a letter, sacred or heathen--not so much as would tell us the way to +the great fireplace--ever I should sin to say it! Either the moss and +mildew have eat away the words, or we have arrived in a land where the +natyves have lost the art o' writing, and should ha' brought our compass +like Christopher Columbus.' + +'Let us take the straightest road,' said Darton placidly; 'I shan't be +sorry to get there--'tis a tiresome ride. I would have driven if I had +known.' + +'Nor I neither, sir,' said Enoch. 'These straps plough my shoulder like +a zull. If 'tis much further to your lady's home, Maister Darton, I +shall ask to be let carry half of these good things in my innerds--hee, +hee!' + +'Don't you be such a reforming radical, Enoch,' said Johns sternly. +'Here, I'll take the turkey.' + +This being done, they went forward by the right-hand lane, which ascended +a hill, the left winding away under a plantation. The pit-a-pat of their +horses' hoofs lessened up the slope; and the ironical directing-post +stood in solitude as before, holding out its blank arms to the raw +breeze, which brought a snore from the wood as if Skrymir the Giant were +sleeping there. + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Three miles to the left of the travellers, along the road they had not +followed, rose an old house with mullioned windows of Ham-hill stone, and +chimneys of lavish solidity. It stood at the top of a slope beside +King's-Hintock village-street; and immediately in front of it grew a +large sycamore-tree, whose bared roots formed a convenient staircase from +the road below to the front door of the dwelling. Its situation gave the +house what little distinctive name it possessed, namely, 'The Knap.' Some +forty yards off a brook dribbled past, which, for its size, made a great +deal of noise. At the back was a dairy barton, accessible for vehicles +and live-stock by a side 'drong.' Thus much only of the character of the +homestead could be divined out of doors at this shady evening-time. + +But within there was plenty of light to see by, as plenty was construed +at Hintock. Beside a Tudor fireplace, whose moulded four-centred arch +was nearly hidden by a figured blue-cloth blower, were seated two +women--mother and daughter--Mrs. Hall, and Sarah, or Sally; for this was +a part of the world where the latter modification had not as yet been +effaced as a vulgarity by the march of intellect. The owner of the name +was the young woman by whose means Mr. Darton proposed to put an end to +his bachelor condition on the approaching day. + +The mother's bereavement had been so long ago as not to leave much mark +of its occurrence upon her now, either in face or clothes. She had +resumed the mob-cap of her early married life, enlivening its whiteness +by a few rose-du-Barry ribbons. Sally required no such aids to pinkness. +Roseate good-nature lit up her gaze; her features showed curves of +decision and judgment; and she might have been regarded without much +mistake as a warm-hearted, quick-spirited, handsome girl. + +She did most of the talking, her mother listening with a half-absent air, +as she picked up fragments of red-hot wood ember with the tongs, and +piled them upon the brands. But the number of speeches that passed was +very small in proportion to the meanings exchanged. Long experience +together often enabled them to see the course of thought in each other's +minds without a word being spoken. Behind them, in the centre of the +room, the table was spread for supper, certain whiffs of air laden with +fat vapours, which ever and anon entered from the kitchen, denoting its +preparation there. + +'The new gown he was going to send you stays about on the way like +himself,' Sally's mother was saying. + +'Yes, not finished, I daresay,' cried Sally independently. 'Lord, I +shouldn't be amazed if it didn't come at all! Young men make such kind +promises when they are near you, and forget 'em when they go away. But +he doesn't intend it as a wedding-gown--he gives it to me merely as a +gown to wear when I like--a travelling-dress is what it would be called +by some. Come rathe or come late it don't much matter, as I have a dress +of my own to fall back upon. But what time is it?' + +She went to the family clock and opened the glass, for the hour was not +otherwise discernible by night, and indeed at all times was rather a +thing to be investigated than beheld, so much more wall than window was +there in the apartment. 'It is nearly eight,' said she. + +'Eight o'clock, and neither dress nor man,' said Mrs. Hall. + +'Mother, if you think to tantalize me by talking like that, you are much +mistaken! Let him be as late as he will--or stay away altogether--I +don't care,' said Sally. But a tender, minute quaver in the negation +showed that there was something forced in that statement. + +Mrs. Hall perceived it, and drily observed that she was not so sure about +Sally not caring. 'But perhaps you don't care so much as I do, after +all,' she said. 'For I see what you don't, that it is a good and +flourishing match for you; a very honourable offer in Mr. Darton. And I +think I see a kind husband in him. So pray God 'twill go smooth, and +wind up well.' + +Sally would not listen to misgivings. Of course it would go smoothly, +she asserted. 'How you are up and down, mother!' she went on. 'At this +moment, whatever hinders him, we are not so anxious to see him as he is +to be here, and his thought runs on before him, and settles down upon us +like the star in the east. Hark!' she exclaimed, with a breath of +relief, her eyes sparkling. 'I heard something. Yes--here they are!' + +The next moment her mother's slower ear also distinguished the familiar +reverberation occasioned by footsteps clambering up the roots of the +sycamore. + +'Yes it sounds like them at last,' she said. 'Well, it is not so very +late after all, considering the distance.' + +The footfall ceased, and they arose, expecting a knock. They began to +think it might have been, after all, some neighbouring villager under +Bacchic influence, giving the centre of the road a wide berth, when their +doubts were dispelled by the new-comer's entry into the passage. The +door of the room was gently opened, and there appeared, not the pair of +travellers with whom we have already made acquaintance, but a pale-faced +man in the garb of extreme poverty--almost in rags. + +'O, it's a tramp--gracious me!' said Sally, starting back. + +His cheeks and eye-orbits were deep concaves--rather, it might be, from +natural weakness of constitution than irregular living, though there were +indications that he had led no careful life. He gazed at the two women +fixedly for a moment: then with an abashed, humiliated demeanour, dropped +his glance to the floor, and sank into a chair without uttering a word. + +Sally was in advance of her mother, who had remained standing by the +fire. She now tried to discern the visitor across the candles. + +'Why--mother,' said Sally faintly, turning back to Mrs. Hall. 'It is +Phil, from Australia!' + +Mrs. Hall started, and grew pale, and a fit of coughing seized the man +with the ragged clothes. 'To come home like this!' she said. 'O, +Philip--are you ill?' + +'No, no, mother,' replied he impatiently, as soon as he could speak. + +'But for God's sake how do you come here--and just now too?' + +'Well, I am here,' said the man. 'How it is I hardly know. I've come +home, mother, because I was driven to it. Things were against me out +there, and went from bad to worse.' + +'Then why didn't you let us know?--you've not writ a line for the last +two or three years.' + +The son admitted sadly that he had not. He said that he had hoped and +thought he might fetch up again, and be able to send good news. Then he +had been obliged to abandon that hope, and had finally come home from +sheer necessity--previously to making a new start. 'Yes, things are very +bad with me,' he repeated, perceiving their commiserating glances at his +clothes. + +They brought him nearer the fire, took his hat from his thin hand, which +was so small and smooth as to show that his attempts to fetch up again +had not been in a manual direction. His mother resumed her inquiries, +and dubiously asked if he had chosen to come that particular night for +any special reason. + +For no reason, he told her. His arrival had been quite at random. Then +Philip Hall looked round the room, and saw for the first time that the +table was laid somewhat luxuriously, and for a larger number than +themselves; and that an air of festivity pervaded their dress. He asked +quickly what was going on. + +'Sally is going to be married in a day or two,' replied the mother; and +she explained how Mr. Darton, Sally's intended husband, was coming there +that night with the groomsman, Mr. Johns, and other details. 'We thought +it must be their step when we heard you,' said Mrs. Hall. + +The needy wanderer looked again on the floor. 'I see--I see,' he +murmured. 'Why, indeed, should I have come to-night? Such folk as I are +not wanted here at these times, naturally. And I have no business +here--spoiling other people's happiness.' + +'Phil,' said his mother, with a tear in her eye, but with a thinness of +lip and severity of manner which were presumably not more than past +events justified; 'since you speak like that to me, I'll speak honestly +to you. For these three years you have taken no thought for us. You +left home with a good supply of money, and strength and education, and +you ought to have made good use of it all. But you come back like a +beggar; and that you come in a very awkward time for us cannot be denied. +Your return to-night may do us much harm. But mind--you are welcome to +this home as long as it is mine. I don't wish to turn you adrift. We +will make the best of a bad job; and I hope you are not seriously ill?' + +'O no. I have only this infernal cough.' + +She looked at him anxiously. 'I think you had better go to bed at once,' +she said. + +'Well--I shall be out of the way there,' said the son wearily. 'Having +ruined myself, don't let me ruin you by being seen in these togs, for +Heaven's sake. Who do you say Sally is going to be married to--a Farmer +Darton?' + +'Yes--a gentleman-farmer--quite a wealthy man. Far better in station +than she could have expected. It is a good thing, altogether.' + +'Well done, little Sal!' said her brother, brightening and looking up at +her with a smile. 'I ought to have written; but perhaps I have thought +of you all the more. But let me get out of sight. I would rather go and +jump into the river than be seen here. But have you anything I can +drink? I am confoundedly thirsty with my long tramp.' + +'Yes, yes, we will bring something upstairs to you,' said Sally, with +grief in her face. + +'Ay, that will do nicely. But, Sally and mother--' He stopped, and they +waited. 'Mother, I have not told you all,' he resumed slowly, still +looking on the floor between his knees. 'Sad as what you see of me is, +there's worse behind.' + +His mother gazed upon him in grieved suspense, and Sally went and leant +upon the bureau, listening for every sound, and sighing. Suddenly she +turned round, saying, 'Let them come, I don't care! Philip, tell the +worst, and take your time.' + +'Well, then,' said the unhappy Phil, 'I am not the only one in this mess. +Would to Heaven I were! But--' + +'O, Phil!' + +'I have a wife as destitute as I.' + +'A wife?' said his mother. + +'Unhappily!' + +'A wife! Yes, that is the way with sons!' + +'And besides--' said he. + +'Besides! O, Philip, surely--' + +'I have two little children.' + +'Wife and children!' whispered Mrs. Hall, sinking down confounded. + +'Poor little things!' said Sally involuntarily. + +His mother turned again to him. 'I suppose these helpless beings are +left in Australia?' + +'No. They are in England.' + +'Well, I can only hope you've left them in a respectable place.' + +'I have not left them at all. They are here--within a few yards of us. +In short, they are in the stable.' + +'Where?' + +'In the stable. I did not like to bring them indoors till I had seen +you, mother, and broken the bad news a bit to you. They were very tired, +and are resting out there on some straw.' + +Mrs. Hall's fortitude visibly broke down. She had been brought up not +without refinement, and was even more moved by such a collapse of genteel +aims as this than a substantial dairyman's widow would in ordinary have +been moved. 'Well, it must be borne,' she said, in a low voice, with her +hands tightly joined. 'A starving son, a starving wife, starving +children! Let it be. But why is this come to us now, to-day, to-night? +Could no other misfortune happen to helpless women than this, which will +quite upset my poor girl's chance of a happy life? Why have you done us +this wrong, Philip? What respectable man will come here, and marry open- +eyed into a family of vagabonds?' + +'Nonsense, mother!' said Sally vehemently, while her face flushed. +'Charley isn't the man to desert me. But if he should be, and won't +marry me because Phil's come, let him go and marry elsewhere. I won't be +ashamed of my own flesh and blood for any man in England--not I!' And +then Sally turned away and burst into tears. + +'Wait till you are twenty years older and you will tell a different +tale,' replied her mother. + +The son stood up. 'Mother,' he said bitterly, 'as I have come, so I will +go. All I ask of you is that you will allow me and mine to lie in your +stable to-night. I give you my word that we'll be gone by break of day, +and trouble you no further!' + +Mrs. Hall, the mother, changed at that. 'O no,' she answered hastily; +'never shall it be said that I sent any of my own family from my door. +Bring 'em in, Philip, or take me out to them.' + +'We will put 'em all into the large bedroom,' said Sally, brightening, +'and make up a large fire. Let's go and help them in, and call Rebekah.' +(Rebekah was the woman who assisted at the dairy and housework; she lived +in a cottage hard by with her husband, who attended to the cows.) + +Sally went to fetch a lantern from the back-kitchen, but her brother +said, 'You won't want a light. I lit the lantern that was hanging +there.' + +'What must we call your wife?' asked Mrs. Hall. + +'Helena,' said Philip. + +With shawls over their heads they proceeded towards the back door. + +'One minute before you go,' interrupted Philip. 'I--I haven't confessed +all.' + +'Then Heaven help us!' said Mrs. Hall, pushing to the door and clasping +her hands in calm despair. + +'We passed through Evershead as we came,' he continued, 'and I just +looked in at the "Sow-and-Acorn" to see if old Mike still kept on there +as usual. The carrier had come in from Sherton Abbas at that moment, and +guessing that I was bound for this place--for I think he knew me--he +asked me to bring on a dressmaker's parcel for Sally that was marked +"immediate." My wife had walked on with the children. 'Twas a flimsy +parcel, and the paper was torn, and I found on looking at it that it was +a thick warm gown. I didn't wish you to see poor Helena in a shabby +state. I was ashamed that you should--'twas not what she was born to. I +untied the parcel in the road, took it on to her where she was waiting in +the Lower Barn, and told her I had managed to get it for her, and that +she was to ask no question. She, poor thing, must have supposed I +obtained it on trust, through having reached a place where I was known, +for she put it on gladly enough. She has it on now. Sally has other +gowns, I daresay.' + +Sally looked at her mother, speechless. + +'You have others, I daresay!' repeated Phil, with a sick man's +impatience. 'I thought to myself, "Better Sally cry than Helena freeze." +Well, is the dress of great consequence? 'Twas nothing very ornamental, +as far as I could see.' + +'No--no; not of consequence,' returned Sally sadly, adding in a gentle +voice, 'You will not mind if I lend her another instead of that one, will +you?' + +Philip's agitation at the confession had brought on another attack of the +cough, which seemed to shake him to pieces. He was so obviously unfit to +sit in a chair that they helped him upstairs at once; and having hastily +given him a cordial and kindled the bedroom fire, they descended to fetch +their unhappy new relations. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +It was with strange feelings that the girl and her mother, lately so +cheerful, passed out of the back door into the open air of the barton, +laden with hay scents and the herby breath of cows. A fine sleet had +begun to fall, and they trotted across the yard quickly. The stable-door +was open; a light shone from it--from the lantern which always hung +there, and which Philip had lighted, as he said. Softly nearing the +door, Mrs. Hall pronounced the name 'Helena!' + +There was no answer for the moment. Looking in she was taken by +surprise. Two people appeared before her. For one, instead of the +drabbish woman she had expected, Mrs. Hall saw a pale, dark-eyed, +ladylike creature, whose personality ruled her attire rather than was +ruled by it. She was in a new and handsome gown, of course, and an old +bonnet. She was standing up, agitated; her hand was held by her +companion--none else than Sally's affianced, Farmer Charles Darton, upon +whose fine figure the pale stranger's eyes were fixed, as his were fixed +upon her. His other hand held the rein of his horse, which was standing +saddled as if just led in. + +At sight of Mrs. Hall they both turned, looking at her in a way neither +quite conscious nor unconscious, and without seeming to recollect that +words were necessary as a solution to the scene. In another moment Sally +entered also, when Mr. Darton dropped his companion's hand, led the horse +aside, and came to greet his betrothed and Mrs. Hall. + +'Ah!' he said, smiling--with something like forced composure--'this is a +roundabout way of arriving, you will say, my dear Mrs. Hall. But we lost +our way, which made us late. I saw a light here, and led in my horse at +once--my friend Johns and my man have gone back to the little inn with +theirs, not to crowd you too much. No sooner had I entered than I saw +that this lady had taken temporary shelter here--and found I was +intruding.' + +'She is my daughter-in-law,' said Mrs. Hall calmly. 'My son, too, is in +the house, but he has gone to bed unwell.' + +Sally had stood staring wonderingly at the scene until this moment, +hardly recognizing Darton's shake of the hand. The spell that bound her +was broken by her perceiving the two little children seated on a heap of +hay. She suddenly went forward, spoke to them, and took one on her arm +and the other in her hand. + +'And two children?' said Mr. Darton, showing thus that he had not been +there long enough as yet to understand the situation. + +'My grandchildren,' said Mrs. Hall, with as much affected ease as before. + +Philip Hall's wife, in spite of this interruption to her first +rencounter, seemed scarcely so much affected by it as to feel any one's +presence in addition to Mr. Darton's. However, arousing herself by a +quick reflection, she threw a sudden critical glance of her sad eyes upon +Mrs. Hall; and, apparently finding her satisfactory, advanced to her in a +meek initiative. Then Sally and the stranger spoke some friendly words +to each other, and Sally went on with the children into the house. Mrs. +Hall and Helena followed, and Mr. Darton followed these, looking at +Helena's dress and outline, and listening to her voice like a man in a +dream. + +By the time the others reached the house Sally had already gone upstairs +with the tired children. She rapped against the wall for Rebekah to come +in and help to attend to them, Rebekah's house being a little 'spit-and- +dab' cabin leaning against the substantial stone-work of Mrs. Hall's +taller erection. When she came a bed was made up for the little ones, +and some supper given to them. On descending the stairs after seeing +this done Sally went to the sitting-room. Young Mrs. Hall entered it +just in advance of her, having in the interim retired with her mother-in- +law to take off her bonnet, and otherwise make herself presentable. Hence +it was evident that no further communication could have passed between +her and Mr. Darton since their brief interview in the stable. + +Mr. Japheth Johns now opportunely arrived, and broke up the restraint of +the company, after a few orthodox meteorological commentaries had passed +between him and Mrs. Hall by way of introduction. They at once sat down +to supper, the present of wine and turkey not being produced for +consumption to-night, lest the premature display of those gifts should +seem to throw doubt on Mrs. Hall's capacities as a provider. + +'Drink hearty, Mr. Johns--drink hearty,' said that matron magnanimously. +'Such as it is there's plenty of. But perhaps cider-wine is not to your +taste?--though there's body in it.' + +'Quite the contrairy, ma'am--quite the contrairy,' said the dairyman. +'For though I inherit the malt-liquor principle from my father, I am a +cider-drinker on my mother's side. She came from these parts, you know. +And there's this to be said for't--'tis a more peaceful liquor, and don't +lie about a man like your hotter drinks. With care, one may live on it a +twelvemonth without knocking down a neighbour, or getting a black eye +from an old acquaintance.' + +The general conversation thus begun was continued briskly, though it was +in the main restricted to Mrs. Hall and Japheth, who in truth required +but little help from anybody. There being slight call upon Sally's +tongue, she had ample leisure to do what her heart most desired, namely, +watch her intended husband and her sister-in-law with a view of +elucidating the strange momentary scene in which her mother and herself +had surprised them in the stable. If that scene meant anything, it +meant, at least, that they had met before. That there had been no time +for explanations Sally could see, for their manner was still one of +suppressed amazement at each other's presence there. Darton's eyes, too, +fell continually on the gown worn by Helena as if this were an added +riddle to his perplexity; though to Sally it was the one feature in the +case which was no mystery. He seemed to feel that fate had impishly +changed his vis-a-vis in the lover's jig he was about to foot; that while +the gown had been expected to enclose a Sally, a Helena's face looked out +from the bodice; that some long-lost hand met his own from the sleeves. + +Sally could see that whatever Helena might know of Darton, she knew +nothing of how the dress entered into his embarrassment. And at moments +the young girl would have persuaded herself that Darton's looks at her +sister-in-law were entirely the fruit of the clothes query. But surely +at other times a more extensive range of speculation and sentiment was +expressed by her lover's eye than that which the changed dress would +account for. + +Sally's independence made her one of the least jealous of women. But +there was something in the relations of these two visitors which ought to +be explained. + +Japheth Johns continued to converse in his well-known style, +interspersing his talk with some private reflections on the position of +Darton and Sally, which, though the sparkle in his eye showed them to be +highly entertaining to himself, were apparently not quite communicable to +the company. At last he withdrew for the night, going off to the +roadside inn half-a-mile back, whither Darton promised to follow him in a +few minutes. + +Half-an-hour passed, and then Mr. Darton also rose to leave, Sally and +her sister-in-law simultaneously wishing him good-night as they retired +upstairs to their rooms. But on his arriving at the front door with Mrs. +Hall a sharp shower of rain began to come down, when the widow suggested +that he should return to the fire-side till the storm ceased. + +Darton accepted her proposal, but insisted that, as it was getting late, +and she was obviously tired, she should not sit up on his account, since +he could let himself out of the house, and would quite enjoy smoking a +pipe by the hearth alone. Mrs. Hall assented; and Darton was left by +himself. He spread his knees to the brands, lit up his tobacco as he had +said, and sat gazing into the fire, and at the notches of the chimney- +crook which hung above. + +An occasional drop of rain rolled down the chimney with a hiss, and still +he smoked on; but not like a man whose mind was at rest. In the long +run, however, despite his meditations, early hours afield and a long ride +in the open air produced their natural result. He began to doze. + +How long he remained in this half-unconscious state he did not know. He +suddenly opened his eyes. The back-brand had burnt itself in two, and +ceased to flame; the light which he had placed on the mantelpiece had +nearly gone out. But in spite of these deficiencies there was a light in +the apartment, and it came from elsewhere. Turning his head he saw +Philip Hall's wife standing at the entrance of the room with a bed-candle +in one hand, a small brass tea-kettle in the other, and his gown, as it +certainly seemed, still upon her. + +'Helena!' said Darton, starting up. + +Her countenance expressed dismay, and her first words were an apology. +'I--did not know you were here, Mr. Darton,' she said, while a blush +flashed to her cheek. 'I thought every one had retired--I was coming to +make a little water boil; my husband seems to be worse. But perhaps the +kitchen fire can be lighted up again.' + +'Don't go on my account. By all means put it on here as you intended,' +said Darton. 'Allow me to help you.' He went forward to take the kettle +from her hand, but she did not allow him, and placed it on the fire +herself. + +They stood some way apart, one on each side of the fireplace, waiting +till the water should boil, the candle on the mantel between them, and +Helena with her eyes on the kettle. Darton was the first to break the +silence. 'Shall I call Sally?' he said. + +'O no,' she quickly returned. 'We have given trouble enough already. We +have no right here. But we are the sport of fate, and were obliged to +come.' + +'No right here!' said he in surprise. + +'None. I can't explain it now,' answered Helena. 'This kettle is very +slow.' + +There was another pause; the proverbial dilatoriness of watched pots was +never more clearly exemplified. + +Helena's face was of that sort which seems to ask for assistance without +the owner's knowledge--the very antipodes of Sally's, which was +self-reliance expressed. Darton's eyes travelled from the kettle to +Helena's face, then back to the kettle, then to the face for rather a +longer time. 'So I am not to know anything of the mystery that has +distracted me all the evening?' he said. 'How is it that a woman, who +refused me because (as I supposed) my position was not good enough for +her taste, is found to be the wife of a man who certainly seems to be +worse off than I?' + +'He had the prior claim,' said she. + +'What! you knew him at that time?' + +'Yes, yes! Please say no more,' she implored. + +'Whatever my errors, I have paid for them during the last five years!' + +The heart of Darton was subject to sudden overflowings. He was kind to a +fault. 'I am sorry from my soul,' he said, involuntarily approaching +her. Helena withdrew a step or two, at which he became conscious of his +movement, and quickly took his former place. Here he stood without +speaking, and the little kettle began to sing. + +'Well, you might have been my wife if you had chosen,' he said at last. +'But that's all past and gone. However, if you are in any trouble or +poverty I shall be glad to be of service, and as your relation by +marriage I shall have a right to be. Does your uncle know of your +distress?' + +'My uncle is dead. He left me without a farthing. And now we have two +children to maintain.' + +'What, left you nothing? How could he be so cruel as that?' + +'I disgraced myself in his eyes.' + +'Now,' said Darton earnestly, 'let me take care of the children, at least +while you are so unsettled. You belong to another, so I cannot take care +of you.' + +'Yes you can,' said a voice; and suddenly a third figure stood beside +them. It was Sally. 'You can, since you seem to wish to?' she repeated. +'She no longer belongs to another . . . My poor brother is dead!' + +Her face was red, her eyes sparkled, and all the woman came to the front. +'I have heard it!' she went on to him passionately. 'You can protect her +now as well as the children!' She turned then to her agitated sister-in- +law. 'I heard something,' said Sally (in a gentle murmur, differing much +from her previous passionate words), 'and I went into his room. It must +have been the moment you left. He went off so quickly, and weakly, and +it was so unexpected, that I couldn't leave even to call you.' + +Darton was just able to gather from the confused discourse which followed +that, during his sleep by the fire, this brother whom he had never seen +had become worse; and that during Helena's absence for water the end had +unexpectedly come. The two young women hastened upstairs, and he was +again left alone. + +* * * * * + +After standing there a short time he went to the front door and looked +out; till, softly closing it behind him, he advanced and stood under the +large sycamore-tree. The stars were flickering coldly, and the dampness +which had just descended upon the earth in rain now sent up a chill from +it. Darton was in a strange position, and he felt it. The unexpected +appearance, in deep poverty, of Helena--a young lady, daughter of a +deceased naval officer, who had been brought up by her uncle, a +solicitor, and had refused Darton in marriage years ago--the passionate, +almost angry demeanour of Sally at discovering them, the abrupt +announcement that Helena was a widow; all this coming together was a +conjuncture difficult to cope with in a moment, and made him question +whether he ought to leave the house or offer assistance. But for Sally's +manner he would unhesitatingly have done the latter. + +He was still standing under the tree when the door in front of him +opened, and Mrs. Hall came out. She went round to the garden-gate at the +side without seeing him. Darton followed her, intending to speak. + +Pausing outside, as if in thought, she proceeded to a spot where the sun +came earliest in spring-time, and where the north wind never blew; it was +where the row of beehives stood under the wall. Discerning her object, +he waited till she had accomplished it. + +It was the universal custom thereabout to wake the bees by tapping at +their hives whenever a death occurred in the household, under the belief +that if this were not done the bees themselves would pine away and perish +during the ensuing year. As soon as an interior buzzing responded to her +tap at the first hive Mrs. Hall went on to the second, and thus passed +down the row. As soon as she came back he met her. + +'What can I do in this trouble, Mrs. Hall?' he said. + +'O--nothing, thank you, nothing,' she said in a tearful voice, now just +perceiving him. 'We have called Rebekah and her husband, and they will +do everything necessary.' She told him in a few words the particulars of +her son's arrival, broken in health--indeed, at death's very door, though +they did not suspect it--and suggested, as the result of a conversation +between her and her daughter, that the wedding should be postponed. + +'Yes, of course,' said Darton. 'I think now to go straight to the inn +and tell Johns what has happened.' It was not till after he had shaken +hands with her that he turned hesitatingly and added, 'Will you tell the +mother of his children that, as they are now left fatherless, I shall be +glad to take the eldest of them, if it would be any convenience to her +and to you?' + +Mrs. Hall promised that her son's widow should he told of the offer, and +they parted. He retired down the rooty slope and disappeared in the +direction of the inn, where he informed Johns of the circumstances. +Meanwhile Mrs. Hall had entered the house, Sally was downstairs in the +sitting-room alone, and her mother explained to her that Darton had +readily assented to the postponement. + +'No doubt he has,' said Sally, with sad emphasis. 'It is not put off for +a week, or a month, or a year. I shall never marry him, and she will!' + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Time passed, and the household on the Knap became again serene under the +composing influences of daily routine. A desultory, very desultory +correspondence, dragged on between Sally Hall and Darton, who, not quite +knowing how to take her petulant words on the night of her brother's +death, had continued passive thus long. Helena and her children remained +at the dairy-house, almost of necessity, and Darton therefore deemed it +advisable to stay away. + +One day, seven months later on, when Mr. Darton was as usual at his farm, +twenty miles from Hintock, a note reached him from Helena. She thanked +him for his kind offer about her children, which her mother-in-law had +duly communicated, and stated that she would be glad to accept it as +regarded the eldest, the boy. Helena had, in truth, good need to do so, +for her uncle had left her penniless, and all application to some +relatives in the north had failed. There was, besides, as she said, no +good school near Hintock to which she could send the child. + +On a fine summer day the boy came. He was accompanied half-way by Sally +and his mother--to the 'White Horse,' at Chalk Newton--where he was +handed over to Darton's bailiff in a shining spring-cart, who met them +there. + +He was entered as a day-scholar at a popular school at Casterbridge, +three or four miles from Darton's, having first been taught by Darton to +ride a forest-pony, on which he cantered to and from the aforesaid fount +of knowledge, and (as Darton hoped) brought away a promising headful of +the same at each diurnal expedition. The thoughtful taciturnity into +which Darton had latterly fallen was quite dissipated by the presence of +this boy. + +When the Christmas holidays came it was arranged that he should spend +them with his mother. The journey was, for some reason or other, +performed in two stages, as at his coming, except that Darton in person +took the place of the bailiff, and that the boy and himself rode on +horseback. + +Reaching the renowned 'White Horse,' Darton inquired if Miss and young +Mrs. Hall were there to meet little Philip (as they had agreed to be). He +was answered by the appearance of Helena alone at the door. + +'At the last moment Sally would not come,' she faltered. + +That meeting practically settled the point towards which these +long-severed persons were converging. But nothing was broached about it +for some time yet. Sally Hall had, in fact, imparted the first decisive +motion to events by refusing to accompany Helena. She soon gave them a +second move by writing the following note + + '[Private.] + + 'DEAR CHARLES,--Living here so long and intimately with Helena, I have + naturally learnt her history, especially that of it which refers to + you. I am sure she would accept you as a husband at the proper time, + and I think you ought to give her the opportunity. You inquire in an + old note if I am sorry that I showed temper (which it wasn't) that + night when I heard you talking to her. No, Charles, I am not sorry at + all for what I said then.--Yours sincerely, SALLY HALL.' + +Thus set in train, the transfer of Darton's heart back to its original +quarters proceeded by mere lapse of time. In the following July, Darton +went to his friend Japheth to ask him at last to fulfil the bridal office +which had been in abeyance since the previous January twelvemonths. + +'With all my heart, man o' constancy!' said Dairyman Johns warmly. 'I've +lost most of my genteel fair complexion haymaking this hot weather, 'tis +true, but I'll do your business as well as them that look better. There +be scents and good hair-oil in the world yet, thank God, and they'll take +off the roughest o' my edge. I'll compliment her. "Better late than +never, Sally Hall," I'll say.' + +'It is not Sally,' said Darton hurriedly. 'It is young Mrs. Hall.' + +Japheth's face, as soon as he really comprehended, became a picture of +reproachful dismay. 'Not Sally?' he said. 'Why not Sally? I can't +believe it! Young Mrs. Hall! Well, well--where's your wisdom?' + +Darton shortly explained particulars; but Johns would not be reconciled. +'She was a woman worth having if ever woman was,' he cried. 'And now to +let her go!' + +'But I suppose I can marry where I like,' said Darton. + +'H'm,' replied the dairyman, lifting his eyebrows expressively. 'This +don't become you, Charles--it really do not. If I had done such a thing +you would have sworn I was a curst no'thern fool to be drawn off the +scent by such a red-herring doll-oll-oll.' + +Farmer Darton responded in such sharp terms to this laconic opinion that +the two friends finally parted in a way they had never parted before. +Johns was to be no groomsman to Darton after all. He had flatly +declined. Darton went off sorry, and even unhappy, particularly as +Japheth was about to leave that side of the county, so that the words +which had divided them were not likely to be explained away or softened +down. + +A short time after the interview Darton was united to Helena at a simple +matter-of fact wedding; and she and her little girl joined the boy who +had already grown to look on Darton's house as home. + +For some months the farmer experienced an unprecedented happiness and +satisfaction. There had been a flaw in his life, and it was as neatly +mended as was humanly possible. But after a season the stream of events +followed less clearly, and there were shades in his reveries. Helena was +a fragile woman, of little staying power, physically or morally, and +since the time that he had originally known her--eight or ten years +before--she had been severely tried. She had loved herself out, in +short, and was now occasionally given to moping. Sometimes she spoke +regretfully of the gentilities of her early life, and instead of +comparing her present state with her condition as the wife of the unlucky +Hall, she mused rather on what it had been before she took the first +fatal step of clandestinely marrying him. She did not care to please +such people as those with whom she was thrown as a thriving farmer's +wife. She allowed the pretty trifles of agricultural domesticity to +glide by her as sorry details, and had it not been for the children +Darton's house would have seemed but little brighter than it had been +before. + +This led to occasional unpleasantness, until Darton sometimes declared to +himself that such endeavours as his to rectify early deviations of the +heart by harking back to the old point mostly failed of success. 'Perhaps +Johns was right,' he would say. 'I should have gone on with Sally. +Better go with the tide and make the best of its course than stem it at +the risk of a capsize.' But he kept these unmelodious thoughts to +himself, and was outwardly considerate and kind. + +This somewhat barren tract of his life had extended to less than a year +and a half when his ponderings were cut short by the loss of the woman +they concerned. When she was in her grave he thought better of her than +when she had been alive; the farm was a worse place without her than with +her, after all. No woman short of divine could have gone through such an +experience as hers with her first husband without becoming a little +soured. Her stagnant sympathies, her sometimes unreasonable manner, had +covered a heart frank and well meaning, and originally hopeful and warm. +She left him a tiny red infant in white wrappings. To make life as easy +as possible to this touching object became at once his care. + +As this child learnt to walk and talk Darton learnt to see feasibility in +a scheme which pleased him. Revolving the experiment which he had +hitherto made upon life, he fancied he had gained wisdom from his +mistakes and caution from his miscarriages. + +What the scheme was needs no penetration to discover. Once more he had +opportunity to recast and rectify his ill-wrought situations by returning +to Sally Hall, who still lived quietly on under her mother's roof at +Hintock. Helena had been a woman to lend pathos and refinement to a +home; Sally was the woman to brighten it. She would not, as Helena did, +despise the rural simplicities of a farmer's fireside. Moreover, she had +a pre-eminent qualification for Darton's household; no other woman could +make so desirable a mother to her brother's two children and Darton's one +as Sally--while Darton, now that Helena had gone, was a more promising +husband for Sally than he had ever been when liable to reminders from an +uncured sentimental wound. + +Darton was not a man to act rapidly, and the working out of his +reparative designs might have been delayed for some time. But there came +a winter evening precisely like the one which had darkened over that +former ride to Hintock, and he asked himself why he should postpone +longer, when the very landscape called for a repetition of that attempt. + +He told his man to saddle the mare, booted and spurred himself with a +younger horseman's nicety, kissed the two youngest children, and rode +off. To make the journey a complete parallel to the first, he would fain +have had his old acquaintance Japheth Johns with him. But Johns, alas! +was missing. His removal to the other side of the county had left +unrepaired the breach which had arisen between him and Darton; and though +Darton had forgiven him a hundred times, as Johns had probably forgiven +Darton, the effort of reunion in present circumstances was one not likely +to be made. + +He screwed himself up to as cheerful a pitch as he could without his +former crony, and became content with his own thoughts as he rode, +instead of the words of a companion. The sun went down; the boughs +appeared scratched in like an etching against the sky; old crooked men +with faggots at their backs said 'Good-night, sir,' and Darton replied +'Good-night' right heartily. + +By the time he reached the forking roads it was getting as dark as it had +been on the occasion when Johns climbed the directing-post. Darton made +no mistake this time. 'Nor shall I be able to mistake, thank Heaven, +when I arrive,' he murmured. It gave him peculiar satisfaction to think +that the proposed marriage, like his first, was of the nature of setting +in order things long awry, and not a momentary freak of fancy. + +Nothing hindered the smoothness of his journey, which seemed not half its +former length. Though dark, it was only between five and six o'clock +when the bulky chimneys of Mrs. Hall's residence appeared in view behind +the sycamore-tree. On second thoughts he retreated and put up at the ale- +house as in former time; and when he had plumed himself before the inn +mirror, called for something to drink, and smoothed out the incipient +wrinkles of care, he walked on to the Knap with a quick step. + + + +CHAPTER V + + +That evening Sally was making 'pinners' for the milkers, who were now +increased by two, for her mother and herself no longer joined in milking +the cows themselves. But upon the whole there was little change in the +household economy, and not much in its appearance, beyond such minor +particulars as that the crack over the window, which had been a hundred +years coming, was a trifle wider; that the beams were a shade blacker; +that the influence of modernism had supplanted the open chimney corner by +a grate; that Rebekah, who had worn a cap when she had plenty of hair, +had left it off now she had scarce any, because it was reported that caps +were not fashionable; and that Sally's face had naturally assumed a more +womanly and experienced cast. + +Mrs. Hall was actually lifting coals with the tongs, as she had used to +do. + +'Five years ago this very night, if I am not mistaken--' she said, laying +on an ember. + +'Not this very night--though 'twas one night this week,' said the correct +Sally. + +'Well, 'tis near enough. Five years ago Mr. Darton came to marry you, +and my poor boy Phil came home to die.' She sighed. 'Ah, Sally,' she +presently said, 'if you had managed well Mr. Darton would have had you, +Helena or none.' + +'Don't be sentimental about that, mother,' begged Sally. 'I didn't care +to manage well in such a case. Though I liked him, I wasn't so anxious. +I would never have married the man in the midst of such a hitch as that +was,' she added with decision; 'and I don't think I would if he were to +ask me now.' + +'I am not sure about that, unless you have another in your eye.' + +'I wouldn't; and I'll tell you why. I could hardly marry him for love at +this time o' day. And as we've quite enough to live on if we give up the +dairy to-morrow, I should have no need to marry for any meaner reason . . +. I am quite happy enough as I am, and there's an end of it.' + +Now it was not long after this dialogue that there came a mild rap at the +door, and in a moment there entered Rebekah, looking as though a ghost +had arrived. The fact was that that accomplished skimmer and churner +(now a resident in the house) had overheard the desultory observations +between mother and daughter, and on opening the door to Mr. Darton +thought the coincidence must have a grisly meaning in it. Mrs. Hall +welcomed the farmer with warm surprise, as did Sally, and for a moment +they rather wanted words. + +'Can you push up the chimney-crook for me, Mr Darton? the notches hitch,' +said the matron. He did it, and the homely little act bridged over the +awkward consciousness that he had been a stranger for four years. + +Mrs. Hall soon saw what he had come for, and left the principals together +while she went to prepare him a late tea, smiling at Sally's recent hasty +assertions of indifference, when she saw how civil Sally was. When tea +was ready she joined them. She fancied that Darton did not look so +confident as when he had arrived; but Sally was quite light-hearted, and +the meal passed pleasantly. + +About seven he took his leave of them. Mrs. Hall went as far as the door +to light him down the slope. On the doorstep he said frankly--'I came to +ask your daughter to marry me; chose the night and everything, with an +eye to a favourable answer. But she won't.' + +'Then she's a very ungrateful girl!' emphatically said Mrs. Hall. + +Darton paused to shape his sentence, and asked, 'I--I suppose there's +nobody else more favoured?' + +'I can't say that there is, or that there isn't,' answered Mrs. Hall. +'She's private in some things. I'm on your side, however, Mr. Darton, +and I'll talk to her.' + +'Thank 'ee, thank 'ee!' said the farmer in a gayer accent; and with this +assurance the not very satisfactory visit came to an end. Darton +descended the roots of the sycamore, the light was withdrawn, and the +door closed. At the bottom of the slope he nearly ran against a man +about to ascend. + +'Can a jack-o'-lent believe his few senses on such a dark night, or can't +he?' exclaimed one whose utterance Darton recognized in a moment, despite +its unexpectedness. 'I dare not swear he can, though I fain would!' The +speaker was Johns. + +Darton said he was glad of this opportunity, bad as it was, of putting an +end to the silence of years, and asked the dairyman what he was +travelling that way for. + +Japheth showed the old jovial confidence in a moment. 'I'm going to see +your--relations--as they always seem to me,' he said--'Mrs. Hall and +Sally. Well, Charles, the fact is I find the natural barbarousness of +man is much increased by a bachelor life, and, as your leavings were +always good enough for me, I'm trying civilization here.' He nodded +towards the house. + +'Not with Sally--to marry her?' said Darton, feeling something like a +rill of ice water between his shoulders. + +'Yes, by the help of Providence and my personal charms. And I think I +shall get her. I am this road every week--my present dairy is only four +miles off, you know, and I see her through the window. 'Tis rather odd +that I was going to speak practical to-night to her for the first time. +You've just called?' + +'Yes, for a short while. But she didn't say a word about you.' + +'A good sign, a good sign. Now that decides me. I'll swing the mallet +and get her answer this very night as I planned.' + +A few more remarks, and Darton, wishing his friend joy of Sally in a +slightly hollow tone of jocularity, bade him good-bye. Johns promised to +write particulars, and ascended, and was lost in the shade of the house +and tree. A rectangle of light appeared when Johns was admitted, and all +was dark again. + +'Happy Japheth!' said Darton. 'This then is the explanation!' + +He determined to return home that night. In a quarter of an hour he +passed out of the village, and the next day went about his swede-lifting +and storing as if nothing had occurred. + +He waited and waited to hear from Johns whether the wedding-day was +fixed: but no letter came. He learnt not a single particular till, +meeting Johns one day at a horse-auction, Darton exclaimed +genially--rather more genially than he felt--'When is the joyful day to +be?' + +To his great surprise a reciprocity of gladness was not conspicuous in +Johns. 'Not at all,' he said, in a very subdued tone. ''Tis a bad job; +she won't have me.' + +Darton held his breath till he said with treacherous solicitude, 'Try +again--'tis coyness.' + +'O no,' said Johns decisively. 'There's been none of that. We talked it +over dozens of times in the most fair and square way. She tells me +plainly, I don't suit her. 'Twould be simply annoying her to ask her +again. Ah, Charles, you threw a prize away when you let her slip five +years ago.' + +'I did--I did,' said Darton. + +He returned from that auction with a new set of feelings in play. He had +certainly made a surprising mistake in thinking Johns his successful +rival. It really seemed as if he might hope for Sally after all. + +This time, being rather pressed by business, Darton had recourse to pen- +and-ink, and wrote her as manly and straightforward a proposal as any +woman could wish to receive. The reply came promptly:- + + 'DEAR MR. DARTON,--I am as sensible as any woman can be of the + goodness that leads you to make me this offer a second time. Better + women than I would be proud of the honour, for when I read your nice + long speeches on mangold-wurzel, and such like topics, at the + Casterbridge Farmers' Club, I do feel it an honour, I assure you. But + my answer is just the same as before. I will not try to explain what, + in truth, I cannot explain--my reasons; I will simply say that I must + decline to be married to you. With good wishes as in former times, I + am, your faithful friend, + + 'SALLY HALL.' + +Darton dropped the letter hopelessly. Beyond the negative, there was +just a possibility of sarcasm in it--'nice long speeches on +mangold-wurzel' had a suspicious sound. However, sarcasm or none, there +was the answer, and he had to be content. + +He proceeded to seek relief in a business which at this time engrossed +much of his attention--that of clearing up a curious mistake just current +in the county, that he had been nearly ruined by the recent failure of a +local bank. A farmer named Darton had lost heavily, and the similarity +of name had probably led to the error. Belief in it was so persistent +that it demanded several days of letter-writing to set matters straight, +and persuade the world that he was as solvent as ever he had been in his +life. He had hardly concluded this worrying task when, to his delight, +another letter arrived in the handwriting of Sally. + +Darton tore it open; it was very short. + + 'DEAR MR. DARTON,--We have been so alarmed these last few days by the + report that you were ruined by the stoppage of --'s Bank, that, now it + is contradicted I hasten, by my mother's wish, to say how truly glad + we are to find there is no foundation for the report. After your + kindness to my poor brother's children, I can do no less than write at + such a moment. We had a letter from each of them a few days ago.--Your + faithful friend, + + 'SALLY HALL.' + +'Mercenary little woman!' said Darton to himself with a smile. 'Then +that was the secret of her refusal this time--she thought I was ruined.' + +Now, such was Darton, that as hours went on he could not help feeling too +generously towards Sally to condemn her in this. What did he want in a +wife? he asked himself. Love and integrity. What next? Worldly wisdom. +And was there really more than worldly wisdom in her refusal to go aboard +a sinking ship? She now knew it was otherwise. 'Begad,' he said, 'I'll +try her again.' + +The fact was he had so set his heart upon Sally, and Sally alone, that +nothing was to be allowed to baulk him; and his reasoning was purely +formal. + +Anniversaries having been unpropitious, he waited on till a bright day +late in May--a day when all animate nature was fancying, in its trusting, +foolish way, that it was going to bask out of doors for evermore. As he +rode through Long-Ash Lane it was scarce recognizable as the track of his +two winter journeys. No mistake could be made now, even with his eyes +shut. The cuckoo's note was at its best, between April tentativeness and +midsummer decrepitude, and the reptiles in the sun behaved as winningly +as kittens on a hearth. Though afternoon, and about the same time as on +the last occasion, it was broad day and sunshine when he entered Hintock, +and the details of the Knap dairy-house were visible far up the road. He +saw Sally in the garden, and was set vibrating. He had first intended to +go on to the inn; but 'No,' he said; 'I'll tie my horse to the garden- +gate. If all goes well it can soon be taken round: if not, I mount and +ride away' + +The tall shade of the horseman darkened the room in which Mrs. Hall sat, +and made her start, for he had ridden by a side path to the top of the +slope, where riders seldom came. In a few seconds he was in the garden +with Sally. + +Five--ay, three minutes--did the business at the back of that row of +bees. Though spring had come, and heavenly blue consecrated the scene, +Darton succeeded not. 'No,' said Sally firmly. 'I will never, never +marry you, Mr. Darton. I would have done it once; but now I never can.' + +'But!'--implored Mr. Darton. And with a burst of real eloquence he went +on to declare all sorts of things that he would do for her. He would +drive her to see her mother every week--take her to London--settle so +much money upon her--Heaven knows what he did not promise, suggest, and +tempt her with. But it availed nothing. She interposed with a stout +negative, which closed the course of his argument like an iron gate +across a highway. Darton paused. + +'Then,' said he simply, 'you hadn't heard of my supposed failure when you +declined last time?' + +'I had not,' she said. 'But if I had 'twould have been all the same.' + +'And 'tis not because of any soreness from my slighting you years ago?' + +'No. That soreness is long past.' + +'Ah--then you despise me, Sally?' + +'No,' she slowly answered. 'I don't altogether despise you. I don't +think you quite such a hero as I once did--that's all. The truth is, I +am happy enough as I am; and I don't mean to marry at all. Now, may I +ask a favour, sir?' She spoke with an ineffable charm, which, whenever +he thought of it, made him curse his loss of her as long as he lived. + +'To any extent.' + +'Please do not put this question to me any more. Friends as long as you +like, but lovers and married never.' + +'I never will,' said Darton. 'Not if I live a hundred years.' + +And he never did. That he had worn out his welcome in her heart was only +too plain. + +When his step-children had grown up, and were placed out in life, all +communication between Darton and the Hall family ceased. It was only by +chance that, years after, he learnt that Sally, notwithstanding the +solicitations her attractions drew down upon her, had refused several +offers of marriage, and steadily adhered to her purpose of leading a +single life + +May 1884. + + + + +THE DISTRACTED PREACHER + + +CHAPTER I--HOW HIS COLD WAS CURED + + +Something delayed the arrival of the Wesleyan minister, and a young man +came temporarily in his stead. It was on the thirteenth of January 183- +that Mr. Stockdale, the young man in question, made his humble entry into +the village, unknown, and almost unseen. But when those of the +inhabitants who styled themselves of his connection became acquainted +with him, they were rather pleased with the substitute than otherwise, +though he had scarcely as yet acquired ballast of character sufficient to +steady the consciences of the hundred-and-forty Methodists of pure blood +who, at this time, lived in Nether-Moynton, and to give in addition +supplementary support to the mixed race which went to church in the +morning and chapel in the evening, or when there was a tea--as many as a +hundred-and-ten people more, all told, and including the parish-clerk in +the winter-time, when it was too dark for the vicar to observe who passed +up the street at seven o'clock--which, to be just to him, he was never +anxious to do. + +It was owing to this overlapping of creeds that the celebrated population- +puzzle arose among the denser gentry of the district around +Nether-Moynton: how could it be that a parish containing fifteen score of +strong full-grown Episcopalians, and nearly thirteen score of +well-matured Dissenters, numbered barely two-and-twenty score adults in +all? + +The young man being personally interesting, those with whom he came in +contact were content to waive for a while the graver question of his +sufficiency. It is said that at this time of his life his eyes were +affectionate, though without a ray of levity; that his hair was curly, +and his figure tall; that he was, in short, a very lovable youth, who won +upon his female hearers as soon as they saw and heard him, and caused +them to say, 'Why didn't we know of this before he came, that we might +have gied him a warmer welcome!' + +The fact was that, knowing him to be only provisionally selected, and +expecting nothing remarkable in his person or doctrine, they and the rest +of his flock in Nether-Moynton had felt almost as indifferent about his +advent as if they had been the soundest church-going parishioners in the +country, and he their true and appointed parson. Thus when Stockdale set +foot in the place nobody had secured a lodging for him, and though his +journey had given him a bad cold in the head, he was forced to attend to +that business himself. On inquiry he learnt that the only possible +accommodation in the village would be found at the house of one Mrs. +Lizzy Newberry, at the upper end of the street. + +It was a youth who gave this information, and Stockdale asked him who +Mrs. Newberry might be. + +The boy said that she was a widow-woman, who had got no husband, because +he was dead. Mr. Newberry, he added, had been a well-to-do man enough, +as the saying was, and a farmer; but he had gone off in a decline. As +regarded Mrs. Newberry's serious side, Stockdale gathered that she was +one of the trimmers who went to church and chapel both. + +'I'll go there,' said Stockdale, feeling that, in the absence of purely +sectarian lodgings, he could do no better. + +'She's a little particular, and won't hae gover'ment folks, or curates, +or the pa'son's friends, or such like,' said the lad dubiously. + +'Ah, that may be a promising sign: I'll call. Or no; just you go up and +ask first if she can find room for me. I have to see one or two persons +on another matter. You will find me down at the carrier's.' + +In a quarter of an hour the lad came back, and said that Mrs. Newberry +would have no objection to accommodate him, whereupon Stockdale called at +the house. + +It stood within a garden-hedge, and seemed to be roomy and comfortable. +He saw an elderly woman, with whom he made arrangements to come the same +night, since there was no inn in the place, and he wished to house +himself as soon as possible; the village being a local centre from which +he was to radiate at once to the different small chapels in the +neighbourhood. He forthwith sent his luggage to Mrs. Newberry's from the +carrier's, where he had taken shelter, and in the evening walked up to +his temporary home. + +As he now lived there, Stockdale felt it unnecessary to knock at the +door; and entering quietly he had the pleasure of hearing footsteps +scudding away like mice into the back quarters. He advanced to the +parlour, as the front room was called, though its stone floor was +scarcely disguised by the carpet, which only over-laid the trodden areas, +leaving sandy deserts under the bulging mouldings of the table-legs, +playing with brass furniture. But the room looked snug and cheerful. The +firelight shone out brightly, trembling on the knobs and handles, and +lurking in great strength on the under surface of the chimney-piece. A +deep arm-chair, covered with horsehair, and studded with a countless +throng of brass nails, was pulled up on one side of the fireplace. The +tea-things were on the table, the teapot cover was open, and a little +hand-bell had been laid at that precise point towards which a person +seated in the great chair might be expected instinctively to stretch his +hand. + +Stockdale sat down, not objecting to his experience of the room thus far, +and began his residence by tinkling the bell. A little girl crept in at +the summons, and made tea for him. Her name, she said, was Marther +Sarer, and she lived out there, nodding towards the road and village +generally. Before Stockdale had got far with his meal, a tap sounded on +the door behind him, and on his telling the inquirer to come in, a rustle +of garments caused him to turn his head. He saw before him a fine and +extremely well-made young woman, with dark hair, a wide, sensible, +beautiful forehead, eyes that warmed him before he knew it, and a mouth +that was in itself a picture to all appreciative souls. + +'Can I get you anything else for tea?' she said, coming forward a step or +two, an expression of liveliness on her features, and her hand waving the +door by its edge. + +'Nothing, thank you,' said Stockdale, thinking less of what he replied +than of what might be her relation to the household. + +'You are quite sure?' said the young woman, apparently aware that he had +not considered his answer. + +He conscientiously examined the tea-things, and found them all there. +'Quite sure, Miss Newberry,' he said. + +'It is Mrs. Newberry,' she said. 'Lizzy Newberry, I used to be Lizzy +Simpkins.' + +'O, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Newberry.' And before he had occasion to say +more she left the room. + +Stockdale remained in some doubt till Martha Sarah came to clear the +table. 'Whose house is this, my little woman,' said he. + +'Mrs. Lizzy Newberry's, sir.' + +'Then Mrs. Newberry is not the old lady I saw this afternoon?' + +'No. That's Mrs. Newberry's mother. It was Mrs. Newberry who comed in +to you just by now, because she wanted to see if you was good-looking.' + +Later in the evening, when Stockdale was about to begin supper, she came +again. 'I have come myself, Mr. Stockdale,' she said. The minister +stood up in acknowledgment of the honour. 'I am afraid little Marther +might not make you understand. What will you have for supper?--there's +cold rabbit, and there's a ham uncut.' + +Stockdale said he could get on nicely with those viands, and supper was +laid. He had no more than cut a slice when tap-tap came to the door +again. The minister had already learnt that this particular rhythm in +taps denoted the fingers of his enkindling landlady, and the doomed young +fellow buried his first mouthful under a look of receptive blandness. + +'We have a chicken in the house, Mr. Stockdale--I quite forgot to mention +it just now. Perhaps you would like Marther Sarer to bring it up?' + +Stockdale had advanced far enough in the art of being a young man to say +that he did not want the chicken, unless she brought it up herself; but +when it was uttered he blushed at the daring gallantry of the speech, +perhaps a shade too strong for a serious man and a minister. In three +minutes the chicken appeared, but, to his great surprise, only in the +hands of Martha Sarah. Stockdale was disappointed, which perhaps it was +intended that he should be. + +He had finished supper, and was not in the least anticipating Mrs. +Newberry again that night, when she tapped and entered as before. +Stockdale's gratified look told that she had lost nothing by not +appearing when expected. It happened that the cold in the head from +which the young man suffered had increased with the approach of night, +and before she had spoken he was seized with a violent fit of sneezing +which he could not anyhow repress. + +Mrs. Newberry looked full of pity. 'Your cold is very bad to-night, Mr. +Stockdale.' + +Stockdale replied that it was rather troublesome. + +'And I've a good mind'--she added archly, looking at the cheerless glass +of water on the table, which the abstemious minister was going to drink. + +'Yes, Mrs. Newberry?' + +'I've a good mind that you should have something more likely to cure it +than that cold stuff.' + +'Well,' said Stockdale, looking down at the glass, 'as there is no inn +here, and nothing better to be got in the village, of course it will do.' + +To this she replied, 'There is something better, not far off, though not +in the house. I really think you must try it, or you may be ill. Yes, +Mr. Stockdale, you shall.' She held up her finger, seeing that he was +about to speak. 'Don't ask what it is; wait, and you shall see.' + +Lizzy went away, and Stockdale waited in a pleasant mood. Presently she +returned with her bonnet and cloak on, saying, 'I am so sorry, but you +must help me to get it. Mother has gone to bed. Will you wrap yourself +up, and come this way, and please bring that cup with you?' + +Stockdale, a lonely young fellow, who had for weeks felt a great craving +for somebody on whom to throw away superfluous interest, and even +tenderness, was not sorry to join her; and followed his guide through the +back door, across the garden, to the bottom, where the boundary was a +wall. This wall was low, and beyond it Stockdale discerned in the night +shades several grey headstones, and the outlines of the church roof and +tower. + +'It is easy to get up this way,' she said, stepping upon a bank which +abutted on the wall; then putting her foot on the top of the stonework, +and descending a spring inside, where the ground was much higher, as is +the manner of graveyards to be. Stockdale did the same, and followed her +in the dusk across the irregular ground till they came to the tower door, +which, when they had entered, she softly closed behind them. + +'You can keep a secret?' she said, in a musical voice. + +'Like an iron chest!' said he fervently. + +Then from under her cloak she produced a small lighted lantern, which the +minister had not noticed that she carried at all. The light showed them +to be close to the singing-gallery stairs, under which lay a heap of +lumber of all sorts, but consisting mostly of decayed framework, pews, +panels, and pieces of flooring, that from time to time had been removed +from their original fixings in the body of the edifice and replaced by +new. + +'Perhaps you will drag some of those boards aside?' she said, holding the +lantern over her head to light him better. 'Or will you take the lantern +while I move them?' + +'I can manage it,' said the young man, and acting as she ordered, he +uncovered, to his surprise, a row of little barrels bound with wood +hoops, each barrel being about as large as the nave of a heavy waggon- +wheel. + +When they were laid open Lizzy fixed her eyes on him, as if she wondered +what he would say. + +'You know what they are?' she asked, finding that he did not speak. + +'Yes, barrels,' said Stockdale simply. He was an inland man, the son of +highly respectable parents, and brought up with a single eye to the +ministry; and the sight suggested nothing beyond the fact that such +articles were there. + +'You are quite right, they are barrels,' she said, in an emphatic tone of +candour that was not without a touch of irony. + +Stockdale looked at her with an eye of sudden misgiving. 'Not smugglers' +liquor?' he said. + +'Yes,' said she. 'They are tubs of spirit that have accidentally come +over in the dark from France.' + +In Nether-Moynton and its vicinity at this date people always smiled at +the sort of sin called in the outside world illicit trading; and these +little kegs of gin and brandy were as well known to the inhabitants as +turnips. So that Stockdale's innocent ignorance, and his look of alarm +when he guessed the sinister mystery, seemed to strike Lizzy first as +ludicrous, and then as very awkward for the good impression that she +wished to produce upon him. + +'Smuggling is carried on here by some of the people,' she said in a +gentle, apologetic voice. 'It has been their practice for generations, +and they think it no harm. Now, will you roll out one of the tubs?' + +'What to do with it?' said the minister. + +'To draw a little from it to cure your cold,' she answered. 'It is so +'nation strong that it drives away that sort of thing in a jiffy. O, it +is all right about our taking it. I may have what I like; the owner of +the tubs says so. I ought to have had some in the house, and then I +shouldn't ha' been put to this trouble; but I drink none myself, and so I +often forget to keep it indoors.' + +'You are allowed to help yourself, I suppose, that you may not inform +where their hiding-place is?' + +'Well, no; not that particularly; but I may take any if I want it. So +help yourself.' + +'I will, to oblige you, since you have a right to it,' murmured the +minister; and though he was not quite satisfied with his part in the +performance, he rolled one of the 'tubs' out from the corner into the +middle of the tower floor. 'How do you wish me to get it out--with a +gimlet, I suppose?' + +'No, I'll show you,' said his interesting companion; and she held up with +her other hand a shoemaker's awl and a hammer. 'You must never do these +things with a gimlet, because the wood-dust gets in; and when the buyers +pour out the brandy that would tell them that the tub had been broached. +An awl makes no dust, and the hole nearly closes up again. Now tap one +of the hoops forward.' + +Stockdale took the hammer and did so. + +'Now make the hole in the part that was covered by the hoop.' + +He made the hole as directed. 'It won't run out,' he said. + +'O yes it will,' said she. 'Take the tub between your knees, and squeeze +the heads; and I'll hold the cup.' + +Stockdale obeyed; and the pressure taking effect upon the tub, which +seemed, to be thin, the spirit spirted out in a stream. When the cup was +full he ceased pressing, and the flow immediately stopped. 'Now we must +fill up the keg with water,' said Lizzy, 'or it will cluck like forty +hens when it is handled, and show that 'tis not full.' + +'But they tell you you may take it?' + +'Yes, the smugglers: but the buyers must not know that the smugglers have +been kind to me at their expense.' + +'I see,' said Stockdale doubtfully. 'I much question the honesty of this +proceeding.' + +By her direction he held the tub with the hole upwards, and while he went +through the process of alternately pressing and ceasing to press, she +produced a bottle of water, from which she took mouthfuls, conveying each +to the keg by putting her pretty lips to the hole, where it was sucked in +at each recovery of the cask from pressure. When it was again full he +plugged the hole, knocked the hoop down to its place, and buried the tub +in the lumber as before. + +'Aren't the smugglers afraid that you will tell?' he asked, as they +recrossed the churchyard. + +'O no; they are not afraid of that. I couldn't do such a thing.' + +'They have put you into a very awkward corner,' said Stockdale +emphatically. 'You must, of course, as an honest person, sometimes feel +that it is your duty to inform--really you must.' + +'Well, I have never particularly felt it as a duty; and, besides, my +first husband--' She stopped, and there was some confusion in her voice. +Stockdale was so honest and unsophisticated that he did not at once +discern why she paused: but at last he did perceive that the words were a +slip, and that no woman would have uttered 'first husband' by accident +unless she had thought pretty frequently of a second. He felt for her +confusion, and allowed her time to recover and proceed. 'My husband,' +she said, in a self-corrected tone, 'used to know of their doings, and so +did my father, and kept the secret. I cannot inform, in fact, against +anybody.' + +'I see the hardness of it,' he continued, like a man who looked far into +the moral of things. 'And it is very cruel that you should be tossed and +tantalized between your memories and your conscience. I do hope, Mrs. +Newberry, that you will soon see your way out of this unpleasant +position.' + +'Well, I don't just now,' she murmured. + +By this time they had passed over the wall and entered the house, where +she brought him a glass and hot water, and left him to his own +reflections. He looked after her vanishing form, asking himself whether +he, as a respectable man, and a minister, and a shining light, even +though as yet only of the halfpenny-candle sort, were quite justified in +doing this thing. A sneeze settled the question; and he found that when +the fiery liquor was lowered by the addition of twice or thrice the +quantity of water, it was one of the prettiest cures for a cold in the +head that he had ever known, particularly at this chilly time of the +year. + +Stockdale sat in the deep chair about twenty minutes sipping and +meditating, till he at length took warmer views of things, and longed for +the morrow, when he would see Mrs. Newberry again. He then felt that, +though chronologically at a short distance, it would in an emotional +sense be very long before to-morrow came, and walked restlessly round the +room. His eye was attracted by a framed and glazed sampler in which a +running ornament of fir-trees and peacocks surrounded the following +pretty bit of sentiment:- + + 'Rose-leaves smell when roses thrive, + Here's my work while I'm alive; + Rose-leaves smell when shrunk and shed, + Here's my work when I am dead. + + 'Lizzy Simpkins. Fear God. Honour the King. + + 'Aged 11 years. + +''Tis hers,' he said to himself. 'Heavens, how I like that name!' + +Before he had done thinking that no other name from Abigail to Zenobia +would have suited his young landlady so well, tap-tap came again upon the +door; and the minister started as her face appeared yet another time, +looking so disinterested that the most ingenious would have refrained +from asserting that she had come to affect his feelings by her seductive +eyes. + +'Would you like a fire in your room, Mr. Stockdale, on account of your +cold?' + +The minister, being still a little pricked in the conscience for +countenancing her in watering the spirits, saw here a way to +self-chastisement. 'No, I thank you,' he said firmly; 'it is not +necessary. I have never been used to one in my life, and it would be +giving way to luxury too far.' + +'Then I won't insist,' she said, and disconcerted him by vanishing +instantly. + +Wondering if she was vexed by his refusal, he wished that he had chosen +to have a fire, even though it should have scorched him out of bed and +endangered his self-discipline for a dozen days. However, he consoled +himself with what was in truth a rare consolation for a budding lover, +that he was under the same roof with Lizzy; her guest, in fact, to take a +poetical view of the term lodger; and that he would certainly see her on +the morrow. + +The morrow came, and Stockdale rose early, his cold quite gone. He had +never in his life so longed for the breakfast hour as he did that day, +and punctually at eight o'clock, after a short walk, to reconnoitre the +premises, he re-entered the door of his dwelling. Breakfast passed, and +Martha Sarah attended, but nobody came voluntarily as on the night before +to inquire if there were other wants which he had not mentioned, and +which she would attempt to gratify. He was disappointed, and went out, +hoping to see her at dinner. Dinner time came; he sat down to the meal, +finished it, lingered on for a whole hour, although two new teachers were +at that moment waiting at the chapel-door to speak to him by appointment. +It was useless to wait longer, and he slowly went his way down the lane, +cheered by the thought that, after all, he would see her in the evening, +and perhaps engage again in the delightful tub-broaching in the +neighbouring church tower, which proceeding he resolved to render more +moral by steadfastly insisting that no water should be introduced to fill +up, though the tub should cluck like all the hens in Christendom. But +nothing could disguise the fact that it was a queer business; and his +countenance fell when he thought how much more his mind was interested in +that matter than in his serious duties. + +However, compunction vanished with the decline of day. Night came, and +his tea and supper; but no Lizzy Newberry, and no sweet temptations. At +last the minister could bear it no longer, and said to his quaint little +attendant, 'Where is Mrs. Newberry to-day?' judiciously handing a penny +as he spoke. + +'She's busy,' said Martha. + +'Anything serious happened?' he asked, handing another penny, and +revealing yet additional pennies in the background. + +'O no--nothing at all!' said she, with breathless confidence. 'Nothing +ever happens to her. She's only biding upstairs in bed because 'tis her +way sometimes.' + +Being a young man of some honour, he would not question further, and +assuming that Lizzy must have a bad headache, or other slight ailment, in +spite of what the girl had said, he went to bed dissatisfied, not even +setting eyes on old Mrs. Simpkins. 'I said last night that I should see +her to-morrow,' he reflected; 'but that was not to be!' + +Next day he had better fortune, or worse, meeting her at the foot of the +stairs in the morning, and being favoured by a visit or two from her +during the day--once for the purpose of making kindly inquiries about his +comfort, as on the first evening, and at another time to place a bunch of +winter-violets on his table, with a promise to renew them when they +drooped. On these occasions there was something in her smile which +showed how conscious she was of the effect she produced, though it must +be said that it was rather a humorous than a designing consciousness, and +savoured more of pride than of vanity. + +As for Stockdale, he clearly perceived that he possessed unlimited +capacity for backsliding, and wished that tutelary saints were not denied +to Dissenters. He set a watch upon his tongue and eyes for the space of +one hour and a half, after which he found it was useless to struggle +further, and gave himself up to the situation. 'The other minister will +be here in a month,' he said to himself when sitting over the fire. 'Then +I shall be off, and she will distract my mind no more! . . . And then, +shall I go on living by myself for ever? No; when my two years of +probation are finished, I shall have a furnished house to live in, with a +varnished door and a brass knocker; and I'll march straight back to her, +and ask her flat, as soon as the last plate is on the dresser! + +Thus a titillating fortnight was passed by young Stockdale, during which +time things proceeded much as such matters have done ever since the +beginning of history. He saw the object of attachment several times one +day, did not see her at all the next, met her when he least expected to +do so, missed her when hints and signs as to where she should be at a +given hour almost amounted to an appointment. This mild coquetry was +perhaps fair enough under the circumstances of their being so closely +lodged, and Stockdale put up with it as philosophically as he was able. +Being in her own house, she could, after vexing him or disappointing him +of her presence, easily win him back by suddenly surrounding him with +those little attentions which her position as his landlady put it in her +power to bestow. When he had waited indoors half the day to see her, and +on finding that she would not be seen, had gone off in a huff to the +dreariest and dampest walk he could discover, she would restore +equilibrium in the evening with 'Mr. Stockdale, I have fancied you must +feel draught o' nights from your bedroom window, and so I have been +putting up thicker curtains this afternoon while you were out;' or, 'I +noticed that you sneezed twice again this morning, Mr. Stockdale. Depend +upon it that cold is hanging about you yet; I am sure it is--I have +thought of it continually; and you must let me make a posset for you.' + +Sometimes in coming home he found his sitting-room rearranged, chairs +placed where the table had stood, and the table ornamented with the few +fresh flowers and leaves that could be obtained at this season, so as to +add a novelty to the room. At times she would be standing on a chair +outside the house, trying to nail up a branch of the monthly rose which +the winter wind had blown down; and of course he stepped forward to +assist her, when their hands got mixed in passing the shreds and nails. +Thus they became friends again after a disagreement. She would utter on +these occasions some pretty and deprecatory remark on the necessity of +her troubling him anew; and he would straightway say that he would do a +hundred times as much for her if she should so require. + + + +CHAPTER II--HOW HE SAW TWO OTHER MEN + + +Matters being in this advancing state, Stockdale was rather surprised one +cloudy evening, while sitting in his room, at hearing her speak in low +tones of expostulation to some one at the door. It was nearly dark, but +the shutters were not yet closed, nor the candles lighted; and Stockdale +was tempted to stretch his head towards the window. He saw outside the +door a young man in clothes of a whitish colour, and upon reflection +judged their wearer to be the well-built and rather handsome miller who +lived below. The miller's voice was alternately low and firm, and +sometimes it reached the level of positive entreaty; but what the words +were Stockdale could in no way hear. + +Before the colloquy had ended, the minister's attention was attracted by +a second incident. Opposite Lizzy's home grew a clump of laurels, +forming a thick and permanent shade. One of the laurel boughs now +quivered against the light background of sky, and in a moment the head of +a man peered out, and remained still. He seemed to be also much +interested in the conversation at the door, and was plainly lingering +there to watch and listen. Had Stockdale stood in any other relation to +Lizzy than that of a lover, he might have gone out and investigated the +meaning of this: but being as yet but an unprivileged ally, he did +nothing more than stand up and show himself against the firelight, +whereupon the listener disappeared, and Lizzy and the miller spoke in +lower tones. + +Stockdale was made so uneasy by the circumstance, that as soon as the +miller was gone, he said, 'Mrs. Newberry, are you aware that you were +watched just now, and your conversation heard?' + +'When?' she said. + +'When you were talking to that miller. A man was looking from the laurel- +tree as jealously as if he could have eaten you.' + +She showed more concern than the trifling event seemed to demand, and he +added, 'Perhaps you were talking of things you did not wish to be +overheard?' + +'I was talking only on business,' she said. + +'Lizzy, be frank!' said the young man. 'If it was only on business, why +should anybody wish to listen to you?' + +She looked curiously at him. 'What else do you think it could be, then?' + +'Well--the only talk between a young woman and man that is likely to +amuse an eavesdropper.' + +'Ah yes,' she said, smiling in spite of her preoccupation. 'Well, my +cousin Owlett has spoken to me about matrimony, every now and then, +that's true; but he was not speaking of it then. I wish he had been +speaking of it, with all my heart. It would have been much less serious +for me.' + +'O Mrs. Newberry!' + +'It would. Not that I should ha' chimed in with him, of course. I wish +it for other reasons. I am glad, Mr. Stockdale, that you have told me of +that listener. It is a timely warning, and I must see my cousin again.' + +'But don't go away till I have spoken,' said the minister. 'I'll out +with it at once, and make no more ado. Let it be Yes or No between us, +Lizzy; please do!' And he held out his hand, in which she freely allowed +her own to rest, but without speaking. + +'You mean Yes by that?' he asked, after waiting a while. + +'You may be my sweetheart, if you will.' + +'Why not say at once you will wait for me until I have a house and can +come back to marry you.' + +'Because I am thinking--thinking of something else,' she said with +embarrassment. 'It all comes upon me at once, and I must settle one +thing at a time.' + +'At any rate, dear Lizzy, you can assure me that the miller shall not be +allowed to speak to you except on business? You have never directly +encouraged him?' + +She parried the question by saying, 'You see, he and his party have been +in the habit of leaving things on my premises sometimes, and as I have +not denied him, it makes him rather forward.' + +'Things--what things?' + +'Tubs--they are called Things here.' + +'But why don't you deny him, my dear Lizzy?' + +'I cannot well.' + +'You are too timid. It is unfair of him to impose so upon you, and get +your good name into danger by his smuggling tricks. Promise me that the +next time he wants to leave his tubs here you will let me roll them into +the street?' + +She shook her head. 'I would not venture to offend the neighbours so +much as that,' said she, 'or do anything that would be so likely to put +poor Owlett into the hands of the excisemen.' + +Stockdale sighed, and said that he thought hers a mistaken generosity +when it extended to assisting those who cheated the king of his dues. 'At +any rate, you will let me make him keep his distance as your lover, and +tell him flatly that you are not for him?' + +'Please not, at present,' she said. 'I don't wish to offend my old +neighbours. It is not only Owlett who is concerned.' + +'This is too bad,' said Stockdale impatiently. + +'On my honour, I won't encourage him as my lover,' Lizzy answered +earnestly. 'A reasonable man will be satisfied with that.' + +'Well, so I am,' said Stockdale, his countenance clearing. + + + +CHAPTER III--THE MYSTERIOUS GREATCOAT + + +Stockdale now began to notice more particularly a feature in the life of +his fair landlady, which he had casually observed but scarcely ever +thought of before. It was that she was markedly irregular in her hours +of rising. For a week or two she would be tolerably punctual, reaching +the ground-floor within a few minutes of half-past seven. Then suddenly +she would not be visible till twelve at noon, perhaps for three or four +days in succession; and twice he had certain proof that she did not leave +her room till half-past three in the afternoon. The second time that +this extreme lateness came under his notice was on a day when he had +particularly wished to consult with her about his future movements; and +he concluded, as he always had done, that she had a cold, headache, or +other ailment, unless she had kept herself invisible to avoid meeting and +talking to him, which he could hardly believe. The former supposition +was disproved, however, by her innocently saying, some days later, when +they were speaking on a question of health, that she had never had a +moment's heaviness, headache, or illness of any kind since the previous +January twelvemonth. + +'I am glad to hear it,' said he. 'I thought quite otherwise.' + +'What, do I look sickly?' she asked, turning up her face to show the +impossibility of his gazing on it and holding such a belief for a moment. + +'Not at all; I merely thought so from your being sometimes obliged to +keep your room through the best part of the day.' + +'O, as for that--it means nothing,' she murmured, with a look which some +might have called cold, and which was the worst look that he liked to see +upon her. 'It is pure sleepiness, Mr. Stockdale.' + +'Never!' + +'It is, I tell you. When I stay in my room till half-past three in the +afternoon, you may always be sure that I slept soundly till three, or I +shouldn't have stayed there.' + +'It is dreadful,' said Stockdale, thinking of the disastrous effects of +such indulgence upon the household of a minister, should it become a +habit of everyday occurrence. + +'But then,' she said, divining his good and prescient thoughts, 'it only +happens when I stay awake all night. I don't go to sleep till five or +six in the morning sometimes.' + +'Ah, that's another matter,' said Stockdale. 'Sleeplessness to such an +alarming extent is real illness. Have you spoken to a doctor?' + +'O no--there is no need for doing that--it is all natural to me.' And +she went away without further remark. + +Stockdale might have waited a long time to know the real cause of her +sleeplessness, had it not happened that one dark night he was sitting in +his bedroom jotting down notes for a sermon, which occupied him +perfunctorily for a considerable time after the other members of the +household had retired. He did not get to bed till one o'clock. Before +he had fallen asleep he heard a knocking at the front door, first rather +timidly performed, and then louder. Nobody answered it, and the person +knocked again. As the house still remained undisturbed, Stockdale got +out of bed, went to his window, which overlooked the door, and opening +it, asked who was there. + +A young woman's voice replied that Susan Wallis was there, and that she +had come to ask if Mrs. Newberry could give her some mustard to make a +plaster with, as her father was taken very ill on the chest. + +The minister, having neither bell nor servant, was compelled to act in +person. 'I will call Mrs. Newberry,' he said. Partly dressing himself; +he went along the passage and tapped at Lizzy's door. She did not +answer, and, thinking of her erratic habits in the matter of sleep, he +thumped the door persistently, when he discovered, by its moving ajar +under his knocking, that it had only been gently pushed to. As there was +now a sufficient entry for the voice, he knocked no longer, but said in +firm tones, 'Mrs. Newberry, you are wanted.' + +The room was quite silent; not a breathing, not a rustle, came from any +part of it. Stockdale now sent a positive shout through the open space +of the door: 'Mrs. Newberry!'--still no answer, or movement of any kind +within. Then he heard sounds from the opposite room, that of Lizzy's +mother, as if she had been aroused by his uproar though Lizzy had not, +and was dressing herself hastily. Stockdale softly closed the younger +woman's door and went on to the other, which was opened by Mrs. Simpkins +before he could reach it. She was in her ordinary clothes, and had a +light in her hand. + +'What's the person calling about?' she said in alarm. + +Stockdale told the girl's errand, adding seriously, 'I cannot wake Mrs. +Newberry.' + +'It is no matter,' said her mother. 'I can let the girl have what she +wants as well as my daughter.' And she came out of the room and went +downstairs. + +Stockdale retired towards his own apartment, saying, however, to Mrs. +Simpkins from the landing, as if on second thoughts, 'I suppose there is +nothing the matter with Mrs. Newberry, that I could not wake her?' + +'O no,' said the old lady hastily. 'Nothing at all.' + +Still the minister was not satisfied. 'Will you go in and see?' he said. +'I should be much more at ease.' + +Mrs. Simpkins returned up the staircase, went to her daughter's room, and +came out again almost instantly. 'There is nothing at all the matter +with Lizzy,' she said; and descended again to attend to the applicant, +who, having seen the light, had remained quiet during this interval. + +Stockdale went into his room and lay down as before. He heard Lizzy's +mother open the front door, admit the girl, and then the murmured +discourse of both as they went to the store-cupboard for the medicament +required. The girl departed, the door was fastened, Mrs. Simpkins came +upstairs, and the house was again in silence. Still the minister did not +fall asleep. He could not get rid of a singular suspicion, which was all +the more harassing in being, if true, the most unaccountable thing within +his experience. That Lizzy Newberry was in her bedroom when he made such +a clamour at the door he could not possibly convince himself; +notwithstanding that he had heard her come upstairs at the usual time, go +into her chamber, and shut herself up in the usual way. Yet all reason +was so much against her being elsewhere, that he was constrained to go +back again to the unlikely theory of a heavy sleep, though he had heard +neither breath nor movement during a shouting and knocking loud enough to +rouse the Seven Sleepers. + +Before coming to any positive conclusion he fell asleep himself, and did +not awake till day. He saw nothing of Mrs. Newberry in the morning, +before he went out to meet the rising sun, as he liked to do when the +weather was fine; but as this was by no means unusual, he took no notice +of it. At breakfast-time he knew that she was not far off by hearing her +in the kitchen, and though he saw nothing of her person, that back +apartment being rigorously closed against his eyes, she seemed to be +talking, ordering, and bustling about among the pots and skimmers in so +ordinary a manner, that there was no reason for his wasting more time in +fruitless surmise. + +The minister suffered from these distractions, and his extemporized +sermons were not improved thereby. Already he often said Romans for +Corinthians in the pulpit, and gave out hymns in strange cramped metres, +that hitherto had always been skipped, because the congregation could not +raise a tune to fit them. He fully resolved that as soon as his few +weeks of stay approached their end he would cut the matter short, and +commit himself by proposing a definite engagement, repenting at leisure +if necessary. + +With this end in view, he suggested to her on the evening after her +mysterious sleep that they should take a walk together just before dark, +the latter part of the proposition being introduced that they might +return home unseen. She consented to go; and away they went over a +stile, to a shrouded footpath suited for the occasion. But, in spite of +attempts on both sides, they were unable to infuse much spirit into the +ramble. She looked rather paler than usual, and sometimes turned her +head away. + +'Lizzy,' said Stockdale reproachfully, when they had walked in silence a +long distance. + +'Yes,' said she. + +'You yawned--much my company is to you!' He put it in that way, but he +was really wondering whether her yawn could possibly have more to do with +physical weariness from the night before than mental weariness of that +present moment. Lizzy apologized, and owned that she was rather tired, +which gave him an opening for a direct question on the point; but his +modesty would not allow him to put it to her; and he uncomfortably +resolved to wait. + +The month of February passed with alternations of mud and frost, rain and +sleet, east winds and north-westerly gales. The hollow places in the +ploughed fields showed themselves as pools of water, which had settled +there from the higher levels, and had not yet found time to soak away. +The birds began to get lively, and a single thrush came just before +sunset each evening, and sang hopefully on the large elm-tree which stood +nearest to Mrs. Newberry's house. Cold blasts and brittle earth had +given place to an oozing dampness more unpleasant in itself than frost; +but it suggested coming spring, and its unpleasantness was of a bearable +kind. + +Stockdale had been going to bring about a practical understanding with +Lizzy at least half-a-dozen times; but, what with the mystery of her +apparent absence on the night of the neighbour's call, and her curious +way of lying in bed at unaccountable times, he felt a check within him +whenever he wanted to speak out. Thus they still lived on as +indefinitely affianced lovers, each of whom hardly acknowledged the +other's claim to the name of chosen one. Stockdale persuaded himself +that his hesitation was owing to the postponement of the ordained +minister's arrival, and the consequent delay in his own departure, which +did away with all necessity for haste in his courtship; but perhaps it +was only that his discretion was reasserting itself, and telling him that +he had better get clearer ideas of Lizzy before arranging for the grand +contract of his life with her. She, on her part, always seemed ready to +be urged further on that question than he had hitherto attempted to go; +but she was none the less independent, and to a degree which would have +kept from flagging the passion of a far more mutable man. + +On the evening of the first of March he went casually into his bedroom +about dusk, and noticed lying on a chair a greatcoat, hat, and breeches. +Having no recollection of leaving any clothes of his own in that spot, he +went and examined them as well as he could in the twilight, and found +that they did not belong to him. He paused for a moment to consider how +they might have got there. He was the only man living in the house; and +yet these were not his garments, unless he had made a mistake. No, they +were not his. He called up Martha Sarah. + +'How did these things come in my room?' he said, flinging the +objectionable articles to the floor. + +Martha said that Mrs. Newberry had given them to her to brush, and that +she had brought them up there thinking they must be Mr. Stockdale's, as +there was no other gentleman a-lodging there. + +'Of course you did,' said Stockdale. 'Now take them down to your +mis'ess, and say they are some clothes I have found here and know nothing +about.' + +As the door was left open he heard the conversation downstairs. 'How +stupid!' said Mrs. Newberry, in a tone of confusion. 'Why, Marther +Sarer, I did not tell you to take 'em to Mr. Stockdale's room?' + +'I thought they must be his as they was so muddy,' said Martha humbly. + +'You should have left 'em on the clothes-horse,' said the young mistress +severely; and she came upstairs with the garments on her arm, quickly +passed Stockdale's room, and threw them forcibly into a closet at the end +of a passage. With this the incident ended, and the house was silent +again. + +There would have been nothing remarkable in finding such clothes in a +widow's house had they been clean; or moth-eaten, or creased, or mouldy +from long lying by; but that they should be splashed with recent mud +bothered Stockdale a good deal. When a young pastor is in the aspen +stage of attachment, and open to agitation at the merest trifles, a +really substantial incongruity of this complexion is a disturbing thing. +However, nothing further occurred at that time; but he became watchful, +and given to conjecture, and was unable to forget the circumstance. + +One morning, on looking from his window, he saw Mrs. Newberry herself +brushing the tails of a long drab greatcoat, which, if he mistook not, +was the very same garment as the one that had adorned the chair of his +room. It was densely splashed up to the hollow of the back with +neighbouring Nether-Moynton mud, to judge by its colour, the spots being +distinctly visible to him in the sunlight. The previous day or two +having been wet, the inference was irresistible that the wearer had quite +recently been walking some considerable distance about the lanes and +fields. Stockdale opened the window and looked out, and Mrs. Newberry +turned her head. Her face became slowly red; she never had looked +prettier, or more incomprehensible, he waved his hand affectionately, and +said good-morning; she answered with embarrassment, having ceased her +occupation on the instant that she saw him, and rolled up the coat half- +cleaned. + +Stockdale shut the window. Some simple explanation of her proceeding was +doubtless within the bounds of possibility; but he himself could not +think of one; and he wished that she had placed the matter beyond +conjecture by voluntarily saying something about it there and then. + +But, though Lizzy had not offered an explanation at the moment, the +subject was brought forward by her at the next time of their meeting. She +was chatting to him concerning some other event, and remarked that it +happened about the time when she was dusting some old clothes that had +belonged to her poor husband. + +'You keep them clean out of respect to his memory?' said Stockdale +tentatively. + +'I air and dust them sometimes,' she said, with the most charming +innocence in the world. + +'Do dead men come out of their graves and walk in mud?' murmured the +minister, in a cold sweat at the deception that she was practising. + +'What did you say?' asked Lizzy. + +'Nothing, nothing,' said he mournfully. 'Mere words--a phrase that will +do for my sermon next Sunday.' It was too plain that Lizzy was unaware +that he had seen actual pedestrian splashes upon the skirts of the tell- +tale overcoat, and that she imagined him to believe it had come direct +from some chest or drawer. + +The aspect of the case was now considerably darker. Stockdale was so +much depressed by it that he did not challenge her explanation, or +threaten to go off as a missionary to benighted islanders, or reproach +her in any way whatever. He simply parted from her when she had done +talking, and lived on in perplexity, till by degrees his natural manner +became sad and constrained. + + + +CHAPTER IV--AT THE TIME OF THE NEW MOON + + +The following Thursday was changeable, damp, and gloomy; and the night +threatened to be windy and unpleasant. Stockdale had gone away to +Knollsea in the morning, to be present at some commemoration service +there, and on his return he was met by the attractive Lizzy in the +passage. Whether influenced by the tide of cheerfulness which had +attended him that day, or by the drive through the open air, or whether +from a natural disposition to let bygones alone, he allowed himself to be +fascinated into forgetfulness of the greatcoat incident, and upon the +whole passed a pleasant evening; not so much in her society as within +sound of her voice, as she sat talking in the back parlour to her mother, +till the latter went to bed. Shortly after this Mrs. Newberry retired, +and then Stockdale prepared to go upstairs himself. But before he left +the room he remained standing by the dying embers awhile, thinking long +of one thing and another; and was only aroused by the flickering of his +candle in the socket as it suddenly declined and went out. Knowing that +there were a tinder-box, matches, and another candle in his bedroom, he +felt his way upstairs without a light. On reaching his chamber he laid +his hand on every possible ledge and corner for the tinderbox, but for a +long time in vain. Discovering it at length, Stockdale produced a spark, +and was kindling the brimstone, when he fancied that he heard a movement +in the passage. He blew harder at the lint, the match flared up, and +looking by aid of the blue light through the door, which had been +standing open all this time, he was surprised to see a male figure +vanishing round the top of the staircase with the evident intention of +escaping unobserved. The personage wore the clothes which Lizzy had been +brushing, and something in the outline and gait suggested to the minister +that the wearer was Lizzy herself. + +But he was not sure of this; and, greatly excited, Stockdale determined +to investigate the mystery, and to adopt his own way for doing it. He +blew out the match without lighting the candle, went into the passage, +and proceeded on tiptoe towards Lizzy's room. A faint grey square of +light in the direction of the chamber-window as he approached told him +that the door was open, and at once suggested that the occupant was gone. +He turned and brought down his fist upon the handrail of the staircase: +'It was she; in her late husband's coat and hat!' + +Somewhat relieved to find that there was no intruder in the case, yet +none the less surprised, the minister crept down the stairs, softly put +on his boots, overcoat, and hat, and tried the front door. It was +fastened as usual: he went to the back door, found this unlocked, and +emerged into the garden. The night was mild and moonless, and rain had +lately been falling, though for the present it had ceased. There was a +sudden dropping from the trees and bushes every now and then, as each +passing wind shook their boughs. Among these sounds Stockdale heard the +faint fall of feet upon the road outside, and he guessed from the step +that it was Lizzy's. He followed the sound, and, helped by the +circumstance of the wind blowing from the direction in which the +pedestrian moved, he got nearly close to her, and kept there, without +risk of being overheard. While he thus followed her up the street or +lane, as it might indifferently be called, there being more hedge than +houses on either side, a figure came forward to her from one of the +cottage doors. Lizzy stopped; the minister stepped upon the grass and +stopped also. + +'Is that Mrs. Newberry?' said the man who had come out, whose voice +Stockdale recognized as that of one of the most devout members of his +congregation. + +'It is,' said Lizzy. + +'I be quite ready--I've been here this quarter-hour.' + +'Ah, John,' said she, 'I have bad news; there is danger to-night for our +venture.' + +'And d'ye tell o't! I dreamed there might be.' + +'Yes,' she said hurriedly; 'and you must go at once round to where the +chaps are waiting, and tell them they will not be wanted till to-morrow +night at the same time. I go to burn the lugger off.' + +'I will,' he said; and instantly went off through a gate, Lizzy +continuing her way. + +On she tripped at a quickening pace till the lane turned into the +turnpike-road, which she crossed, and got into the track for Ringsworth. +Here she ascended the hill without the least hesitation, passed the +lonely hamlet of Holworth, and went down the vale on the other side. +Stockdale had never taken any extensive walks in this direction, but he +was aware that if she persisted in her course much longer she would draw +near to the coast, which was here between two and three miles distant +from Nether-Moynton; and as it had been about a quarter-past eleven +o'clock when they set out, her intention seemed to be to reach the shore +about midnight. + +Lizzy soon ascended a small mound, which Stockdale at the same time +adroitly skirted on the left; and a dull monotonous roar burst upon his +ear. The hillock was about fifty yards from the top of the cliffs, and +by day it apparently commanded a full view of the bay. There was light +enough in the sky to show her disguised figure against it when she +reached the top, where she paused, and afterwards sat down. Stockdale, +not wishing on any account to alarm her at this moment, yet desirous of +being near her, sank upon his hands and knees, crept a little higher up, +and there stayed still. + +The wind was chilly, the ground damp, and his position one in which he +did not care to remain long. However, before he had decided to leave it, +the young man heard voices behind him. What they signified he did not +know; but, fearing that Lizzy was in danger, he was about to run forward +and warn her that she might be seen, when she crept to the shelter of a +little bush which maintained a precarious existence in that exposed spot; +and her form was absorbed in its dark and stunted outline as if she had +become part of it. She had evidently heard the men as well as he. They +passed near him, talking in loud and careless tones, which could be heard +above the uninterrupted washings of the sea, and which suggested that +they were not engaged in any business at their own risk. This proved to +be the fact: some of their words floated across to him, and caused him to +forget at once the coldness of his situation. + +'What's the vessel?' + +'A lugger, about fifty tons.' + +'From Cherbourg, I suppose?' + +'Yes, 'a b'lieve.' + +'But it don't all belong to Owlett?' + +'O no. He's only got a share. There's another or two in it--a farmer +and such like, but the names I don't know.' + +The voices died away, and the heads and shoulders of the men diminished +towards the cliff, and dropped out of sight. + +'My darling has been tempted to buy a share by that unbeliever Owlett,' +groaned the minister, his honest affection for Lizzy having quickened to +its intensest point during these moments of risk to her person and name. +'That's why she's here,' he said to himself. 'O, it will be the ruin of +her!' + +His perturbation was interrupted by the sudden bursting out of a bright +and increasing light from the spot where Lizzy was in hiding. A few +seconds later, and before it had reached the height of a blaze, he heard +her rush past him down the hollow like a stone from a sling, in the +direction of home. The light now flared high and wide, and showed its +position clearly. She had kindled a bough of furze and stuck it into the +bush under which she had been crouching; the wind fanned the flame, which +crackled fiercely, and threatened to consume the bush as well as the +bough. Stockdale paused just long enough to notice thus much, and then +followed rapidly the route taken by the young woman. His intention was +to overtake her, and reveal himself as a friend; but run as he would he +could see nothing of her. Thus he flew across the open country about +Holworth, twisting his legs and ankles in unexpected fissures and +descents, till, on coming to the gate between the downs and the road, he +was forced to pause to get breath. There was no audible movement either +in front or behind him, and he now concluded that she had not outrun him, +but that, hearing him at her heels, and believing him one of the excise +party, she had hidden herself somewhere on the way, and let him pass by. + +He went on at a more leisurely pace towards the village. On reaching the +house he found his surmise to be correct, for the gate was on the latch, +and the door unfastened, just as he had left them. Stockdale closed the +door behind him, and waited silently in the passage. In about ten +minutes he heard the same light footstep that he had heard in going out; +it paused at the gate, which opened and shut softly, and then the door- +latch was lifted, and Lizzy came in. + +Stockdale went forward and said at once, 'Lizzy, don't be frightened. I +have been waiting up for you.' + +She started, though she had recognized the voice. 'It is Mr. Stockdale, +isn't it?' she said. + +'Yes,' he answered, becoming angry now that she was safe indoors, and not +alarmed. 'And a nice game I've found you out in to-night. You are in +man's clothes, and I am ashamed of you!' + +Lizzy could hardly find a voice to answer this unexpected reproach. + +'I am only partly in man's clothes,' she faltered, shrinking back to the +wall. 'It is only his greatcoat and hat and breeches that I've got on, +which is no harm, as he was my own husband; and I do it only because a +cloak blows about so, and you can't use your arms. I have got my own +dress under just the same--it is only tucked in! Will you go away +upstairs and let me pass? I didn't want you to see me at such a time as +this!' + +'But I have a right to see you! How do you think there can be anything +between us now?' Lizzy was silent. 'You are a smuggler,' he continued +sadly. + +'I have only a share in the run,' she said. + +'That makes no difference. Whatever did you engage in such a trade as +that for, and keep it such a secret from me all this time?' + +'I don't do it always. I only do it in winter-time when 'tis new moon.' + +'Well, I suppose that's because it can't be done anywhen else . . . You +have regularly upset me, Lizzy.' + +'I am sorry for that,' Lizzy meekly replied. + +'Well now,' said he more tenderly, 'no harm is done as yet. Won't you +for the sake of me give up this blamable and dangerous practice +altogether?' + +'I must do my best to save this run,' said she, getting rather husky in +the throat. 'I don't want to give you up--you know that; but I don't +want to lose my venture. I don't know what to do now! Why I have kept +it so secret from you is that I was afraid you would be angry if you +knew.' + +'I should think so! I suppose if I had married you without finding this +out you'd have gone on with it just the same?' + +'I don't know. I did not think so far ahead. I only went to-night to +burn the folks off, because we found that the excisemen knew where the +tubs were to be landed.' + +'It is a pretty mess to be in altogether, is this,' said the distracted +young minister. 'Well, what will you do now?' + +Lizzy slowly murmured the particulars of their plan, the chief of which +were that they meant to try their luck at some other point of the shore +the next night; that three landing-places were always agreed upon before +the run was attempted, with the understanding that, if the vessel was +'burnt off' from the first point, which was Ringsworth, as it had been by +her to-night, the crew should attempt to make the second, which was +Lulstead Cove, on the second night; and if there, too, danger threatened, +they should on the third night try the third place, which was behind a +headland further west. + +'Suppose the officers hinder them landing there too?' he said, his +attention to this interesting programme displacing for a moment his +concern at her share in it. + +'Then we shan't try anywhere else all this dark--that's what we call the +time between moon and moon--and perhaps they'll string the tubs to a +stray-line, and sink 'em a little-ways from shore, and take the bearings; +and then when they have a chance they'll go to creep for 'em.' + +'What's that?' + +'O, they'll go out in a boat and drag a creeper--that's a grapnel--along +the bottom till it catch hold of the stray-line.' + +The minister stood thinking; and there was no sound within doors but the +tick of the clock on the stairs, and the quick breathing of Lizzy, partly +from her walk and partly from agitation, as she stood close to the wall, +not in such complete darkness but that he could discern against its +whitewashed surface the greatcoat and broad hat which covered her. + +'Lizzy, all this is very wrong,' he said. 'Don't you remember the lesson +of the tribute-money? "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." +Surely you have heard that read times enough in your growing up?' + +'He's dead,' she pouted. + +'But the spirit of the text is in force just the same.' + +'My father did it, and so did my grandfather, and almost everybody in +Nether-Moynton lives by it, and life would be so dull if it wasn't for +that, that I should not care to live at all.' + +'I am nothing to live for, of course,' he replied bitterly. 'You would +not think it worth while to give up this wild business and live for me +alone?' + +'I have never looked at it like that.' + +'And you won't promise and wait till I am ready?' + +'I cannot give you my word to-night.' And, looking thoughtfully down, +she gradually moved and moved away, going into the adjoining room, and +closing the door between them. She remained there in the dark till he +was tired of waiting, and had gone up to his own chamber. + +Poor Stockdale was dreadfully depressed all the next day by the +discoveries of the night before. Lizzy was unmistakably a fascinating +young woman, but as a minister's wife she was hardly to be contemplated. +'If I had only stuck to father's little grocery business, instead of +going in for the ministry, she would have suited me beautifully!' he said +sadly, until he remembered that in that case he would never have come +from his distant home to Nether-Moynton, and never have known her. + +The estrangement between them was not complete, but it was sufficient to +keep them out of each other's company. Once during the day he met her in +the garden-path, and said, turning a reproachful eye upon her, 'Do you +promise, Lizzy?' But she did not reply. The evening drew on, and he +knew well enough that Lizzy would repeat her excursion at night--her half- +offended manner had shown that she had not the slightest intention of +altering her plans at present. He did not wish to repeat his own share +of the adventure; but, act as he would, his uneasiness on her account +increased with the decline of day. Supposing that an accident should +befall her, he would never forgive himself for not being there to help, +much as he disliked the idea of seeming to countenance such unlawful +escapades. + + + +CHAPTER V--HOW THEY WENT TO LULSTEAD COVE + + +As he had expected, she left the house at the same hour at night, this +time passing his door without stealth, as if she knew very well that he +would be watching, and were resolved to brave his displeasure. He was +quite ready, opened the door quickly, and reached the back door almost as +soon as she. + +'Then you will go, Lizzy?' he said as he stood on the step beside her, +who now again appeared as a little man with a face altogether unsuited to +his clothes. + +'I must,' she said, repressed by his stern manner. + +'Then I shall go too,' said he. + +'And I am sure you will enjoy it!' she exclaimed in more buoyant tones. +'Everybody does who tries it.' + +'God forbid that I should!' he said. 'But I must look after you.' + +They opened the wicket and went up the road abreast of each other, but at +some distance apart, scarcely a word passing between them. The evening +was rather less favourable to smuggling enterprise than the last had +been, the wind being lower, and the sky somewhat clear towards the north. + +'It is rather lighter,' said Stockdale. + +''Tis, unfortunately,' said she. 'But it is only from those few stars +over there. The moon was new to-day at four o'clock, and I expected +clouds. I hope we shall be able to do it this dark, for when we have to +sink 'em for long it makes the stuff taste bleachy, and folks don't like +it so well.' + +Her course was different from that of the preceding night, branching off +to the left over Lord's Barrow as soon as they had got out of the lane +and crossed the highway. By the time they reached Chaldon Down, +Stockdale, who had been in perplexed thought as to what he should say to +her, decided that he would not attempt expostulation now, while she was +excited by the adventure, but wait till it was over, and endeavour to +keep her from such practices in future. It occurred to him once or +twice, as they rambled on, that should they be surprised by the +excisemen, his situation would be more awkward than hers, for it would be +difficult to prove his true motive in coming to the spot; but the risk +was a slight consideration beside his wish to be with her. + +They now arrived at a ravine which lay on the outskirts of Chaldon, a +village two miles on their way towards the point of the shore they +sought. Lizzy broke the silence this time: 'I have to wait here to meet +the carriers. I don't know if they have come yet. As I told you, we go +to Lulstead Cove to-night, and it is two miles further than Ringsworth.' + +It turned out that the men had already come; for while she spoke two or +three dozen heads broke the line of the slope, and a company of them at +once descended from the bushes where they had been lying in wait. These +carriers were men whom Lizzy and other proprietors regularly employed to +bring the tubs from the boat to a hiding-place inland. They were all +young fellows of Nether-Moynton, Chaldon, and the neighbourhood, quiet +and inoffensive persons, who simply engaged to carry the cargo for Lizzy +and her cousin Owlett, as they would have engaged in any other labour for +which they were fairly well paid. + +At a word from her they closed in together. 'You had better take it +now,' she said to them; and handed to each a packet. It contained six +shillings, their remuneration for the night's undertaking, which was paid +beforehand without reference to success or failure; but, besides this, +they had the privilege of selling as agents when the run was successfully +made. As soon as it was done, she said to them, 'The place is the old +one near Lulstead Cove;' the men till that moment not having been told +whither they were bound, for obvious reasons. 'Owlett will meet you +there,' added Lizzy. 'I shall follow behind, to see that we are not +watched.' + +The carriers went on, and Stockdale and Mrs. Newberry followed at a +distance of a stone's throw. 'What do these men do by day?' he said. + +'Twelve or fourteen of them are labouring men. Some are brickmakers, +some carpenters, some shoe-makers, some thatchers. They are all known to +me very well. Nine of 'em are of your own congregation.' + +'I can't help that,' said Stockdale. + +'O, I know you can't. I only told you. The others are more +church-inclined, because they supply the pa'son with all the spirits he +requires, and they don't wish to show unfriendliness to a customer.' + +'How do you choose 'em?' said Stockdale. + +'We choose 'em for their closeness, and because they are strong and +surefooted, and able to carry a heavy load a long way without being +tired.' + +Stockdale sighed as she enumerated each particular, for it proved how far +involved in the business a woman must be who was so well acquainted with +its conditions and needs. And yet he felt more tenderly towards her at +this moment than he had felt all the foregoing day. Perhaps it was that +her experienced manner and hold indifference stirred his admiration in +spite of himself. + +'Take my arm, Lizzy,' he murmured. + +'I don't want it,' she said. 'Besides, we may never be to each other +again what we once have been.' + +'That depends upon you,' said he, and they went on again as before. + +The hired carriers paced along over Chaldon Down with as little +hesitation as if it had been day, avoiding the cart-way, and leaving the +village of East Chaldon on the left, so as to reach the crest of the hill +at a lonely trackless place not far from the ancient earthwork called +Round Pound. An hour's brisk walking brought them within sound of the +sea, not many hundred yards from Lulstead Cove. Here they paused, and +Lizzy and Stockdale came up with them, when they went on together to the +verge of the cliff. One of the men now produced an iron bar, which he +drove firmly into the soil a yard from the edge, and attached to it a +rope that he had uncoiled from his body. They all began to descend, +partly stepping, partly sliding down the incline, as the rope slipped +through their hands. + +'You will not go to the bottom, Lizzy?' said Stockdale anxiously. + +'No. I stay here to watch,' she said. 'Owlett is down there.' + +The men remained quite silent when they reached the shore; and the next +thing audible to the two at the top was the dip of heavy oars, and the +dashing of waves against a boat's bow. In a moment the keel gently +touched the shingle, and Stockdale heard the footsteps of the thirty-six +carriers running forwards over the pebbles towards the point of landing. + +There was a sousing in the water as of a brood of ducks plunging in, +showing that the men had not been particular about keeping their legs, or +even their waists, dry from the brine: but it was impossible to see what +they were doing, and in a few minutes the shingle was trampled again. The +iron bar sustaining the rope, on which Stockdale's hand rested, began to +swerve a little, and the carriers one by one appeared climbing up the +sloping cliff; dripping audibly as they came, and sustaining themselves +by the guide-rope. Each man on reaching the top was seen to be carrying +a pair of tubs, one on his back and one on his chest, the two being slung +together by cords passing round the chine hoops, and resting on the +carrier's shoulders. Some of the stronger men carried three by putting +an extra one on the top behind, but the customary load was a pair, these +being quite weighty enough to give their bearer the sensation of having +chest and backbone in contact after a walk of four or five miles. + +'Where is Owlett?' said Lizzy to one of them. + +'He will not come up this way,' said the carrier. 'He's to bide on shore +till we be safe off.' Then, without waiting for the rest, the foremost +men plunged across the down; and, when the last had ascended, Lizzy +pulled up the rope, wound it round her arm, wriggled the bar from the +sod, and turned to follow the carriers. + +'You are very anxious about Owlett's safety,' said the minister. + +'Was there ever such a man!' said Lizzy. 'Why, isn't he my cousin?' + +'Yes. Well, it is a bad night's work,' said Stockdale heavily. 'But +I'll carry the bar and rope for you.' + +'Thank God, the tubs have got so far all right,' said she. + +Stockdale shook his head, and, taking the bar, walked by her side towards +the downs; and the moan of the sea was heard no more. + +'Is this what you meant the other day when you spoke of having business +with Owlett?' the young man asked. + +'This is it,' she replied. 'I never see him on any other matter.' + +'A partnership of that kind with a young man is very odd.' + +'It was begun by my father and his, who were brother-laws.' + +Her companion could not blind himself to the fact that where tastes and +pursuits were so akin as Lizzy's and Owlett's, and where risks were +shared, as with them, in every undertaking, there would be a peculiar +appropriateness in her answering Owlett's standing question on matrimony +in the affirmative. This did not soothe Stockdale, its tendency being +rather to stimulate in him an effort to make the pair as inappropriate as +possible, and win her away from this nocturnal crew to correctness of +conduct and a minister's parlour in some far-removed inland county. + +They had been walking near enough to the file of carriers for Stockdale +to perceive that, when they got into the road to the village, they split +up into two companies of unequal size, each of which made off in a +direction of its own. One company, the smaller of the two, went towards +the church, and by the time that Lizzy and Stockdale reached their own +house these men had scaled the churchyard wall, and were proceeding +noiselessly over the grass within. + +'I see that Owlett has arranged for one batch to be put in the church +again,' observed Lizzy. 'Do you remember my taking you there the first +night you came?' + +'Yes, of course,' said Stockdale. 'No wonder you had permission to +broach the tubs--they were his, I suppose?' + +'No, they were not--they were mine; I had permission from myself. The +day after that they went several miles inland in a waggon-load of manure, +and sold very well.' + +At this moment the group of men who had made off to the left some time +before began leaping one by one from the hedge opposite Lizzy's house, +and the first man, who had no tubs upon his shoulders, came forward. + +'Mrs. Newberry, isn't it?' he said hastily. + +'Yes, Jim,' said she. 'What's the matter?' + +'I find that we can't put any in Badger's Clump to-night, Lizzy,' said +Owlett. 'The place is watched. We must sling the apple-tree in the +orchet if there's time. We can't put any more under the church lumber +than I have sent on there, and my mixen hev already more in en than is +safe.' + +'Very well,' she said. 'Be quick about it--that's all. What can I do?' + +'Nothing at all, please. Ah, it is the minister!--you two that can't do +anything had better get indoors and not be zeed.' + +While Owlett thus conversed, in a tone so full of contraband anxiety and +so free from lover's jealousy, the men who followed him had been +descending one by one from the hedge; and it unfortunately happened that +when the hindmost took his leap, the cord slipped which sustained his +tubs: the result was that both the kegs fell into the road, one of them +being stove in by the blow. + +''Od drown it all!' said Owlett, rushing back. + +'It is worth a good deal, I suppose?' said Stockdale. + +'O no--about two guineas and half to us now,' said Lizzy excitedly. 'It +isn't that--it is the smell! It is so blazing strong before it has been +lowered by water, that it smells dreadfully when spilt in the road like +that! I do hope Latimer won't pass by till it is gone off.' + +Owlett and one or two others picked up the burst tub and began to scrape +and trample over the spot, to disperse the liquor as much as possible; +and then they all entered the gate of Owlett's orchard, which adjoined +Lizzy's garden on the right. Stockdale did not care to follow them, for +several on recognizing him had looked wonderingly at his presence, though +they said nothing. Lizzy left his side and went to the bottom of the +garden, looking over the hedge into the orchard, where the men could be +dimly seen bustling about, and apparently hiding the tubs. All was done +noiselessly, and without a light; and when it was over they dispersed in +different directions, those who had taken their cargoes to the church +having already gone off to their homes. + +Lizzy returned to the garden-gate, over which Stockdale was still +abstractedly leaning. 'It is all finished: I am going indoors now,' she +said gently. 'I will leave the door ajar for you.' + +'O no--you needn't,' said Stockdale; 'I am coming too.' + +But before either of them had moved, the faint clatter of horses' hoofs +broke upon the ear, and it seemed to come from the point where the track +across the down joined the hard road. + +'They are just too late!' cried Lizzy exultingly. + +'Who?' said Stockdale. + +'Latimer, the riding-officer, and some assistant of his. We had better +go indoors.' + +They entered the house, and Lizzy bolted the door. 'Please don't get a +light, Mr. Stockdale,' she said. + +'Of course I will not,' said he. + +'I thought you might be on the side of the king,' said Lizzy, with +faintest sarcasm. + +'I am,' said Stockdale. 'But, Lizzy Newberry, I love you, and you know +it perfectly well; and you ought to know, if you do not, what I have +suffered in my conscience on your account these last few days!' + +'I guess very well,' she said hurriedly. 'Yet I don't see why. Ah, you +are better than I!' + +The trotting of the horses seemed to have again died away, and the pair +of listeners touched each other's fingers in the cold 'Good-night' of +those whom something seriously divided. They were on the landing, but +before they had taken three steps apart, the tramp of the horsemen +suddenly revived, almost close to the house. Lizzy turned to the +staircase window, opened the casement about an inch, and put her face +close to the aperture. 'Yes, one of 'em is Latimer,' she whispered. 'He +always rides a white horse. One would think it was the last colour for a +man in that line.' + +Stockdale looked, and saw the white shape of the animal as it passed by; +but before the riders had gone another ten yards, Latimer reined in his +horse, and said something to his companion which neither Stockdale nor +Lizzy could hear. Its drift was, however, soon made evident, for the +other man stopped also; and sharply turning the horses' heads they +cautiously retraced their steps. When they were again opposite Mrs. +Newberry's garden, Latimer dismounted, and the man on the dark horse did +the same. + +Lizzy and Stockdale, intently listening and observing the proceedings, +naturally put their heads as close as possible to the slit formed by the +slightly opened casement; and thus it occurred that at last their cheeks +came positively into contact. They went on listening, as if they did not +know of the singular incident which had happened to their faces, and the +pressure of each to each rather increased than lessened with the lapse of +time. + +They could hear the excisemen sniffing the air like hounds as they paced +slowly along. When they reached the spot where the tub had burst, both +stopped on the instant. + +'Ay, ay, 'tis quite strong here,' said the second officer. 'Shall we +knock at the door?' + +'Well, no,' said Latimer. 'Maybe this is only a trick to put us off the +scent. They wouldn't kick up this stink anywhere near their +hiding-place. I have known such things before.' + +'Anyhow, the things, or some of 'em, must have been brought this way,' +said the other. + +'Yes,' said Latimer musingly. 'Unless 'tis all done to tole us the wrong +way. I have a mind that we go home for to-night without saying a word, +and come the first thing in the morning with more hands. I know they +have storages about here, but we can do nothing by this owl's light. We +will look round the parish and see if everybody is in bed, John; and if +all is quiet, we will do as I say.' + +They went on, and the two inside the window could hear them passing +leisurely through the whole village, the street of which curved round at +the bottom and entered the turnpike road at another junction. This way +the excisemen followed, and the amble of their horses died quite away. + +'What will you do?' said Stockdale, withdrawing from his position. + +She knew that he alluded to the coming search by the officers, to divert +her attention from their own tender incident by the casement, which he +wished to be passed over as a thing rather dreamt of than done. 'O, +nothing,' she replied, with as much coolness as she could command under +her disappointment at his manner. 'We often have such storms as this. +You would not be frightened if you knew what fools they are. Fancy +riding o' horseback through the place: of course they will hear and see +nobody while they make that noise; but they are always afraid to get off, +in case some of our fellows should burst out upon 'em, and tie them up to +the gate-post, as they have done before now. Good-night, Mr. Stockdale.' + +She closed the window and went to her room, where a tear fell from her +eyes; and that not because of the alertness of the riding-officers. + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE GREAT SEARCH AT NETHER-MOYNTON + + +Stockdale was so excited by the events of the evening, and the dilemma +that he was placed in between conscience and love, that he did not sleep, +or even doze, but remained as broadly awake as at noonday. As soon as +the grey light began to touch ever so faintly the whiter objects in his +bedroom he arose, dressed himself, and went downstairs into the road. + +The village was already astir. Several of the carriers had heard the +well-known tramp of Latimer's horse while they were undressing in the +dark that night, and had already communicated with each other and Owlett +on the subject. The only doubt seemed to be about the safety of those +tubs which had been left under the church gallery-stairs, and after a +short discussion at the corner of the mill, it was agreed that these +should be removed before it got lighter, and hidden in the middle of a +double hedge bordering the adjoining field. However, before anything +could be carried into effect, the footsteps of many men were heard coming +down the lane from the highway. + +'Damn it, here they be,' said Owlett, who, having already drawn the hatch +and started his mill for the day, stood stolidly at the mill-door covered +with flour, as if the interest of his whole soul was bound up in the +shaking walls around him. + +The two or three with whom he had been talking dispersed to their usual +work, and when the excise officers, and the formidable body of men they +had hired, reached the village cross, between the mill and Mrs. +Newberry's house, the village wore the natural aspect of a place +beginning its morning labours. + +'Now,' said Latimer to his associates, who numbered thirteen men in all, +'what I know is that the things are somewhere in this here place. We +have got the day before us, and 'tis hard if we can't light upon 'em and +get 'em to Budmouth Custom-house before night. First we will try the +fuel-houses, and then we'll work our way into the chimmers, and then to +the ricks and stables, and so creep round. You have nothing but your +noses to guide ye, mind, so use 'em to-day if you never did in your lives +before.' + +Then the search began. Owlett, during the early part, watched from his +mill-window, Lizzy from the door of her house, with the greatest self- +possession. A farmer down below, who also had a share in the run, rode +about with one eye on his fields and the other on Latimer and his +myrmidons, prepared to put them off the scent if he should be asked a +question. Stockdale, who was no smuggler at all, felt more anxiety than +the worst of them, and went about his studies with a heavy heart, coming +frequently to the door to ask Lizzy some question or other on the +consequences to her of the tubs being found. + +'The consequences,' she said quietly, 'are simply that I shall lose 'em. +As I have none in the house or garden, they can't touch me personally.' + +'But you have some in the orchard?' + +'Owlett rents that of me, and he lends it to others. So it will be hard +to say who put any tubs there if they should be found.' + +There was never such a tremendous sniffing known as that which took place +in Nether-Moynton parish and its vicinity this day. All was done +methodically, and mostly on hands and knees. At different hours of the +day they had different plans. From daybreak to breakfast-time the +officers used their sense of smell in a direct and straightforward manner +only, pausing nowhere but at such places as the tubs might be supposed to +be secreted in at that very moment, pending their removal on the +following night. Among the places tested and examined were + +Hollow trees Cupboards Culverts +Potato-graves Clock-cases Hedgerows +Fuel-houses Chimney-flues Faggot-ricks +Bedrooms Rainwater-butts Haystacks +Apple-lofts Pigsties Coppers and ovens. + +After breakfast they recommenced with renewed vigour, taking a new line; +that is to say, directing their attention to clothes that might be +supposed to have come in contact with the tubs in their removal from the +shore, such garments being usually tainted with the spirit, owing to its +oozing between the staves. They now sniffed at - + +Smock-frocks Smiths' and shoemakers' aprons +Old shirts and waistcoats Knee-naps and hedging-gloves +Coats and hats Tarpaulins +Breeches and leggings Market-cloaks +Women's shawls and gowns Scarecrows + +And as soon as the mid-day meal was over, they pushed their search into +places where the spirits might have been thrown away in alarm:- + +Horse-ponds Mixens Sinks in yards +Stable-drains Wet ditches Road-scrapings, and +Cinder-heaps Cesspools Back-door gutters. + +But still these indefatigable excisemen discovered nothing more than the +original tell-tale smell in the road opposite Lizzy's house, which even +yet had not passed off. + +'I'll tell ye what it is, men,' said Latimer, about three o'clock in the +afternoon, 'we must begin over again. Find them tubs I will.' + +The men, who had been hired for the day, looked at their hands and knees, +muddy with creeping on all fours so frequently, and rubbed their noses, +as if they had almost had enough of it; for the quantity of bad air which +had passed into each one's nostril had rendered it nearly as insensible +as a flue. However, after a moment's hesitation, they prepared to start +anew, except three, whose power of smell had quite succumbed under the +excessive wear and tear of the day. + +By this time not a male villager was to be seen in the parish. Owlett +was not at his mill, the farmers were not in their fields, the parson was +not in his garden, the smith had left his forge, and the wheelwright's +shop was silent. + +'Where the divil are the folk gone?' said Latimer, waking up to the fact +of their absence, and looking round. 'I'll have 'em up for this! Why +don't they come and help us? There's not a man about the place but the +Methodist parson, and he's an old woman. I demand assistance in the +king's name!' + +'We must find the jineral public afore we can demand that,' said his +lieutenant. + +'Well, well, we shall do better without 'em,' said Latimer, who changed +his moods at a moment's notice. 'But there's great cause of suspicion in +this silence and this keeping out of sight, and I'll bear it in mind. Now +we will go across to Owlett's orchard, and see what we can find there.' + +Stockdale, who heard this discussion from the garden-gate, over which he +had been leaning, was rather alarmed, and thought it a mistake of the +villagers to keep so completely out of the way. He himself, like the +excisemen, had been wondering for the last half-hour what could have +become of them. Some labourers were of necessity engaged in distant +fields, but the master-workmen should have been at home; though one and +all, after just showing themselves at their shops, had apparently gone +off for the day. He went in to Lizzy, who sat at a back window sewing, +and said, 'Lizzy, where are the men?' + +Lizzy laughed. 'Where they mostly are when they're run so hard as this.' +She cast her eyes to heaven. 'Up there,' she said. + +Stockdale looked up. 'What--on the top of the church tower?' he asked, +seeing the direction of her glance. + +'Yes.' + +'Well, I expect they will soon have to come down,' said he gravely. 'I +have been listening to the officers, and they are going to search the +orchard over again, and then every nook in the church.' + +Lizzy looked alarmed for the first time. 'Will you go and tell our +folk?' she said. 'They ought to be let know.' Seeing his conscience +struggling within him like a boiling pot, she added, 'No, never mind, +I'll go myself.' + +She went out, descended the garden, and climbed over the churchyard wall +at the same time that the preventive-men were ascending the road to the +orchard. Stockdale could do no less than follow her. By the time that +she reached the tower entrance he was at her side, and they entered +together. + +Nether-Moynton church-tower was, as in many villages, without a turret, +and the only way to the top was by going up to the singers' gallery, and +thence ascending by a ladder to a square trap-door in the floor of the +bell-loft, above which a permanent ladder was fixed, passing through the +bells to a hole in the roof. When Lizzy and Stockdale reached the +gallery and looked up, nothing but the trap-door and the five holes for +the bell-ropes appeared. The ladder was gone. + +'There's no getting up,' said Stockdale. + +'O yes, there is,' said she. 'There's an eye looking at us at this +moment through a knot-hole in that trap-door.' + +And as she spoke the trap opened, and the dark line of the ladder was +seen descending against the white-washed wall. When it touched the +bottom Lizzy dragged it to its place, and said, 'If you'll go up, I'll +follow.' + +The young man ascended, and presently found himself among consecrated +bells for the first time in his life, nonconformity having been in the +Stockdale blood for some generations. He eyed them uneasily, and looked +round for Lizzy. Owlett stood here, holding the top of the ladder. + +'What, be you really one of us?' said the miller. + +'It seems so,' said Stockdale sadly. + +'He's not,' said Lizzy, who overheard. 'He's neither for nor against us. +He'll do us no harm.' + +She stepped up beside them, and then they went on to the next stage, +which, when they had clambered over the dusty bell-carriages, was of easy +ascent, leading towards the hole through which the pale sky appeared, and +into the open air. Owlett remained behind for a moment, to pull up the +lower ladder. + +'Keep down your heads,' said a voice, as soon as they set foot on the +flat. + +Stockdale here beheld all the missing parishioners, lying on their +stomachs on the tower roof, except a few who, elevated on their hands and +knees, were peeping through the embrasures of the parapet. Stockdale did +the same, and saw the village lying like a map below him, over which +moved the figures of the excisemen, each foreshortened to a crablike +object, the crown of his hat forming a circular disc in the centre of +him. Some of the men had turned their heads when the young preacher's +figure arose among them. + +'What, Mr. Stockdale?' said Matt Grey, in a tone of surprise. + +'I'd as lief that it hadn't been,' said Jim Clarke. 'If the pa'son +should see him a trespassing here in his tower, 'twould be none the +better for we, seeing how 'a do hate chapel-members. He'd never buy a +tub of us again, and he's as good a customer as we have got this side o' +Warm'll.' + +'Where is the pa'son?' said Lizzy. + +'In his house, to be sure, that he mid see nothing of what's going +on--where all good folks ought to be, and this young man likewise.' + +'Well, he has brought some news,' said Lizzy. 'They are going to search +the orchet and church; can we do anything if they should find?' + +'Yes,' said her cousin Owlett. 'That's what we've been talking o', and +we have settled our line. Well, be dazed!' + +The exclamation was caused by his perceiving that some of the searchers, +having got into the orchard, and begun stooping and creeping hither and +thither, were pausing in the middle, where a tree smaller than the rest +was growing. They drew closer, and bent lower than ever upon the ground. + +'O, my tubs!' said Lizzy faintly, as she peered through the parapet at +them. + +'They have got 'em, 'a b'lieve,' said Owlett. + +The interest in the movements of the officers was so keen that not a +single eye was looking in any other direction; but at that moment a shout +from the church beneath them attracted the attention of the smugglers, as +it did also of the party in the orchard, who sprang to their feet and +went towards the churchyard wall. At the same time those of the +Government men who had entered the church unperceived by the smugglers +cried aloud, 'Here be some of 'em at last.' + +The smugglers remained in a blank silence, uncertain whether 'some of +'em' meant tubs or men; but again peeping cautiously over the edge of the +tower they learnt that tubs were the things descried; and soon these +fated articles were brought one by one into the middle of the churchyard +from their hiding-place under the gallery-stairs. + +'They are going to put 'em on Hinton's vault till they find the rest!' +said Lizzy hopelessly. The excisemen had, in fact, begun to pile up the +tubs on a large stone slab which was fixed there; and when all were +brought out from the tower, two or three of the men were left standing by +them, the rest of the party again proceeding to the orchard. + +The interest of the smugglers in the next manoeuvres of their enemies +became painfully intense. Only about thirty tubs had been secreted in +the lumber of the tower, but seventy were hidden in the orchard, making +up all that they had brought ashore as yet, the remainder of the cargo +having been tied to a sinker and dropped overboard for another night's +operations. The excisemen, having re-entered the orchard, acted as if +they were positive that here lay hidden the rest of the tubs, which they +were determined to find before nightfall. They spread themselves out +round the field, and advancing on all fours as before, went anew round +every apple-tree in the enclosure. The young tree in the middle again +led them to pause, and at length the whole company gathered there in a +way which signified that a second chain of reasoning had led to the same +results as the first. + +When they had examined the sod hereabouts for some minutes, one of the +men rose, ran to a disused porch of the church where tools were kept, and +returned with the sexton's pickaxe and shovel, with which they set to +work. + +'Are they really buried there?' said the minister, for the grass was so +green and uninjured that it was difficult to believe it had been +disturbed. The smugglers were too interested to reply, and presently +they saw, to their chagrin, the officers stand several on each side of +the tree; and, stooping and applying their hands to the soil, they bodily +lifted the tree and the turf around it. The apple-tree now showed itself +to be growing in a shallow box, with handles for lifting at each of the +four sides. Under the site of the tree a square hole was revealed, and +an exciseman went and looked down. + +'It is all up now,' said Owlett quietly. 'And now all of ye get down +before they notice we are here; and be ready for our next move. I had +better bide here till dark, or they may take me on suspicion, as 'tis on +my ground. I'll be with ye as soon as daylight begins to pink in.' + +'And I?' said Lizzy. + +'You please look to the linch-pins and screws; then go indoors and know +nothing at all. The chaps will do the rest.' + +The ladder was replaced, and all but Owlett descended, the men passing +off one by one at the back of the church, and vanishing on their +respective errands. + +Lizzy walked boldly along the street, followed closely by the minister. + +'You are going indoors, Mrs. Newberry?' he said. + +She knew from the words 'Mrs. Newberry' that the division between them +had widened yet another degree. + +'I am not going home,' she said. 'I have a little thing to do before I +go in. Martha Sarah will get your tea.' + +'O, I don't mean on that account,' said Stockdale. 'What can you have to +do further in this unhallowed affair?' + +'Only a little,' she said. + +'What is that? I'll go with you.' + +'No, I shall go by myself. Will you please go indoors? I shall be there +in less than an hour.' + +'You are not going to run any danger, Lizzy?' said the young man, his +tenderness reasserting itself. + +'None whatever--worth mentioning,' answered she, and went down towards +the Cross. + +Stockdale entered the garden gate, and stood behind it looking on. The +excisemen were still busy in the orchard, and at last he was tempted to +enter, and watch their proceedings. When he came closer he found that +the secret cellar, of whose existence he had been totally unaware, was +formed by timbers placed across from side to side about a foot under the +ground, and grassed over. + +The excisemen looked up at Stockdale's fair and downy countenance, and +evidently thinking him above suspicion, went on with their work again. As +soon as all the tubs were taken out, they began tearing up the turf; +pulling out the timbers, and breaking in the sides, till the cellar was +wholly dismantled and shapeless, the apple-tree lying with its roots high +to the air. But the hole which had in its time held so much contraband +merchandize was never completely filled up, either then or afterwards, a +depression in the greensward marking the spot to this day. + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE WALK TO WARM'ELL CROSS AND AFTERWARDS + + +As the goods had all to be carried to Budmouth that night, the +excisemen's next object was to find horses and carts for the journey, and +they went about the village for that purpose. Latimer strode hither and +thither with a lump of chalk in his hand, marking broad-arrows so +vigorously on every vehicle and set of harness that he came across, that +it seemed as if he would chalk broad-arrows on the very hedges and roads. +The owner of every conveyance so marked was bound to give it up for +Government purposes. Stockdale, who had had enough of the scene, turned +indoors thoughtful and depressed. Lizzy was already there, having come +in at the back, though she had not yet taken off her bonnet. She looked +tired, and her mood was not much brighter than his own. They had but +little to say to each other; and the minister went away and attempted to +read; but at this he could not succeed, and he shook the little bell for +tea. + +Lizzy herself brought in the tray, the girl having run off into the +village during the afternoon, too full of excitement at the proceedings +to remember her state of life. However, almost before the sad lovers had +said anything to each other, Martha came in in a steaming state. + +'O, there's such a stoor, Mrs. Newberry and Mr. Stockdale! The king's +excisemen can't get the carts ready nohow at all! They pulled Thomas +Ballam's, and William Rogers's, and Stephen Sprake's carts into the road, +and off came the wheels, and down fell the carts; and they found there +was no linch-pins in the arms; and then they tried Samuel Shane's waggon, +and found that the screws were gone from he, and at last they looked at +the dairyman's cart, and he's got none neither! They have gone now to +the blacksmith's to get some made, but he's nowhere to be found!' + +Stockdale looked at Lizzy, who blushed very slightly, and went out of the +room, followed by Martha Sarah. But before they had got through the +passage there was a rap at the front door, and Stockdale recognized +Latimer's voice addressing Mrs. Newberry, who had turned back. + +'For God's sake, Mrs. Newberry, have you seen Hardman the blacksmith up +this way? If we could get hold of him, we'd e'en a'most drag him by the +hair of his head to his anvil, where he ought to be.' + +'He's an idle man, Mr. Latimer,' said Lizzy archly. 'What do you want +him for?' + +'Why, there isn't a horse in the place that has got more than three shoes +on, and some have only two. The waggon-wheels be without strakes, and +there's no linch-pins to the carts. What with that, and the bother about +every set of harness being out of order, we shan't be off before +nightfall--upon my soul we shan't. 'Tis a rough lot, Mrs. Newberry, that +you've got about you here; but they'll play at this game once too often, +mark my words they will! There's not a man in the parish that don't +deserve to be whipped.' + +It happened that Hardman was at that moment a little further up the lane, +smoking his pipe behind a holly-bush. When Latimer had done speaking he +went on in this direction, and Hardman, hearing the exciseman's steps, +found curiosity too strong for prudence. He peeped out from the bush at +the very moment that Latimer's glance was on it. There was nothing left +for him to do but to come forward with unconcern. + +'I've been looking for you for the last hour!' said Latimer with a glare +in his eye. + +'Sorry to hear that,' said Hardman. 'I've been out for a stroll, to look +for more hid tubs, to deliver 'em up to Gover'ment.' + +'O yes, Hardman, we know it,' said Latimer, with withering sarcasm. 'We +know that you'll deliver 'em up to Gover'ment. We know that all the +parish is helping us, and have been all day! Now you please walk along +with me down to your shop, and kindly let me hire ye in the king's name.' + +They went down the lane together; and presently there resounded from the +smithy the ring of a hammer not very briskly swung. However, the carts +and horses were got into some sort of travelling condition, but it was +not until after the clock had struck six, when the muddy roads were +glistening under the horizontal light of the fading day. The smuggled +tubs were soon packed into the vehicles, and Latimer, with three of his +assistants, drove slowly out of the village in the direction of the port +of Budmouth, some considerable number of miles distant, the other +excisemen being left to watch for the remainder of the cargo, which they +knew to have been sunk somewhere between Ringsworth and Lulstead Cove, +and to unearth Owlett, the only person clearly implicated by the +discovery of the cave. + +Women and children stood at the doors as the carts, each chalked with the +Government pitchfork, passed in the increasing twilight; and as they +stood they looked at the confiscated property with a melancholy +expression that told only too plainly the relation which they bore to the +trade. + +'Well, Lizzy,' said Stockdale, when the crackle of the wheels had nearly +died away. 'This is a fit finish to your adventure. I am truly thankful +that you have got off without suspicion, and the loss only of the liquor. +Will you sit down and let me talk to you?' + +'By and by,' she said. 'But I must go out now.' + +'Not to that horrid shore again?' he said blankly. + +'No, not there. I am only going to see the end of this day's business.' + +He did not answer to this, and she moved towards the door slowly, as if +waiting for him to say something more. + +'You don't offer to come with me,' she added at last. 'I suppose that's +because you hate me after all this?' + +'Can you say it, Lizzy, when you know I only want to save you from such +practices? Come with you of course I will, if it is only to take care of +you. But why will you go out again?' + +'Because I cannot rest indoors. Something is happening, and I must know +what. Now, come!' And they went into the dusk together. + +When they reached the turnpike-road she turned to the right, and he soon +perceived that they were following the direction of the excisemen and +their load. He had given her his arm, and every now and then she +suddenly pulled it back, to signify that he was to halt a moment and +listen. They had walked rather quickly along the first quarter of a +mile, and on the second or third time of standing still she said, 'I hear +them ahead--don't you?' + +'Yes,' he said; 'I hear the wheels. But what of that?' + +'I only want to know if they get clear away from the neighbourhood.' + +'Ah,' said he, a light breaking upon him. 'Something desperate is to be +attempted!--and now I remember there was not a man about the village when +we left.' + +'Hark!' she murmured. The noise of the cartwheels had stopped, and given +place to another sort of sound. + +''Tis a scuffle!' said Stockdale. 'There'll be murder! Lizzy, let go my +arm; I am going on. On my conscience, I must not stay here and do +nothing!' + +'There'll be no murder, and not even a broken head,' she said. 'Our men +are thirty to four of them: no harm will be done at all.' + +'Then there is an attack!' exclaimed Stockdale; 'and you knew it was to +be. Why should you side with men who break the laws like this?' + +'Why should you side with men who take from country traders what they +have honestly bought wi' their own money in France?' said she firmly. + +'They are not honestly bought,' said he. + +'They are,' she contradicted. 'I and Owlett and the others paid thirty +shillings for every one of the tubs before they were put on board at +Cherbourg, and if a king who is nothing to us sends his people to steal +our property, we have a right to steal it back again.' + +Stockdale did not stop to argue the matter, but went quickly in the +direction of the noise, Lizzy keeping at his side. 'Don't you interfere, +will you, dear Richard?' she said anxiously, as they drew near. 'Don't +let us go any closer: 'tis at Warm'ell Cross where they are seizing 'em. +You can do no good, and you may meet with a hard blow!' + +'Let us see first what is going on,' he said. But before they had got +much further the noise of the cartwheels began again; and Stockdale soon +found that they were coming towards him. In another minute the three +carts came up, and Stockdale and Lizzy stood in the ditch to let them +pass. + +Instead of being conducted by four men, as had happened when they went +out of the village, the horses and carts were now accompanied by a body +of from twenty to thirty, all of whom, as Stockdale perceived to his +astonishment, had blackened faces. Among them walked six or eight huge +female figures, whom, from their wide strides, Stockdale guessed to be +men in disguise. As soon as the party discerned Lizzy and her companion +four or five fell back, and when the carts had passed, came close to the +pair. + +'There is no walking up this way for the present,' said one of the gaunt +women, who wore curls a foot long, dangling down the sides of her face, +in the fashion of the time. Stockdale recognized this lady's voice as +Owlett's. + +'Why not?' said Stockdale. 'This is the public highway.' + +'Now look here, youngster,' said Owlett. 'O, 'tis the Methodist +parson!--what, and Mrs. Newberry! Well, you'd better not go up that way, +Lizzy. They've all run off, and folks have got their own again.' + +The miller then hastened on and joined his comrades. Stockdale and Lizzy +also turned back. 'I wish all this hadn't been forced upon us,' she said +regretfully. 'But if those excisemen had got off with the tubs, half the +people in the parish would have been in want for the next month or two.' + +Stockdale was not paying much attention to her words, and he said, 'I +don't think I can go back like this. Those four poor excisemen may be +murdered for all I know.' + +'Murdered!' said Lizzy impatiently. 'We don't do murder here.' + +'Well, I shall go as far as Warm'ell Cross to see,' said Stockdale +decisively; and, without wishing her safe home or anything else, the +minister turned back. Lizzy stood looking at him till his form was +absorbed in the shades; and then, with sadness, she went in the direction +of Nether-Moynton. + +The road was lonely, and after nightfall at this time of the year there +was often not a passer for hours. Stockdale pursued his way without +hearing a sound beyond that of his own footsteps; and in due time he +passed beneath the trees of the plantation which surrounded the Warm'ell +Cross-road. Before he had reached the point of intersection he heard +voices from the thicket. + +'Hoi-hoi-hoi! Help, help!' + +The voices were not at all feeble or despairing, but they were +unmistakably anxious. Stockdale had no weapon, and before plunging into +the pitchy darkness of the plantation he pulled a stake from the hedge, +to use in case of need. When he got among the trees he shouted--'What's +the matter--where are you?' + +'Here,' answered the voices; and, pushing through the brambles in that +direction, he came near the objects of his search. + +'Why don't you come forward?' said Stockdale. + +'We be tied to the trees!' + +'Who are you?' + +'Poor Will Latimer the exciseman!' said one plaintively. 'Just come and +cut these cords, there's a good man. We were afraid nobody would pass by +to-night.' + +Stockdale soon loosened them, upon which they stretched their limbs and +stood at their ease. + +'The rascals!' said Latimer, getting now into a rage, though he had +seemed quite meek when Stockdale first came up. ''Tis the same set of +fellows. I know they were Moynton chaps to a man.' + +'But we can't swear to 'em,' said another. 'Not one of 'em spoke.' + +'What are you going to do?' said Stockdale. + +'I'd fain go back to Moynton, and have at 'em again!' said Latimer. + +'So would we!' said his comrades. + +'Fight till we die!' said Latimer. + +'We will, we will!' said his men. + +'But,' said Latimer, more frigidly, as they came out of the plantation, +'we don't know that these chaps with black faces were Moynton men? And +proof is a hard thing.' + +'So it is,' said the rest. + +'And therefore we won't do nothing at all,' said Latimer, with complete +dispassionateness. 'For my part, I'd sooner be them than we. The +clitches of my arms are burning like fire from the cords those two +strapping women tied round 'em. My opinion is, now I have had time to +think o't, that you may serve your Gover'ment at too high a price. For +these two nights and days I have not had an hour's rest; and, please God, +here's for home-along.' + +The other officers agreed heartily to this course; and, thanking +Stockdale for his timely assistance, they parted from him at the Cross, +taking themselves the western road, and Stockdale going back to Nether- +Moynton. + +During that walk the minister was lost in reverie of the most painful +kind. As soon as he got into the house, and before entering his own +rooms, he advanced to the door of the little back parlour in which Lizzy +usually sat with her mother. He found her there alone. Stockdale went +forward, and, like a man in a dream, looked down upon the table that +stood between him and the young woman, who had her bonnet and cloak still +on. As he did not speak, she looked up from her chair at him, with +misgiving in her eye. + +'Where are they gone?' he then said listlessly. + +'Who?--I don't know. I have seen nothing of them since. I came straight +in here.' + +'If your men can manage to get off with those tubs, it will be a great +profit to you, I suppose?' + +'A share will be mine, a share my cousin Owlett's, a share to each of the +two farmers, and a share divided amongst the men who helped us.' + +'And you still think,' he went on slowly, 'that you will not give this +business up?' + +Lizzy rose, and put her hand upon his shoulder. 'Don't ask that,' she +whispered. 'You don't know what you are asking. I must tell you, though +I meant not to do it. What I make by that trade is all I have to keep my +mother and myself with.' + +He was astonished. 'I did not dream of such a thing,' he said. 'I would +rather have swept the streets, had I been you. What is money compared +with a clear conscience?' + +'My conscience is clear. I know my mother, but the king I have never +seen. His dues are nothing to me. But it is a great deal to me that my +mother and I should live.' + +'Marry me, and promise to give it up. I will keep your mother.' + +'It is good of you,' she said, trembling a little. 'Let me think of it +by myself. I would rather not answer now.' + +She reserved her answer till the next day, and came into his room with a +solemn face. 'I cannot do what you wished!' she said passionately. 'It +is too much to ask. My whole life ha' been passed in this way.' Her +words and manner showed that before entering she had been struggling with +herself in private, and that the contention had been strong. + +Stockdale turned pale, but he spoke quietly. 'Then, Lizzy, we must part. +I cannot go against my principles in this matter, and I cannot make my +profession a mockery. You know how I love you, and what I would do for +you; but this one thing I cannot do.' + +'But why should you belong to that profession?' she burst out. 'I have +got this large house; why can't you marry me, and live here with us, and +not be a Methodist preacher any more? I assure you, Richard, it is no +harm, and I wish you could only see it as I do! We only carry it on in +winter: in summer it is never done at all. It stirs up one's dull life +at this time o' the year, and gives excitement, which I have got so used +to now that I should hardly know how to do 'ithout it. At nights, when +the wind blows, instead of being dull and stupid, and not noticing +whether it do blow or not, your mind is afield, even if you are not +afield yourself; and you are wondering how the chaps are getting on; and +you walk up and down the room, and look out o' window, and then you go +out yourself, and know your way about as well by night as by day, and +have hairbreadth escapes from old Latimer and his fellows, who are too +stupid ever to really frighten us, and only make us a bit nimble.' + +'He frightened you a little last night, anyhow: and I would advise you to +drop it before it is worse.' + +She shook her head. 'No, I must go on as I have begun. I was born to +it. It is in my blood, and I can't be cured. O, Richard, you cannot +think what a hard thing you have asked, and how sharp you try me when you +put me between this and my love for 'ee!' + +Stockdale was leaning with his elbow on the mantelpiece, his hands over +his eyes. 'We ought never to have met, Lizzy,' he said. 'It was an ill +day for us! I little thought there was anything so hopeless and +impossible in our engagement as this. Well, it is too late now to regret +consequences in this way. I have had the happiness of seeing you and +knowing you at least.' + +'You dissent from Church, and I dissent from State,' she said. 'And I +don't see why we are not well matched.' + +He smiled sadly, while Lizzy remained looking down, her eyes beginning to +overflow. + +That was an unhappy evening for both of them, and the days that followed +were unhappy days. Both she and he went mechanically about their +employments, and his depression was marked in the village by more than +one of his denomination with whom he came in contact. But Lizzy, who +passed her days indoors, was unsuspected of being the cause: for it was +generally understood that a quiet engagement to marry existed between her +and her cousin Owlett, and had existed for some time. + +Thus uncertainly the week passed on; till one morning Stockdale said to +her: 'I have had a letter, Lizzy. I must call you that till I am gone.' + +'Gone?' said she blankly. + +'Yes,' he said. 'I am going from this place. I felt it would be better +for us both that I should not stay after what has happened. In fact, I +couldn't stay here, and look on you from day to day, without becoming +weak and faltering in my course. I have just heard of an arrangement by +which the other minister can arrive here in about a week; and let me go +elsewhere.' + +That he had all this time continued so firmly fixed in his resolution +came upon her as a grievous surprise. 'You never loved me!' she said +bitterly. + +'I might say the same,' he returned; 'but I will not. Grant me one +favour. Come and hear my last sermon on the day before I go.' + +Lizzy, who was a church-goer on Sunday mornings, frequently attended +Stockdale's chapel in the evening with the rest of the double-minded; and +she promised. + +It became known that Stockdale was going to leave, and a good many people +outside his own sect were sorry to hear it. The intervening days flew +rapidly away, and on the evening of the Sunday which preceded the morning +of his departure Lizzy sat in the chapel to hear him for the last time. +The little building was full to overflowing, and he took up the subject +which all had expected, that of the contraband trade so extensively +practised among them. His hearers, in laying his words to their own +hearts, did not perceive that they were most particularly directed +against Lizzy, till the sermon waxed warm, and Stockdale nearly broke +down with emotion. In truth his own earnestness, and her sad eyes +looking up at him, were too much for the young man's equanimity. He +hardly knew how he ended. He saw Lizzy, as through a mist, turn and go +away with the rest of the congregation; and shortly afterwards followed +her home. + +She invited him to supper, and they sat down alone, her mother having, as +was usual with her on Sunday nights, gone to bed early. + +'We will part friends, won't we?' said Lizzy, with forced gaiety, and +never alluding to the sermon: a reticence which rather disappointed him. + +'We will,' he said, with a forced smile on his part; and they sat down. + +It was the first meal that they had ever shared together in their lives, +and probably the last that they would so share. When it was over, and +the indifferent conversation could no longer be continued, he arose and +took her hand. 'Lizzy,' he said, 'do you say we must part--do you?' + +'You do,' she said solemnly. 'I can say no more.' + +'Nor I,' said he. 'If that is your answer, good-bye!' + +Stockdale bent over her and kissed her, and she involuntarily returned +his kiss. 'I shall go early,' he said hurriedly. 'I shall not see you +again.' + +And he did leave early. He fancied, when stepping forth into the grey +morning light, to mount the van which was to carry him away, that he saw +a face between the parted curtains of Lizzy's window, but the light was +faint, and the panes glistened with wet; so he could not be sure. +Stockdale mounted the vehicle, and was gone; and on the following Sunday +the new minister preached in the chapel of the Moynton Wesleyans. + +One day, two years after the parting, Stockdale, now settled in a midland +town, came into Nether-Moynton by carrier in the original way. Jogging +along in the van that afternoon he had put questions to the driver, and +the answers that he received interested the minister deeply. The result +of them was that he went without the least hesitation to the door of his +former lodging. It was about six o'clock in the evening, and the same +time of year as when he had left; now, too, the ground was damp and +glistening, the west was bright, and Lizzy's snowdrops were raising their +heads in the border under the wall. + +Lizzy must have caught sight of him from the window, for by the time that +he reached the door she was there holding it open: and then, as if she +had not sufficiently considered her act of coming out, she drew herself +back, saying with some constraint, 'Mr. Stockdale!' + +'You knew it was,' said Stockdale, taking her hand. 'I wrote to say I +should call.' + +'Yes, but you did not say when,' she answered. + +'I did not. I was not quite sure when my business would lead me to these +parts.' + +'You only came because business brought you near?' + +'Well, that is the fact; but I have often thought I should like to come +on purpose to see you . . . But what's all this that has happened? I +told you how it would be, Lizzy, and you would not listen to me.' + +'I would not,' she said sadly. 'But I had been brought up to that life; +and it was second nature to me. However, it is all over now. The +officers have blood-money for taking a man dead or alive, and the trade +is going to nothing. We were hunted down like rats.' + +'Owlett is quite gone, I hear.' + +'Yes. He is in America. We had a dreadful struggle that last time, when +they tried to take him. It is a perfect miracle that he lived through +it; and it is a wonder that I was not killed. I was shot in the hand. It +was not by aim; the shot was really meant for my cousin; but I was +behind, looking on as usual, and the bullet came to me. It bled +terribly, but I got home without fainting; and it healed after a time. +You know how he suffered?' + +'No,' said Stockdale. 'I only heard that he just escaped with his life.' + +'He was shot in the back; but a rib turned the ball. He was badly hurt. +We would not let him be took. The men carried him all night across the +meads to Kingsbere, and hid him in a barn, dressing his wound as well as +they could, till he was so far recovered as to be able to get about. He +had gied up his mill for some time; and at last he got to Bristol, and +took a passage to America, and he's settled in Wisconsin.' + +'What do you think of smuggling now?' said the minister gravely. + +'I own that we were wrong,' said she. 'But I have suffered for it. I am +very poor now, and my mother has been dead these twelve months . . . But +won't you come in, Mr. Stockdale?' + +Stockdale went in; and it is to be supposed that they came to an +understanding; for a fortnight later there was a sale of Lizzy's +furniture, and after that a wedding at a chapel in a neighbouring town. + +He took her away from her old haunts to the home that he had made for +himself in his native county, where she studied her duties as a +minister's wife with praiseworthy assiduity. It is said that in after +years she wrote an excellent tract called Render unto Caesar; or, The +Repentant Villagers, in which her own experience was anonymously used as +the introductory story. Stockdale got it printed, after making some +corrections, and putting in a few powerful sentences of his own; and many +hundreds of copies were distributed by the couple in the course of their +married life. + +April 1879. + + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WESSEX TALES*** + + +******* This file should be named 3056.txt or 3056.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/5/3056 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.07.00*END* + + + + +WESSEX TALES + + + + +Contents: + +Preface +An Imaginative Woman +The Three Strangers +The Withered Arm +Fellow-Townsmen +Interlopers at the Knap +The Distracted Preacher + + + +PREFACE + + + +An apology is perhaps needed for the neglect of contrast which is +shown by presenting two consecutive stories of hangmen in such a +small collection as the following. But in the neighbourhood of +county-towns tales of executions used to form a large proportion of +the local traditions; and though never personally acquainted with +any chief operator at such scenes, the writer of these pages had as +a boy the privilege of being on speaking terms with a man who +applied for the office, and who sank into an incurable melancholy +because he failed to get it, some slight mitigation of his grief +being to dwell upon striking episodes in the lives of those happier +ones who had held it with success and renown. His tale of +disappointment used to cause some wonder why his ambition should +have taken such an unfortunate form, but its nobleness was never +questioned. In those days, too, there was still living an old woman +who, for the cure of some eating disease, had been taken in her +youth to have her 'blood turned' by a convict's corpse, in the +manner described in 'The Withered Arm.' + +Since writing this story some years ago I have been reminded by an +aged friend who knew 'Rhoda Brook' that, in relating her dream, my +forgetfulness has weakened the facts our of which the tale grew. In +reality it was while lying down on a hot afternoon that the incubus +oppressed her and she flung it off, with the results upon the body +of the original as described. To my mind the occurrence of such a +vision in the daytime is more impressive than if it had happened in +a midnight dream. Readers are therefore asked to correct the +misrelation, which affords an instance of how our imperfect memories +insensibly formalize the fresh originality of living fact--from +whose shape they slowly depart, as machine-made castings depart by +degrees from the sharp hand-work of the mould. + +Among the many devices for concealing smuggled goods in caves and +pits of the earth, that of planting an apple-tree in a tray or box +which was placed over the mouth of the pit is, I believe, unique, +and it is detailed in one of the tales precisely as described by an +old carrier of 'tubs'--a man who was afterwards in my father's +employ for over thirty years. I never gathered from his +reminiscences what means were adopted for lifting the tree, which, +with its roots, earth, and receptacle, must have been of +considerable weight. There is no doubt, however, that the thing was +done through many years. My informant often spoke, too, of the +horribly suffocating sensation produced by the pair of spirit-tubs +slung upon the chest and back, after stumbling with the burden of +them for several miles inland over a rough country and in darkness. +He said that though years of his youth and young manhood were spent +in this irregular business, his profits from the same, taken all +together, did not average the wages he might have earned in a steady +employment, whilst the fatigues and risks were excessive. + +I may add that the first story in the series turns upon a physical +possibility that may attach to women of imaginative temperament, and +that is well supported by the experiences of medical men and other +observers of such manifestations. + +T. H. +April 1896. + + + + +AN IMAGINATIVE WOMAN + + + + +When William Marchmill had finished his inquiries for lodgings at a +well-known watering-place in Upper Wessex, he returned to the hotel +to find his wife. She, with the children, had rambled along the +shore, and Marchmill followed in the direction indicated by the +military-looking hall-porter + +'By Jove, how far you've gone! I am quite out of breath,' Marchmill +said, rather impatiently, when he came up with his wife, who was +reading as she walked, the three children being considerably further +ahead with the nurse. + +Mrs. Marchmill started out of the reverie into which the book had +thrown her. 'Yes,' she said, 'you've been such a long time. I was +tired of staying in that dreary hotel. But I am sorry if you have +wanted me, Will?' + +'Well, I have had trouble to suit myself. When you see the airy and +comfortable rooms heard of, you find they are stuffy and +uncomfortable. Will you come and see if what I've fixed on will do? +There is not much room, I am afraid; hut I can light on nothing +better. The town is rather full.' + +The pair left the children and nurse to continue their ramble, and +went back together. + +In age well-balanced, in personal appearance fairly matched, and in +domestic requirements conformable, in temper this couple differed, +though even here they did not often clash, he being equable, if not +lymphatic, and she decidedly nervous and sanguine. It was to their +tastes and fancies, those smallest, greatest particulars, that no +common denominator could be applied. Marchmill considered his +wife's likes and inclinations somewhat silly; she considered his +sordid and material. The husband's business was that of a gunmaker +in a thriving city northwards, and his soul was in that business +always; the lady was best characterized by that superannuated phrase +of elegance 'a votary of the muse.' An impressionable, palpitating +creature was Ella, shrinking humanely from detailed knowledge of her +husband's trade whenever she reflected that everything he +manufactured had for its purpose the destruction of life. She could +only recover her equanimity by assuring herself that some, at least, +of his weapons were sooner or later used for the extermination of +horrid vermin and animals almost as cruel to their inferiors in +species as human beings were to theirs. + +She had never antecedently regarded this occupation of his as any +objection to having him for a husband. Indeed, the necessity of +getting life-leased at all cost, a cardinal virtue which all good +mothers teach, kept her from thinking of it at all till she had +closed with William, had passed the honeymoon, and reached the +reflecting stage. Then, like a person who has stumbled upon some +object in the dark, she wondered what she had got; mentally walked +round it, estimated it; whether it were rare or common; contained +gold, silver, or lead; were a clog or a pedestal, everything to her +or nothing. + +She came to some vague conclusions, and since then had kept her +heart alive by pitying her proprietor's obtuseness and want of +refinement, pitying herself, and letting off her delicate and +ethereal emotions in imaginative occupations, day-dreams, and night- +sighs, which perhaps would not much have disturbed William if he had +known of them. + +Her figure was small, elegant, and slight in build, tripping, or +rather bounding, in movement. She was dark-eyed, and had that +marvellously bright and liquid sparkle in each pupil which +characterizes persons of Ella's cast of soul, and is too often a +cause of heartache to the possessor's male friends, ultimately +sometimes to herself. Her husband was a tall, long-featured man, +with a brown beard; he had a pondering regard; and was, it must be +added, usually kind and tolerant to her. He spoke in squarely +shaped sentences, and was supremely satisfied with a condition of +sublunary things which made weapons a necessity. + +Husband and wife walked till they had reached the house they were in +search of, which stood in a terrace facing the sea, and was fronted +by a small garden of wind-proof and salt-proof evergreens, stone +steps leading up to the porch. It had its number in the row, but, +being rather larger than the rest, was in addition sedulously +distinguished as Coburg House by its landlady, though everybody else +called it 'Thirteen, New Parade.' The spot was bright and lively +now; but in winter it became necessary to place sandbags against the +door, and to stuff up the keyhole against the wind and rain, which +had worn the paint so thin that the priming and knotting showed +through. + +The householder, who bad been watching for the gentleman's return, +met them in the passage, and showed the rooms. She informed them +that she was a professional man's widow, left in needy circumstances +by the rather sudden death of her husband, and she spoke anxiously +of the conveniences of the establishment. + +Mrs. Marchmill said that she liked the situation and the house; but, +it being small, there would not be accommodation enough, unless she +could have all the rooms. + +The landlady mused with an air of disappointment. She wanted the +visitors to be her tenants very badly, she said, with obvious +honesty. But unfortunately two of the rooms were occupied +permanently by a bachelor gentleman. He did not pay season prices, +it was true; but as he kept on his apartments all the year round, +and was an extremely nice and interesting young man, who gave no +trouble, she did not like to turn him out for a month's 'let,' even +at a high figure. 'Perhaps, however,' she added, 'he might offer to +go for a time.' + +They would not hear of this, and went back to the hotel, intending +to proceed to the agent's to inquire further. Hardly had they sat +down to tea when the landlady called. Her gentleman, she said, had +been so obliging as to offer to give up his rooms for three or four +weeks rather than drive the new-comers away. + +'It is very kind, but we won't inconvenience him in that way,' said +the Marchmills. + +'O, it won't inconvenience him, I assure you!' said the landlady +eloquently. 'You see, he's a different sort of young man from most- +-dreamy, solitary, rather melancholy--and he cares more to be here +when the south-westerly gales are beating against the door, and the +sea washes over the Parade, and there's not a soul in the place, +than he does now in the season. He'd just as soon be where, in +fact, he's going temporarily, to a little cottage on the Island +opposite, for a change.' She hoped therefore that they would come. + +The Marchmill family accordingly took possession of the house next +day, and it seemed to suit them very well. After luncheon Mr. +Marchmill strolled out towards the pier, and Mrs. Marchmill, having +despatched the children to their outdoor amusements on the sands, +settled herself in more completely, examining this and that article, +and testing the reflecting powers of the mirror in the wardrobe +door. + +In the small back sitting-room, which had been the young bachelor's, +she found furniture of a more personal nature than in the rest. +Shabby books, of correct rather than rare editions, were piled up in +a queerly reserved manner in corners, as if the previous occupant +had not conceived the possibility that any incoming person of the +season's bringing could care to look inside them. The landlady +hovered on the threshold to rectify anything that Mrs. Marchmill +might not find to her satisfaction. + +'I'll make this my own little room,' said the latter, 'because the +books are here. By the way, the person who has left seems to have a +good many. He won't mind my reading some of them, Mrs. Hooper, I +hope?' + +'O dear no, ma'am. Yes, he has a good many. You see, he is in the +literary line himself somewhat. He is a poet--yes, really a poet-- +and he has a little income of his own, which is enough to write +verses on, but not enough for cutting a figure, even if he cared +to.' + +'A poet! O, I did not know that.' + +Mrs. Marchmill opened one of the books, and saw the owner's name +written on the title-page. 'Dear me!' she continued; 'I know his +name very well--Robert Trewe--of course I do; and his writings! And +it is HIS rooms we have taken, and HIM we have turned out of his +home?' + +Ella Marchmill, sitting down alone a few minutes later, thought with +interested surprise of Robert Trewe. Her own latter history will +best explain that interest. Herself the only daughter of a +struggling man of letters, she had during the last year or two taken +to writing poems, in an endeavour to find a congenial channel in +which to let flow her painfully embayed emotions, whose former +limpidity and sparkle seemed departing in the stagnation caused by +the routine of a practical household and the gloom of bearing +children to a commonplace father. These poems, subscribed with a +masculine pseudonym, had appeared in various obscure magazines, and +in two cases in rather prominent ones. In the second of the latter +the page which bore her effusion at the bottom, in smallish print, +bore at the top, in large print, a few verses on the same subject by +this very man, Robert Trewe. Both of them had, in fact, been struck +by a tragic incident reported in the daily papers, and had used it +simultaneously as an inspiration, the editor remarking in a note +upon the coincidence, and that the excellence of both poems prompted +him to give them together. + +After that event Ella, otherwise 'John Ivy,' had watched with much +attention the appearance anywhere in print of verse bearing the +signature of Robert Trewe, who, with a man's unsusceptibility on the +question of sex, had never once thought of passing himself off as a +woman. To be sure, Mrs. Marchmill had satisfied herself with a sort +of reason for doing the contrary in her case; that nobody might +believe in her inspiration if they found that the sentiments came +from a pushing tradesman's wife, from the mother of three children +by a matter-of-fact small-arms manufacturer. + +Trewe's verse contrasted with that of the rank and file of recent +minor poets in being impassioned rather than ingenious, luxuriant +rather than finished. Neither symboliste nor decadent, he was a +pessimist in so far as that character applies to a man who looks at +the worst contingencies as well as the best in the human condition. +Being little attracted by excellences of form and rhythm apart from +content, he sometimes, when feeling outran his artistic speed, +perpetrated sonnets in the loosely rhymed Elizabethan fashion, which +every right-minded reviewer said he ought not to have done. + +With sad and hopeless envy, Ella Marchmill had often and often +scanned the rival poet's work, so much stronger as it always was +than her own feeble lines. She had imitated him, and her inability +to touch his level would send her into fits of despondency. Months +passed away thus, till she observed from the publishers' list that +Trewe had collected his fugitive pieces into a volume, which was +duly issued, and was much or little praised according to chance, and +had a sale quite sufficient to pay for the printing. + +This step onward had suggested to John Ivy the idea of collecting +her pieces also, or at any rate of making up a book of her rhymes by +adding many in manuscript to the few that had seen the light, for +she had been able to get no great number into print. A ruinous +charge was made for costs of publication; a few reviews noticed her +poor little volume; but nobody talked of it, nobody bought it, and +it fell dead in a fortnight--if it had ever been alive. + +The author's thoughts were diverted to another groove just then by +the discovery that she was going to have a third child, and the +collapse of her poetical venture had perhaps less effect upon her +mind than it might have done if she had been domestically +unoccupied. Her husband had paid the publisher's bill with the +doctor's, and there it all had ended for the time. But, though less +than a poet of her century, Ella was more than a mere multiplier of +her kind, and latterly she had begun to feel the old afflatus once +more. And now by an odd conjunction she found herself in the rooms +of Robert Trewe. + +She thoughtfully rose from her chair and searched the apartment with +the interest of a fellow-tradesman. Yes, the volume of his own +verse was among the rest. Though quite familiar with its contents, +she read it here as if it spoke aloud to her, then called up Mrs. +Hooper, the landlady, for some trivial service, and inquired again +about the young man. + +'Well, I'm sure you'd be interested in him, ma'am, if you could see +him, only he's so shy that I don't suppose you will.' Mrs. Hooper +seemed nothing loth to minister to her tenant's curiosity about her +predecessor. 'Lived here long? Yes, nearly two years. He keeps on +his rooms even when he's not here: the soft air of this place suits +his chest, and he likes to be able to come back at any time. He is +mostly writing or reading, and doesn't see many people, though, for +the matter of that, he is such a good, kind young fellow that folks +would only be too glad to be friendly with him if they knew him. +You don't meet kind-hearted people every day.' + +'Ah, he's kind-hearted . . . and good.' + +'Yes; he'll oblige me in anything if I ask him. "Mr. Trewe," I say +to him sometimes, "you are rather out of spirits." "Well, I am, +Mrs. Hooper," he'll say, "though I don't know how you should find it +out." "Why not take a little change?" I ask. Then in a day or two +he'll say that he will take a trip to Paris, or Norway, or +somewhere; and I assure you he comes back all the better for it.' + +'Ah, indeed! His is a sensitive nature, no doubt.' + +'Yes. Still he's odd in some things. Once when he had finished a +poem of his composition late at night he walked up and down the room +rehearsing it; and the floors being so thin--jerry-built houses, you +know, though I say it myself--he kept me awake up above him till I +wished him further . . . But we get on very well.' + +This was but the beginning of a series of conversations about the +rising poet as the days went on. On one of these occasions Mrs. +Hooper drew Ella's attention to what she had not noticed before: +minute scribblings in pencil on the wall-paper behind the curtains +at the head of the bed. + +'O! let me look,' said Mrs. Marchmill, unable to conceal a rush of +tender curiosity as she bent her pretty face close to the wall. + +'These,' said Mrs. Hooper, with the manner of a woman who knew +things, 'are the very beginnings and first thoughts of his verses. +He has tried to rub most of them out, but you can read them still. +My belief is that he wakes up in the night, you know, with some +rhyme in his head, and jots it down there on the wall lest he should +forget it by the morning. Some of these very lines you see here I +have seen afterwards in print in the magazines. Some are newer; +indeed, I have not seen that one before. It must have been done +only a few days ago.' + +'O yes! . . . ' + +Ella Marchmill flushed without knowing why, and suddenly wished her +companion would go away, now that the information was imparted. An +indescribable consciousness of personal interest rather than +literary made her anxious to read the inscription alone; and she +accordingly waited till she could do so, with a sense that a great +store of emotion would be enjoyed in the act. + +Perhaps because the sea was choppy outside the Island, Ella's +husband found it much pleasanter to go sailing and steaming about +without his wife, who was a bad sailor, than with her. He did not +disdain to go thus alone on board the steamboats of the cheap- +trippers, where there was dancing by moonlight, and where the +couples would come suddenly down with a lurch into each other's +arms; for, as he blandly told her, the company was too mixed for him +to take her amid such scenes. Thus, while this thriving +manufacturer got a great deal of change and sea-air out of his +sojourn here, the life, external at least, of Ella was monotonous +enough, and mainly consisted in passing a certain number of hours +each day in bathing and walking up and down a stretch of shore. But +the poetic impulse having again waxed strong, she was possessed by +an inner flame which left her hardly conscious of what was +proceeding around her. + +She had read till she knew by heart Trewe's last little volume of +verses, and spent a great deal of time in vainly attempting to rival +some of them, till, in her failure, she burst into tears. The +personal element in the magnetic attraction exercised by this +circumambient, unapproachable master of hers was so much stronger +than the intellectual and abstract that she could not understand it. +To be sure, she was surrounded noon and night by his customary +environment, which literally whispered of him to her at every +moment; but he was a man she had never seen, and that all that moved +her was the instinct to specialize a waiting emotion on the first +fit thing that came to hand did not, of course, suggest itself to +Ella. + +In the natural way of passion under the too practical conditions +which civilization has devised for its fruition, her husband's love +for her had not survived, except in the form of fitful friendship, +any more than, or even so much as, her own for him; and, being a +woman of very living ardours, that required sustenance of some sort, +they were beginning to feed on this chancing material, which was, +indeed, of a quality far better than chance usually offers. + +One day the children had been playing hide-and-seek in a closet, +whence, in their excitement, they pulled out some clothing. Mrs. +Hooper explained that it belonged to Mr. Trewe, and hung it up in +the closet again. Possessed of her fantasy, Ella went later in the +afternoon, when nobody was in that part of the house, opened the +closet, unhitched one of the articles, a mackintosh, and put it on, +with the waterproof cap belonging to it. + +'The mantle of Elijah!' she said. 'Would it might inspire me to +rival him, glorious genius that he is!' + +Her eyes always grew wet when she thought like that, and she turned +to look at herself in the glass. HIS heart had beat inside that +coat, and HIS brain had worked under that hat at levels of thought +she would never reach. The consciousness of her weakness beside him +made her feel quite sick. Before she had got the things off her the +door opened, and her husband entered the room. + +'What the devil--' + +She blushed, and removed them + +'I found them in the closet here,' she said, 'and put them on in a +freak. What have I else to do? You are always away!' + +'Always away? Well . . . ' + +That evening she had a further talk with the landlady, who might +herself have nourished a half-tender regard for the poet, so ready +was she to discourse ardently about him. + +'You are interested in Mr. Trewe, I know, ma'am,' she said; 'and he +has just sent to say that he is going to call to-morrow afternoon to +look up some books of his that he wants, if I'll be in, and he may +select them from your room?' + +'O yes!' + +'You could very well meet Mr Trewe then, if you'd like to be in the +way!' + +She promised with secret delight, and went to bed musing of him. + +Next morning her husband observed: 'I've been thinking of what you +said, Ell: that I have gone about a good deal and left you without +much to amuse you. Perhaps it's true. To-day, as there's not much +sea, I'll take you with me on board the yacht.' + +For the first time in her experience of such an offer Ella was not +glad. But she accepted it for the moment. The time for setting out +drew near, and she went to get ready. She stood reflecting. The +longing to see the poet she was now distinctly in love with +overpowered all other considerations. + +'I don't want to go,' she said to herself. 'I can't bear to be +away! And I won't go.' + +She told her husband that she had changed her mind about wishing to +sail. He was indifferent, and went his way. + +For the rest of the day the house was quiet, the children having +gone out upon the sands. The blinds waved in the sunshine to the +soft, steady stroke of the sea beyond the wall; and the notes of the +Green Silesian band, a troop of foreign gentlemen hired for the +season, had drawn almost all the residents and promenaders away from +the vicinity of Coburg House. A knock was audible at the door. + +Mrs. Marchmill did not hear any servant go to answer it, and she +became impatient. The books were in the room where she sat; but +nobody came up. She rang the bell. + +'There is some person waiting at the door,' she said. + +'O no, ma'am! He's gone long ago. I answered it.' + +Mrs. Hooper came in herself. + +'So disappointing!' she said. 'Mr. Trewe not coming after all!' + +'But I heard him knock, I fancy!' + +'No; that was somebody inquiring for lodgings who came to the wrong +house. I forgot to tell you that Mr. Trewe sent a note just before +lunch to say I needn't get any tea for him, as he should not require +the books, and wouldn't come to select them.' + +Ella was miserable, and for a long time could not even re-read his +mournful ballad on 'Severed Lives,' so aching was her erratic little +heart, and so tearful her eyes. When the children came in with wet +stockings, and ran up to her to tell her of their adventures, she +could not feel that she cared about them half as much as usual. + +* * * + +'Mrs. Hooper, have you a photograph of--the gentleman who lived +here?' She was getting to be curiously shy in mentioning his name. + +'Why, yes. It's in the ornamental frame on the mantelpiece in your +own bedroom, ma'am.' + +'No; the Royal Duke and Duchess are in that.' + +'Yes, so they are; but he's behind them. He belongs rightly to that +frame, which I bought on purpose; but as he went away he said: +"Cover me up from those strangers that are coming, for God's sake. +I don't want them staring at me, and I am sure they won't want me +staring at them." So I slipped in the Duke and Duchess temporarily +in front of him, as they had no frame, and Royalties are more +suitable for letting furnished than a private young man. If you +take 'em out you'll see him under. Lord, ma'am, he wouldn't mind if +he knew it! He didn't think the next tenant would be such an +attractive lady as you, or he wouldn't have thought of hiding +himself; perhaps.' + +'Is he handsome?' she asked timidly. + +'_I_ call him so. Some, perhaps, wouldn't.' + +'Should I?' she asked, with eagerness. + +'I think you would, though some would say he's more striking than +handsome; a large-eyed thoughtful fellow, you know, with a very +electric flash in his eye when he looks round quickly, such as you'd +expect a poet to be who doesn't get his living by it.' + +'How old is he?' + +'Several years older than yourself, ma'am; about thirty-one or two, +I think.' + +Ella was, as a matter of fact, a few months over thirty herself; but +she did not look nearly so much. Though so immature in nature, she +was entering on that tract of life in which emotional women begin to +suspect that last love may be stronger than first love; and she +would soon, alas, enter on the still more melancholy tract when at +least the vainer ones of her sex shrink from receiving a male +visitor otherwise than with their backs to the window or the blinds +half down. She reflected on Mrs. Hooper's remark, and said no more +about age. + +Just then a telegram was brought up. It came from her husband, who +had gone down the Channel as far as Budmouth with his friends in the +yacht, and would not be able to get back till next day. + +After her light dinner Ella idled about the shore with the children +till dusk, thinking of the yet uncovered photograph in her room, +with a serene sense of something ecstatic to come. For, with the +subtle luxuriousness of fancy in which this young woman was an +adept, on learning that her husband was to be absent that night she +had refrained from incontinently rushing upstairs and opening the +picture-frame, preferring to reserve the inspection till she could +be alone, and a more romantic tinge be imparted to the occasion by +silence, candles, solemn sea and stars outside, than was afforded by +the garish afternoon sunlight. + +The children had been sent to bed, and Ella soon followed, though it +was not yet ten o'clock. To gratify her passionate curiosity she +now made her preparations, first getting rid of superfluous garments +and putting on her dressing-gown, then arranging a chair in front of +the table and reading several pages of Trewe's tenderest utterances. +Then she fetched the portrait-frame to the light, opened the back, +took out the likeness, and set it up before her. + +It was a striking countenance to look upon. The poet wore a +luxuriant black moustache and imperial, and a slouched hat which +shaded the forehead. The large dark eyes, described by the +landlady, showed an unlimited capacity for misery; they looked out +from beneath well-shaped brows as if they were reading the universe +in the microcosm of the confronter's face, and were not altogether +overjoyed at what the spectacle portended. + +Ella murmured in her lowest, richest, tenderest tone: 'And it's YOU +who've so cruelly eclipsed me these many times!' + +As she gazed long at the portrait she fell into thought, till her +eyes filled with tears, and she touched the cardboard with her lips. +Then she laughed with a nervous lightness, and wiped her eyes. + +She thought how wicked she was, a woman having a husband and three +children, to let her mind stray to a stranger in this unconscionable +manner. No, he was not a stranger! She knew his thoughts and +feelings as well as she knew her own; they were, in fact, the self- +same thoughts and feelings as hers, which her husband distinctly +lacked; perhaps luckily for himself; considering that he had to +provide for family expenses. + +'He's nearer my real self, he's more intimate with the real me than +Will is, after all, even though I've never seen him,' she said. + +She laid his book and picture on the table at the bedside, and when +she was reclining on the pillow she re-read those of Robert Trewe's +verses which she had marked from time to time as most touching and +true. Putting these aside, she set up the photograph on its edge +upon the coverlet, and contemplated it as she lay. Then she scanned +again by the light of the candle the half-obliterated pencillings on +the wall-paper beside her head. There they were--phrases, couplets, +bouts-rimes, beginnings and middles of lines, ideas in the rough, +like Shelley's scraps, and the least of them so intense, so sweet, +so palpitating, that it seemed as if his very breath, warm and +loving, fanned her cheeks from those walls, walls that had +surrounded his head times and times as they surrounded her own now. +He must often have put up his hand so--with the pencil in it. Yes, +the writing was sideways, as it would be if executed by one who +extended his arm thus. + +These inscribed shapes of the poet's world, + + +'Forms more real than living man, +Nurslings of immortality,' + + +were, no doubt, the thoughts and spirit-strivings which had come to +him in the dead of night, when he could let himself go and have no +fear of the frost of criticism. No doubt they had often been +written up hastily by the light of the moon, the rays of the lamp, +in the blue-grey dawn, in full daylight perhaps never. And now her +hair was dragging where his arm had lain when he secured the +fugitive fancies; she was sleeping on a poet's lips, immersed in the +very essence of him, permeated by his spirit as by an ether. + +While she was dreaming the minutes away thus, a footstep came upon +the stairs, and in a moment she heard her husband's heavy step on +the landing immediately without. + +'Ell, where are you?' + +What possessed her she could not have described, but, with an +instinctive objection to let her husband know what she had been +doing, she slipped the photograph under the pillow just as he flung +open the door, with the air of a man who had dined not badly. + +'O, I beg pardon,' said William Marchmill. 'Have you a headache? I +am afraid I have disturbed you.' + +'No, I've not got a headache,' said she. 'How is it you've come?' + +'Well, we found we could get back in very good time after all, and I +didn't want to make another day of it, because of going somewhere +else to-morrow.' + +'Shall I come down again?' + +'O no. I'm as tired as a dog. I've had a good feed, and I shall +turn in straight off. I want to get out at six o'clock to-morrow if +I can . . . I shan't disturb you by my getting up; it will be long +before you are awake.' And he came forward into the room. + +While her eyes followed his movements, Ella softly pushed the +photograph further out of sight. + +'Sure you're not ill?' he asked, bending over her. + +'No, only wicked!' + +'Never mind that.' And he stooped and kissed her. + +Next morning Marchmill was called at six o'clock; and in waking and +yawning she heard him muttering to himself: 'What the deuce is this +that's been crackling under me so?' Imagining her asleep he +searched round him and withdrew something. Through her half-opened +eyes she perceived it to be Mr. Trewe. + +'Well, I'm damned!' her husband exclaimed. + +'What, dear?' said she. + +'O, you are awake? Ha! ha!' + +'What DO you mean?' + +'Some bloke's photograph--a friend of our landlady's, I suppose. I +wonder how it came here; whisked off the table by accident perhaps +when they were making the bed.' + +'I was looking at it yesterday, and it must have dropped in then.' + +'O, he's a friend of yours? Bless his picturesque heart!' + +Ella's loyalty to the object of her admiration could not endure to +hear him ridiculed. 'He's a clever man!' she said, with a tremor in +her gentle voice which she herself felt to be absurdly uncalled for. + +'He is a rising poet--the gentleman who occupied two of these rooms +before we came, though I've never seen him.' + +'How do you know, if you've never seen him?' + +'Mrs. Hooper told me when she showed me the photograph.' + +'O; well, I must up and be off. I shall be home rather early. +Sorry I can't take you to-day, dear. Mind the children don't go +getting drowned.' + +That day Mrs. Marchmill inquired if Mr. Trewe were likely to call at +any other time. + +'Yes,' said Mrs. Hooper. 'He's coming this day week to stay with a +friend near here till you leave. He'll be sure to call.' + +Marchmill did return quite early in the afternoon; and, opening some +letters which had arrived in his absence, declared suddenly that he +and his family would have to leave a week earlier than they had +expected to do--in short, in three days. + +'Surely we can stay a week longer?' she pleaded. 'I like it here.' + +'I don't. It is getting rather slow.' + +'Then you might leave me and the children!' + +'How perverse you are, Ell! What's the use? And have to come to +fetch you! No: we'll all return together; and we'll make out our +time in North Wales or Brighton a little later on. Besides, you've +three days longer yet.' + +It seemed to be her doom not to meet the man for whose rival talent +she had a despairing admiration, and to whose person she was now +absolutely attached. Yet she determined to make a last effort; and +having gathered from her landlady that Trewe was living in a lonely +spot not far from the fashionable town on the Island opposite, she +crossed over in the packet from the neighbouring pier the following +afternoon. + +What a useless journey it was! Ella knew but vaguely where the +house stood, and when she fancied she had found it, and ventured to +inquire of a pedestrian if he lived there, the answer returned by +the man was that he did not know. And if he did live there, how +could she call upon him? Some women might have the assurance to do +it, but she had not. How crazy he would think her. She might have +asked him to call upon her, perhaps; but she had not the courage for +that, either. She lingered mournfully about the picturesque seaside +eminence till it was time to return to the town and enter the +steamer for recrossing, reaching home for dinner without having been +greatly missed. + +At the last moment, unexpectedly enough, her husband said that he +should have no objection to letting her and the children stay on +till the end of the week, since she wished to do so, if she felt +herself able to get home without him. She concealed the pleasure +this extension of time gave her; and Marchmill went off the next +morning alone. + +But the week passed, and Trewe did not call. + +On Saturday morning the remaining members of the Marchmill family +departed from the place which had been productive of so much fervour +in her. The dreary, dreary train; the sun shining in moted beams +upon the hot cushions; the dusty permanent way; the mean rows of +wire--these things were her accompaniment: while out of the window +the deep blue sea-levels disappeared from her gaze, and with them +her poet's home. Heavy-hearted, she tried to read, and wept +instead. + +Mr. Marchmill was in a thriving way of business, and he and his +family lived in a large new house, which stood in rather extensive +grounds a few miles outside the city wherein he carried on his +trade. Ella's life was lonely here, as the suburban life is apt to +be, particularly at certain seasons; and she had ample time to +indulge her taste for lyric and elegiac composition. She had hardly +got back when she encountered a piece by Robert Trewe in the new +number of her favourite magazine, which must have been written +almost immediately before her visit to Solentsea, for it contained +the very couplet she had seen pencilled on the wallpaper by the bed, +and Mrs. Hooper had declared to be recent. Ella could resist no +longer, but seizing a pen impulsively, wrote to him as a brother- +poet, using the name of John Ivy, congratulating him in her letter +on his triumphant executions in metre and rhythm of thoughts that +moved his soul, as compared with her own brow-beaten efforts in the +same pathetic trade. + +To this address there came a response in a few days, little as she +had dared to hope for it--a civil and brief note, in which the young +poet stated that, though he was not well acquainted with Mr. Ivy's +verse, he recalled the name as being one he had seen attached to +some very promising pieces; that he was glad to gain Mr. Ivy's +acquaintance by letter, and should certainly look with much interest +for his productions in the future. + +There must have been something juvenile or timid in her own epistle, +as one ostensibly coming from a man, she declared to herself; for +Trewe quite adopted the tone of an elder and superior in this reply. +But what did it matter? he had replied; he had written to her with +his own hand from that very room she knew so well, for he was now +back again in his quarters. + +The correspondence thus begun was continued for two months or more, +Ella Marchmill sending him from time to time some that she +considered to be the best of her pieces, which he very kindly +accepted, though he did not say he sedulously read them, nor did he +send her any of his own in return. Ella would have been more hurt +at this than she was if she had not known that Trewe laboured under +the impression that she was one of his own sex. + +Yet the situation was unsatisfactory. A flattering little voice +told her that, were he only to see her, matters would be otherwise. +No doubt she would have helped on this by making a frank confession +of womanhood, to begin with, if something had not happened, to her +delight, to render it unnecessary. A friend of her husband's, the +editor of the most important newspaper in the city and county, who +was dining with them one day, observed during their conversation +about the poet that his (the editor's) brother the landscape-painter +was a friend of Mr. Trewe's, and that the two men were at that very +moment in Wales together. + +Ella was slightly acquainted with the editor's brother. The next +morning down she sat and wrote, inviting him to stay at her house +for a short time on his way back, and requesting him to bring with +him, if practicable, his companion Mr. Trewe, whose acquaintance she +was anxious to make. The answer arrived after some few days. Her +correspondent and his friend Trewe would have much satisfaction in +accepting her invitation on their way southward, which would be on +such and such a day in the following week. + +Ella was blithe and buoyant. Her scheme had succeeded; her beloved +though as yet unseen one was coming. "Behold, he standeth behind +our wall; he looked forth at the windows, showing himself through +the lattice," she thought ecstatically. "And, lo, the winter is +past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, +the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the +turtle is heard in our land." + +But it was necessary to consider the details of lodging and feeding +him. This she did most solicitously, and awaited the pregnant day +and hour. + +It was about five in the afternoon when she heard a ring at the door +and the editor's brother's voice in the hall. Poetess as she was, +or as she thought herself, she had not been too sublime that day to +dress with infinite trouble in a fashionable robe of rich material, +having a faint resemblance to the chiton of the Greeks, a style just +then in vogue among ladies of an artistic and romantic turn, which +had been obtained by Ella of her Bond Street dressmaker when she was +last in London. Her visitor entered the drawing-room. She looked +towards his rear; nobody else came through the door. Where, in the +name of the God of Love, was Robert Trewe? + +'O, I'm sorry,' said the painter, after their introductory words had +been spoken. 'Trewe is a curious fellow, you know, Mrs. Marchmill. +He said he'd come; then he said he couldn't. He's rather dusty. +We've been doing a few miles with knapsacks, you know; and he wanted +to get on home.' + +'He--he's not coming?' + +'He's not; and he asked me to make his apologies.' + +'When did you p-p-part from him?' she asked, her nether lip starting +off quivering so much that it was like a tremolo-stop opened in her +speech. She longed to run away from this dreadful bore and cry her +eyes out. + +'Just now, in the turnpike road yonder there.' + +'What! he has actually gone past my gates?' + +'Yes. When we got to them--handsome gates they are, too, the finest +bit of modern wrought-iron work I have seen--when we came to them we +stopped, talking there a little while, and then he wished me good- +bye and went on. The truth is, he's a little bit depressed just +now, and doesn't want to see anybody. He's a very good fellow, and +a warm friend, but a little uncertain and gloomy sometimes; he +thinks too much of things. His poetry is rather too erotic and +passionate, you know, for some tastes; and he has just come in for a +terrible slating from the -- Review that was published yesterday; he +saw a copy of it at the station by accident. Perhaps you've read +it?' + +'No.' + +'So much the better. O, it is not worth thinking of; just one of +those articles written to order, to please the narrow-minded set of +subscribers upon whom the circulation depends. But he's upset by +it. He says it is the misrepresentation that hurts him so; that, +though he can stand a fair attack, he can't stand lies that he's +powerless to refute and stop from spreading. That's just Trewe's +weak point. He lives so much by himself that these things affect +him much more than they would if he were in the bustle of +fashionable or commercial life. So he wouldn't come here, making +the excuse that it all looked so new and monied--if you'll pardon--' + +'But--he must have known--there was sympathy here! Has he never +said anything about getting letters from this address?' + +'Yes, yes, he has, from John Ivy--perhaps a relative of yours, he +thought, visiting here at the time?' + +'Did he--like Ivy, did he say?' + +'Well, I don't know that he took any great interest in Ivy.' + +'Or in his poems?' + +'Or in his poems--so far as I know, that is.' + +Robert Trewe took no interest in her house, in her poems, or in +their writer. As soon as she could get away she went into the +nursery and tried to let off her emotion by unnecessarily kissing +the children, till she had a sudden sense of disgust at being +reminded how plain-looking they were, like their father. + +The obtuse and single-minded landscape-painter never once perceived +from her conversation that it was only Trewe she wanted, and not +himself. He made the best of his visit, seeming to enjoy the +society of Ella's husband, who also took a great fancy to him, and +showed him everywhere about the neighbourhood, neither of them +noticing Ella's mood. + +The painter had been gone only a day or two when, while sitting +upstairs alone one morning, she glanced over the London paper just +arrived, and read the following paragraph:- + + +'SUICIDE OF A POET + +'Mr. Robert Trewe, who has been favourably known for some years as +one of our rising lyrists, committed suicide at his lodgings at +Solentsea on Saturday evening last by shooting himself in the right +temple with a revolver. Readers hardly need to be reminded that Mr. +Trewe has recently attracted the attention of a much wider public +than had hitherto known him, by his new volume of verse, mostly of +an impassioned kind, entitled "Lyrics to a Woman Unknown," which has +been already favourably noticed in these pages for the extraordinary +gamut of feeling it traverses, and which has been made the subject +of a severe, if not ferocious, criticism in the -- Review. It is +supposed, though not certainly known, that the article may have +partially conduced to the sad act, as a copy of the review in +question was found on his writing-table; and he has been observed to +be in a somewhat depressed state of mind since the critique +appeared.' + + +Then came the report of the inquest, at which the following letter +was read, it having been addressed to a friend at a distance:- + + +'DEAR -,--Before these lines reach your hands I shall be delivered +from the inconveniences of seeing, hearing, and knowing more of the +things around me. I will not trouble you by giving my reasons for +the step I have taken, though I can assure you they were sound and +logical. Perhaps had I been blessed with a mother, or a sister, or +a female friend of another sort tenderly devoted to me, I might have +thought it worth while to continue my present existence. I have +long dreamt of such an unattainable creature, as you know, and she, +this undiscoverable, elusive one, inspired my last volume; the +imaginary woman alone, for, in spite of what has been said in some +quarters, there is no real woman behind the title. She has +continued to the last unrevealed, unmet, unwon. I think it +desirable to mention this in order that no blame may attach to any +real woman as having been the cause of my decease by cruel or +cavalier treatment of me. Tell my landlady that I am sorry to have +caused her this unpleasantness; but my occupancy of the rooms will +soon be forgotten. There are ample funds in my name at the bank to +pay all expenses. R. TREWE.' + + +Ella sat for a while as if stunned, then rushed into the adjoining +chamber and flung herself upon her face on the bed. + +Her grief and distraction shook her to pieces; and she lay in this +frenzy of sorrow for more than an hour. Broken words came every now +and then from her quivering lips: 'O, if he had only known of me-- +known of me--me! . . . O, if I had only once met him--only once; and +put my hand upon his hot forehead--kissed him--let him know how I +loved him--that I would have suffered shame and scorn, would have +lived and died, for him! Perhaps it would have saved his dear life! +. . . But no--it was not allowed! God is a jealous God; and that +happiness was not for him and me!' + +All possibilities were over; the meeting was stultified. Yet it was +almost visible to her in her fantasy even now, though it could never +be substantiated - + + +'The hour which might have been, yet might not be, +Which man's and woman's heart conceived and bore, +Yet whereof life was barren.' + + +She wrote to the landlady at Solentsea in the third person, in as +subdued a style as she could command, enclosing a postal order for a +sovereign, and informing Mrs. Hooper that Mrs. Marchmill had seen in +the papers the sad account of the poet's death, and having been, as +Mrs. Hooper was aware, much interested in Mr. Trewe during her stay +at Coburg House, she would be obliged if Mrs. Hooper could obtain a +small portion of his hair before his coffin was closed down, and +send it her as a memorial of him, as also the photograph that was in +the frame. + +By the return-post a letter arrived containing what had been +requested. Ella wept over the portrait and secured it in her +private drawer; the lock of hair she tied with white ribbon and put +in her bosom, whence she drew it and kissed it every now and then in +some unobserved nook. + +'What's the matter?' said her husband, looking up from his newspaper +on one of these occasions. 'Crying over something? A lock of hair? +Whose is it?' + +'He's dead!' she murmured. + +'Who?' + +'I don't want to tell you, Will, just now, unless you insist!' she +said, a sob hanging heavy in her voice. + +'O, all right.' + +'Do you mind my refusing? I will tell you some day.' + +'It doesn't matter in the least, of course.' + +He walked away whistling a few bars of no tune in particular; and +when he had got down to his factory in the city the subject came +into Marchmill's head again. + +He, too, was aware that a suicide had taken place recently at the +house they had occupied at Solentsea. Having seen the volume of +poems in his wife's hand of late, and heard fragments of the +landlady's conversation about Trewe when they were her tenants, he +all at once said to himself; 'Why of course it's he! How the devil +did she get to know him? What sly animals women are!' + +Then he placidly dismissed the matter, and went on with his daily +affairs. By this time Ella at home had come to a determination. +Mrs. Hooper, in sending the hair and photograph, had informed her of +the day of the funeral; and as the morning and noon wore on an +overpowering wish to know where they were laying him took possession +of the sympathetic woman. Caring very little now what her husband +or any one else might think of her eccentricities; she wrote +Marchmill a brief note, stating that she was called away for the +afternoon and evening, but would return on the following morning. +This she left on his desk, and having given the same information to +the servants, went out of the house on foot. + +When Mr. Marchmill reached home early in the afternoon the servants +looked anxious. The nurse took him privately aside, and hinted that +her mistress's sadness during the past few days had been such that +she feared she had gone out to drown herself. Marchmill reflected. +Upon the whole he thought that she had not done that. Without +saying whither he was bound he also started off, telling them not to +sit up for him. He drove to the railway-station, and took a ticket +for Solentsea. + +It was dark when he reached the place, though he had come by a fast +train, and he knew that if his wife had preceded him thither it +could only have been by a slower train, arriving not a great while +before his own. The season at Solentsea was now past: the parade +was gloomy, and the flys were few and cheap. He asked the way to +the Cemetery, and soon reached it. The gate was locked, but the +keeper let him in, declaring, however, that there was nobody within +the precincts. Although it was not late, the autumnal darkness had +now become intense; and he found some difficulty in keeping to the +serpentine path which led to the quarter where, as the man had told +him, the one or two interments for the day had taken place. He +stepped upon the grass, and, stumbling over some pegs, stooped now +and then to discern if possible a figure against the sky. + +He could see none; but lighting on a spot where the soil was +trodden, beheld a crouching object beside a newly made grave. She +heard him, and sprang up. + +'Ell, how silly this is!' he said indignantly. 'Running away from +home--I never heard such a thing! Of course I am not jealous of +this unfortunate man; but it is too ridiculous that you, a married +woman with three children and a fourth coming, should go losing your +head like this over a dead lover! . . . Do you know you were locked +in? You might not have been able to get out all night.' + +She did not answer. + +'I hope it didn't go far between you and him, for your own sake.' + +'Don't insult me, Will.' + +'Mind, I won't have any more of this sort of thing; do you hear?' + +'Very well,' she said. + +He drew her arm within his own, and conducted her out of the +Cemetery. It was impossible to get back that night; and not wishing +to be recognized in their present sorry condition, he took her to a +miserable little coffee-house close to the station, whence they +departed early in the morning, travelling almost without speaking, +under the sense that it was one of those dreary situations occurring +in married life which words could not mend, and reaching their own +door at noon. + +The months passed, and neither of the twain ever ventured to start a +conversation upon this episode. Ella seemed to be only too +frequently in a sad and listless mood, which might almost have been +called pining. The time was approaching when she would have to +undergo the stress of childbirth for a fourth time, and that +apparently did not tend to raise her spirits. + +'I don't think I shall get over it this time!' she said one day. + +'Pooh! what childish foreboding! Why shouldn't it be as well now as +ever?' + +She shook her head. 'I feel almost sure I am going to die; and I +should be glad, if it were not for Nelly, and Frank, and Tiny.' + +'And me!' + +'You'll soon find somebody to fill my place,' she murmured, with a +sad smile. 'And you'll have a perfect right to; I assure you of +that.' + +'Ell, you are not thinking still about that--poetical friend of +yours?' + +She neither admitted nor denied the charge. 'I am not going to get +over my illness this time,' she reiterated. 'Something tells me I +shan't.' + +This view of things was rather a bad beginning, as it usually is; +and, in fact, six weeks later, in the month of May, she was lying in +her room, pulseless and bloodless, with hardly strength enough left +to follow up one feeble breath with another, the infant for whose +unnecessary life she was slowly parting with her own being fat and +well. Just before her death she spoke to Marchmill softly:- + +'Will, I want to confess to you the entire circumstances of that-- +about you know what--that time we visited Solentsea. I can't tell +what possessed me--how I could forget you so, my husband! But I had +got into a morbid state: I thought you had been unkind; that you +had neglected me; that you weren't up to my intellectual level, +while he was, and far above it. I wanted a fuller appreciator, +perhaps, rather than another lover--' + +She could get no further then for very exhaustion; and she went off +in sudden collapse a few hours later, without having said anything +more to her husband on the subject of her love for the poet. +William Marchmill, in truth, like most husbands of several years' +standing, was little disturbed by retrospective jealousies, and had +not shown the least anxiety to press her for confessions concerning +a man dead and gone beyond any power of inconveniencing him more. + +But when she had been buried a couple of years it chanced one day +that, in turning over some forgotten papers that he wished to +destroy before his second wife entered the house, he lighted on a +lock of hair in an envelope, with the photograph of the deceased +poet, a date being written on the back in his late wife's hand. It +was that of the time they spent at Solentsea. + +Marchmill looked long and musingly at the hair and portrait, for +something struck him. Fetching the little boy who had been the +death of his mother, now a noisy toddler, he took him on his knee, +held the lock of hair against the child's head, and set up the +photograph on the table behind, so that he could closely compare the +features each countenance presented. There were undoubtedly strong +traces of resemblance; the dreamy and peculiar expression of the +poet's face sat, as the transmitted idea, upon the child's, and the +hair was of the same hue. + +'I'm damned if I didn't think so!' murmured Marchmill. 'Then she +DID play me false with that fellow at the lodgings! Let me see: +the dates--the second week in August . . . the third week in May . . +. Yes . . . yes . . . Get away, you poor little brat! You are +nothing to me!' + +1893. + + + + +THE THREE STRANGERS + + + + +Among the few features of agricultural England which retain an +appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries, may be +reckoned the high, grassy and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as +they are indifferently called, that fill a large area of certain +counties in the south and south-west. If any mark of human +occupation is met with hereon, it usually takes the form of the +solitary cottage of some shepherd. + +Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down, and may +possibly be standing there now. In spite of its loneliness, +however, the spot, by actual measurement, was not more than five +miles from a county-town. Yet that affected it little. Five miles +of irregular upland, during the long inimical seasons, with their +sleets, snows, rains, and mists, afford withdrawing space enough to +isolate a Timon or a Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to +please that less repellent tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, +and others who 'conceive and meditate of pleasant things.' + +Some old earthen camp or barrow, some clump of trees, at least some +starved fragment of ancient hedge is usually taken advantage of in +the erection of these forlorn dwellings. But, in the present case, +such a kind of shelter had been disregarded. Higher Crowstairs, as +the house was called, stood quite detached and undefended. The only +reason for its precise situation seemed to be the crossing of two +footpaths at right angles hard by, which may have crossed there and +thus for a good five hundred years. Hence the house was exposed to +the elements on all sides. But, though the wind up here blew +unmistakably when it did blow, and the rain hit hard whenever it +fell, the various weathers of the winter season were not quite so +formidable on the coomb as they were imagined to be by dwellers on +low ground. The raw rimes were not so pernicious as in the hollows, +and the frosts were scarcely so severe. When the shepherd and his +family who tenanted the house were pitied for their sufferings from +the exposure, they said that upon the whole they were less +inconvenienced by 'wuzzes and flames' (hoarses and phlegms) than +when they had lived by the stream of a snug neighbouring valley. + +The night of March 28, 182-, was precisely one of the nights that +were wont to call forth these expressions of commiseration. The +level rainstorm smote walls, slopes, and hedges like the clothyard +shafts of Senlac and Crecy. Such sheep and outdoor animals as had +no shelter stood with their buttocks to the winds; while the tails +of little birds trying to roost on some scraggy thorn were blown +inside-out like umbrellas. The gable-end of the cottage was stained +with wet, and the eavesdroppings flapped against the wall. Yet +never was commiseration for the shepherd more misplaced. For that +cheerful rustic was entertaining a large party in glorification of +the christening of his second girl. + +The guests had arrived before the rain began to fall, and they were +all now assembled in the chief or living room of the dwelling. A +glance into the apartment at eight o'clock on this eventful evening +would have resulted in the opinion that it was as cosy and +comfortable a nook as could be wished for in boisterous weather. +The calling of its inhabitant was proclaimed by a number of highly- +polished sheep-crooks without stems that were hung ornamentally over +the fireplace, the curl of each shining crook varying from the +antiquated type engraved in the patriarchal pictures of old family +Bibles to the most approved fashion of the last local sheep-fair. +The room was lighted by half-a-dozen candles, having wicks only a +trifle smaller than the grease which enveloped them, in candlesticks +that were never used but at high-days, holy-days, and family feasts. +The lights were scattered about the room, two of them standing on +the chimney-piece. This position of candles was in itself +significant. Candles on the chimney-piece always meant a party. + +On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a +fire of thorns, that crackled 'like the laughter of the fool.' + +Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing +gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls +shy and not shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley +Jake the hedge-carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John +Pitcher, a neighbouring dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, +lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who were blushing over +tentative pourparlers on a life-companionship, sat beneath the +corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved +restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot +where she was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more +prevailed in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. +Absolute confidence in each other's good opinion begat perfect ease, +while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely +serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression +or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge +their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever--which nowadays so +generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes +of the social scale. + +Shepherd Fennel had married well, his wife being a dairyman's +daughter from a vale at a distance, who brought fifty guineas in her +pocket--and kept them there, till they should be required for +ministering to the needs of a coming family. This frugal woman had +been somewhat exercised as to the character that should be given to +the gathering. A sit-still party had its advantages; but an +undisturbed position of ease in chairs and settles was apt to lead +on the men to such an unconscionable deal of toping that they would +sometimes fairly drink the house dry. A dancing-party was the +alternative; but this, while avoiding the foregoing objection on the +score of good drink, had a counterbalancing disadvantage in the +matter of good victuals, the ravenous appetites engendered by the +exercise causing immense havoc in the buttery. Shepherdess Fennel +fell back upon the intermediate plan of mingling short dances with +short periods of talk and singing, so as to hinder any ungovernable +rage in either. But this scheme was entirely confined to her own +gentle mind: the shepherd himself was in the mood to exhibit the +most reckless phases of hospitality. + +The fiddler was a boy of those parts, about twelve years of age, who +had a wonderful dexterity in jigs and reels, though his fingers were +so small and short as to necessitate a constant shifting for the +high notes, from which he scrambled back to the first position with +sounds not of unmixed purity of tone. At seven the shrill tweedle- +dee of this youngster had begun, accompanied by a booming ground- +bass from Elijah New, the parish-clerk, who had thoughtfully brought +with him his favourite musical instrument, the serpent. Dancing was +instantaneous, Mrs. Fennel privately enjoining the players on no +account to let the dance exceed the length of a quarter of an hour. + +But Elijah and the boy, in the excitement of their position, quite +forgot the injunction. Moreover, Oliver Giles, a man of seventeen, +one of the dancers, who was enamoured of his partner, a fair girl of +thirty-three rolling years, had recklessly handed a new crown-piece +to the musicians, as a bribe to keep going as long as they had +muscle and wind. Mrs. Fennel, seeing the steam begin to generate on +the countenances of her guests, crossed over and touched the +fiddler's elbow and put her hand on the serpent's mouth. But they +took no notice, and fearing she might lose her character of genial +hostess if she were to interfere too markedly, she retired and sat +down helpless. And so the dance whizzed on with cumulative fury, +the performers moving in their planet-like courses, direct and +retrograde, from apogee to perigee, till the hand of the well-kicked +clock at the bottom of the room had travelled over the circumference +of an hour. + +While these cheerful events were in course of enactment within +Fennel's pastoral dwelling, an incident having considerable bearing +on the party had occurred in the gloomy night without. Mrs. +Fennel's concern about the growing fierceness of the dance +corresponded in point of time with the ascent of a human figure to +the solitary hill of Higher Crowstairs from the direction of the +distant town. This personage strode on through the rain without a +pause, following the little-worn path which, further on in its +course, skirted the shepherd's cottage. + +It was nearly the time of full moon, and on this account, though the +sky was lined with a uniform sheet of dripping cloud, ordinary +objects out of doors were readily visible. The sad wan light +revealed the lonely pedestrian to be a man of supple frame; his gait +suggested that he had somewhat passed the period of perfect and +instinctive agility, though not so far as to be otherwise than rapid +of motion when occasion required. At a rough guess, he might have +been about forty years of age. He appeared tall, but a recruiting +sergeant, or other person accustomed to the judging of men's heights +by the eye, would have discerned that this was chiefly owing to his +gauntness, and that he was not more than five-feet-eight or nine. + +Notwithstanding the regularity of his tread, there was caution in +it, as in that of one who mentally feels his way; and despite the +fact that it was not a black coat nor a dark garment of any sort +that he wore, there was something about him which suggested that he +naturally belonged to the black-coated tribes of men. His clothes +were of fustian, and his boots hobnailed, yet in his progress he +showed not the mud-accustomed bearing of hobnailed and fustianed +peasantry. + +By the time that he had arrived abreast of the shepherd's premises +the rain came down, or rather came along, with yet more determined +violence. The outskirts of the little settlement partially broke +the force of wind and rain, and this induced him to stand still. +The most salient of the shepherd's domestic erections was an empty +sty at the forward corner of his hedgeless garden, for in these +latitudes the principle of masking the homelier features of your +establishment by a conventional frontage was unknown. The +traveller's eye was attracted to this small building by the pallid +shine of the wet slates that covered it. He turned aside, and, +finding it empty, stood under the pent-roof for shelter. + +While he stood, the boom of the serpent within the adjacent house, +and the lesser strains of the fiddler, reached the spot as an +accompaniment to the surging hiss of the flying rain on the sod, its +louder beating on the cabbage-leaves of the garden, on the eight or +ten beehives just discernible by the path, and its dripping from the +eaves into a row of buckets and pans that had been placed under the +walls of the cottage. For at Higher Crowstairs, as at all such +elevated domiciles, the grand difficulty of housekeeping was an +insufficiency of water; and a casual rainfall was utilized by +turning out, as catchers, every utensil that the house contained. +Some queer stories might be told of the contrivances for economy in +suds and dish-waters that are absolutely necessitated in upland +habitations during the droughts of summer. But at this season there +were no such exigencies; a mere acceptance of what the skies +bestowed was sufficient for an abundant store. + +At last the notes of the serpent ceased and the house was silent. +This cessation of activity aroused the solitary pedestrian from the +reverie into which he had lapsed, and, emerging from the shed, with +an apparently new intention, he walked up the path to the house- +door. Arrived here, his first act was to kneel down on a large +stone beside the row of vessels, and to drink a copious draught from +one of them. Having quenched his thirst he rose and lifted his hand +to knock, but paused with his eye upon the panel. Since the dark +surface of the wood revealed absolutely nothing, it was evident that +he must be mentally looking through the door, as if he wished to +measure thereby all the possibilities that a house of this sort +might include, and how they might bear upon the question of his +entry. + +In his indecision he turned and surveyed the scene around. Not a +soul was anywhere visible. The garden-path stretched downward from +his feet, gleaming like the track of a snail; the roof of the little +well (mostly dry), the well-cover, the top rail of the garden-gate, +were varnished with the same dull liquid glaze; while, far away in +the vale, a faint whiteness of more than usual extent showed that +the rivers were high in the meads. Beyond all this winked a few +bleared lamplights through the beating drops--lights that denoted +the situation of the county-town from which he had appeared to come. +The absence of all notes of life in that direction seemed to clinch +his intentions, and he knocked at the door. + +Within, a desultory chat had taken the place of movement and musical +sound. The hedge-carpenter was suggesting a song to the company, +which nobody just then was inclined to undertake, so that the knock +afforded a not unwelcome diversion. + +'Walk in!' said the shepherd promptly. + +The latch clicked upward, and out of the night our pedestrian +appeared upon the door-mat. The shepherd arose, snuffed two of the +nearest candles, and turned to look at him. + +Their light disclosed that the stranger was dark in complexion and +not unprepossessing as to feature. His hat, which for a moment he +did not remove, hung low over his eyes, without concealing that they +were large, open, and determined, moving with a flash rather than a +glance round the room. He seemed pleased with his survey, and, +baring his shaggy head, said, in a rich deep voice, 'The rain is so +heavy, friends, that I ask leave to come in and rest awhile.' + +'To be sure, stranger,' said the shepherd. 'And faith, you've been +lucky in choosing your time, for we are having a bit of a fling for +a glad cause--though, to be sure, a man could hardly wish that glad +cause to happen more than once a year.' + +'Nor less,' spoke up a woman. 'For 'tis best to get your family +over and done with, as soon as you can, so as to be all the earlier +out of the fag o't.' + +'And what may be this glad cause?' asked the stranger. + +'A birth and christening,' said the shepherd. + +The stranger hoped his host might not be made unhappy either by too +many or too few of such episodes, and being invited by a gesture to +a pull at the mug, he readily acquiesced. His manner, which, before +entering, had been so dubious, was now altogether that of a careless +and candid man. + +'Late to be traipsing athwart this coomb--hey?' said the engaged man +of fifty. + +'Late it is, master, as you say.--I'll take a seat in the chimney- +corner, if you have nothing to urge against it, ma'am; for I am a +little moist on the side that was next the rain.' + +Mrs. Shepherd Fennel assented, and made room for the self-invited +comer, who, having got completely inside the chimney-corner, +stretched out his legs and his arms with the expansiveness of a +person quite at home. + +'Yes, I am rather cracked in the vamp,' he said freely, seeing that +the eyes of the shepherd's wife fell upon his boots, 'and I am not +well fitted either. I have had some rough times lately, and have +been forced to pick up what I can get in the way of wearing, but I +must find a suit better fit for working-days when I reach home.' + +'One of hereabouts?' she inquired. + +'Not quite that--further up the country.' + +'I thought so. And so be I; and by your tongue you come from my +neighbourhood.' + +'But you would hardly have heard of me,' he said quickly. 'My time +would be long before yours, ma'am, you see.' + +This testimony to the youthfulness of his hostess had the effect of +stopping her cross-examination. + +'There is only one thing more wanted to make me happy,' continued +the new-comer. 'And that is a little baccy, which I am sorry to say +I am out of.' + +'I'll fill your pipe,' said the shepherd. + +'I must ask you to lend me a pipe likewise.' + +'A smoker, and no pipe about 'ee?' + +'I have dropped it somewhere on the road.' + +The shepherd filled and handed him a new clay pipe, saying, as he +did so, 'Hand me your baccy-box--I'll fill that too, now I am about +it.' + +The man went through the movement of searching his pockets. + +'Lost that too?' said his entertainer, with some surprise. + +'I am afraid so,' said the man with some confusion. 'Give it to me +in a screw of paper.' Lighting his pipe at the candle with a +suction that drew the whole flame into the bowl, he resettled +himself in the corner and bent his looks upon the faint steam from +his damp legs, as if he wished to say no more. + +Meanwhile the general body of guests had been taking little notice +of this visitor by reason of an absorbing discussion in which they +were engaged with the band about a tune for the next dance. The +matter being settled, they were about to stand up when an +interruption came in the shape of another knock at the door. + +At sound of the same the man in the chimney-corner took up the poker +and began stirring the brands as if doing it thoroughly were the one +aim of his existence; and a second time the shepherd said, 'Walk +in!' In a moment another man stood upon the straw-woven door-mat. +He too was a stranger. + +This individual was one of a type radically different from the +first. There was more of the commonplace in his manner, and a +certain jovial cosmopolitanism sat upon his features. He was +several years older than the first arrival, his hair being slightly +frosted, his eyebrows bristly, and his whiskers cut back from his +cheeks. His face was rather full and flabby, and yet it was not +altogether a face without power. A few grog-blossoms marked the +neighbourhood of his nose. He flung back his long drab greatcoat, +revealing that beneath it he wore a suit of cinder-gray shade +throughout, large heavy seals, of some metal or other that would +take a polish, dangling from his fob as his only personal ornament. +Shaking the water-drops from his low-crowned glazed hat, he said, 'I +must ask for a few minutes' shelter, comrades, or I shall be wetted +to my skin before I get to Casterbridge.' + +'Make yourself at home, master,' said the shepherd, perhaps a trifle +less heartily than on the first occasion. Not that Fennel had the +least tinge of niggardliness in his composition; but the room was +far from large, spare chairs were not numerous, and damp companions +were not altogether desirable at close quarters for the women and +girls in their bright-coloured gowns. + +However, the second comer, after taking off his greatcoat, and +hanging his hat on a nail in one of the ceiling-beams as if he had +been specially invited to put it there, advanced and sat down at the +table. This had been pushed so closely into the chimney-corner, to +give all available room to the dancers, that its inner edge grazed +the elbow of the man who had ensconced himself by the fire; and thus +the two strangers were brought into close companionship. They +nodded to each other by way of breaking the ice of unacquaintance, +and the first stranger handed his neighbour the family mug--a huge +vessel of brown ware, having its upper edge worn away like a +threshold by the rub of whole generations of thirsty lips that had +gone the way of all flesh, and bearing the following inscription +burnt upon its rotund side in yellow letters + + +THERE IS NO FUN +UNTiLL i CUM. + + +The other man, nothing loth, raised the mug to his lips, and drank +on, and on, and on--till a curious blueness overspread the +countenance of the shepherd's wife, who had regarded with no little +surprise the first stranger's free offer to the second of what did +not belong to him to dispense. + +'I knew it!' said the toper to the shepherd with much satisfaction. +'When I walked up your garden before coming in, and saw the hives +all of a row, I said to myself; "Where there's bees there's honey, +and where there's honey there's mead." But mead of such a truly +comfortable sort as this I really didn't expect to meet in my older +days.' He took yet another pull at the mug, till it assumed an +ominous elevation. + +'Glad you enjoy it!' said the shepherd warmly. + +'It is goodish mead,' assented Mrs. Fennel, with an absence of +enthusiasm which seemed to say that it was possible to buy praise +for one's cellar at too heavy a price. 'It is trouble enough to +make--and really I hardly think we shall make any more. For honey +sells well, and we ourselves can make shift with a drop o' small +mead and metheglin for common use from the comb-washings." + +'O, but you'll never have the heart!' reproachfully cried the +stranger in cinder-gray, after taking up the mug a third time and +setting it down empty. 'I love mead, when 'tis old like this, as I +love to go to church o' Sundays, or to relieve the needy any day of +the week.' + +'Ha, ha, ha!' said the man in the chimney-corner, who, in spite of +the taciturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, could not or would +not refrain from this slight testimony to his comrade's humour. + +Now the old mead of those days, brewed of the purest first-year or +maiden honey, four pounds to the gallon--with its due complement of +white of eggs, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, rosemary, yeast, and +processes of working, bottling, and cellaring--tasted remarkably +strong; but it did not taste so strong as it actually was. Hence, +presently, the stranger in cinder-gray at the table, moved by its +creeping influence, unbuttoned his waistcoat, threw himself back in +his chair, spread his legs, and made his presence felt in various +ways. + +'Well, well, as I say,' he resumed, 'I am going to Casterbridge, and +to Casterbridge I must go. I should have been almost there by this +time; but the rain drove me into your dwelling, and I'm not sorry +for it.' + +'You don't live in Casterbridge?' said the shepherd. + +'Not as yet; though I shortly mean to move there.' + +'Going to set up in trade, perhaps?' + +'No, no,' said the shepherd's wife. 'It is easy to see that the +gentleman is rich, and don't want to work at anything.' + +The cinder-gray stranger paused, as if to consider whether he would +accept that definition of himself. He presently rejected it by +answering, 'Rich is not quite the word for me, dame. I do work, and +I must work. And even if I only get to Casterbridge by midnight I +must begin work there at eight to-morrow morning. Yes, het or wet, +blow or snow, famine or sword, my day's work to-morrow must be +done.' + +'Poor man! Then, in spite o' seeming, you be worse off than we?' +replied the shepherd's wife. + +''Tis the nature of my trade, men and maidens. 'Tis the nature of +my trade more than my poverty . . . But really and truly I must up +and off, or I shan't get a lodging in the town.' However, the +speaker did not move, and directly added, 'There's time for one more +draught of friendship before I go; and I'd perform it at once if the +mug were not dry.' + +'Here's a mug o' small,' said Mrs. Fennel. 'Small, we call it, +though to be sure 'tis only the first wash o' the combs.' + +'No,' said the stranger disdainfully. 'I won't spoil your first +kindness by partaking o' your second.' + +'Certainly not,' broke in Fennel. 'We don't increase and multiply +every day, and I'll fill the mug again.' He went away to the dark +place under the stairs where the barrel stood. The shepherdess +followed him. + +'Why should you do this?' she said reproachfully, as soon as they +were alone. 'He's emptied it once, though it held enough for ten +people; and now he's not contented wi' the small, but must needs +call for more o' the strong! And a stranger unbeknown to any of us. +For my part, I don't like the look o' the man at all.' + +'But he's in the house, my honey; and 'tis a wet night, and a +christening. Daze it, what's a cup of mead more or less? There'll +be plenty more next bee-burning.' + +'Very well--this time, then,' she answered, looking wistfully at the +barrel. 'But what is the man's calling, and where is he one of; +that he should come in and join us like this?' + +'I don't know. I'll ask him again.' + +The catastrophe of having the mug drained dry at one pull by the +stranger in cinder-gray was effectually guarded against this time by +Mrs. Fennel. She poured out his allowance in a small cup, keeping +the large one at a discreet distance from him. When he had tossed +off his portion the shepherd renewed his inquiry about the +stranger's occupation. + +The latter did not immediately reply, and the man in the chimney- +corner, with sudden demonstrativeness, said, 'Anybody may know my +trade--I'm a wheelwright.' + +'A very good trade for these parts,' said the shepherd. + +'And anybody may know mine--if they've the sense to find it out,' +said the stranger in cinder-gray. + +'You may generally tell what a man is by his claws,' observed the +hedge-carpenter, looking at his own hands. 'My fingers be as full +of thorns as an old pin-cushion is of pins.' + +The hands of the man in the chimney-corner instinctively sought the +shade, and he gazed into the fire as he resumed his pipe. The man +at the table took up the hedge-carpenter's remark, and added +smartly, 'True; but the oddity of my trade is that, instead of +setting a mark upon me, it sets a mark upon my customers.' + +No observation being offered by anybody in elucidation of this +enigma, the shepherd's wife once more called for a song. The same +obstacles presented themselves as at the former time--one had no +voice, another had forgotten the first verse. The stranger at the +table, whose soul had now risen to a good working temperature, +relieved the difficulty by exclaiming that, to start the company, he +would sing himself. Thrusting one thumb into the arm-hole of his +waistcoat, he waved the other hand in the air, and, with an +extemporizing gaze at the shining sheep-crooks above the +mantelpiece, began:- + + +'O my trade it is the rarest one, +Simple shepherds all - +My trade is a sight to see; +For my customers I tie, and take them up on high, +And waft 'em to a far countree!' + + +The room was silent when he had finished the verse--with one +exception, that of the man in the chimney-corner, who, at the +singer's word, 'Chorus! 'joined him in a deep bass voice of musical +relish - + + +'And waft 'em to a far countree!' + + +Oliver Giles, John Pitcher the dairyman, the parish-clerk, the +engaged man of fifty, the row of young women against the wall, +seemed lost in thought not of the gayest kind. The shepherd looked +meditatively on the ground, the shepherdess gazed keenly at the +singer, and with some suspicion; she was doubting whether this +stranger were merely singing an old song from recollection, or was +composing one there and then for the occasion. All were as +perplexed at the obscure revelation as the guests at Belshazzar's +Feast, except the man in the chimney-corner, who quietly said, +'Second verse, stranger,' and smoked on. + +The singer thoroughly moistened himself from his lips inwards, and +went on with the next stanza as requested:- + + +'My tools are but common ones, +Simple shepherds all - +My tools are no sight to see: +A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing, +Are implements enough for me!' + + +Shepherd Fennel glanced round. There was no longer any doubt that +the stranger was answering his question rhythmically. The guests +one and all started back with suppressed exclamations. The young +woman engaged to the man of fifty fainted half-way, and would have +proceeded, but finding him wanting in alacrity for catching her she +sat down trembling. + +'O, he's the--!' whispered the people in the background, mentioning +the name of an ominous public officer. 'He's come to do it! 'Tis +to be at Casterbridge jail to-morrow--the man for sheep-stealing-- +the poor clock-maker we heard of; who used to live away at +Shottsford and had no work to do--Timothy Summers, whose family were +a-starving, and so he went out of Shottsford by the high-road, and +took a sheep in open daylight, defying the farmer and the farmer's +wife and the farmer's lad, and every man jack among 'em. He' (and +they nodded towards the stranger of the deadly trade) 'is come from +up the country to do it because there's not enough to do in his own +county-town, and he's got the place here now our own county man's +dead; he's going to live in the same cottage under the prison wall.' + +The stranger in cinder-gray took no notice of this whispered string +of observations, but again wetted his lips. Seeing that his friend +in the chimney-corner was the only one who reciprocated his +joviality in any way, he held out his cup towards that appreciative +comrade, who also held out his own. They clinked together, the eyes +of the rest of the room hanging upon the singer's actions. He +parted his lips for the third verse; but at that moment another +knock was audible upon the door. This time the knock was faint and +hesitating. + +The company seemed scared; the shepherd looked with consternation +towards the entrance, and it was with some effort that he resisted +his alarmed wife's deprecatory glance, and uttered for the third +time the welcoming words, 'Walk in!' + +The door was gently opened, and another man stood upon the mat. He, +like those who had preceded him, was a stranger. This time it was a +short, small personage, of fair complexion, and dressed in a decent +suit of dark clothes. + +'Can you tell me the way to--?' he began: when, gazing round the +room to observe the nature of the company amongst whom he had +fallen, his eyes lighted on the stranger in cinder-gray. It was +just at the instant when the latter, who had thrown his mind into +his song with such a will that he scarcely heeded the interruption, +silenced all whispers and inquiries by bursting into his third +verse:- + + +'To-morrow is my working day, +Simple shepherds all - +To-morrow is a working day for me: +For the farmer's sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta'en, +And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!' + + +The stranger in the chimney-corner, waving cups with the singer so +heartily that his mead splashed over on the hearth, repeated in his +bass voice as before:- + + +'And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!' + + +All this time the third stranger had been standing in the doorway. +Finding now that he did not come forward or go on speaking, the +guests particularly regarded him. They noticed to their surprise +that he stood before them the picture of abject terror--his knees +trembling, his hand shaking so violently that the door-latch by +which he supported himself rattled audibly: his white lips were +parted, and his eyes fixed on the merry officer of justice in the +middle of the room. A moment more and he had turned, closed the +door, and fled. + +'What a man can it be?' said the shepherd. + +The rest, between the awfulness of their late discovery and the odd +conduct of this third visitor, looked as if they knew not what to +think, and said nothing. Instinctively they withdrew further and +further from the grim gentleman in their midst, whom some of them +seemed to take for the Prince of Darkness himself; till they formed +a remote circle, an empty space of floor being left between them and +him - + + +' . . . circulus, cujus centrum diabolus.' + + +The room was so silent--though there were more than twenty people in +it--that nothing could be heard but the patter of the rain against +the window-shutters, accompanied by the occasional hiss of a stray +drop that fell down the chimney into the fire, and the steady +puffing of the man in the corner, who had now resumed his pipe of +long clay. + +The stillness was unexpectedly broken. The distant sound of a gun +reverberated through the air--apparently from the direction of the +county-town. + +'Be jiggered!' cried the stranger who had sung the song, jumping up. + +'What does that mean?' asked several. + +'A prisoner escaped from the jail--that's what it means.' + +All listened. The sound was repeated, and none of them spoke but +the man in the chimney-corner, who said quietly, 'I've often been +told that in this county they fire a gun at such times; but I never +heard it till now.' + +'I wonder if it is MY man?' murmured the personage in cinder-gray. + +'Surely it is!' said the shepherd involuntarily. 'And surely we've +zeed him! That little man who looked in at the door by now, and +quivered like a leaf when he zeed ye and heard your song!' + +'His teeth chattered, and the breath went out of his body,' said the +dairyman. + +'And his heart seemed to sink within him like a stone,' said Oliver +Giles. + +'And he bolted as if he'd been shot at,' said the hedge-carpenter. + +'True--his teeth chattered, and his heart seemed to sink; and he +bolted as if he'd been shot at,' slowly summed up the man in the +chimney-corner. + +'I didn't notice it,' remarked the hangman. + +'We were all a-wondering what made him run off in such a fright,' +faltered one of the women against the wall, 'and now 'tis +explained!' + +The firing of the alarm-gun went on at intervals, low and sullenly, +and their suspicions became a certainty. The sinister gentleman in +cinder-gray roused himself. 'Is there a constable here?' he asked, +in thick tones. 'If so, let him step forward.' + +The engaged man of fifty stepped quavering out from the wall, his +betrothed beginning to sob on the back of the chair. + +'You are a sworn constable?' + +'I be, sir.' + +'Then pursue the criminal at once, with assistance, and bring him +back here. He can't have gone far.' + +'I will, sir, I will--when I've got my staff. I'll go home and get +it, and come sharp here, and start in a body.' + +'Staff!--never mind your staff; the man'll be gone!' + +'But I can't do nothing without my staff--can I, William, and John, +and Charles Jake? No; for there's the king's royal crown a painted +on en in yaller and gold, and the lion and the unicorn, so as when I +raise en up and hit my prisoner, 'tis made a lawful blow thereby. I +wouldn't 'tempt to take up a man without my staff--no, not I. If I +hadn't the law to gie me courage, why, instead o' my taking up him +he might take up me!' + +'Now, I'm a king's man myself; and can give you authority enough for +this,' said the formidable officer in gray. 'Now then, all of ye, +be ready. Have ye any lanterns?' + +'Yes--have ye any lanterns?--I demand it!' said the constable. + +'And the rest of you able-bodied--' + +'Able-bodied men--yes--the rest of ye!' said the constable. + +'Have you some good stout staves and pitch-forks--' + +'Staves and pitchforks--in the name o' the law! And take 'em in yer +hands and go in quest, and do as we in authority tell ye!' + +Thus aroused, the men prepared to give chase. The evidence was, +indeed, though circumstantial, so convincing, that but little +argument was needed to show the shepherd's guests that after what +they had seen it would look very much like connivance if they did +not instantly pursue the unhappy third stranger, who could not as +yet have gone more than a few hundred yards over such uneven +country. + +A shepherd is always well provided with lanterns; and, lighting +these hastily, and with hurdle-staves in their hands, they poured +out of the door, taking a direction along the crest of the hill, +away from the town, the rain having fortunately a little abated. + +Disturbed by the noise, or possibly by unpleasant dreams of her +baptism, the child who had been christened began to cry heart- +brokenly in the room overhead. These notes of grief came down +through the chinks of the floor to the ears of the women below, who +jumped up one by one, and seemed glad of the excuse to ascend and +comfort the baby, for the incidents of the last half-hour greatly +oppressed them. Thus in the space of two or three minutes the room +on the ground-floor was deserted quite. + +But it was not for long. Hardly had the sound of footsteps died +away when a man returned round the corner of the house from the +direction the pursuers had taken. Peeping in at the door, and +seeing nobody there, he entered leisurely. It was the stranger of +the chimney-corner, who had gone out with the rest. The motive of +his return was shown by his helping himself to a cut piece of +skimmer-cake that lay on a ledge beside where he had sat, and which +he had apparently forgotten to take with him. He also poured out +half a cup more mead from the quantity that remained, ravenously +eating and drinking these as he stood. He had not finished when +another figure came in just as quietly--his friend in cinder-gray. + +'O--you here?' said the latter, smiling. 'I thought you had gone to +help in the capture.' And this speaker also revealed the object of +his return by looking solicitously round for the fascinating mug of +old mead. + +'And I thought you had gone,' said the other, continuing his +skimmer-cake with some effort. + +'Well, on second thoughts, I felt there were enough without me,' +said the first confidentially, 'and such a night as it is, too. +Besides, 'tis the business o' the Government to take care of its +criminals--not mine.' + +'True; so it is. And I felt as you did, that there were enough +without me.' + +'I don't want to break my limbs running over the humps and hollows +of this wild country.' + +'Nor I neither, between you and me.' + +'These shepherd-people are used to it--simple-minded souls, you +know, stirred up to anything in a moment. They'll have him ready +for me before the morning, and no trouble to me at all.' + +'They'll have him, and we shall have saved ourselves all labour in +the matter.' + +'True, true. Well, my way is to Casterbridge; and 'tis as much as +my legs will do to take me that far. Going the same way?' + +'No, I am sorry to say! I have to get home over there' (he nodded +indefinitely to the right), 'and I feel as you do, that it is quite +enough for my legs to do before bedtime.' + +The other had by this time finished the mead in the mug, after +which, shaking hands heartily at the door, and wishing each other +well, they went their several ways. + +In the meantime the company of pursuers had reached the end of the +hog's-back elevation which dominated this part of the down. They +had decided on no particular plan of action; and, finding that the +man of the baleful trade was no longer in their company, they seemed +quite unable to form any such plan now. They descended in all +directions down the hill, and straightway several of the party fell +into the snare set by Nature for all misguided midnight ramblers +over this part of the cretaceous formation. The 'lanchets,' or +flint slopes, which belted the escarpment at intervals of a dozen +yards, took the less cautious ones unawares, and losing their +footing on the rubbly steep they slid sharply downwards, the +lanterns rolling from their hands to the bottom, and there lying on +their sides till the horn was scorched through. + +When they had again gathered themselves together, the shepherd, as +the man who knew the country best, took the lead, and guided them +round these treacherous inclines. The lanterns, which seemed rather +to dazzle their eyes and warn the fugitive than to assist them in +the exploration, were extinguished, due silence was observed; and in +this more rational order they plunged into the vale. It was a +grassy, briery, moist defile, affording some shelter to any person +who had sought it; but the party perambulated it in vain, and +ascended on the other side. Here they wandered apart, and after an +interval closed together again to report progress. + +At the second time of closing in they found themselves near a lonely +ash, the single tree on this part of the coomb, probably sown there +by a passing bird some fifty years before. And here, standing a +little to one side of the trunk, as motionless as the trunk itself; +appeared the man they were in quest of; his outline being well +defined against the sky beyond. The band noiselessly drew up and +faced him. + +'Your money or your life!' said the constable sternly to the still +figure. + +'No, no,' whispered John Pitcher. ''Tisn't our side ought to say +that. That's the doctrine of vagabonds like him, and we be on the +side of the law.' + +'Well, well,' replied the constable impatiently; 'I must say +something, mustn't I? and if you had all the weight o' this +undertaking upon your mind, perhaps you'd say the wrong thing too!-- +Prisoner at the bar, surrender, in the name of the Father--the +Crown, I mane!' + +The man under the tree seemed now to notice them for the first time, +and, giving them no opportunity whatever for exhibiting their +courage, he strolled slowly towards them. He was, indeed, the +little man, the third stranger; but his trepidation had in a great +measure gone. + +'Well, travellers,' he said, 'did I hear ye speak to me?' + +'You did: you've got to come and be our prisoner at once!' said the +constable. 'We arrest 'ee on the charge of not biding in +Casterbridge jail in a decent proper manner to be hung to-morrow +morning. Neighbours, do your duty, and seize the culpet!' + +On hearing the charge, the man seemed enlightened, and, saying not +another word, resigned himself with preternatural civility to the +search-party, who, with their staves in their hands, surrounded him +on all sides, and marched him back towards the shepherd's cottage. + +It was eleven o'clock by the time they arrived. The light shining +from the open door, a sound of men's voices within, proclaimed to +them as they approached the house that some new events had arisen in +their absence. On entering they discovered the shepherd's living +room to be invaded by two officers from Casterbridge jail, and a +well-known magistrate who lived at the nearest country-seat, +intelligence of the escape having become generally circulated. + +'Gentlemen,' said the constable, 'I have brought back your man--not +without risk and danger; but every one must do his duty! He is +inside this circle of able-bodied persons, who have lent me useful +aid, considering their ignorance of Crown work. Men, bring forward +your prisoner!' And the third stranger was led to the light. + +'Who is this?' said one of the officials. + +'The man,' said the constable. + +'Certainly not,' said the turnkey; and the first corroborated his +statement. + +'But how can it be otherwise?' asked the constable. 'Or why was he +so terrified at sight o' the singing instrument of the law who sat +there?' Here he related the strange behaviour of the third stranger +on entering the house during the hangman's song. + +'Can't understand it,' said the officer coolly. 'All I know is that +it is not the condemned man. He's quite a different character from +this one; a gauntish fellow, with dark hair and eyes, rather good- +looking, and with a musical bass voice that if you heard it once +you'd never mistake as long as you lived.' + +'Why, souls--'twas the man in the chimney-corner!' + +'Hey--what?' said the magistrate, coming forward after inquiring +particulars from the shepherd in the background. 'Haven't you got +the man after all?' + +'Well, sir,' said the constable, 'he's the man we were in search of, +that's true; and yet he's not the man we were in search of. For the +man we were in search of was not the man we wanted, sir, if you +understand my every-day way; for 'twas the man in the chimney- +corner!' + +'A pretty kettle of fish altogether!' said the magistrate. 'You had +better start for the other man at once.' + +The prisoner now spoke for the first time. The mention of the man +in the chimney-corner seemed to have moved him as nothing else could +do. 'Sir,' he said, stepping forward to the magistrate, 'take no +more trouble about me. The time is come when I may as well speak. +I have done nothing; my crime is that the condemned man is my +brother. Early this afternoon I left home at Shottsford to tramp it +all the way to Casterbridge jail to bid him farewell. I was +benighted, and called here to rest and ask the way. When I opened +the door I saw before me the very man, my brother, that I thought to +see in the condemned cell at Casterbridge. He was in this chimney- +corner; and jammed close to him, so that he could not have got out +if he had tried, was the executioner who'd come to take his life, +singing a song about it and not knowing that it was his victim who +was close by, joining in to save appearances. My brother looked a +glance of agony at me, and I knew he meant, "Don't reveal what you +see; my life depends on it." I was so terror-struck that I could +hardly stand, and, not knowing what I did, I turned and hurried +away.' + +The narrator's manner and tone had the stamp of truth, and his story +made a great impression on all around. 'And do you know where your +brother is at the present time?' asked the magistrate. + +'I do not. I have never seen him since I closed this door.' + +'I can testify to that, for we've been between ye ever since,' said +the constable. + +'Where does he think to fly to?--what is his occupation?' + +'He's a watch-and-clock-maker, sir.' + +''A said 'a was a wheelwright--a wicked rogue,' said the constable. + +'The wheels of clocks and watches he meant, no doubt,' said Shepherd +Fennel. 'I thought his hands were palish for's trade.' + +'Well, it appears to me that nothing can be gained by retaining this +poor man in custody,' said the magistrate; 'your business lies with +the other, unquestionably.' + +And so the little man was released off-hand; but he looked nothing +the less sad on that account, it being beyond the power of +magistrate or constable to raze out the written troubles in his +brain, for they concerned another whom he regarded with more +solicitude than himself. When this was done, and the man had gone +his way, the night was found to be so far advanced that it was +deemed useless to renew the search before the next morning. + +Next day, accordingly, the quest for the clever sheep-stealer became +general and keen, to all appearance at least. But the intended +punishment was cruelly disproportioned to the transgression, and the +sympathy of a great many country-folk in that district was strongly +on the side of the fugitive. Moreover, his marvellous coolness and +daring in hob-and-nobbing with the hangman, under the unprecedented +circumstances of the shepherd's party, won their admiration. So +that it may be questioned if all those who ostensibly made +themselves so busy in exploring woods and fields and lanes were +quite so thorough when it came to the private examination of their +own lofts and outhouses. Stories were afloat of a mysterious figure +being occasionally seen in some old overgrown trackway or other, +remote from turnpike roads; but when a search was instituted in any +of these suspected quarters nobody was found. Thus the days and +weeks passed without tidings. + +In brief; the bass-voiced man of the chimney-corner was never +recaptured. Some said that he went across the sea, others that he +did not, but buried himself in the depths of a populous city. At +any rate, the gentleman in cinder-gray never did his morning's work +at Casterbridge, nor met anywhere at all, for business purposes, the +genial comrade with whom he had passed an hour of relaxation in the +lonely house on the coomb. + +The grass has long been green on the graves of Shepherd Fennel and +his frugal wife; the guests who made up the christening party have +mainly followed their entertainers to the tomb; the baby in whose +honour they all had met is a matron in the sere and yellow leaf. +But the arrival of the three strangers at the shepherd's that night, +and the details connected therewith, is a story as well known as +ever in the country about Higher Crowstairs. + +March 1883. + + + + +THE WITHERED ARM + + + + +CHAPTER I--A LORN MILKMAID + + + +It was an eighty-cow dairy, and the troop of milkers, regular and +supernumerary, were all at work; for, though the time of year was as +yet but early April, the feed lay entirely in water-meadows, and the +cows were 'in full pail.' The hour was about six in the evening, +and three-fourths of the large, red, rectangular animals having been +finished off, there was opportunity for a little conversation. + +'He do bring home his bride to-morrow, I hear. They've come as far +as Anglebury to-day.' + +The voice seemed to proceed from the belly of the cow called Cherry, +but the speaker was a milking-woman, whose face was buried in the +flank of that motionless beast. + +'Hav' anybody seen her?' said another. + +There was a negative response from the first. 'Though they say +she's a rosy-cheeked, tisty-tosty little body enough,' she added; +and as the milkmaid spoke she turned her face so that she could +glance past her cow's tail to the other side of the barton, where a +thin, fading woman of thirty milked somewhat apart from the rest. + +'Years younger than he, they say,' continued the second, with also a +glance of reflectiveness in the same direction. + +'How old do you call him, then?' + +'Thirty or so.' + +'More like forty,' broke in an old milkman near, in a long white +pinafore or 'wropper,' and with the brim of his hat tied down, so +that he looked like a woman. ''A was born before our Great Weir was +builded, and I hadn't man's wages when I laved water there.' + +The discussion waxed so warm that the purr of the milk-streams +became jerky, till a voice from another cow's belly cried with +authority, 'Now then, what the Turk do it matter to us about Farmer +Lodge's age, or Farmer Lodge's new mis'ess? I shall have to pay him +nine pound a year for the rent of every one of these milchers, +whatever his age or hers. Get on with your work, or 'twill be dark +afore we have done. The evening is pinking in a'ready.' This +speaker was the dairyman himself; by whom the milkmaids and men were +employed. + +Nothing more was said publicly about Farmer Lodge's wedding, but the +first woman murmured under her cow to her next neighbour, ''Tis hard +for SHE,' signifying the thin worn milkmaid aforesaid. + +'O no,' said the second. 'He ha'n't spoke to Rhoda Brook for +years.' + +When the milking was done they washed their pails and hung them on a +many-forked stand made of the peeled limb of an oak-tree, set +upright in the earth, and resembling a colossal antlered horn. The +majority then dispersed in various directions homeward. The thin +woman who had not spoken was joined by a boy of twelve or +thereabout, and the twain went away up the field also. + +Their course lay apart from that of the others, to a lonely spot +high above the water-meads, and not far from the border of Egdon +Heath, whose dark countenance was visible in the distance as they +drew nigh to their home. + +'They've just been saying down in barton that your father brings his +young wife home from Anglebury to-morrow,' the woman observed. 'I +shall want to send you for a few things to market, and you'll be +pretty sure to meet 'em.' + +'Yes, mother,' said the boy. 'Is father married then?' + +'Yes . . . You can give her a look, and tell me what's she's like, +if you do see her.' + +'Yes, mother.' + +'If she's dark or fair, and if she's tall--as tall as I. And if she +seems like a woman who has ever worked for a living, or one that has +been always well off, and has never done anything, and shows marks +of the lady on her, as I expect she do.' + +'Yes.' + +They crept up the hill in the twilight, and entered the cottage. It +was built of mud-walls, the surface of which had been washed by many +rains into channels and depressions that left none of the original +flat face visible; while here and there in the thatch above a rafter +showed like a bone protruding through the skin. + +She was kneeling down in the chimney-corner, before two pieces of +turf laid together with the heather inwards, blowing at the red-hot +ashes with her breath till the turves flamed. The radiance lit her +pale cheek, and made her dark eyes, that had once been handsome, +seem handsome anew. 'Yes,' she resumed, 'see if she is dark or +fair, and if you can, notice if her hands be white; if not, see if +they look as though she had ever done housework, or are milker's +hands like mine.' + +The boy again promised, inattentively this time, his mother not +observing that he was cutting a notch with his pocket-knife in the +beech-backed chair. + + + +CHAPTER II--THE YOUNG WIFE + + + +The road from Anglebury to Holmstoke is in general level; but there +is one place where a sharp ascent breaks its monotony. Farmers +homeward-bound from the former market-town, who trot all the rest of +the way, walk their horses up this short incline. + +The next evening, while the sun was yet bright, a handsome new gig, +with a lemon-coloured body and red wheels, was spinning westward +along the level highway at the heels of a powerful mare. The driver +was a yeoman in the prime of life, cleanly shaven like an actor, his +face being toned to that bluish-vermilion hue which so often graces +a thriving farmer's features when returning home after successful +dealings in the town. Beside him sat a woman, many years his +junior--almost, indeed, a girl. Her face too was fresh in colour, +but it was of a totally different quality--soft and evanescent, like +the light under a heap of rose-petals. + +Few people travelled this way, for it was not a main road; and the +long white riband of gravel that stretched before them was empty, +save of one small scarce-moving speck, which presently resolved +itself into the figure of boy, who was creeping on at a snail's +pace, and continually looking behind him--the heavy bundle he +carried being some excuse for, if not the reason of, his +dilatoriness. When the bouncing gig-party slowed at the bottom of +the incline above mentioned, the pedestrian was only a few yards in +front. Supporting the large bundle by putting one hand on his hip, +he turned and looked straight at the farmer's wife as though he +would read her through and through, pacing along abreast of the +horse. + +The low sun was full in her face, rendering every feature, shade, +and contour distinct, from the curve of her little nostril to the +colour of her eyes. The farmer, though he seemed annoyed at the +boy's persistent presence, did not order him to get out of the way; +and thus the lad preceded them, his hard gaze never leaving her, +till they reached the top of the ascent, when the farmer trotted on +with relief in his lineaments--having taken no outward notice of the +boy whatever. + +'How that poor lad stared at me!' said the young wife. + +'Yes, dear; I saw that he did.' + +'He is one of the village, I suppose?' + +'One of the neighbourhood. I think he lives with his mother a mile +or two off.' + +'He knows who we are, no doubt?' + +'O yes. You must expect to be stared at just at first, my pretty +Gertrude.' + +'I do,--though I think the poor boy may have looked at us in the +hope we might relieve him of his heavy load, rather than from +curiosity.' + +'O no,' said her husband off-handedly. 'These country lads will +carry a hundredweight once they get it on their backs; besides his +pack had more size than weight in it. Now, then, another mile and I +shall be able to show you our house in the distance--if it is not +too dark before we get there.' The wheels spun round, and particles +flew from their periphery as before, till a white house of ample +dimensions revealed itself, with farm-buildings and ricks at the +back. + +Meanwhile the boy had quickened his pace, and turning up a by-lane +some mile and half short of the white farmstead, ascended towards +the leaner pastures, and so on to the cottage of his mother. + +She had reached home after her day's milking at the outlying dairy, +and was washing cabbage at the doorway in the declining light. +'Hold up the net a moment,' she said, without preface, as the boy +came up. + +He flung down his bundle, held the edge of the cabbage-net, and as +she filled its meshes with the dripping leaves she went on, 'Well, +did you see her?' + +'Yes; quite plain.' + +'Is she ladylike?' + +'Yes; and more. A lady complete.' + +'Is she young?' + +'Well, she's growed up, and her ways be quite a woman's.' + +'Of course. What colour is her hair and face?' + +'Her hair is lightish, and her face as comely as a live doll's.' + +'Her eyes, then, are not dark like mine?' + +'No--of a bluish turn, and her mouth is very nice and red; and when +she smiles, her teeth show white.' + +'Is she tall?' said the woman sharply. + +'I couldn't see. She was sitting down.' + +'Then do you go to Holmstoke church to-morrow morning: she's sure +to be there. Go early and notice her walking in, and come home and +tell me if she's taller than I.' + +'Very well, mother. But why don't you go and see for yourself?' + +'_I_ go to see her! I wouldn't look up at her if she were to pass +my window this instant. She was with Mr. Lodge, of course. What +did he say or do?' + +'Just the same as usual.' + +'Took no notice of you?' + +'None.' + +Next day the mother put a clean shirt on the boy, and started him +off for Holmstoke church. He reached the ancient little pile when +the door was just being opened, and he was the first to enter. +Taking his seat by the font, he watched all the parishioners file +in. The well-to-do Farmer Lodge came nearly last; and his young +wife, who accompanied him, walked up the aisle with the shyness +natural to a modest woman who had appeared thus for the first time. +As all other eyes were fixed upon her, the youth's stare was not +noticed now. + +When he reached home his mother said, 'Well?' before he had entered +the room. + +'She is not tall. She is rather short,' he replied. + +'Ah!' said his mother, with satisfaction. + +'But she's very pretty--very. In fact, she's lovely.' + +The youthful freshness of the yeoman's wife had evidently made an +impression even on the somewhat hard nature of the boy. + +'That's all I want to hear,' said his mother quickly. 'Now, spread +the table-cloth. The hare you caught is very tender; but mind that +nobody catches you.--You've never told me what sort of hands she +had.' + +'I have never seen 'em. She never took off her gloves.' + +'What did she wear this morning?' + +'A white bonnet and a silver-coloured gownd. It whewed and whistled +so loud when it rubbed against the pews that the lady coloured up +more than ever for very shame at the noise, and pulled it in to keep +it from touching; but when she pushed into her seat, it whewed more +than ever. Mr. Lodge, he seemed pleased, and his waistcoat stuck +out, and his great golden seals hung like a lord's; but she seemed +to wish her noisy gownd anywhere but on her.' + +'Not she! However, that will do now.' + +These descriptions of the newly-married couple were continued from +time to time by the boy at his mother's request, after any chance +encounter he had had with them. But Rhoda Brook, though she might +easily have seen young Mrs. Lodge for herself by walking a couple of +miles, would never attempt an excursion towards the quarter where +the farmhouse lay. Neither did she, at the daily milking in the +dairyman's yard on Lodge's outlying second farm, ever speak on the +subject of the recent marriage. The dairyman, who rented the cows +of Lodge, and knew perfectly the tall milkmaid's history, with manly +kindliness always kept the gossip in the cow-barton from annoying +Rhoda. But the atmosphere thereabout was full of the subject during +the first days of Mrs. Lodge's arrival; and from her boy's +description and the casual words of the other milkers, Rhoda Brook +could raise a mental image of the unconscious Mrs Lodge that was +realistic as a photograph. + + + +CHAPTER III--A VISION + + + +One night, two or three weeks after the bridal return, when the boy +was gone to bed, Rhoda sat a long time over the turf ashes that she +had raked out in front of her to extinguish them. She contemplated +so intently the new wife, as presented to her in her mind's eye over +the embers, that she forgot the lapse of time. At last, wearied +with her day's work, she too retired. + +But the figure which had occupied her so much during this and the +previous days was not to be banished at night. For the first time +Gertrude Lodge visited the supplanted woman in her dreams. Rhoda +Brook dreamed--since her assertion that she really saw, before +falling asleep, was not to be believed--that the young wife, in the +pale silk dress and white bonnet, but with features shockingly +distorted, and wrinkled as by age, was sitting upon her chest as she +lay. The pressure of Mrs. Lodge's person grew heavier; the blue +eyes peered cruelly into her face; and then the figure thrust +forward its left hand mockingly, so as to make the wedding-ring it +wore glitter in Rhoda's eyes. Maddened mentally, and nearly +suffocated by pressure, the sleeper struggled; the incubus, still +regarding her, withdrew to the foot of the bed, only, however, to +come forward by degrees, resume her seat, and flash her left hand as +before. + +Gasping for breath, Rhoda, in a last desperate effort, swung out her +right hand, seized the confronting spectre by its obtrusive left +arm, and whirled it backward to the floor, starting up herself as +she did so with a low cry. + +'O, merciful heaven!' she cried, sitting on the edge of the bed in a +cold sweat; 'that was not a dream--she was here!' + +She could feel her antagonist's arm within her grasp even now--the +very flesh and bone of it, as it seemed. She looked on the floor +whither she had whirled the spectre, but there was nothing to be +seen. + +Rhoda Brook slept no more that night, and when she went milking at +the next dawn they noticed how pale and haggard she looked. The +milk that she drew quivered into the pail; her hand had not calmed +even yet, and still retained the feel of the arm. She came home to +breakfast as wearily as if it had been suppertime. + +'What was that noise in your chimmer, mother, last night?' said her +son. 'You fell off the bed, surely?' + +'Did you hear anything fall? At what time?' + +'Just when the clock struck two.' + +She could not explain, and when the meal was done went silently +about her household work, the boy assisting her, for he hated going +afield on the farms, and she indulged his reluctance. Between +eleven and twelve the garden-gate clicked, and she lifted her eyes +to the window. At the bottom of the garden, within the gate, stood +the woman of her vision. Rhoda seemed transfixed. + +'Ah, she said she would come!' exclaimed the boy, also observing +her. + +'Said so--when? How does she know us?' + +'I have seen and spoken to her. I talked to her yesterday.' + +'I told you,' said the mother, flushing indignantly, 'never to speak +to anybody in that house, or go near the place.' + +'I did not speak to her till she spoke to me. And I did not go near +the place. I met her in the road.' + +'What did you tell her?' + +'Nothing. She said, "Are you the poor boy who had to bring the +heavy load from market?" And she looked at my boots, and said they +would not keep my feet dry if it came on wet, because they were so +cracked. I told her I lived with my mother, and we had enough to do +to keep ourselves, and that's how it was; and she said then, "I'll +come and bring you some better boots, and see your mother." She +gives away things to other folks in the meads besides us.' + +Mrs. Lodge was by this time close to the door--not in her silk, as +Rhoda had seen her in the bed-chamber, but in a morning hat, and +gown of common light material, which became her better than silk. +On her arm she carried a basket. + +The impression remaining from the night's experience was still +strong. Brook had almost expected to see the wrinkles, the scorn, +and the cruelty on her visitor's face. + +She would have escaped an interview, had escape been possible. +There was, however, no backdoor to the cottage, and in an instant +the boy had lifted the latch to Mrs. Lodge's gentle knock. + +'I see I have come to the right house,' said she, glancing at the +lad, and smiling. 'But I was not sure till you opened the door.' + +The figure and action were those of the phantom; but her voice was +so indescribably sweet, her glance so winning, her smile so tender, +so unlike that of Rhoda's midnight visitant, that the latter could +hardly believe the evidence of her senses. She was truly glad that +she had not hidden away in sheer aversion, as she had been inclined +to do. In her basket Mrs. Lodge brought the pair of boots that she +had promised to the boy, and other useful articles. + +At these proofs of a kindly feeling towards her and hers Rhoda's +heart reproached her bitterly. This innocent young thing should +have her blessing and not her curse. When she left them a light +seemed gone from the dwelling. Two days later she came again to +know if the boots fitted; and less than a fortnight after that paid +Rhoda another call. On this occasion the boy was absent. + +'I walk a good deal,' said Mrs. Lodge, 'and your house is the +nearest outside our own parish. I hope you are well. You don't +look quite well.' + +Rhoda said she was well enough; and, indeed, though the paler of the +two, there was more of the strength that endures in her well-defined +features and large frame, than in the soft-cheeked young woman +before her. The conversation became quite confidential as regarded +their powers and weaknesses; and when Mrs. Lodge was leaving, Rhoda +said, 'I hope you will find this air agree with you, ma'am, and not +suffer from the damp of the water-meads.' + +The younger one replied that there was not much doubt of it, her +general health being usually good. 'Though, now you remind me,' she +added, 'I have one little ailment which puzzles me. It is nothing +serious, but I cannot make it out.' + +She uncovered her left hand and arm; and their outline confronted +Rhoda's gaze as the exact original of the limb she had beheld and +seized in her dream. Upon the pink round surface of the arm were +faint marks of an unhealthy colour, as if produced by a rough grasp. +Rhoda's eyes became riveted on the discolorations; she fancied that +she discerned in them the shape of her own four fingers. + +'How did it happen?' she said mechanically. + +'I cannot tell,' replied Mrs. Lodge, shaking her head. 'One night +when I was sound asleep, dreaming I was away in some strange place, +a pain suddenly shot into my arm there, and was so keen as to awaken +me. I must have struck it in the daytime, I suppose, though I don't +remember doing so.' She added, laughing, 'I tell my dear husband +that it looks just as if he had flown into a rage and struck me +there. O, I daresay it will soon disappear.' + +'Ha, ha! Yes . . . On what night did it come?' + +Mrs. Lodge considered, and said it would be a fortnight ago on the +morrow. 'When I awoke I could not remember where I was,' she added, +'till the clock striking two reminded me.' + +She had named the night and the hour of Rhoda's spectral encounter, +and Brook felt like a guilty thing. The artless disclosure startled +her; she did not reason on the freaks of coincidence; and all the +scenery of that ghastly night returned with double vividness to her +mind. + +'O, can it be,' she said to herself, when her visitor had departed, +'that I exercise a malignant power over people against my own will?' +She knew that she had been slily called a witch since her fall; but +never having understood why that particular stigma had been attached +to her, it had passed disregarded. Could this be the explanation, +and had such things as this ever happened before? + + + +CHAPTER IV--A SUGGESTION + + + +The summer drew on, and Rhoda Brook almost dreaded to meet Mrs. +Lodge again, notwithstanding that her feeling for the young wife +amounted well-nigh to affection. Something in her own individuality +seemed to convict Rhoda of crime. Yet a fatality sometimes would +direct the steps of the latter to the outskirts of Holmstoke +whenever she left her house for any other purpose than her daily +work; and hence it happened that their next encounter was out of +doors. Rhoda could not avoid the subject which had so mystified +her, and after the first few words she stammered, 'I hope your--arm +is well again, ma'am?' She had perceived with consternation that +Gertrude Lodge carried her left arm stiffly. + +'No; it is not quite well. Indeed it is no better at all; it is +rather worse. It pains me dreadfully sometimes.' + +'Perhaps you had better go to a doctor, ma'am.' + +She replied that she had already seen a doctor. Her husband had +insisted upon her going to one. But the surgeon had not seemed to +understand the afflicted limb at all; he had told her to bathe it in +hot water, and she had bathed it, but the treatment had done no +good. + +'Will you let me see it?' said the milkwoman. + +Mrs. Lodge pushed up her sleeve and disclosed the place, which was a +few inches above the wrist. As soon as Rhoda Brook saw it, she +could hardly preserve her composure. There was nothing of the +nature of a wound, but the arm at that point had a shrivelled look, +and the outline of the four fingers appeared more distinct than at +the former time. Moreover, she fancied that they were imprinted in +precisely the relative position of her clutch upon the arm in the +trance; the first finger towards Gertrude's wrist, and the fourth +towards her elbow. + +What the impress resembled seemed to have struck Gertrude herself +since their last meeting. 'It looks almost like finger-marks,' she +said; adding with a faint laugh, 'my husband says it is as if some +witch, or the devil himself, had taken hold of me there, and blasted +the flesh.' + +Rhoda shivered. 'That's fancy,' she said hurriedly. 'I wouldn't +mind it, if I were you.' + +'I shouldn't so much mind it,' said the younger, with hesitation, +'if--if I hadn't a notion that it makes my husband--dislike me--no, +love me less. Men think so much of personal appearance.' + +'Some do--he for one.' + +'Yes; and he was very proud of mine, at first.' + +'Keep your arm covered from his sight.' + +'Ah--he knows the disfigurement is there!' She tried to hide the +tears that filled her eyes. + +'Well, ma'am, I earnestly hope it will go away soon.' + +And so the milkwoman's mind was chained anew to the subject by a +horrid sort of spell as she returned home. The sense of having been +guilty of an act of malignity increased, affect as she might to +ridicule her superstition. In her secret heart Rhoda did not +altogether object to a slight diminution of her successor's beauty, +by whatever means it had come about; but she did not wish to inflict +upon her physical pain. For though this pretty young woman had +rendered impossible any reparation which Lodge might have made Rhoda +for his past conduct, everything like resentment at the unconscious +usurpation had quite passed away from the elder's mind. + +If the sweet and kindly Gertrude Lodge only knew of the scene in the +bed-chamber, what would she think? Not to inform her of it seemed +treachery in the presence of her friendliness; but tell she could +not of her own accord--neither could she devise a remedy. + +She mused upon the matter the greater part of the night; and the +next day, after the morning milking, set out to obtain another +glimpse of Gertrude Lodge if she could, being held to her by a +gruesome fascination. By watching the house from a distance the +milkmaid was presently able to discern the farmer's wife in a ride +she was taking alone--probably to join her husband in some distant +field. Mrs. Lodge perceived her, and cantered in her direction. + +'Good morning, Rhoda!' Gertrude said, when she had come up. 'I was +going to call.' + +Rhoda noticed that Mrs. Lodge held the reins with some difficulty. + +'I hope--the bad arm,' said Rhoda. + +'They tell me there is possibly one way by which I might be able to +find out the cause, and so perhaps the cure, of it,' replied the +other anxiously. 'It is by going to some clever man over in Egdon +Heath. They did not know if he was still alive--and I cannot +remember his name at this moment; but they said that you knew more +of his movements than anybody else hereabout, and could tell me if +he were still to be consulted. Dear me--what was his name? But you +know.' + +'Not Conjuror Trendle?' said her thin companion, turning pale. + +'Trendle--yes. Is he alive?' + +'I believe so,' said Rhoda, with reluctance. + +'Why do you call him conjuror?' + +'Well--they say--they used to say he was a--he had powers other +folks have not.' + +'O, how could my people be so superstitious as to recommend a man of +that sort! I thought they meant some medical man. I shall think no +more of him.' + +Rhoda looked relieved, and Mrs. Lodge rode on. The milkwoman had +inwardly seen, from the moment she heard of her having been +mentioned as a reference for this man, that there must exist a +sarcastic feeling among the work-folk that a sorceress would know +the whereabouts of the exorcist. They suspected her, then. A short +time ago this would have given no concern to a woman of her common- +sense. But she had a haunting reason to be superstitious now; and +she had been seized with sudden dread that this Conjuror Trendle +might name her as the malignant influence which was blasting the +fair person of Gertrude, and so lead her friend to hate her for +ever, and to treat her as some fiend in human shape. + +But all was not over. Two days after, a shadow intruded into the +window-pattern thrown on Rhoda Brook's floor by the afternoon sun. +The woman opened the door at once, almost breathlessly. + +'Are you alone?' said Gertrude. She seemed to be no less harassed +and anxious than Brook herself. + +'Yes,' said Rhoda. + +'The place on my arm seems worse, and troubles me!' the young +farmer's wife went on. 'It is so mysterious! I do hope it will not +be an incurable wound. I have again been thinking of what they said +about Conjuror Trendle. I don't really believe in such men, but I +should not mind just visiting him, from curiosity--though on no +account must my husband know. Is it far to where he lives?' + +'Yes--five miles,' said Rhoda backwardly. 'In the heart of Egdon.' + +'Well, I should have to walk. Could not you go with me to show me +the way--say to-morrow afternoon?' + +'O, not I--that is,' the milkwoman murmured, with a start of dismay. +Again the dread seized her that something to do with her fierce act +in the dream might be revealed, and her character in the eyes of the +most useful friend she had ever had be ruined irretrievably. + +Mrs. Lodge urged, and Rhoda finally assented, though with much +misgiving. Sad as the journey would be to her, she could not +conscientiously stand in the way of a possible remedy for her +patron's strange affliction. It was agreed that, to escape +suspicion of their mystic intent, they should meet at the edge of +the heath at the corner of a plantation which was visible from the +spot where they now stood. + + + +CHAPTER V--CONJUROR TRENDLE + + + +By the next afternoon Rhoda would have done anything to escape this +inquiry. But she had promised to go. Moreover, there was a horrid +fascination at times in becoming instrumental in throwing such +possible light on her own character as would reveal her to be +something greater in the occult world than she had ever herself +suspected. + +She started just before the time of day mentioned between them, and +half-an-hour's brisk walking brought her to the south-eastern +extension of the Egdon tract of country, where the fir plantation +was. A slight figure, cloaked and veiled, was already there. Rhoda +recognized, almost with a shudder, that Mrs. Lodge bore her left arm +in a sling. + +They hardly spoke to each other, and immediately set out on their +climb into the interior of this solemn country, which stood high +above the rich alluvial soil they had left half-an-hour before. It +was a long walk; thick clouds made the atmosphere dark, though it +was as yet only early afternoon; and the wind howled dismally over +the hills of the heath--not improbably the same heath which had +witnessed the agony of the Wessex King Ina, presented to after-ages +as Lear. Gertrude Lodge talked most, Rhoda replying with +monosyllabic preoccupation. She had a strange dislike to walking on +the side of her companion where hung the afflicted arm, moving round +to the other when inadvertently near it. Much heather had been +brushed by their feet when they descended upon a cart-track, beside +which stood the house of the man they sought. + +He did not profess his remedial practices openly, or care anything +about their continuance, his direct interests being those of a +dealer in furze, turf, 'sharp sand,' and other local products. +Indeed, he affected not to believe largely in his own powers, and +when warts that had been shown him for cure miraculously +disappeared--which it must be owned they infallibly did--he would +say lightly, 'O, I only drink a glass of grog upon 'em--perhaps it's +all chance,' and immediately turn the subject. + +He was at home when they arrived, having in fact seen them +descending into his valley. He was a gray-bearded man, with a +reddish face, and he looked singularly at Rhoda the first moment he +beheld her. Mrs. Lodge told him her errand; and then with words of +self-disparagement he examined her arm. + +'Medicine can't cure it,' he said promptly. ''Tis the work of an +enemy.' + +Rhoda shrank into herself, and drew back. + +'An enemy? What enemy?' asked Mrs. Lodge. + +He shook his head. 'That's best known to yourself,' he said. 'If +you like, I can show the person to you, though I shall not myself +know who it is. I can do no more; and don't wish to do that.' + +She pressed him; on which he told Rhoda to wait outside where she +stood, and took Mrs. Lodge into the room. It opened immediately +from the door; and, as the latter remained ajar, Rhoda Brook could +see the proceedings without taking part in them. He brought a +tumbler from the dresser, nearly filled it with water, and fetching +an egg, prepared it in some private way; after which he broke it on +the edge of the glass, so that the white went in and the yolk +remained. As it was getting gloomy, he took the glass and its +contents to the window, and told Gertrude to watch them closely. +They leant over the table together, and the milkwoman could see the +opaline hue of the egg-fluid changing form as it sank in the water, +but she was not near enough to define the shape that it assumed. + +'Do you catch the likeness of any face or figure as you look?' +demanded the conjuror of the young woman. + +She murmured a reply, in tones so low as to be inaudible to Rhoda, +and continued to gaze intently into the glass. Rhoda turned, and +walked a few steps away. + +When Mrs. Lodge came out, and her face was met by the light, it +appeared exceedingly pale--as pale as Rhoda's--against the sad dun +shades of the upland's garniture. Trendle shut the door behind her, +and they at once started homeward together. But Rhoda perceived +that her companion had quite changed. + +'Did he charge much?' she asked tentatively. + +'O no--nothing. He would not take a farthing,' said Gertrude. + +'And what did you see?' inquired Rhoda. + +'Nothing I--care to speak of.' The constraint in her manner was +remarkable; her face was so rigid as to wear an oldened aspect, +faintly suggestive of the face in Rhoda's bed-chamber. + +'Was it you who first proposed coming here?' Mrs. Lodge suddenly +inquired, after a long pause. 'How very odd, if you did!' + +'No. But I am not sorry we have come, all things considered,' she +replied. For the first time a sense of triumph possessed her, and +she did not altogether deplore that the young thing at her side +should learn that their lives had been antagonized by other +influences than their own. + +The subject was no more alluded to during the long and dreary walk +home. But in some way or other a story was whispered about the +many-dairied lowland that winter that Mrs. Lodge's gradual loss of +the use of her left arm was owing to her being 'overlooked' by Rhoda +Brook. The latter kept her own counsel about the incubus, but her +face grew sadder and thinner; and in the spring she and her boy +disappeared from the neighbourhood of Holmstoke. + + + +CHAPTER VI--A SECOND ATTEMPT + + + +Half-a-dozen years passed away, and Mr. and Mrs. Lodge's married +experience sank into prosiness, and worse. The farmer was usually +gloomy and silent: the woman whom he had wooed for her grace and +beauty was contorted and disfigured in the left limb; moreover, she +had brought him no child, which rendered it likely that he would be +the last of a family who had occupied that valley for some two +hundred years. He thought of Rhoda Brook and her son; and feared +this might be a judgment from heaven upon him. + +The once blithe-hearted and enlightened Gertrude was changing into +an irritable, superstitious woman, whose whole time was given to +experimenting upon her ailment with every quack remedy she came +across. She was honestly attached to her husband, and was ever +secretly hoping against hope to win back his heart again by +regaining some at least of her personal beauty. Hence it arose that +her closet was lined with bottles, packets, and ointment-pots of +every description--nay, bunches of mystic herbs, charms, and books +of necromancy, which in her schoolgirl time she would have ridiculed +as folly. + +'Damned if you won't poison yourself with these apothecary messes +and witch mixtures some time or other,' said her husband, when his +eye chanced to fall upon the multitudinous array. + +She did not reply, but turned her sad, soft glance upon him in such +heart-swollen reproach that he looked sorry for his words, and +added, 'I only meant it for your good, you know, Gertrude.' + +'I'll clear out the whole lot, and destroy them,' said she huskily, +'and try such remedies no more!' + +'You want somebody to cheer you,' he observed. 'I once thought of +adopting a boy; but he is too old now. And he is gone away I don't +know where.' + +She guessed to whom he alluded; for Rhoda Brook's story had in the +course of years become known to her; though not a word had ever +passed between her husband and herself on the subject. Neither had +she ever spoken to him of her visit to Conjuror Trendle, and of what +was revealed to her, or she thought was revealed to her, by that +solitary heath-man. + +She was now five-and-twenty; but she seemed older. + +'Six years of marriage, and only a few months of love,' she +sometimes whispered to herself. And then she thought of the +apparent cause, and said, with a tragic glance at her withering +limb, 'If I could only again be as I was when he first saw me!' + +She obediently destroyed her nostrums and charms; but there remained +a hankering wish to try something else--some other sort of cure +altogether. She had never revisited Trendle since she had been +conducted to the house of the solitary by Rhoda against her will; +but it now suddenly occurred to Gertrude that she would, in a last +desperate effort at deliverance from this seeming curse, again seek +out the man, if he yet lived. He was entitled to a certain +credence, for the indistinct form he had raised in the glass had +undoubtedly resembled the only woman in the world who--as she now +knew, though not then--could have a reason for bearing her ill-will. +The visit should be paid. + +This time she went alone, though she nearly got lost on the heath, +and roamed a considerable distance out of her way. Trendle's house +was reached at last, however: he was not indoors, and instead of +waiting at the cottage, she went to where his bent figure was +pointed out to her at work a long way off. Trendle remembered her, +and laying down the handful of furze-roots which he was gathering +and throwing into a heap, he offered to accompany her in her +homeward direction, as the distance was considerable and the days +were short. So they walked together, his head bowed nearly to the +earth, and his form of a colour with it. + +'You can send away warts and other excrescences I know,' she said; +'why can't you send away this?' And the arm was uncovered. + +'You think too much of my powers!' said Trendle; 'and I am old and +weak now, too. No, no; it is too much for me to attempt in my own +person. What have ye tried?' + +She named to him some of the hundred medicaments and counterspells +which she had adopted from time to time. He shook his head. + +'Some were good enough,' he said approvingly; 'but not many of them +for such as this. This is of the nature of a blight, not of the +nature of a wound; and if you ever do throw it off; it will be all +at once.' + +'If I only could!' + +'There is only one chance of doing it known to me. It has never +failed in kindred afflictions,--that I can declare. But it is hard +to carry out, and especially for a woman.' + +'Tell me!' said she. + +'You must touch with the limb the neck of a man who's been hanged.' + +She started a little at the image he had raised. + +'Before he's cold--just after he's cut down,' continued the conjuror +impassively. + +'How can that do good?' + +'It will turn the blood and change the constitution. But, as I say, +to do it is hard. You must get into jail, and wait for him when +he's brought off the gallows. Lots have done it, though perhaps not +such pretty women as you. I used to send dozens for skin +complaints. But that was in former times. The last I sent was in +'13--near twenty years ago.' + +He had no more to tell her; and, when he had put her into a straight +track homeward, turned and left her, refusing all money as at first. + + + +CHAPTER VII--A RIDE + + + +The communication sank deep into Gertrude's mind. Her nature was +rather a timid one; and probably of all remedies that the white +wizard could have suggested there was not one which would have +filled her with so much aversion as this, not to speak of the +immense obstacles in the way of its adoption. + +Casterbridge, the county-town, was a dozen or fifteen miles off; and +though in those days, when men were executed for horse-stealing, +arson, and burglary, an assize seldom passed without a hanging, it +was not likely that she could get access to the body of the criminal +unaided. And the fear of her husband's anger made her reluctant to +breathe a word of Trendle's suggestion to him or to anybody about +him. + +She did nothing for months, and patiently bore her disfigurement as +before. But her woman's nature, craving for renewed love, through +the medium of renewed beauty (she was but twenty-five), was ever +stimulating her to try what, at any rate, could hardly do her any +harm. 'What came by a spell will go by a spell surely,' she would +say. Whenever her imagination pictured the act she shrank in terror +from the possibility of it: then the words of the conjuror, 'It +will turn your blood,' were seen to be capable of a scientific no +less than a ghastly interpretation; the mastering desire returned, +and urged her on again. + +There was at this time but one county paper, and that her husband +only occasionally borrowed. But old-fashioned days had old- +fashioned means, and news was extensively conveyed by word of mouth +from market to market, or from fair to fair, so that, whenever such +an event as an execution was about to take place, few within a +radius of twenty miles were ignorant of the coming sight; and, so +far as Holmstoke was concerned, some enthusiasts had been known to +walk all the way to Casterbridge and back in one day, solely to +witness the spectacle. The next assizes were in March; and when +Gertrude Lodge heard that they had been held, she inquired +stealthily at the inn as to the result, as soon as she could find +opportunity. + +She was, however, too late. The time at which the sentences were to +be carried out had arrived, and to make the journey and obtain +admission at such short notice required at least her husband's +assistance. She dared not tell him, for she had found by delicate +experiment that these smouldering village beliefs made him furious +if mentioned, partly because he half entertained them himself. It +was therefore necessary to wait for another opportunity. + +Her determination received a fillip from learning that two epileptic +children had attended from this very village of Holmstoke many years +before with beneficial results, though the experiment had been +strongly condemned by the neighbouring clergy. April, May, June, +passed; and it is no overstatement to say that by the end of the +last-named month Gertrude well-nigh longed for the death of a +fellow-creature. Instead of her formal prayers each night, her +unconscious prayer was, 'O Lord, hang some guilty or innocent person +soon!' + +This time she made earlier inquiries, and was altogether more +systematic in her proceedings. Moreover, the season was summer, +between the haymaking and the harvest, and in the leisure thus +afforded him her husband had been holiday-taking away from home. + +The assizes were in July, and she went to the inn as before. There +was to be one execution--only one--for arson. + +Her greatest problem was not how to get to Casterbridge, but what +means she should adopt for obtaining admission to the jail. Though +access for such purposes had formerly never been denied, the custom +had fallen into desuetude; and in contemplating her possible +difficulties, she was again almost driven to fall back upon her +husband. But, on sounding him about the assizes, he was so +uncommunicative, so more than usually cold, that she did not +proceed, and decided that whatever she did she would do alone. + +Fortune, obdurate hitherto, showed her unexpected favour. On the +Thursday before the Saturday fixed for the execution, Lodge remarked +to her that he was going away from home for another day or two on +business at a fair, and that he was sorry he could not take her with +him. + +She exhibited on this occasion so much readiness to stay at home +that he looked at her in surprise. Time had been when she would +have shown deep disappointment at the loss of such a jaunt. +However, he lapsed into his usual taciturnity, and on the day named +left Holmstoke. + +It was now her turn. She at first had thought of driving, but on +reflection held that driving would not do, since it would +necessitate her keeping to the turnpike-road, and so increase by +tenfold the risk of her ghastly errand being found out. She decided +to ride, and avoid the beaten track, notwithstanding that in her +husband's stables there was no animal just at present which by any +stretch of imagination could be considered a lady's mount, in spite +of his promise before marriage to always keep a mare for her. He +had, however, many cart-horses, fine ones of their kind; and among +the rest was a serviceable creature, an equine Amazon, with a back +as broad as a sofa, on which Gertrude had occasionally taken an +airing when unwell. This horse she chose. + +On Friday afternoon one of the men brought it round. She was +dressed, and before going down looked at her shrivelled arm. 'Ah!' +she said to it, 'if it had not been for you this terrible ordeal +would have been saved me!' + +When strapping up the bundle in which she carried a few articles of +clothing, she took occasion to say to the servant, 'I take these in +case I should not get back to-night from the person I am going to +visit. Don't be alarmed if I am not in by ten, and close up the +house as usual. I shall be at home to-morrow for certain.' She +meant then to privately tell her husband: the deed accomplished was +not like the deed projected. He would almost certainly forgive her. + +And then the pretty palpitating Gertrude Lodge went from her +husband's homestead; but though her goal was Casterbridge she did +not take the direct route thither through Stickleford. Her cunning +course at first was in precisely the opposite direction. As soon as +she was out of sight, however, she turned to the left, by a road +which led into Egdon, and on entering the heath wheeled round, and +set out in the true course, due westerly. A more private way down +the county could not be imagined; and as to direction, she had +merely to keep her horse's head to a point a little to the right of +the sun. She knew that she would light upon a furze-cutter or +cottager of some sort from time to time, from whom she might correct +her bearing. + +Though the date was comparatively recent, Egdon was much less +fragmentary in character than now. The attempts--successful and +otherwise--at cultivation on the lower slopes, which intrude and +break up the original heath into small detached heaths, had not been +carried far; Enclosure Acts had not taken effect, and the banks and +fences which now exclude the cattle of those villagers who formerly +enjoyed rights of commonage thereon, and the carts of those who had +turbary privileges which kept them in firing all the year round, +were not erected. Gertrude, therefore, rode along with no other +obstacles than the prickly furze bushes, the mats of heather, the +white water-courses, and the natural steeps and declivities of the +ground. + +Her horse was sure, if heavy-footed and slow, and though a draught +animal, was easy-paced; had it been otherwise, she was not a woman +who could have ventured to ride over such a bit of country with a +half-dead arm. It was therefore nearly eight o'clock when she drew +rein to breathe the mare on the last outlying high point of heath- +land towards Casterbridge, previous to leaving Egdon for the +cultivated valleys. + +She halted before a pool called Rushy-pond, flanked by the ends of +two hedges; a railing ran through the centre of the pond, dividing +it in half. Over the railing she saw the low green country; over +the green trees the roofs of the town; over the roofs a white flat +facade, denoting the entrance to the county jail. On the roof of +this front specks were moving about; they seemed to be workmen +erecting something. Her flesh crept. She descended slowly, and was +soon amid corn-fields and pastures. In another half-hour, when it +was almost dusk, Gertrude reached the White Hart, the first inn of +the town on that side. + +Little surprise was excited by her arrival; farmers' wives rode on +horseback then more than they do now; though, for that matter, Mrs. +Lodge was not imagined to be a wife at all; the innkeeper supposed +her some harum-skarum young woman who had come to attend 'hang-fair' +next day. Neither her husband nor herself ever dealt in +Casterbridge market, so that she was unknown. While dismounting she +beheld a crowd of boys standing at the door of a harness-maker's +shop just above the inn, looking inside it with deep interest. + +'What is going on there?' she asked of the ostler. + +'Making the rope for to-morrow.' + +She throbbed responsively, and contracted her arm. + +''Tis sold by the inch afterwards,' the man continued. 'I could get +you a bit, miss, for nothing, if you'd like?' + +She hastily repudiated any such wish, all the more from a curious +creeping feeling that the condemned wretch's destiny was becoming +interwoven with her own; and having engaged a room for the night, +sat down to think. + +Up to this time she had formed but the vaguest notions about her +means of obtaining access to the prison. The words of the cunning- +man returned to her mind. He had implied that she should use her +beauty, impaired though it was, as a pass-key. In her inexperience +she knew little about jail functionaries; she had heard of a high- +sheriff and an under-sheriff; but dimly only. She knew, however, +that there must be a hangman, and to the hangman she determined to +apply. + + + +CHAPTER VIII--A WATER-SIDE HERMIT + + + +At this date, and for several years after, there was a hangman to +almost every jail. Gertrude found, on inquiry, that the +Casterbridge official dwelt in a lonely cottage by a deep slow river +flowing under the cliff on which the prison buildings were situate-- +the stream being the self-same one, though she did not know it, +which watered the Stickleford and Holmstoke meads lower down in its +course. + +Having changed her dress, and before she had eaten or drunk--for she +could not take her ease till she had ascertained some particulars-- +Gertrude pursued her way by a path along the water-side to the +cottage indicated. Passing thus the outskirts of the jail, she +discerned on the level roof over the gateway three rectangular lines +against the sky, where the specks had been moving in her distant +view; she recognized what the erection was, and passed quickly on. +Another hundred yards brought her to the executioner's house, which +a boy pointed out It stood close to the same stream, and was hard by +a weir, the waters of which emitted a steady roar. + +While she stood hesitating the door opened, and an old man came +forth shading a candle with one hand. Locking the door on the +outside, he turned to a flight of wooden steps fixed against the end +of the cottage, and began to ascend them, this being evidently the +staircase to his bedroom. Gertrude hastened forward, but by the +time she reached the foot of the ladder he was at the top. She +called to him loudly enough to be heard above the roar of the weir; +he looked down and said, 'What d'ye want here?' + +'To speak to you a minute.' + +The candle-light, such as it was, fell upon her imploring, pale, +upturned face, and Davies (as the hangman was called) backed down +the ladder. 'I was just going to bed,' he said; '"Early to bed and +early to rise," but I don't mind stopping a minute for such a one as +you. Come into house.' He reopened the door, and preceded her to +the room within. + +The implements of his daily work, which was that of a jobbing +gardener, stood in a corner, and seeing probably that she looked +rural, he said, 'If you want me to undertake country work I can't +come, for I never leave Casterbridge for gentle nor simple--not I. +My real calling is officer of justice,' he added formally. + +'Yes, yes! That's it. To-morrow!' + +'Ah! I thought so. Well, what's the matter about that? 'Tis no +use to come here about the knot--folks do come continually, but I +tell 'em one knot is as merciful as another if ye keep it under the +ear. Is the unfortunate man a relation; or, I should say, perhaps' +(looking at her dress) 'a person who's been in your employ?' + +'No. What time is the execution?' + +'The same as usual--twelve o'clock, or as soon after as the London +mail-coach gets in. We always wait for that, in case of a +reprieve.' + +'O--a reprieve--I hope not!' she said involuntarily, + +'Well,--hee, hee!--as a matter of business, so do I! But still, if +ever a young fellow deserved to be let off, this one does; only just +turned eighteen, and only present by chance when the rick was fired. +Howsomever, there's not much risk of it, as they are obliged to make +an example of him, there having been so much destruction of property +that way lately.' + +'I mean,' she explained, 'that I want to touch him for a charm, a +cure of an affliction, by the advice of a man who has proved the +virtue of the remedy.' + +'O yes, miss! Now I understand. I've had such people come in past +years. But it didn't strike me that you looked of a sort to require +blood-turning. What's the complaint? The wrong kind for this, I'll +be bound.' + +'My arm.' She reluctantly showed the withered skin. + +'Ah--'tis all a-scram!' said the hangman, examining it. + +'Yes,' said she. + +'Well,' he continued, with interest, 'that IS the class o' subject, +I'm bound to admit! I like the look of the place; it is truly as +suitable for the cure as any I ever saw. 'Twas a knowing-man that +sent 'ee, whoever he was.' + +'You can contrive for me all that's necessary?' she said +breathlessly. + +'You should really have gone to the governor of the jail, and your +doctor with 'ee, and given your name and address--that's how it used +to be done, if I recollect. Still, perhaps, I can manage it for a +trifling fee.' + +'O, thank you! I would rather do it this way, as I should like it +kept private.' + +'Lover not to know, eh?' + +'No--husband.' + +'Aha! Very well. I'll get ee' a touch of the corpse.' + +'Where is it now?' she said, shuddering. + +'It?--HE, you mean; he's living yet. Just inside that little small +winder up there in the glum.' He signified the jail on the cliff +above. + +She thought of her husband and her friends. 'Yes, of course,' she +said; 'and how am I to proceed?' + +He took her to the door. 'Now, do you be waiting at the little +wicket in the wall, that you'll find up there in the lane, not later +than one o'clock. I will open it from the inside, as I shan't come +home to dinner till he's cut down. Good-night. Be punctual; and if +you don't want anybody to know 'ee, wear a veil. Ah--once I had +such a daughter as you!' + +She went away, and climbed the path above, to assure herself that +she would be able to find the wicket next day. Its outline was soon +visible to her--a narrow opening in the outer wall of the prison +precincts. The steep was so great that, having reached the wicket, +she stopped a moment to breathe; and, looking back upon the water- +side cot, saw the hangman again ascending his outdoor staircase. He +entered the loft or chamber to which it led, and in a few minutes +extinguished his light. + +The town clock struck ten, and she returned to the White Hart as she +had come. + + + +CHAPTER IX--A RENCOUNTER + + + +It was one o'clock on Saturday. Gertrude Lodge, having been +admitted to the jail as above described, was sitting in a waiting- +room within the second gate, which stood under a classic archway of +ashlar, then comparatively modern, and bearing the inscription, +'COVNTY JAIL: 1793.' This had been the facade she saw from the +heath the day before. Near at hand was a passage to the roof on +which the gallows stood. + +The town was thronged, and the market suspended; but Gertrude had +seen scarcely a soul. Having kept her room till the hour of the +appointment, she had proceeded to the spot by a way which avoided +the open space below the cliff where the spectators had gathered; +but she could, even now, hear the multitudinous babble of their +voices, out of which rose at intervals the hoarse croak of a single +voice uttering the words, 'Last dying speech and confession!' There +had been no reprieve, and the execution was over; but the crowd +still waited to see the body taken down. + +Soon the persistent girl heard a trampling overhead, then a hand +beckoned to her, and, following directions, she went out and crossed +the inner paved court beyond the gatehouse, her knees trembling so +that she could scarcely walk. One of her arms was out of its +sleeve, and only covered by her shawl. + +On the spot at which she had now arrived were two trestles, and +before she could think of their purpose she heard heavy feet +descending stairs somewhere at her back. Turn her head she would +not, or could not, and, rigid in this position, she was conscious of +a rough coffin passing her shoulder, borne by four men. It was +open, and in it lay the body of a young man, wearing the smockfrock +of a rustic, and fustian breeches. The corpse had been thrown into +the coffin so hastily that the skirt of the smockfrock was hanging +over. The burden was temporarily deposited on the trestles. + +By this time the young woman's state was such that a gray mist +seemed to float before her eyes, on account of which, and the veil +she wore, she could scarcely discern anything: it was as though she +had nearly died, but was held up by a sort of galvanism. + +'Now!' said a voice close at hand, and she was just conscious that +the word had been addressed to her. + +By a last strenuous effort she advanced, at the same time hearing +persons approaching behind her. She bared her poor curst arm; and +Davies, uncovering the face of the corpse, took Gertrude's hand, and +held it so that her arm lay across the dead man's neck, upon a line +the colour of an unripe blackberry, which surrounded it. + +Gertrude shrieked: 'the turn o' the blood,' predicted by the +conjuror, had taken place. But at that moment a second shriek rent +the air of the enclosure: it was not Gertrude's, and its effect +upon her was to make her start round. + +Immediately behind her stood Rhoda Brook, her face drawn, and her +eyes red with weeping. Behind Rhoda stood Gertrude's own husband; +his countenance lined, his eyes dim, but without a tear. + +'D-n you! what are you doing here?' he said hoarsely. + +'Hussy--to come between us and our child now!' cried Rhoda. 'This +is the meaning of what Satan showed me in the vision! You are like +her at last!' And clutching the bare arm of the younger woman, she +pulled her unresistingly back against the wall. Immediately Brook +had loosened her hold the fragile young Gertrude slid down against +the feet of her husband. When he lifted her up she was unconscious. + +The mere sight of the twain had been enough to suggest to her that +the dead young man was Rhoda's son. At that time the relatives of +an executed convict had the privilege of claiming the body for +burial, if they chose to do so; and it was for this purpose that +Lodge was awaiting the inquest with Rhoda. He had been summoned by +her as soon as the young man was taken in the crime, and at +different times since; and he had attended in court during the +trial. This was the 'holiday' he had been indulging in of late. +The two wretched parents had wished to avoid exposure; and hence had +come themselves for the body, a waggon and sheet for its conveyance +and covering being in waiting outside. + +Gertrude's case was so serious that it was deemed advisable to call +to her the surgeon who was at hand. She was taken out of the jail +into the town; but she never reached home alive. Her delicate +vitality, sapped perhaps by the paralyzed arm, collapsed under the +double shock that followed the severe strain, physical and mental, +to which she had subjected herself during the previous twenty-four +hours. Her blood had been 'turned' indeed--too far. Her death took +place in the town three days after. + +Her husband was never seen in Casterbridge again; once only in the +old market-place at Anglebury, which he had so much frequented, and +very seldom in public anywhere. Burdened at first with moodiness +and remorse, he eventually changed for the better, and appeared as a +chastened and thoughtful man. Soon after attending the funeral of +his poor young wife he took steps towards giving up the farms in +Holmstoke and the adjoining parish, and, having sold every head of +his stock, he went away to Port-Bredy, at the other end of the +county, living there in solitary lodgings till his death two years +later of a painless decline. It was then found that he had +bequeathed the whole of his not inconsiderable property to a +reformatory for boys, subject to the payment of a small annuity to +Rhoda Brook, if she could be found to claim it. + +For some time she could not be found; but eventually she reappeared +in her old parish,--absolutely refusing, however, to have anything +to do with the provision made for her. Her monotonous milking at +the dairy was resumed, and followed for many long years, till her +form became bent, and her once abundant dark hair white and worn +away at the forehead--perhaps by long pressure against the cows. +Here, sometimes, those who knew her experiences would stand and +observe her, and wonder what sombre thoughts were beating inside +that impassive, wrinkled brow, to the rhythm of the alternating +milk-streams. + +('Blackwood's Magazine,' January 1888.) + + + + +FELLOW-TOWNSMEN + + + + +CHAPTER I + + + +The shepherd on the east hill could shout out lambing intelligence +to the shepherd on the west hill, over the intervening town +chimneys, without great inconvenience to his voice, so nearly did +the steep pastures encroach upon the burghers' backyards. And at +night it was possible to stand in the very midst of the town and +hear from their native paddocks on the lower levels of greensward +the mild lowing of the farmer's heifers, and the profound, warm +blowings of breath in which those creatures indulge. But the +community which had jammed itself in the valley thus flanked formed +a veritable town, with a real mayor and corporation, and a staple +manufacture. + +During a certain damp evening five-and-thirty years ago, before the +twilight was far advanced, a pedestrian of professional appearance, +carrying a small bag in his hand and an elevated umbrella, was +descending one of these hills by the turnpike road when he was +overtaken by a phaeton. + +'Hullo, Downe--is that you?' said the driver of the vehicle, a young +man of pale and refined appearance. 'Jump up here with me, and ride +down to your door.' + +The other turned a plump, cheery, rather self-indulgent face over +his shoulder towards the hailer. + +'O, good evening, Mr. Barnet--thanks,' he said, and mounted beside +his acquaintance. + +They were fellow-burgesses of the town which lay beneath them, but +though old and very good friends, they were differently +circumstanced. Barnet was a richer man than the struggling young +lawyer Downe, a fact which was to some extent perceptible in Downe's +manner towards his companion, though nothing of it ever showed in +Barnet's manner towards the solicitor. Barnet's position in the +town was none of his own making; his father had been a very +successful flax-merchant in the same place, where the trade was +still carried on as briskly as the small capacities of its quarters +would allow. Having acquired a fair fortune, old Mr. Barnet had +retired from business, bringing up his son as a gentleman-burgher, +and, it must be added, as a well-educated, liberal-minded young man. + +'How is Mrs. Barnet?' asked Downe. + +'Mrs. Barnet was very well when I left home,' the other answered +constrainedly, exchanging his meditative regard of the horse for one +of self-consciousness. + +Mr. Downe seemed to regret his inquiry, and immediately took up +another thread of conversation. He congratulated his friend on his +election as a council-man; he thought he had not seen him since that +event took place; Mrs. Downe had meant to call and congratulate Mrs. +Barnet, but he feared that she had failed to do so as yet. + +Barnet seemed hampered in his replies. 'WE should have been glad to +see you. I--my wife would welcome Mrs. Downe at any time, as you +know . . . Yes, I am a member of the corporation--rather an +inexperienced member, some of them say. It is quite true; and I +should have declined the honour as premature--having other things on +my hands just now, too--if it had not been pressed upon me so very +heartily.' + +'There is one thing you have on your hands which I can never quite +see the necessity for,' said Downe, with good-humoured freedom. +'What the deuce do you want to build that new mansion for, when you +have already got such an excellent house as the one you live in?' + +Barnet's face acquired a warmer shade of colour; but as the question +had been idly asked by the solicitor while regarding the surrounding +flocks and fields, he answered after a moment with no apparent +embarrassment - + +'Well, we wanted to get out of the town, you know: the house I am +living in is rather old and inconvenient.' Mr. Downe declared that +he had chosen a pretty site for the new building. They would be +able to see for miles and miles from the windows. Was he going to +give it a name? He supposed so. + +Barnet thought not. There was no other house near that was likely +to be mistaken for it. And he did not care for a name. + +'But I think it has a name!' Downe observed: 'I went past--when +was it?--this morning; and I saw something,--"Chateau Ringdale," I +think it was, stuck up on a board!' + +'It was an idea she--we had for a short time,' said Barnet hastily. +'But we have decided finally to do without a name--at any rate such +a name as that. It must have been a week ago that you saw it. It +was taken down last Saturday . . . Upon that matter I am firm!' he +added grimly. + +Downe murmured in an unconvinced tone that he thought he had seen it +yesterday. + +Talking thus they drove into the town. The street was unusually +still for the hour of seven in the evening; an increasing drizzle +had prevailed since the afternoon, and now formed a gauze across the +yellow lamps, and trickled with a gentle rattle down the heavy roofs +of stone tile, that bent the house-ridges hollow-backed with its +weight, and in some instances caused the walls to bulge outwards in +the upper story. Their route took them past the little town-hall, +the Black-Bull Hotel, and onward to the junction of a small street +on the right, consisting of a row of those two-and-two windowed +brick residences of no particular age, which are exactly alike +wherever found, except in the people they contain. + +'Wait--I'll drive you up to your door,' said Barnet, when Downe +prepared to alight at the corner. He thereupon turned into the +narrow street, when the faces of three little girls could be +discerned close to the panes of a lighted window a few yards ahead, +surmounted by that of a young matron, the gaze of all four being +directed eagerly up the empty street. 'You are a fortunate fellow, +Downe,' Barnet continued, as mother and children disappeared from +the window to run to the door. 'You must be happy if any man is. I +would give a hundred such houses as my new one to have a home like +yours.' + +'Well--yes, we get along pretty comfortably,' replied Downe +complacently. + +'That house, Downe, is none of my ordering,' Barnet broke out, +revealing a bitterness hitherto suppressed, and checking the horse a +moment to finish his speech before delivering up his passenger. +'The house I have already is good enough for me, as you supposed. +It is my own freehold; it was built by my grandfather, and is stout +enough for a castle. My father was born there, lived there, and +died there. I was born there, and have always lived there; yet I +must needs build a new one.' + +'Why do you?' said Downe. + +'Why do I? To preserve peace in the household. I do anything for +that; but I don't succeed. I was firm in resisting "Chateau +Ringdale," however; not that I would not have put up with the +absurdity of the name, but it was too much to have your house +christened after Lord Ringdale, because your wife once had a fancy +for him. If you only knew everything, you would think all attempt +at reconciliation hopeless. In your happy home you have had no such +experiences; and God forbid that you ever should. See, here they +are all ready to receive you!' + +'Of course! And so will your wife be waiting to receive you,' said +Downe. 'Take my word for it she will! And with a dinner prepared +for you far better than mine.' + +'I hope so,' Barnet replied dubiously. + +He moved on to Downe's door, which the solicitor's family had +already opened. Downe descended, but being encumbered with his bag +and umbrella, his foot slipped, and he fell upon his knees in the +gutter. + +'O, my dear Charles!' said his wife, running down the steps; and, +quite ignoring the presence of Barnet, she seized hold of her +husband, pulled him to his feet, and kissed him, exclaiming, 'I hope +you are not hurt, darling!' The children crowded round, chiming in +piteously, 'Poor papa!' + +'He's all right,' said Barnet, perceiving that Downe was only a +little muddy, and looking more at the wife than at the husband. +Almost at any other time--certainly during his fastidious bachelor +years--he would have thought her a too demonstrative woman; but +those recent circumstances of his own life to which he had just +alluded made Mrs. Downe's solicitude so affecting that his eye grew +damp as he witnessed it. Bidding the lawyer and his family good- +night he left them, and drove slowly into the main street towards +his own house. + +The heart of Barnet was sufficiently impressionable to be influenced +by Downe's parting prophecy that he might not be so unwelcome home +as he imagined: the dreary night might, at least on this one +occasion, make Downe's forecast true. Hence it was in a suspense +that he could hardly have believed possible that he halted at his +door. On entering his wife was nowhere to be seen, and he inquired +for her. The servant informed him that her mistress had the +dressmaker with her, and would be engaged for some time. + +'Dressmaker at this time of day!' + +'She dined early, sir, and hopes you will excuse her joining you +this evening.' + +'But she knew I was coming to-night?' + +'O yes, sir.' + +'Go up and tell her I am come.' + +The servant did so; but the mistress of the house merely transmitted +her former words. + +Barnet said nothing more, and presently sat down to his lonely meal, +which was eaten abstractedly, the domestic scene he had lately +witnessed still impressing him by its contrast with the situation +here. His mind fell back into past years upon a certain pleasing +and gentle being whose face would loom out of their shades at such +times as these. Barnet turned in his chair, and looked with +unfocused eyes in a direction southward from where he sat, as if he +saw not the room but a long way beyond. 'I wonder if she lives +there still!' he said. + + + +CHAPTER II + + + +He rose with a sudden rebelliousness, put on his hat and coat, and +went out of the house, pursuing his way along the glistening +pavement while eight o'clock was striking from St. Mary's tower, and +the apprentices and shopmen were slamming up the shutters from end +to end of the town. In two minutes only those shops which could +boast of no attendant save the master or the mistress remained with +open eyes. These were ever somewhat less prompt to exclude +customers than the others: for their owners' ears the closing hour +had scarcely the cheerfulness that it possessed for the hired +servants of the rest. Yet the night being dreary the delay was not +for long, and their windows, too, blinked together one by one. + +During this time Barnet had proceeded with decided step in a +direction at right angles to the broad main thoroughfare of the +town, by a long street leading due southward. Here, though his +family had no more to do with the flax manufacture, his own name +occasionally greeted him on gates and warehouses, being used +allusively by small rising tradesmen as a recommendation, in such +words as 'Smith, from Barnet & Co.'--'Robinson, late manager at +Barnet's.' The sight led him to reflect upon his father's busy +life, and he questioned if it had not been far happier than his own. + +The houses along the road became fewer, and presently open ground +appeared between them on either side, the track on the right hand +rising to a higher level till it merged in a knoll. On the summit a +row of builders' scaffold-poles probed the indistinct sky like +spears, and at their bases could be discerned the lower courses of a +building lately begun. Barnet slackened his pace and stood for a +few moments without leaving the centre of the road, apparently not +much interested in the sight, till suddenly his eye was caught by a +post in the fore part of the ground bearing a white board at the +top. He went to the rails, vaulted over, and walked in far enough +to discern painted upon the board 'Chateau Ringdale.' + +A dismal irony seemed to lie in the words, and its effect was to +irritate him. Downe, then, had spoken truly. He stuck his umbrella +into the sod, and seized the post with both hands, as if intending +to loosen and throw it down. Then, like one bewildered by an +opposition which would exist none the less though its manifestations +were removed, he allowed his arms to sink to his side. + +'Let it be,' he said to himself. 'I have declared there shall be +peace--if possible.' + +Taking up his umbrella he quietly left the enclosure, and went on +his way, still keeping his back to the town. He had advanced with +more decision since passing the new building, and soon a hoarse +murmur rose upon the gloom; it was the sound of the sea. The road +led to the harbour, at a distance of a mile from the town, from +which the trade of the district was fed. After seeing the obnoxious +name-board Barnet had forgotten to open his umbrella, and the rain +tapped smartly on his hat, and occasionally stroked his face as he +went on. + +Though the lamps were still continued at the roadside, they stood at +wider intervals than before, and the pavement had given place to +common road. Every time he came to a lamp an increasing shine made +itself visible upon his shoulders, till at last they quite glistened +with wet. The murmur from the shore grew stronger, but it was still +some distance off when he paused before one of the smallest of the +detached houses by the wayside, standing in its own garden, the +latter being divided from the road by a row of wooden palings. +Scrutinizing the spot to ensure that he was not mistaken, he opened +the gate and gently knocked at the cottage door. + +When he had patiently waited minutes enough to lead any man in +ordinary cases to knock again, the door was heard to open, though it +was impossible to see by whose hand, there being no light in the +passage. Barnet said at random, 'Does Miss Savile live here?' + +A youthful voice assured him that she did live there, and by a +sudden afterthought asked him to come in. It would soon get a +light, it said: but the night being wet, mother had not thought it +worth while to trim the passage lamp. + +'Don't trouble yourself to get a light for me,' said Barnet hastily; +'it is not necessary at all. Which is Miss Savile's sitting-room?' + +The young person, whose white pinafore could just be discerned, +signified a door in the side of the passage, and Barnet went forward +at the same moment, so that no light should fall upon his face. On +entering the room he closed the door behind him, pausing till he +heard the retreating footsteps of the child. + +He found himself in an apartment which was simply and neatly, though +not poorly furnished; everything, from the miniature chiffonnier to +the shining little daguerreotype which formed the central ornament +of the mantelpiece, being in scrupulous order. The picture was +enclosed by a frame of embroidered card-board--evidently the work of +feminine hands--and it was the portrait of a thin faced, elderly +lieutenant in the navy. From behind the lamp on the table a female +form now rose into view, that of a young girl, and a resemblance +between her and the portrait was early discoverable. She had been +so absorbed in some occupation on the other side of the lamp as to +have barely found time to realize her visitor's presence. + +They both remained standing for a few seconds without speaking. The +face that confronted Barnet had a beautiful outline; the +Raffaelesque oval of its contour was remarkable for an English +countenance, and that countenance housed in a remote country-road to +an unheard-of harbour. But her features did not do justice to this +splendid beginning: Nature had recollected that she was not in +Italy; and the young lady's lineaments, though not so inconsistent +as to make her plain, would have been accepted rather as pleasing +than as correct. The preoccupied expression which, like images on +the retina, remained with her for a moment after the state that +caused it had ceased, now changed into a reserved, half-proud, and +slightly indignant look, in which the blood diffused itself quickly +across her cheek, and additional brightness broke the shade of her +rather heavy eyes. + +'I know I have no business here,' he said, answering the look. 'But +I had a great wish to see you, and inquire how you were. You can +give your hand to me, seeing how often I have held it in past days?' + +'I would rather forget than remember all that, Mr. Barnet,' she +answered, as she coldly complied with the request. 'When I think of +the circumstances of our last meeting, I can hardly consider it kind +of you to allude to such a thing as our past--or, indeed, to come +here at all.' + +'There was no harm in it surely? I don't trouble you often, Lucy.' + +'I have not had the honour of a visit from you for a very long time, +certainly, and I did not expect it now,' she said, with the same +stiffness in her air. 'I hope Mrs. Barnet is very well?' + +'Yes, yes!' he impatiently returned. 'At least I suppose so--though +I only speak from inference!' + +'But she is your wife, sir,' said the young girl tremulously. + +The unwonted tones of a man's voice in that feminine chamber had +startled a canary that was roosting in its cage by the window; the +bird awoke hastily, and fluttered against the bars. She went and +stilled it by laying her face against the cage and murmuring a +coaxing sound. It might partly have been done to still herself. + +'I didn't come to talk of Mrs. Barnet,' he pursued; 'I came to talk +of you, of yourself alone; to inquire how you are getting on since +your great loss.' And he turned towards the portrait of her father. + +'I am getting on fairly well, thank you.' + +The force of her utterance was scarcely borne out by her look; but +Barnet courteously reproached himself for not having guessed a thing +so natural; and to dissipate all embarrassment, added, as he bent +over the table, 'What were you doing when I came?--painting flowers, +and by candlelight?' + +'O no,' she said, 'not painting them--only sketching the outlines. +I do that at night to save time--I have to get three dozen done by +the end of the month.' + +Barnet looked as if he regretted it deeply. 'You will wear your +poor eyes out,' he said, with more sentiment than he had hitherto +shown. 'You ought not to do it. There was a time when I should +have said you must not. Well--I almost wish I had never seen light +with my own eyes when I think of that!' + +'Is this a time or place for recalling such matters?' she asked, +with dignity. 'You used to have a gentlemanly respect for me, and +for yourself. Don't speak any more as you have spoken, and don't +come again. I cannot think that this visit is serious, or was +closely considered by you.' + +'Considered: well, I came to see you as an old and good friend--not +to mince matters, to visit a woman I loved. Don't be angry! I +could not help doing it, so many things brought you into my mind . . +. This evening I fell in with an acquaintance, and when I saw how +happy he was with his wife and family welcoming him home, though +with only one-tenth of my income and chances, and thought what might +have been in my case, it fairly broke down my discretion, and off I +came here. Now I am here I feel that I am wrong to some extent. +But the feeling that I should like to see you, and talk of those we +used to know in common, was very strong.' + +'Before that can be the case a little more time must pass,' said +Miss Savile quietly; 'a time long enough for me to regard with some +calmness what at present I remember far too impatiently--though it +may be you almost forget it. Indeed you must have forgotten it long +before you acted as you did.' Her voice grew stronger and more +vivacious as she added: 'But I am doing my best to forget it too, +and I know I shall succeed from the progress I have made already!' + +She had remained standing till now, when she turned and sat down, +facing half away from him. + +Barnet watched her moodily. 'Yes, it is only what I deserve,' he +said. 'Ambition pricked me on--no, it was not ambition, it was +wrongheadedness! Had I but reflected . . . ' He broke out +vehemently: 'But always remember this, Lucy: if you had written to +me only one little line after that misunderstanding, I declare I +should have come back to you. That ruined me!' he slowly walked as +far as the little room would allow him to go, and remained with his +eyes on the skirting. + +'But, Mr. Barnet, how could I write to you? There was no opening +for my doing so.' + +'Then there ought to have been,' said Barnet, turning. 'That was my +fault!' + +'Well, I don't know anything about that; but as there had been +nothing said by me which required any explanation by letter, I did +not send one. Everything was so indefinite, and feeling your +position to be so much wealthier than mine, I fancied I might have +mistaken your meaning. And when I heard of the other lady--a woman +of whose family even you might be proud--I thought how foolish I had +been, and said nothing.' + +'Then I suppose it was destiny--accident--I don't know what, that +separated us, dear Lucy. Anyhow you were the woman I ought to have +made my wife--and I let you slip, like the foolish man that I was!' + +'O, Mr. Barnet,' she said, almost in tears, 'don't revive the +subject to me; I am the wrong one to console you--think, sir,--you +should not be here--it would be so bad for me if it were known!' + +'It would--it would, indeed,' he said hastily. 'I am not right in +doing this, and I won't do it again.' + +'It is a very common folly of human nature, you know, to think the +course you did NOT adopt must have been the best,' she continued, +with gentle solicitude, as she followed him to the door of the room. +'And you don't know that I should have accepted you, even if you had +asked me to be your wife.' At this his eye met hers, and she +dropped her gaze. She knew that her voice belied her. There was a +silence till she looked up to add, in a voice of soothing +playfulness, 'My family was so much poorer than yours, even before I +lost my dear father, that--perhaps your companions would have made +it unpleasant for us on account of my deficiencies.' + +'Your disposition would soon have won them round,' said Barnet. + +She archly expostulated: 'Now, never mind my disposition; try to +make it up with your wife! Those are my commands to you. And now +you are to leave me at once.' + +'I will. I must make the best of it all, I suppose,' he replied, +more cheerfully than he had as yet spoken. 'But I shall never again +meet with such a dear girl as you!' And he suddenly opened the +door, and left her alone. When his glance again fell on the lamps +that were sparsely ranged along the dreary level road, his eyes were +in a state which showed straw-like motes of light radiating from +each flame into the surrounding air. + +On the other side of the way Barnet observed a man under an +umbrella, walking parallel with himself. Presently this man left +the footway, and gradually converged on Barnet's course. The latter +then saw that it was Charlson, a surgeon of the town, who owed him +money. Charlson was a man not without ability; yet he did not +prosper. Sundry circumstances stood in his way as a medical +practitioner: he was needy; he was not a coddle; he gossiped with +men instead of with women; he had married a stranger instead of one +of the town young ladies; and he was given to conversational +buffoonery. Moreover, his look was quite erroneous. Those only +proper features in the family doctor, the quiet eye, and the thin +straight passionless lips which never curl in public either for +laughter or for scorn, were not his; he had a full-curved mouth, and +a bold black eye that made timid people nervous. His companions +were what in old times would have been called boon companions--an +expression which, though of irreproachable root, suggests +fraternization carried to the point of unscrupulousness. All this +was against him in the little town of his adoption. + +Charlson had been in difficulties, and to oblige him Barnet had put +his name to a bill; and, as he had expected, was called upon to meet +it when it fell due. It had been only a matter of fifty pounds, +which Barnet could well afford to lose, and he bore no ill-will to +the thriftless surgeon on account of it. But Charlson had a little +too much brazen indifferentism in his composition to be altogether a +desirable acquaintance. + +'I hope to be able to make that little bill-business right with you +in the course of three weeks, Mr. Barnet,' said Charlson with hail- +fellow friendliness. + +Barnet replied good-naturedly that there was no hurry. + +This particular three weeks had moved on in advance of Charlson's +present with the precision of a shadow for some considerable time. + +'I've had a dream,' Charlson continued. Barnet knew from his tone +that the surgeon was going to begin his characteristic nonsense, and +did not encourage him. 'I've had a dream,' repeated Charlson, who +required no encouragement. 'I dreamed that a gentleman, who has +been very kind to me, married a haughty lady in haste, before he had +quite forgotten a nice little girl he knew before, and that one wet +evening, like the present, as I was walking up the harbour-road, I +saw him come out of that dear little girl's present abode.' + +Barnet glanced towards the speaker. The rays from a neighbouring +lamp struck through the drizzle under Charlson's umbrella, so as +just to illumine his face against the shade behind, and show that +his eye was turned up under the outer corner of its lid, whence it +leered with impish jocoseness as he thrust his tongue into his +cheek. + +'Come,' said Barnet gravely, 'we'll have no more of that.' + +'No, no--of course not,' Charlson hastily answered, seeing that his +humour had carried him too far, as it had done many times before. +He was profuse in his apologies, but Barnet did not reply. Of one +thing he was certain--that scandal was a plant of quick root, and +that he was bound to obey Lucy's injunction for Lucy's own sake. + + + +CHAPTER III + + + +He did so, to the letter; and though, as the crocus followed the +snowdrop and the daffodil the crocus in Lucy's garden, the harbour- +road was a not unpleasant place to walk in, Barnet's feet never trod +its stones, much less approached her door. He avoided a saunter +that way as he would have avoided a dangerous dram, and took his +airings a long distance northward, among severely square and brown +ploughed fields, where no other townsman came. Sometimes he went +round by the lower lanes of the borough, where the rope-walks +stretched in which his family formerly had share, and looked at the +rope-makers walking backwards, overhung by apple-trees and bushes, +and intruded on by cows and calves, as if trade had established +itself there at considerable inconvenience to Nature. + +One morning, when the sun was so warm as to raise a steam from the +south-eastern slopes of those flanking hills that looked so lovely +above the old roofs, but made every low-chimneyed house in the town +as smoky as Tophet, Barnet glanced from the windows of the town- +council room for lack of interest in what was proceeding within. +Several members of the corporation were present, but there was not +much business doing, and in a few minutes Downe came leisurely +across to him, saying that he seldom saw Barnet now. + +Barnet owned that he was not often present. + +Downe looked at the crimson curtain which hung down beside the +panes, reflecting its hot hues into their faces, and then out of the +window. At that moment there passed along the street a tall +commanding lady, in whom the solicitor recognized Barnet's wife. +Barnet had done the same thing, and turned away. + +'It will be all right some day,' said Downe, with cheering sympathy. + +'You have heard, then, of her last outbreak?' + +Downe depressed his cheerfulness to its very reverse in a moment. +'No, I have not heard of anything serious,' he said, with as long a +face as one naturally round could be turned into at short notice. +'I only hear vague reports of such things.' + +'You may think it will be all right,' said Barnet drily. 'But I +have a different opinion . . . No, Downe, we must look the thing in +the face. Not poppy nor mandragora--however, how are your wife and +children?' + +Downe said that they were all well, thanks; they were out that +morning somewhere; he was just looking to see if they were walking +that way. Ah, there they were, just coming down the street; and +Downe pointed to the figures of two children with a nursemaid, and a +lady walking behind them. + +'You will come out and speak to her?' he asked. + +'Not this morning. The fact is I don't care to speak to anybody +just now.' + +'You are too sensitive, Mr. Barnet. At school I remember you used +to get as red as a rose if anybody uttered a word that hurt your +feelings.' + +Barnet mused. 'Yes,' he admitted, 'there is a grain of truth in +that. It is because of that I often try to make peace at home. +Life would be tolerable then at any rate, even if not particularly +bright.' + +'I have thought more than once of proposing a little plan to you,' +said Downe with some hesitation. 'I don't know whether it will meet +your views, but take it or leave it, as you choose. In fact, it was +my wife who suggested it: that she would be very glad to call on +Mrs. Barnet and get into her confidence. She seems to think that +Mrs. Barnet is rather alone in the town, and without advisers. Her +impression is that your wife will listen to reason. Emily has a +wonderful way of winning the hearts of people of her own sex.' + +'And of the other sex too, I think. She is a charming woman, and +you were a lucky fellow to find her.' + +'Well, perhaps I was,' simpered Downe, trying to wear an aspect of +being the last man in the world to feel pride. 'However, she will +be likely to find out what ruffles Mrs. Barnet. Perhaps it is some +misunderstanding, you know--something that she is too proud to ask +you to explain, or some little thing in your conduct that irritates +her because she does not fully comprehend you. The truth is, Emily +would have been more ready to make advances if she had been quite +sure of her fitness for Mrs. Barnet's society, who has of course +been accustomed to London people of good position, which made Emily +fearful of intruding.' + +Barnet expressed his warmest thanks for the well-intentioned +proposition. There was reason in Mrs. Downe's fear--that he owned. +'But do let her call,' he said. 'There is no woman in England I +would so soon trust on such an errand. I am afraid there will not +be any brilliant result; still I shall take it as the kindest and +nicest thing if she will try it, and not be frightened at a +repulse.' + +When Barnet and Downe had parted, the former went to the Town +Savings-Bank, of which he was a trustee, and endeavoured to forget +his troubles in the contemplation of low sums of money, and figures +in a network of red and blue lines. He sat and watched the working- +people making their deposits, to which at intervals he signed his +name. Before he left in the afternoon Downe put his head inside the +door. + +'Emily has seen Mrs. Barnet,' he said, in a low voice. 'She has got +Mrs. Barnet's promise to take her for a drive down to the shore to- +morrow, if it is fine. Good afternoon!' + +Barnet shook Downe by the hand without speaking, and Downe went +away. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + +The next day was as fine as the arrangement could possibly require. +As the sun passed the meridian and declined westward, the tall +shadows from the scaffold-poles of Barnet's rising residence +streaked the ground as far as to the middle of the highway. Barnet +himself was there inspecting the progress of the works for the first +time during several weeks. A building in an old-fashioned town +five-and-thirty years ago did not, as in the modern fashion, rise +from the sod like a booth at a fair. The foundations and lower +courses were put in and allowed to settle for many weeks before the +superstructure was built up, and a whole summer of drying was hardly +sufficient to do justice to the important issues involved. Barnet +stood within a window-niche which had as yet received no frame, and +thence looked down a slope into the road. The wheels of a chaise +were heard, and then his handsome Xantippe, in the company of Mrs. +Downe, drove past on their way to the shore. They were driving +slowly; there was a pleasing light in Mrs. Downe's face, which +seemed faintly to reflect itself upon the countenance of her +companion--that politesse du coeur which was so natural to her +having possibly begun already to work results. But whatever the +situation, Barnet resolved not to interfere, or do anything to +hazard the promise of the day. He might well afford to trust the +issue to another when he could never direct it but to ill himself. +His wife's clenched rein-hand in its lemon-coloured glove, her stiff +erect figure, clad in velvet and lace, and her boldly-outlined face, +passed on, exhibiting their owner as one fixed for ever above the +level of her companion--socially by her early breeding, and +materially by her higher cushion. + +Barnet decided to allow them a proper time to themselves, and then +stroll down to the shore and drive them home. After lingering on at +the house for another hour he started with this intention. A few +hundred yards below 'Chateau Ringdale' stood the cottage in which +the late lieutenant's daughter had her lodging. Barnet had not been +so far that way for a long time, and as he approached the forbidden +ground a curious warmth passed into him, which led him to perceive +that, unless he were careful, he might have to fight the battle with +himself about Lucy over again. A tenth of his present excuse would, +however, have justified him in travelling by that road to-day. + +He came opposite the dwelling, and turned his eyes for a momentary +glance into the little garden that stretched from the palings to the +door. Lucy was in the enclosure; she was walking and stooping to +gather some flowers, possibly for the purpose of painting them, for +she moved about quickly, as if anxious to save time. She did not +see him; he might have passed unnoticed; but a sensation which was +not in strict unison with his previous sentiments that day led him +to pause in his walk and watch her. She went nimbly round and round +the beds of anemones, tulips, jonquils, polyanthuses, and other old- +fashioned flowers, looking a very charming figure in her half- +mourning bonnet, and with an incomplete nosegay in her left hand. +Raising herself to pull down a lilac blossom she observed him. + +'Mr. Barnet!' she said, innocently smiling. 'Why, I have been +thinking of you many times since Mrs. Barnet went by in the pony- +carriage, and now here you are!' + +'Yes, Lucy,' he said. + +Then she seemed to recall particulars of their last meeting, and he +believed that she flushed, though it might have been only the fancy +of his own supersensitivenesss. + +'I am going to the harbour,' he added. + +'Are you?' Lucy remarked simply. 'A great many people begin to go +there now the summer is drawing on.' + +Her face had come more into his view as she spoke, and he noticed +how much thinner and paler it was than when he had seen it last. +'Lucy, how weary you look! tell me, can I help you?' he was going to +cry out.--'If I do,' he thought, 'it will be the ruin of us both!' +He merely said that the afternoon was fine, and went on his way. + +As he went a sudden blast of air came over the hill as if in +contradiction to his words, and spoilt the previous quiet of the +scene. The wind had already shifted violently, and now smelt of the +sea. + +The harbour-road soon began to justify its name. A gap appeared in +the rampart of hills which shut out the sea, and on the left of the +opening rose a vertical cliff, coloured a burning orange by the +sunlight, the companion cliff on the right being livid in shade. +Between these cliffs, like the Libyan bay which sheltered the +shipwrecked Trojans, was a little haven, seemingly a beginning made +by Nature herself of a perfect harbour, which appealed to the +passer-by as only requiring a little human industry to finish it and +make it famous, the ground on each side as far back as the daisied +slopes that bounded the interior valley being a mere layer of blown +sand. But the Port-Bredy burgesses a mile inland had, in the course +of ten centuries, responded many times to that mute appeal, with the +result that the tides had invariably choked up their works with sand +and shingle as soon as completed. There were but few houses here: +a rough pier, a few boats, some stores, an inn, a residence or two, +a ketch unloading in the harbour, were the chief features of the +settlement. On the open ground by the shore stood his wife's pony- +carriage, empty, the boy in attendance holding the horse. + +When Barnet drew nearer, he saw an indigo-coloured spot moving +swiftly along beneath the radiant base of the eastern cliff, which +proved to be a man in a jersey, running with all his might. He held +up his hand to Barnet, as it seemed, and they approached each other. +The man was local, but a stranger to him. + +'What is it, my man?' said Barnet. + +'A terrible calamity!' the boatman hastily explained. Two ladies +had been capsized in a boat--they were Mrs. Downe and Mrs. Barnet of +the old town; they had driven down there that afternoon--they had +alighted, and it was so fine, that, after walking about a little +while, they had been tempted to go out for a short sail round the +cliff. Just as they were putting in to the shore, the wind shifted +with a sudden gust, the boat listed over, and it was thought they +were both drowned. How it could have happened was beyond his mind +to fathom, for John Green knew how to sail a boat as well as any man +there. + +'Which is the way to the place?' said Barnet. + +It was just round the cliff. + +'Run to the carriage and tell the boy to bring it to the place as +soon as you can. Then go to the Harbour Inn and tell them to ride +to town for a doctor. Have they been got out of the water?' + +'One lady has.' + +'Which?' + +'Mrs. Barnet. Mrs. Downe, it is feared, has fleeted out to sea.' + +Barnet ran on to that part of the shore which the cliff had hitherto +obscured from his view, and there discerned, a long way ahead, a +group of fishermen standing. As soon as he came up one or two +recognized him, and, not liking to meet his eye, turned aside with +misgiving. He went amidst them and saw a small sailing-boat lying +draggled at the water's edge; and, on the sloping shingle beside it, +a soaked and sandy woman's form in the velvet dress and yellow +gloves of his wife. + + + +CHAPTER V + + + +All had been done that could be done. Mrs. Barnet was in her own +house under medical hands, but the result was still uncertain. +Barnet had acted as if devotion to his wife were the dominant +passion of his existence. There had been much to decide--whether to +attempt restoration of the apparently lifeless body as it lay on the +shore--whether to carry her to the Harbour Inn--whether to drive +with her at once to his own house. The first course, with no +skilled help or appliances near at hand, had seemed hopeless. The +second course would have occupied nearly as much time as a drive to +the town, owing to the intervening ridges of shingle, and the +necessity of crossing the harbour by boat to get to the house, added +to which much time must have elapsed before a doctor could have +arrived down there. By bringing her home in the carriage some +precious moments had slipped by; but she had been laid in her own +bed in seven minutes, a doctor called to her side, and every +possible restorative brought to bear upon her. + +At what a tearing pace he had driven up that road, through the +yellow evening sunlight, the shadows flapping irksomely into his +eyes as each wayside object rushed past between him and the west! +Tired workmen with their baskets at their backs had turned on their +homeward journey to wonder at his speed. Halfway between the shore +and Port-Bredy town he had met Charlson, who had been the first +surgeon to hear of the accident. He was accompanied by his +assistant in a gig. Barnet had sent on the latter to the coast in +case that Downe's poor wife should by that time have been reclaimed +from the waves, and had brought Charlson back with him to the house. + +Barnet's presence was not needed here, and he felt it to be his next +duty to set off at once and find Downe, that no other than himself +might break the news to him. + +He was quite sure that no chance had been lost for Mrs. Downe by his +leaving the shore. By the time that Mrs. Barnet had been laid in +the carriage, a much larger group had assembled to lend assistance +in finding her friend, rendering his own help superfluous. But the +duty of breaking the news was made doubly painful by the +circumstance that the catastrophe which had befallen Mrs. Downe was +solely the result of her own and her husband's loving-kindness +towards himself. + +He found Downe in his office. When the solicitor comprehended the +intelligence he turned pale, stood up, and remained for a moment +perfectly still, as if bereft of his faculties; then his shoulders +heaved, he pulled out his handkerchief and began to cry like a +child. His sobs might have been heard in the next room. He seemed +to have no idea of going to the shore, or of doing anything; but +when Barnet took him gently by the hand and proposed to start at +once, he quietly acquiesced, neither uttering any further word nor +making any effort to repress his tears. + +Barnet accompanied him to the shore, where, finding that no trace +had as yet been seen of Mrs. Downe, and that his stay would be of no +avail, he left Downe with his friends and the young doctor, and once +more hastened back to his own house. + +At the door he met Charlson. 'Well!' Barnet said. + +'I have just come down,' said the doctor; 'we have done everything, +but without result. I sympathize with you in your bereavement.' + +Barnet did not much appreciate Charlson's sympathy, which sounded to +his ears as something of a mockery from the lips of a man who knew +what Charlson knew about their domestic relations. Indeed there +seemed an odd spark in Charlson's full black eye as he said the +words; but that might have been imaginary. + +'And, Mr. Barnet,' Charlson resumed, 'that little matter between us- +-I hope to settle it finally in three weeks at least.' + +'Never mind that now,' said Barnet abruptly. He directed the +surgeon to go to the harbour in case his services might even now be +necessary there: and himself entered the house. + +The servants were coming from his wife's chamber, looking helplessly +at each other and at him. He passed them by and entered the room, +where he stood mutely regarding the bed for a few minutes, after +which he walked into his own dressing-room adjoining, and there +paced up and down. In a minute or two he noticed what a strange and +total silence had come over the upper part of the house; his own +movements, muffled as they were by the carpet, seemed noisy, and his +thoughts to disturb the air like articulate utterances. His eye +glanced through the window. Far down the road to the harbour a roof +detained his gaze: out of it rose a red chimney, and out of the red +chimney a curl of smoke, as from a fire newly kindled. He had often +seen such a sight before. In that house lived Lucy Savile; and the +smoke was from the fire which was regularly lighted at this time to +make her tea. + +After that he went back to the bedroom, and stood there some time +regarding his wife's silent form. She was a woman some years older +than himself, but had not by any means overpassed the maturity of +good looks and vigour. Her passionate features, well-defined, firm, +and statuesque in life, were doubly so now: her mouth and brow, +beneath her purplish black hair, showed only too clearly that the +turbulency of character which had made a bear-garden of his house +had been no temporary phase of her existence. While he reflected, +he suddenly said to himself, I wonder if all has been done? + +The thought was led up to by his having fancied that his wife's +features lacked in its complete form the expression which he had +been accustomed to associate with the faces of those whose spirits +have fled for ever. The effacement of life was not so marked but +that, entering uninformed, he might have supposed her sleeping. Her +complexion was that seen in the numerous faded portraits by Sir +Joshua Reynolds; it was pallid in comparison with life, but there +was visible on a close inspection the remnant of what had once been +a flush; the keeping between the cheeks and the hollows of the face +being thus preserved, although positive colour was gone. Long +orange rays of evening sun stole in through chinks in the blind, +striking on the large mirror, and being thence reflected upon the +crimson hangings and woodwork of the heavy bedstead, so that the +general tone of light was remarkably warm; and it was probable that +something might be due to this circumstance. Still the fact +impressed him as strange. Charlson had been gone more than a +quarter of an hour: could it be possible that he had left too soon, +and that his attempts to restore her had operated so sluggishly as +only now to have made themselves felt? Barnet laid his hand upon +her chest, and fancied that ever and anon a faint flutter of +palpitation, gentle as that of a butterfly's wing, disturbed the +stillness there--ceasing for a time, then struggling to go on, then +breaking down in weakness and ceasing again. + +Barnet's mother had been an active practitioner of the healing art +among her poorer neighbours, and her inspirations had all been +derived from an octavo volume of Domestic Medicine, which at this +moment was lying, as it had lain for many years, on a shelf in +Barnet's dressing-room. He hastily fetched it, and there read under +the head 'Drowning:'- + + +'Exertions for the recovery of any person who has not been immersed +for a longer period than half-an-hour should be continued for at +least four hours, as there have been many cases in which returning +life has made itself visible even after a longer interval. + +'Should, however, a weak action of any of the organs show itself +when the case seems almost hopeless, our efforts must be redoubled; +the feeble spark in this case requires to be solicited; it will +certainly disappear under a relaxation of labour.' + + +Barnet looked at his watch; it was now barely two hours and a half +from the time when he had first heard of the accident. He threw +aside the book and turned quickly to reach a stimulant which had +previously been used. Pulling up the blind for more light, his eye +glanced out of the window. There he saw that red chimney still +smoking cheerily, and that roof, and through the roof that somebody. +His mechanical movements stopped, his hand remained on the blind- +cord, and he seemed to become breathless, as if he had suddenly +found himself treading a high rope. + +While he stood a sparrow lighted on the windowsill, saw him, and +flew away. Next a man and a dog walked over one of the green hills +which bulged above the roofs of the town. But Barnet took no +notice. + +We may wonder what were the exact images that passed through his +mind during those minutes of gazing upon Lucy Savile's house, the +sparrow, the man and the dog, and Lucy Savile's house again. There +are honest men who will not admit to their thoughts, even as idle +hypotheses, views of the future that assume as done a deed which +they would recoil from doing; and there are other honest men for +whom morality ends at the surface of their own heads, who will +deliberate what the first will not so much as suppose. Barnet had a +wife whose pretence distracted his home; she now lay as in death; by +merely doing nothing--by letting the intelligence which had gone +forth to the world lie undisturbed--he would effect such a +deliverance for himself as he had never hoped for, and open up an +opportunity of which till now he had never dreamed. Whether the +conjuncture had arisen through any unscrupulous, ill-considered +impulse of Charlson to help out of a strait the friend who was so +kind as never to press him for what was due could not be told; there +was nothing to prove it; and it was a question which could never be +asked. The triangular situation--himself--his wife--Lucy Savile-- +was the one clear thing. + +From Barnet's actions we may infer that he SUPPOSED such and such a +result, for a moment, but did not deliberate. He withdrew his hazel +eyes from the scene without, calmly turned, rang the bell for +assistance, and vigorously exerted himself to learn if life still +lingered in that motionless frame. In a short time another surgeon +was in attendance; and then Barnet's surmise proved to be true. The +slow life timidly heaved again; but much care and patience were +needed to catch and retain it, and a considerable period elapsed +before it could be said with certainty that Mrs. Barnet lived. When +this was the case, and there was no further room for doubt, Barnet +left the chamber. The blue evening smoke from Lucy's chimney had +died down to an imperceptible stream, and as he walked about +downstairs he murmured to himself, 'My wife was dead, and she is +alive again.' + +It was not so with Downe. After three hours' immersion his wife's +body had been recovered, life, of course, being quite extinct. +Barnet on descending, went straight to his friend's house, and there +learned the result. Downe was helpless in his wild grief, +occasionally even hysterical. Barnet said little, but finding that +some guiding hand was necessary in the sorrow-stricken household, +took upon him to supervise and manage till Downe should be in a +state of mind to do so for himself. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + +One September evening, four months later, when Mrs. Barnet was in +perfect health, and Mrs. Downe but a weakening memory, an errand-boy +paused to rest himself in front of Mr. Barnet's old house, +depositing his basket on one of the window-sills. The street was +not yet lighted, but there were lights in the house, and at +intervals a flitting shadow fell upon the blind at his elbow. Words +also were audible from the same apartment, and they seemed to be +those of persons in violent altercation. But the boy could not +gather their purport, and he went on his way. + +Ten minutes afterwards the door of Barnet's house opened, and a tall +closely-veiled lady in a travelling-dress came out and descended the +freestone steps. The servant stood in the doorway watching her as +she went with a measured tread down the street. When she had been +out of sight for some minutes Barnet appeared at the door from +within. + +'Did your mistress leave word where she was going?' he asked. + +'No, sir.' + +'Is the carriage ordered to meet her anywhere?' + +'No, sir.' + +'Did she take a latch-key?' + +'No, sir.' + +Barnet went in again, sat down in his chair, and leaned back. Then +in solitude and silence he brooded over the bitter emotions that +filled his heart. It was for this that he had gratuitously restored +her to life, and made his union with another impossible! The +evening drew on, and nobody came to disturb him. At bedtime he told +the servants to retire, that he would sit up for Mrs. Barnet +himself; and when they were gone he leaned his head upon his hand +and mused for hours. + +The clock struck one, two; still his wife came not, and, with +impatience added to depression, he went from room to room till +another weary hour had passed. This was not altogether a new +experience for Barnet; but she had never before so prolonged her +absence. At last he sat down again and fell asleep. + +He awoke at six o'clock to find that she had not returned. In +searching about the rooms he discovered that she had taken a case of +jewels which had been hers before her marriage. At eight a note was +brought him; it was from his wife, in which she stated that she had +gone by the coach to the house of a distant relative near London, +and expressed a wish that certain boxes, articles of clothing, and +so on, might be sent to her forthwith. The note was brought to him +by a waiter at the Black-Bull Hotel, and had been written by Mrs. +Barnet immediately before she took her place in the stage. + +By the evening this order was carried out, and Barnet, with a sense +of relief, walked out into the town. A fair had been held during +the day, and the large clear moon which rose over the most prominent +hill flung its light upon the booths and standings that still +remained in the street, mixing its rays curiously with those from +the flaring naphtha lamps. The town was full of country-people who +had come in to enjoy themselves, and on this account Barnet strolled +through the streets unobserved. With a certain recklessness he made +for the harbour-road, and presently found himself by the shore, +where he walked on till he came to the spot near which his friend +the kindly Mrs. Downe had lost her life, and his own wife's life had +been preserved. A tremulous pathway of bright moonshine now +stretched over the water which had engulfed them, and not a living +soul was near. + +Here he ruminated on their characters, and next on the young girl in +whom he now took a more sensitive interest than at the time when he +had been free to marry her. Nothing, so far as he was aware, had +ever appeared in his own conduct to show that such an interest +existed. He had made it a point of the utmost strictness to hinder +that feeling from influencing in the faintest degree his attitude +towards his wife; and this was made all the more easy for him by the +small demand Mrs. Barnet made upon his attentions, for which she +ever evinced the greatest contempt; thus unwittingly giving him the +satisfaction of knowing that their severance owed nothing to +jealousy, or, indeed, to any personal behaviour of his at all. Her +concern was not with him or his feelings, as she frequently told +him; but that she had, in a moment of weakness, thrown herself away +upon a common burgher when she might have aimed at, and possibly +brought down, a peer of the realm. Her frequent depreciation of +Barnet in these terms had at times been so intense that he was +sorely tempted to retaliate on her egotism by owning that he loved +at the same low level on which he lived; but prudence had prevailed, +for which he was now thankful. + +Something seemed to sound upon the shingle behind him over and above +the raking of the wave. He looked round, and a slight girlish shape +appeared quite close to him, He could not see her face because it +was in the direction of the moon. + +'Mr. Barnet?' the rambler said, in timid surprise. The voice was +the voice of Lucy Savile. + +'Yes,' said Barnet. 'How can I repay you for this pleasure?' + +'I only came because the night was so clear. I am now on my way +home.' + +'I am glad we have met. I want to know if you will let me do +something for you, to give me an occupation, as an idle man? I am +sure I ought to help you, for I know you are almost without +friends.' + +She hesitated. 'Why should you tell me that?' she said. + +'In the hope that you will be frank with me.' + +'I am not altogether without friends here. But I am going to make a +little change in my life--to go out as a teacher of freehand drawing +and practical perspective, of course I mean on a comparatively +humble scale, because I have not been specially educated for that +profession. But I am sure I shall like it much.' + +'You have an opening?' + +'I have not exactly got it, but I have advertised for one.' + +'Lucy, you must let me help you!' + +'Not at all.' + +'You need not think it would compromise you, or that I am +indifferent to delicacy. I bear in mind how we stand. It is very +unlikely that you will succeed as teacher of the class you mention, +so let me do something of a different kind for you. Say what you +would like, and it shall be done.' + +'No; if I can't be a drawing-mistress or governess, or something of +that sort, I shall go to India and join my brother.' + +'I wish I could go abroad, anywhere, everywhere with you, Lucy, and +leave this place and its associations for ever!' + +She played with the end of her bonnet-string, and hastily turned +aside. 'Don't ever touch upon that kind of topic again,' she said, +with a quick severity not free from anger. 'It simply makes it +impossible for me to see you, much less receive any guidance from +you. No, thank you, Mr. Barnet; you can do nothing for me at +present; and as I suppose my uncertainty will end in my leaving for +India, I fear you never will. If ever I think you CAN do anything, +I will take the trouble to ask you. Till then, good-bye.' + +The tone of her latter words was equivocal, and while he remained in +doubt whether a gentle irony was or was not inwrought with their +sound, she swept lightly round and left him alone. He saw her form +get smaller and smaller along the damp belt of sea-sand between ebb +and flood; and when she had vanished round the cliff into the +harbour-road, he himself followed in the same direction. + +That her hopes from an advertisement should be the single thread +which held Lucy Savile in England was too much for Barnet. On +reaching the town he went straight to the residence of Downe, now a +widower with four children. The young motherless brood had been +sent to bed about a quarter of an hour earlier, and when Barnet +entered he found Downe sitting alone. It was the same room as that +from which the family had been looking out for Downe at the +beginning of the year, when Downe had slipped into the gutter and +his wife had been so enviably tender towards him. The old neatness +had gone from the house; articles lay in places which could show no +reason for their presence, as if momentarily deposited there some +months ago, and forgotten ever since; there were no flowers; things +were jumbled together on the furniture which should have been in +cupboards; and the place in general had that stagnant, unrenovated +air which usually pervades the maimed home of the widower. + +Downe soon renewed his customary full-worded lament over his wife, +and even when he had worked himself up to tears, went on volubly, as +if a listener were a luxury to be enjoyed whenever he could be +caught. + +'She was a treasure beyond compare, Mr. Barnet! I shall never see +such another. Nobody now to nurse me--nobody to console me in those +daily troubles, you know, Barnet, which make consolation so +necessary to a nature like mine. It would be unbecoming to repine, +for her spirit's home was elsewhere--the tender light in her eyes +always showed it; but it is a long dreary time that I have before +me, and nobody else can ever fill the void left in my heart by her +loss--nobody--nobody!' And Downe wiped his eyes again. + +'She was a good woman in the highest sense,' gravely answered +Barnet, who, though Downe's words drew genuine compassion from his +heart, could not help feeling that a tender reticence would have +been a finer tribute to Mrs. Downe's really sterling virtues than +such a second-class lament as this. + +'I have something to show you,' Downe resumed, producing from a +drawer a sheet of paper on which was an elaborate design for a +canopied tomb. 'This has been sent me by the architect, but it is +not exactly what I want.' + +'You have got Jones to do it, I see, the man who is carrying out my +house,' said Barnet, as he glanced at the signature to the drawing. + +'Yes, but it is not quite what I want. I want something more +striking--more like a tomb I have seen in St. Paul's Cathedral. +Nothing less will do justice to my feelings, and how far short of +them that will fall!' + +Barnet privately thought the design a sufficiently imposing one as +it stood, even extravagantly ornate; but, feeling that he had no +right to criticize, he said gently, 'Downe, should you not live more +in your children's lives at the present time, and soften the +sharpness of regret for your own past by thinking of their future?' + +'Yes, yes; but what can I do more?' asked Downe, wrinkling his +forehead hopelessly. + +It was with anxious slowness that Barnet produced his reply--the +secret object of his visit to-night. 'Did you not say one day that +you ought by rights to get a governess for the children?' + +Downe admitted that he had said so, but that he could not see his +way to it. 'The kind of woman I should like to have,' he said, +'would be rather beyond my means. No; I think I shall send them to +school in the town when they are old enough to go out alone.' + +'Now, I know of something better than that. The late Lieutenant +Savile's daughter, Lucy, wants to do something for herself in the +way of teaching. She would be inexpensive, and would answer your +purpose as well as anybody for six or twelve months. She would +probably come daily if you were to ask her, and so your housekeeping +arrangements would not be much affected.' + +'I thought she had gone away,' said the solicitor, musing. 'Where +does she live?' + +Barnet told him, and added that, if Downe should think of her as +suitable, he would do well to call as soon as possible, or she might +be on the wing. 'If you do see her,' he said, 'it would be +advisable not to mention my name. She is rather stiff in her ideas +of me, and it might prejudice her against a course if she knew that +I recommended it.' + +Downe promised to give the subject his consideration, and nothing +more was said about it just then. But when Barnet rose to go, which +was not till nearly bedtime, he reminded Downe of the suggestion and +went up the street to his own solitary home with a sense of +satisfaction at his promising diplomacy in a charitable cause. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + + +The walls of his new house were carried up nearly to their full +height. By a curious though not infrequent reaction, Barnet's +feelings about that unnecessary structure had undergone a change; he +took considerable interest in its progress as a long-neglected +thing, his wife before her departure having grown quite weary of it +as a hobby. Moreover, it was an excellent distraction for a man in +the unhappy position of having to live in a provincial town with +nothing to do. He was probably the first of his line who had ever +passed a day without toil, and perhaps something like an inherited +instinct disqualifies such men for a life of pleasant inaction, such +as lies in the power of those whose leisure is not a personal +accident, but a vast historical accretion which has become part of +their natures. + +Thus Barnet got into a way of spending many of his leisure hours on +the site of the new building, and he might have been seen on most +days at this time trying the temper of the mortar by punching the +joints with his stick, looking at the grain of a floor-board, and +meditating where it grew, or picturing under what circumstances the +last fire would be kindled in the at present sootless chimneys. One +day when thus occupied he saw three children pass by in the company +of a fair young woman, whose sudden appearance caused him to flush +perceptibly. + +'Ah, she is there,' he thought. 'That's a blessed thing.' + +Casting an interested glance over the rising building and the busy +workmen, Lucy Savile and the little Downes passed by; and after that +time it became a regular though almost unconscious custom of Barnet +to stand in the half-completed house and look from the ungarnished +windows at the governess as she tripped towards the sea-shore with +her young charges, which she was in the habit of doing on most fine +afternoons. It was on one of these occasions, when he had been +loitering on the first-floor landing, near the hole left for the +staircase, not yet erected, that there appeared above the edge of +the floor a little hat, followed by a little head. + +Barnet withdrew through a doorway, and the child came to the top of +the ladder, stepping on to the floor and crying to her sisters and +Miss Savile to follow. Another head rose above the floor, and +another, and then Lucy herself came into view. The troop ran hither +and thither through the empty, shaving-strewn rooms, and Barnet came +forward. + +Lucy uttered a small exclamation: she was very sorry that she had +intruded; she had not the least idea that Mr. Barnet was there: the +children had come up, and she had followed. + +Barnet replied that he was only too glad to see them there. 'And +now, let me show you the rooms,' he said. + +She passively assented, and he took her round. There was not much +to show in such a bare skeleton of a house, but he made the most of +it, and explained the different ornamental fittings that were soon +to be fixed here and there. Lucy made but few remarks in reply, +though she seemed pleased with her visit, and stole away down the +ladder, followed by her companions. + +After this the new residence became yet more of a hobby for Barnet. +Downe's children did not forget their first visit, and when the +windows were glazed, and the handsome staircase spread its broad low +steps into the hall, they came again, prancing in unwearied +succession through every room from ground-floor to attics, while +Lucy stood waiting for them at the door. Barnet, who rarely missed +a day in coming to inspect progress, stepped out from the drawing- +room. + +'I could not keep them out,' she said, with an apologetic blush. 'I +tried to do so very much: but they are rather wilful, and we are +directed to walk this way for the sea air.' + +'Do let them make the house their regular playground, and you +yours,' said Barnet. 'There is no better place for children to romp +and take their exercise in than an empty house, particularly in +muddy or damp weather such as we shall get a good deal of now; and +this place will not be furnished for a long long time--perhaps +never. I am not at all decided about it.' + +'O, but it must!' replied Lucy, looking round at the hall. 'The +rooms are excellent, twice as high as ours; and the views from the +windows are so lovely.' + +'I daresay, I daresay,' he said absently. + +'Will all the furniture be new?' she asked. + +'All the furniture be new--that's a thing I have not thought of. In +fact I only come here and look on. My father's house would have +been large enough for me, but another person had a voice in the +matter, and it was settled that we should build. However, the place +grows upon me; its recent associations are cheerful, and I am +getting to like it fast.' + +A certain uneasiness in Lucy's manner showed that the conversation +was taking too personal a turn for her. 'Still, as modern tastes +develop, people require more room to gratify them in,' she said, +withdrawing to call the children; and serenely bidding him good +afternoon she went on her way. + +Barnet's life at this period was singularly lonely, and yet he was +happier than he could have expected. His wife's estrangement and +absence, which promised to be permanent, left him free as a boy in +his movements, and the solitary walks that he took gave him ample +opportunity for chastened reflection on what might have been his lot +if he had only shown wisdom enough to claim Lucy Savile when there +was no bar between their lives, and she was to be had for the +asking. He would occasionally call at the house of his friend +Downe; but there was scarcely enough in common between their two +natures to make them more than friends of that excellent sort whose +personal knowledge of each other's history and character is always +in excess of intimacy, whereby they are not so likely to be severed +by a clash of sentiment as in cases where intimacy springs up in +excess of knowledge. Lucy was never visible at these times, being +either engaged in the school-room, or in taking an airing out of +doors; but, knowing that she was now comfortable, and had given up +the, to him, depressing idea of going off to the other side of the +globe, he was quite content. + +The new house had so far progressed that the gardeners were +beginning to grass down the front. During an afternoon which he was +passing in marking the curve for the carriage-drive, he beheld her +coming in boldly towards him from the road. Hitherto Barnet had +only caught her on the premises by stealth; and this advance seemed +to show that at last her reserve had broken down. + +A smile gained strength upon her face as she approached, and it was +quite radiant when she came up, and said, without a trace of +embarrassment, 'I find I owe you a hundred thanks--and it comes to +me quite as a surprise! It was through your kindness that I was +engaged by Mr. Downe. Believe me, Mr. Barnet, I did not know it +until yesterday, or I should have thanked you long and long ago!' + +'I had offended you--just a trifle--at the time, I think?' said +Barnet, smiling, 'and it was best that you should not know.' + +'Yes, yes,' she returned hastily. 'Don't allude to that; it is past +and over, and we will let it be. The house is finished almost, is +it not? How beautiful it will look when the evergreens are grown! +Do you call the style Palladian, Mr. Barnet?' + +'I--really don't quite know what it is. Yes, it must be Palladian, +certainly. But I'll ask Jones, the architect; for, to tell the +truth, I had not thought much about the style: I had nothing to do +with choosing it, I am sorry to say.' + +She would not let him harp on this gloomy refrain, and talked on +bright matters till she said, producing a small roll of paper which +he had noticed in her hand all the while, 'Mr. Downe wished me to +bring you this revised drawing of the late Mrs. Downe's tomb, which +the architect has just sent him. He would like you to look it +over.' + +The children came up with their hoops, and she went off with them +down the harbour-road as usual. Barnet had been glad to get those +words of thanks; he had been thinking for many months that he would +like her to know of his share in finding her a home such as it was; +and what he could not do for himself, Downe had now kindly done for +him. He returned to his desolate house with a lighter tread; though +in reason he hardly knew why his tread should be light. + +On examining the drawing, Barnet found that, instead of the vast +altar-tomb and canopy Downe had determined on at their last meeting, +it was to be a more modest memorial even than had been suggested by +the architect; a coped tomb of good solid construction, with no +useless elaboration at all. Barnet was truly glad to see that Downe +had come to reason of his own accord; and he returned the drawing +with a note of approval. + +He followed up the house-work as before, and as he walked up and +down the rooms, occasionally gazing from the windows over the +bulging green hills and the quiet harbour that lay between them, he +murmured words and fragments of words, which, if listened to, would +have revealed all the secrets of his existence. Whatever his reason +in going there, Lucy did not call again: the walk to the shore +seemed to be abandoned: he must have thought it as well for both +that it should be so, for he did not go anywhere out of his +accustomed ways to endeavour to discover her. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + +The winter and the spring had passed, and the house was complete. +It was a fine morning in the early part of June, and Barnet, though +not in the habit of rising early, had taken a long walk before +breakfast; returning by way of the new building. A sufficiently +exciting cause of his restlessness to-day might have been the +intelligence which had reached him the night before, that Lucy +Savile was going to India after all, and notwithstanding the +representations of her friends that such a journey was unadvisable +in many ways for an unpractised girl, unless some more definite +advantage lay at the end of it than she could show to be the case. +Barnet's walk up the slope to the building betrayed that he was in a +dissatisfied mood. He hardly saw that the dewy time of day lent an +unusual freshness to the bushes and trees which had so recently put +on their summer habit of heavy leafage, and made his newly-laid lawn +look as well established as an old manorial meadow. The house had +been so adroitly placed between six tall elms which were growing on +the site beforehand, that they seemed like real ancestral trees; and +the rooks, young and old, cawed melodiously to their visitor. + +The door was not locked, and he entered. No workmen appeared to be +present, and he walked from sunny window to sunny window of the +empty rooms, with a sense of seclusion which might have been very +pleasant but for the antecedent knowledge that his almost paternal +care of Lucy Savile was to be thrown away by her wilfulness. +Footsteps echoed through an adjoining room; and bending his eyes in +that direction, he perceived Mr. Jones, the architect. He had come +to look over the building before giving the contractor his final +certificate. They walked over the house together. Everything was +finished except the papering: there were the latest improvements of +the period in bell-hanging, ventilating, smoke-jacks, fire-grates, +and French windows. The business was soon ended, and Jones, having +directed Barnet's attention to a roll of wall-paper patterns which +lay on a bench for his choice, was leaving to keep another +engagement, when Barnet said, 'Is the tomb finished yet for Mrs. +Downe?' + +'Well--yes: it is at last,' said the architect, coming back and +speaking as if he were in a mood to make a confidence. 'I have had +no end of trouble in the matter, and, to tell the truth, I am +heartily glad it is over.' + +Barnet expressed his surprise. 'I thought poor Downe had given up +those extravagant notions of his? then he has gone back to the altar +and canopy after all? Well, he is to be excused, poor fellow!' + +'O no--he has not at all gone back to them--quite the reverse,' +Jones hastened to say. 'He has so reduced design after design, that +the whole thing has been nothing but waste labour for me; till in +the end it has become a common headstone, which a mason put up in +half a day.' + +'A common headstone?' said Barnet. + +'Yes. I held out for some time for the addition of a footstone at +least. But he said, "O no--he couldn't afford it."' + +'Ah, well--his family is growing up, poor fellow, and his expenses +are getting serious.' + +'Yes, exactly,' said Jones, as if the subject were none of his. And +again directing Barnet's attention to the wall-papers, the bustling +architect left him to keep some other engagement. + +'A common headstone,' murmured Barnet, left again to himself. He +mused a minute or two, and next began looking over and selecting +from the patterns; but had not long been engaged in the work when he +heard another footstep on the gravel without, and somebody enter the +open porch. + +Barnet went to the door--it was his manservant in search of him. + +'I have been trying for some time to find you, sir,' he said. 'This +letter has come by the post, and it is marked immediate. And +there's this one from Mr. Downe, who called just now wanting to see +you.' He searched his pocket for the second. + +Barnet took the first letter--it had a black border, and bore the +London postmark. It was not in his wife's handwriting, or in that +of any person he knew; but conjecture soon ceased as he read the +page, wherein he was briefly informed that Mrs. Barnet had died +suddenly on the previous day, at the furnished villa she had +occupied near London. + +Barnet looked vaguely round the empty hall, at the blank walls, out +of the doorway. Drawing a long palpitating breath, and with eyes +downcast, he turned and climbed the stairs slowly, like a man who +doubted their stability. The fact of his wife having, as it were, +died once already, and lived on again, had entirely dislodged the +possibility of her actual death from his conjecture. He went to the +landing, leant over the balusters, and after a reverie, of whose +duration he had but the faintest notion, turned to the window and +stretched his gaze to the cottage further down the road, which was +visible from his landing, and from which Lucy still walked to the +solicitor's house by a cross path. The faint words that came from +his moving lips were simply, 'At last!' + +Then, almost involuntarily, Barnet fell down on his knees and +murmured some incoherent words of thanksgiving. Surely his virtue +in restoring his wife to life had been rewarded! But, as if the +impulse struck uneasily on his conscience, he quickly rose, brushed +the dust from his trousers and set himself to think of his next +movements. He could not start for London for some hours; and as he +had no preparations to make that could not be made in half-an-hour, +he mechanically descended and resumed his occupation of turning over +the wall-papers. They had all got brighter for him, those papers. +It was all changed--who would sit in the rooms that they were to +line? He went on to muse upon Lucy's conduct in so frequently +coming to the house with the children; her occasional blush in +speaking to him; her evident interest in him. What woman can in the +long run avoid being interested in a man whom she knows to be +devoted to her? If human solicitation could ever effect anything, +there should be no going to India for Lucy now. All the papers +previously chosen seemed wrong in their shades, and he began from +the beginning to choose again. + +While entering on the task he heard a forced 'Ahem!' from without +the porch, evidently uttered to attract his attention, and footsteps +again advancing to the door. His man, whom he had quite forgotten +in his mental turmoil, was still waiting there. + +'I beg your pardon, sir,' the man said from round the doorway; 'but +here's the note from Mr. Downe that you didn't take. He called just +after you went out, and as he couldn't wait, he wrote this on your +study-table.' + +He handed in the letter--no black-bordered one now, but a practical- +looking note in the well-known writing of the solicitor. + + +'DEAR BARNET'--it ran--'Perhaps you will be prepared for the +information I am about to give--that Lucy Savile and myself are +going to be married this morning. I have hitherto said nothing as +to my intention to any of my friends, for reasons which I am sure +you will fully appreciate. The crisis has been brought about by her +expressing her intention to join her brother in India. I then +discovered that I could not do without her. + +'It is to be quite a private wedding; but it is my particular wish +that you come down here quietly at ten, and go to church with us; it +will add greatly to the pleasure I shall experience in the ceremony, +and, I believe, to Lucy's also. I have called on you very early to +make the request, in the belief that I should find you at home; but +you are beforehand with me in your early rising.--Yours sincerely, +C. Downe.' + + +'Need I wait, sir?' said the servant after a dead silence. + +'That will do, William. No answer,' said Barnet calmly. + +When the man had gone Barnet re-read the letter. Turning eventually +to the wall-papers, which he had been at such pains to select, he +deliberately tore them into halves and quarters, and threw them into +the empty fireplace. Then he went out of the house; locked the +door, and stood in the front awhile. Instead of returning into the +town, he went down the harbour-road and thoughtfully lingered about +by the sea, near the spot where the body of Downe's late wife had +been found and brought ashore. + +Barnet was a man with a rich capacity for misery, and there is no +doubt that he exercised it to its fullest extent now. The events +that had, as it were, dashed themselves together into one half-hour +of this day showed that curious refinement of cruelty in their +arrangement which often proceeds from the bosom of the whimsical god +at other times known as blind Circumstance. That his few minutes of +hope, between the reading of the first and second letters, had +carried him to extraordinary heights of rapture was proved by the +immensity of his suffering now. The sun blazing into his face would +have shown a close watcher that a horizontal line, which he had +never noticed before, but which was never to be gone thereafter, was +somehow gradually forming itself in the smooth of his forehead. His +eyes, of a light hazel, had a curious look which can only be +described by the word bruised; the sorrow that looked from them +being largely mixed with the surprise of a man taken unawares. + +The secondary particulars of his present position, too, were odd +enough, though for some time they appeared to engage little of his +attention. Not a soul in the town knew, as yet, of his wife's +death; and he almost owed Downe the kindness of not publishing it +till the day was over: the conjuncture, taken with that which had +accompanied the death of Mrs. Downe, being so singular as to be +quite sufficient to darken the pleasure of the impressionable +solicitor to a cruel extent, if made known to him. But as Barnet +could not set out on his journey to London, where his wife lay, for +some hours (there being at this date no railway within a distance of +many miles), no great reason existed why he should leave the town. + +Impulse in all its forms characterized Barnet, and when he heard the +distant clock strike the hour of ten his feet began to carry him up +the harbour-road with the manner of a man who must do something to +bring himself to life. He passed Lucy Savile's old house, his own +new one, and came in view of the church. Now he gave a perceptible +start, and his mechanical condition went away. Before the church- +gate were a couple of carriages, and Barnet then could perceive that +the marriage between Downe and Lucy was at that moment being +solemnized within. A feeling of sudden, proud self-confidence, an +indocile wish to walk unmoved in spite of grim environments, plainly +possessed him, and when he reached the wicket-gate he turned in +without apparent effort. Pacing up the paved footway he entered the +church and stood for a while in the nave passage. A group of people +was standing round the vestry door; Barnet advanced through these +and stepped into the vestry. + +There they were, busily signing their names. Seeing Downe about to +look round, Barnet averted his somewhat disturbed face for a second +or two; when he turned again front to front he was calm and quite +smiling; it was a creditable triumph over himself, and deserved to +be remembered in his native town. He greeted Downe heartily, +offering his congratulations. + +It seemed as if Barnet expected a half-guilty look upon Lucy's face; +but no, save the natural flush and flurry engendered by the service +just performed, there was nothing whatever in her bearing which +showed a disturbed mind: her gray-brown eyes carried in them now as +at other times the well-known expression of common-sensed rectitude +which never went so far as to touch on hardness. She shook hands +with him, and Downe said warmly, 'I wish you could have come sooner: +I called on purpose to ask you. You'll drive back with us now?' + +'No, no,' said Barnet; 'I am not at all prepared; but I thought I +would look in upon you for a moment, even though I had not time to +go home and dress. I'll stand back and see you pass out, and +observe the effect of the spectacle upon myself as one of the +public.' + +Then Lucy and her husband laughed, and Barnet laughed and retired; +and the quiet little party went gliding down the nave and towards +the porch, Lucy's new silk dress sweeping with a smart rustle round +the base-mouldings of the ancient font, and Downe's little daughters +following in a state of round-eyed interest in their position, and +that of Lucy, their teacher and friend. + +So Downe was comforted after his Emily's death, which had taken +place twelve months, two weeks, and three days before that time. + +When the two flys had driven off and the spectators had vanished, +Barnet followed to the door, and went out into the sun. He took no +more trouble to preserve a spruce exterior; his step was unequal, +hesitating, almost convulsive; and the slight changes of colour +which went on in his face seemed refracted from some inward flame. +In the churchyard he became pale as a summer cloud, and finding it +not easy to proceed he sat down on one of the tombstones and +supported his head with his hand. + +Hard by was a sexton filling up a grave which he had not found time +to finish on the previous evening. Observing Barnet, he went up to +him, and recognizing him, said, 'Shall I help you home, sir?' + +'O no, thank you,' said Barnet, rousing himself and standing up. +The sexton returned to his grave, followed by Barnet, who, after +watching him awhile, stepped into the grave, now nearly filled, and +helped to tread in the earth. + +The sexton apparently thought his conduct a little singular, but he +made no observation, and when the grave was full, Barnet suddenly +stopped, looked far away, and with a decided step proceeded to the +gate and vanished. The sexton rested on his shovel and looked after +him for a few moments, and then began banking up the mound. + +In those short minutes of treading in the dead man Barnet had formed +a design, but what it was the inhabitants of that town did not for +some long time imagine. He went home, wrote several letters of +business, called on his lawyer, an old man of the same place who had +been the legal adviser of Barnet's father before him, and during the +evening overhauled a large quantity of letters and other documents +in his possession. By eleven o'clock the heap of papers in and +before Barnet's grate had reached formidable dimensions, and he +began to burn them. This, owing to their quantity, it was not so +easy to do as he had expected, and he sat long into the night to +complete the task. + +The next morning Barnet departed for London, leaving a note for +Downe to inform him of Mrs. Barnet's sudden death, and that he was +gone to bury her; but when a thrice-sufficient time for that purpose +had elapsed, he was not seen again in his accustomed walks, or in +his new house, or in his old one. He was gone for good, nobody knew +whither. It was soon discovered that he had empowered his lawyer to +dispose of all his property, real and personal, in the borough, and +pay in the proceeds to the account of an unknown person at one of +the large London banks. The person was by some supposed to be +himself under an assumed name; but few, if any, had certain +knowledge of that fact. + +The elegant new residence was sold with the rest of his possessions; +and its purchaser was no other than Downe, now a thriving man in the +borough, and one whose growing family and new wife required more +roomy accommodation than was afforded by the little house up the +narrow side street. Barnet's old habitation was bought by the +trustees of the Congregational Baptist body in that town, who pulled +down the time-honoured dwelling and built a new chapel on its site. +By the time the last hour of that, to Barnet, eventful year had +chimed, every vestige of him had disappeared from the precincts of +his native place, and the name became extinct in the borough of +Port-Bredy, after having been a living force therein for more than +two hundred years. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + + +Twenty-one years and six months do not pass without setting a mark +even upon durable stone and triple brass; upon humanity such a +period works nothing less than transformation. In Barnet's old +birthplace vivacious young children with bones like india-rubber had +grown up to be stable men and women, men and women had dried in the +skin, stiffened, withered, and sunk into decrepitude; while +selections from every class had been consigned to the outlying +cemetery. Of inorganic differences the greatest was that a railway +had invaded the town, tying it on to a main line at a junction a +dozen miles off. Barnet's house on the harbour-road, once so +insistently new, had acquired a respectable mellowness, with ivy, +Virginia creepers, lichens, damp patches, and even constitutional +infirmities of its own like its elder fellows. Its architecture, +once so very improved and modern, had already become stale in style, +without having reached the dignity of being old-fashioned. Trees +about the harbour-road had increased in circumference or disappeared +under the saw; while the church had had such a tremendous practical +joke played upon it by some facetious restorer or other as to be +scarce recognizable by its dearest old friends. + +During this long interval George Barnet had never once been seen or +heard of in the town of his fathers. + +It was the evening of a market-day, and some half-dozen middle-aged +farmers and dairymen were lounging round the bar of the Black-Bull +Hotel, occasionally dropping a remark to each other, and less +frequently to the two barmaids who stood within the pewter-topped +counter in a perfunctory attitude of attention, these latter sighing +and making a private observation to one another at odd intervals, on +more interesting experiences than the present. + +'Days get shorter,' said one of the dairymen, as he looked towards +the street, and noticed that the lamp-lighter was passing by. + +The farmers merely acknowledged by their countenances the propriety +of this remark, and finding that nobody else spoke, one of the +barmaids said 'yes,' in a tone of painful duty. + +'Come fair-day we shall have to light up before we start for home- +along.' + +'That's true,' his neighbour conceded, with a gaze of blankness. + +'And after that we shan't see much further difference all's winter.' + +The rest were not unwilling to go even so far as this. + +The barmaid sighed again, and raised one of her hands from the +counter on which they rested to scratch the smallest surface of her +face with the smallest of her fingers. She looked towards the door, +and presently remarked, 'I think I hear the 'bus coming in from +station.' + +The eyes of the dairymen and farmers turned to the glass door +dividing the hall from the porch, and in a minute or two the omnibus +drew up outside. Then there was a lumbering down of luggage, and +then a man came into the hall, followed by a porter with a +portmanteau on his poll, which he deposited on a bench. + +The stranger was an elderly person, with curly ashen white hair, a +deeply-creviced outer corner to each eyelid, and a countenance baked +by innumerable suns to the colour of terra-cotta, its hue and that +of his hair contrasting like heat and cold respectively. He walked +meditatively and gently, like one who was fearful of disturbing his +own mental equilibrium. But whatever lay at the bottom of his +breast had evidently made him so accustomed to its situation there +that it caused him little practical inconvenience. + +He paused in silence while, with his dubious eyes fixed on the +barmaids, he seemed to consider himself. In a moment or two he +addressed them, and asked to be accommodated for the night. As he +waited he looked curiously round the hall, but said nothing. As +soon as invited he disappeared up the staircase, preceded by a +chambermaid and candle, and followed by a lad with his trunk. Not a +soul had recognized him. + +A quarter of an hour later, when the farmers and dairymen had driven +off to their homesteads in the country, he came downstairs, took a +biscuit and one glass of wine, and walked out into the town, where +the radiance from the shop-windows had grown so in volume of late +years as to flood with cheerfulness every standing cart, barrow, +stall, and idler that occupied the wayside, whether shabby or +genteel. His chief interest at present seemed to lie in the names +painted over the shop-fronts and on door-ways, as far as they were +visible; these now differed to an ominous extent from what they had +been one-and-twenty years before. + +The traveller passed on till he came to the bookseller's, where he +looked in through the glass door. A fresh-faced young man was +standing behind the counter, otherwise the shop was empty. The +gray-haired observer entered, asked for some periodical by way of +paying for admission, and with his elbow on the counter began to +turn over the pages he had bought, though that he read nothing was +obvious. + +At length he said, 'Is old Mr. Watkins still alive?' in a voice +which had a curious youthful cadence in it even now. + +'My father is dead, sir,' said the young man. + +'Ah, I am sorry to hear it,' said the stranger. 'But it is so many +years since I last visited this town that I could hardly expect it +should be otherwise.' After a short silence he continued--'And is +the firm of Barnet, Browse, and Company still in existence?--they +used to be large flax-merchants and twine-spinners here?' + +'The firm is still going on, sir, but they have dropped the name of +Barnet. I believe that was a sort of fancy name--at least, I never +knew of any living Barnet. 'Tis now Browse and Co.' + +'And does Andrew Jones still keep on as architect?' + +'He's dead, sir.' + +'And the Vicar of St. Mary's--Mr. Melrose?' + +'He's been dead a great many years.' + +'Dear me!' He paused yet longer, and cleared his voice. 'Is Mr. +Downe, the solicitor, still in practice?' + +'No, sir, he's dead. He died about seven years ago.' + +Here it was a longer silence still; and an attentive observer would +have noticed that the paper in the stranger's hand increased its +imperceptible tremor to a visible shake. That gray-haired gentleman +noticed it himself, and rested the paper on the counter. 'Is MRS. +Downe still alive?' he asked, closing his lips firmly as soon as the +words were out of his mouth, and dropping his eyes. + +'Yes, sir, she's alive and well. She's living at the old place.' + +'In East Street?' + +'O no; at Chateau Ringdale. I believe it has been in the family for +some generations.' + +'She lives with her children, perhaps?' + +'No; she has no children of her own. There were some Miss Downes; I +think they were Mr. Downe's daughters by a former wife; but they are +married and living in other parts of the town. Mrs. Downe lives +alone.' + +'Quite alone?' + +'Yes, sir; quite alone.' + +The newly-arrived gentleman went back to the hotel and dined; after +which he made some change in his dress, shaved back his beard to the +fashion that had prevailed twenty years earlier, when he was young +and interesting, and once more emerging, bent his steps in the +direction of the harbour-road. Just before getting to the point +where the pavement ceased and the houses isolated themselves, he +overtook a shambling, stooping, unshaven man, who at first sight +appeared like a professional tramp, his shoulders having a +perceptible greasiness as they passed under the gaslight. Each +pedestrian momentarily turned and regarded the other, and the tramp- +like gentleman started back. + +'Good--why--is that Mr. Barnet? 'Tis Mr. Barnet, surely!' + +'Yes; and you are Charlson?' + +'Yes--ah--you notice my appearance. The Fates have rather ill-used +me. By-the-bye, that fifty pounds. I never paid it, did I? . . . +But I was not ungrateful!' Here the stooping man laid one hand +emphatically on the palm of the other. 'I gave you a chance, Mr. +George Barnet, which many men would have thought full value +received--the chance to marry your Lucy. As far as the world was +concerned, your wife was a DROWNED WOMAN, hey?' + +'Heaven forbid all that, Charlson!' + +'Well, well, 'twas a wrong way of showing gratitude, I suppose. And +now a drop of something to drink for old acquaintance' sake! And +Mr. Barnet, she's again free--there's a chance now if you care for +it--ha, ha!' And the speaker pushed his tongue into his hollow +cheek and slanted his eye in the old fashion. + +'I know all,' said Barnet quickly; and slipping a small present into +the hands of the needy, saddening man, he stepped ahead and was soon +in the outskirts of the town. + +He reached the harbour-road, and paused before the entrance to a +well-known house. It was so highly bosomed in trees and shrubs +planted since the erection of the building that one would scarcely +have recognized the spot as that which had been a mere neglected +slope till chosen as a site for a dwelling. He opened the swing- +gate, closed it noiselessly, and gently moved into the semicircular +drive, which remained exactly as it had been marked out by Barnet on +the morning when Lucy Savile ran in to thank him for procuring her +the post of governess to Downe's children. But the growth of trees +and bushes which revealed itself at every step was beyond all +expectation; sun-proof and moon-proof bowers vaulted the walks, and +the walls of the house were uniformly bearded with creeping plants +as high as the first-floor windows. + +After lingering for a few minutes in the dusk of the bending boughs, +the visitor rang the door-bell, and on the servant appearing, he +announced himself as 'an old friend of Mrs. Downe's.' + +The hall was lighted, but not brightly, the gas being turned low, as +if visitors were rare. There was a stagnation in the dwelling; it +seemed to be waiting. Could it really be waiting for him? The +partitions which had been probed by Barnet's walking-stick when the +mortar was green, were now quite brown with the antiquity of their +varnish, and the ornamental woodwork of the staircase, which had +glistened with a pale yellow newness when first erected, was now of +a rich wine-colour. During the servant's absence the following +colloquy could be dimly heard through the nearly closed door of the +drawing-room. + +'He didn't give his name?' + +'He only said "an old friend," ma'am.' + +'What kind of gentleman is he?' + +'A staidish gentleman, with gray hair.' + +The voice of the second speaker seemed to affect the listener +greatly. After a pause, the lady said, 'Very well, I will see him.' + +And the stranger was shown in face to face with the Lucy who had +once been Lucy Savile. The round cheek of that formerly young lady +had, of course, alarmingly flattened its curve in her modern +representative; a pervasive grayness overspread her once dark brown +hair, like morning rime on heather. The parting down the middle was +wide and jagged; once it had been a thin white line, a narrow +crevice between two high banks of shade. But there was still enough +left to form a handsome knob behind, and some curls beneath +inwrought with a few hairs like silver wires were very becoming. In +her eyes the only modification was that their originally mild +rectitude of expression had become a little more stringent than +heretofore. Yet she was still girlish--a girl who had been +gratuitously weighted by destiny with a burden of five-and-forty +years instead of her proper twenty. + +'Lucy, don't you know me?' he said, when the servant had closed the +door. + +'I knew you the instant I saw you!' she returned cheerfully. 'I +don't know why, but I always thought you would come back to your old +town again.' + +She gave him her hand, and then they sat down. 'They said you were +dead,' continued Lucy, 'but I never thought so. We should have +heard of it for certain if you had been.' + +'It is a very long time since we met.' + +'Yes; what you must have seen, Mr. Barnet, in all these roving +years, in comparison with what I have seen in this quiet place!' +Her face grew more serious. 'You know my husband has been dead a +long time? I am a lonely old woman now, considering what I have +been; though Mr. Downe's daughters--all married--manage to keep me +pretty cheerful.' + +'And I am a lonely old man, and have been any time these twenty +years.' + +'But where have you kept yourself? And why did you go off so +mysteriously?' + +'Well, Lucy, I have kept myself a little in America, and a little in +Australia, a little in India, a little at the Cape, and so on; I +have not stayed in any place for a long time, as it seems to me, and +yet more than twenty years have flown. But when people get to my +age two years go like one!--Your second question, why did I go away +so mysteriously, is surely not necessary. You guessed why, didn't +you?' + +'No, I never once guessed,' she said simply; 'nor did Charles, nor +did anybody as far as I know.' + +'Well, indeed! Now think it over again, and then look at me, and +say if you can't guess?' + +She looked him in the face with an inquiring smile. 'Surely not +because of me?' she said, pausing at the commencement of surprise. + +Barnet nodded, and smiled again; but his smile was sadder than hers. + +'Because I married Charles?' she asked. + +'Yes; solely because you married him on the day I was free to ask +you to marry me. My wife died four-and-twenty hours before you went +to church with Downe. The fixing of my journey at that particular +moment was because of her funeral; but once away I knew I should +have no inducement to come back, and took my steps accordingly.' + +Her face assumed an aspect of gentle reflection, and she looked up +and down his form with great interest in her eyes. 'I never thought +of it!' she said. 'I knew, of course, that you had once implied +some warmth of feeling towards me, but I concluded that it passed +off. And I have always been under the impression that your wife was +alive at the time of my marriage. Was it not stupid of me!--But you +will have some tea or something? I have never dined late, you know, +since my husband's death. I have got into the way of making a +regular meal of tea. You will have some tea with me, will you not?' + +The travelled man assented quite readily, and tea was brought in. +They sat and chatted over the meal, regardless of the flying hour. +'Well, well!' said Barnet presently, as for the first time he +leisurely surveyed the room; 'how like it all is, and yet how +different! Just where your piano stands was a board on a couple of +trestles, bearing the patterns of wall-papers, when I was last here. +I was choosing them--standing in this way, as it might be. Then my +servant came in at the door, and handed me a note, so. It was from +Downe, and announced that you were just going to be married to him. +I chose no more wall-papers--tore up all those I had selected, and +left the house. I never entered it again till now.' + +'Ah, at last I understand it all,' she murmured. + +They had both risen and gone to the fireplace. The mantel came +almost on a level with her shoulder, which gently rested against it, +and Barnet laid his hand upon the shelf close beside her shoulder. +'Lucy,' he said, 'better late than never. Will you marry me now?' + +She started back, and the surprise which was so obvious in her +wrought even greater surprise in him that it should be so. It was +difficult to believe that she had been quite blind to the situation, +and yet all reason and common sense went to prove that she was not +acting. + +'You take me quite unawares by such a question!' she said, with a +forced laugh of uneasiness. It was the first time she had shown any +embarrassment at all. 'Why,' she added, 'I couldn't marry you for +the world.' + +'Not after all this! Why not?' + +'It is--I would--I really think I may say it--I would upon the whole +rather marry you, Mr. Barnet, than any other man I have ever met, if +I ever dreamed of marriage again. But I don't dream of it--it is +quite out of my thoughts; I have not the least intention of marrying +again.' + +'But--on my account--couldn't you alter your plans a little? Come!' + +'Dear Mr. Barnet,' she said with a little flutter, 'I would on your +account if on anybody's in existence. But you don't know in the +least what it is you are asking--such an impracticable thing--I +won't say ridiculous, of course, because I see that you are really +in earnest, and earnestness is never ridiculous to my mind.' + +'Well, yes,' said Barnet more slowly, dropping her hand, which he +had taken at the moment of pleading, 'I am in earnest. The resolve, +two months ago, at the Cape, to come back once more was, it is true, +rather sudden, and as I see now, not well considered. But I am in +earnest in asking.' + +'And I in declining. With all good feeling and all kindness, let me +say that I am quite opposed to the idea of marrying a second time.' + +'Well, no harm has been done,' he answered, with the same subdued +and tender humorousness that he had shown on such occasions in early +life. 'If you really won't accept me, I must put up with it, I +suppose.' His eye fell on the clock as he spoke. 'Had you any +notion that it was so late?' he asked. 'How absorbed I have been!' + +She accompanied him to the hall, helped him to put on his overcoat, +and let him out of the house herself. + +'Good-night,' said Barnet, on the doorstep, as the lamp shone in his +face. 'You are not offended with me?' + +'Certainly not. Nor you with me?' + +'I'll consider whether I am or not,' he pleasantly replied. 'Good- +night.' + +She watched him safely through the gate; and when his footsteps had +died away upon the road, closed the door softly and returned to the +room. Here the modest widow long pondered his speeches, with eyes +dropped to an unusually low level. Barnet's urbanity under the blow +of her refusal greatly impressed her. After having his long period +of probation rendered useless by her decision, he had shown no +anger, and had philosophically taken her words as if he deserved no +better ones. It was very gentlemanly of him, certainly; it was more +than gentlemanly; it was heroic and grand. The more she meditated, +the more she questioned the virtue of her conduct in checking him so +peremptorily; and went to her bedroom in a mood of dissatisfaction. +On looking in the glass she was reminded that there was not so much +remaining of her former beauty as to make his frank declaration an +impulsive natural homage to her cheeks and eyes; it must undoubtedly +have arisen from an old staunch feeling of his, deserving tenderest +consideration. She recalled to her mind with much pleasure that he +had told her he was staying at the Black-Bull Hotel; so that if, +after waiting a day or two, he should not, in his modesty, call +again, she might then send him a nice little note. To alter her +views for the present was far from her intention; but she would +allow herself to be induced to reconsider the case, as any generous +woman ought to do. + +The morrow came and passed, and Mr. Barnet did not drop in. At +every knock, light youthful hues flew across her cheek; and she was +abstracted in the presence of her other visitors. In the evening +she walked about the house, not knowing what to do with herself; the +conditions of existence seemed totally different from those which +ruled only four-and-twenty short hours ago. What had been at first +a tantalizing elusive sentiment was getting acclimatized within her +as a definite hope, and her person was so informed by that emotion +that she might almost have stood as its emblematical representative +by the time the clock struck ten. In short, an interest in Barnet +precisely resembling that of her early youth led her present heart +to belie her yesterday's words to him, and she longed to see him +again. + +The next day she walked out early, thinking she might meet him in +the street. The growing beauty of her romance absorbed her, and she +went from the street to the fields, and from the fields to the +shore, without any consciousness of distance, till reminded by her +weariness that she could go no further. He had nowhere appeared. +In the evening she took a step which under the circumstances seemed +justifiable; she wrote a note to him at the hotel, inviting him to +tea with her at six precisely, and signing her note 'Lucy.' + +In a quarter of an hour the messenger came back. Mr. Barnet had +left the hotel early in the morning of the day before, but he had +stated that he would probably return in the course of the week. + +The note was sent back, to be given to him immediately on his +arrival. + +There was no sign from the inn that this desired event had occurred, +either on the next day or the day following. On both nights she had +been restless, and had scarcely slept half-an-hour. + +On the Saturday, putting off all diffidence, Lucy went herself to +the Black-Bull, and questioned the staff closely. + +Mr. Barnet had cursorily remarked when leaving that he might return +on the Thursday or Friday, but they were directed not to reserve a +room for him unless he should write. + +He had left no address. + +Lucy sorrowfully took back her note went home, and resolved to wait. + +She did wait--years and years--but Barnet never reappeared. + +April 1880. + + + + +INTERLOPERS AT THE KNAP + + + + +CHAPTER I + + + +The north road from Casterbridge is tedious and lonely, especially +in winter-time. Along a part of its course it connects with Long- +Ash Lane, a monotonous track without a village or hamlet for many +miles, and with very seldom a turning. Unapprized wayfarers who are +too old, or too young, or in other respects too weak for the +distance to be traversed, but who, nevertheless, have to walk it, +say, as they look wistfully ahead, 'Once at the top of that hill, +and I must surely see the end of Long-Ash Lane!' But they reach the +hilltop, and Long-Ash Lane stretches in front as mercilessly as +before. + +Some few years ago a certain farmer was riding through this lane in +the gloom of a winter evening. The farmer's friend, a dairyman, was +riding beside him. A few paces in the rear rode the farmer's man. +All three were well horsed on strong, round-barrelled cobs; and to +be well horsed was to be in better spirits about Long-Ash Lane than +poor pedestrians could attain to during its passage. + +But the farmer did not talk much to his friend as he rode along. +The enterprise which had brought him there filled his mind; for in +truth it was important. Not altogether so important was it, +perhaps, when estimated by its value to society at large; but if the +true measure of a deed be proportionate to the space it occupies in +the heart of him who undertakes it, Farmer Charles Darton's business +to-night could hold its own with the business of kings. + +He was a large farmer. His turnover, as it is called, was probably +thirty thousand pounds a year. He had a great many draught horses, +a great many milch cows, and of sheep a multitude. This comfortable +position was, however, none of his own making. It had been created +by his father, a man of a very different stamp from the present +representative of the line. + +Darton, the father, had been a one-idea'd character, with a +buttoned-up pocket and a chink-like eye brimming with commercial +subtlety. In Darton the son, this trade subtlety had become +transmuted into emotional, and the harshness had disappeared; he +would have been called a sad man but for his constant care not to +divide himself from lively friends by piping notes out of harmony +with theirs. Contemplative, he allowed his mind to be a quiet +meeting-place for memories and hopes. So that, naturally enough, +since succeeding to the agricultural calling, and up to his present +age of thirty-two, he had neither advanced nor receded as a +capitalist--a stationary result which did not agitate one of his +unambitious, unstrategic nature, since he had all that he desired. +The motive of his expedition tonight showed the same absence of +anxious regard for Number One. + +The party rode on in the slow, safe trot proper to night-time and +bad roads, Farmer Darton's head jigging rather unromantically up and +down against the sky, and his motions being repeated with bolder +emphasis by his friend Japheth Johns; while those of the latter were +travestied in jerks still less softened by art in the person of the +lad who attended them. A pair of whitish objects hung one on each +side of the latter, bumping against him at each step, and still +further spoiling the grace of his seat. On close inspection they +might have been perceived to be open rush baskets--one containing a +turkey, and the other some bottles of wine. + +'D'ye feel ye can meet your fate like a man, neighbour Darton?' +asked Johns, breaking a silence which had lasted while five-and- +twenty hedgerow trees had glided by. + +Mr. Darton with a half-laugh murmured, 'Ay--call it my fate! +Hanging and wiving go by destiny.' And then they were silent again. + +The darkness thickened rapidly, at intervals shutting down on the +land in a perceptible flap, like the wave of a wing. The customary +close of day was accelerated by a simultaneous blurring of the air. +With the fall of night had come a mist just damp enough to +incommode, but not sufficient to saturate them. Countrymen as they +were--born, as may be said, with only an open door between them and +the four seasons--they regarded the mist but as an added +obscuration, and ignored its humid quality. + +They were travelling in a direction that was enlivened by no modern +current of traffic, the place of Darton's pilgrimage being an old- +fashioned village--one of the Hintocks (several villages of that +name, with a distinctive prefix or affix, lying thereabout)--where +the people make the best cider and cider-wine in all Wessex, and +where the dunghills smell of pomace instead of stable refuse as +elsewhere. The lane was sometimes so narrow that the brambles of +the hedge, which hung forward like anglers' rods over a stream, +scratched their hats and curry-combed their whiskers as they passed. +Yet this neglected lane had been a highway to Queen Elizabeth's +subjects and the cavalcades of the past. Its day was over now, and +its history as a national artery done for ever. + +'Why I have decided to marry her,' resumed Darton (in a measured +musical voice of confidence which revealed a good deal of his +composition), as he glanced round to see that the lad was not too +near, 'is not only that I like her, but that I can do no better, +even from a fairly practical point of view. That I might ha' looked +higher is possibly true, though it is really all nonsense. I have +had experience enough in looking above me. "No more superior women +for me," said I--you know when. Sally is a comely, independent, +simple character, with no make-up about her, who'll think me as much +a superior to her as I used to think--you know who I mean--was to +me.' + +'Ay,' said Johns. 'However, I shouldn't call Sally Hall simple. +Primary, because no Sally is; secondary, because if some could be, +this one wouldn't. 'Tis a wrong denomination to apply to a woman, +Charles, and affects me, as your best man, like cold water. 'Tis +like recommending a stage play by saying there's neither murder, +villainy, nor harm of any sort in it, when that's what you've paid +your half-crown to see.' + +'Well; may your opinion do you good. Mine's a different one.' And +turning the conversation from the philosophical to the practical, +Darton expressed a hope that the said Sally had received what he'd +sent on by the carrier that day. + +Johns wanted to know what that was. + +'It is a dress,' said Darton. 'Not exactly a wedding-dress; though +she may use it as one if she likes. It is rather serviceable than +showy--suitable for the winter weather.' + +'Good,' said Johns. 'Serviceable is a wise word in a bridegroom. I +commend ye, Charles.' + +'For,' said Darton, 'why should a woman dress up like a rope-dancer +because she's going to do the most solemn deed of her life except +dying?' + +'Faith, why? But she will, because she will, I suppose,' said +Dairyman Johns. + +'H'm,' said Darton. + +The lane they followed had been nearly straight for several miles, +but it now took a turn, and winding uncertainly for some distance +forked into two. By night country roads are apt to reveal ungainly +qualities which pass without observation during day; and though +Darton had travelled this way before, he had not done so frequently, +Sally having been wooed at the house of a relative near his own. He +never remembered seeing at this spot a pair of alternative ways +looking so equally probable as these two did now. Johns rode on a +few steps. + +'Don't be out of heart, sonny,' he cried. 'Here's a handpost. +Enoch--come and climm this post, and tell us the way.' + +The lad dismounted, and jumped into the hedge where the post stood +under a tree. + +'Unstrap the baskets, or you'll smash up that wine!' cried Darton, +as the young man began spasmodically to climb the post, baskets and +all. + +'Was there ever less head in a brainless world?' said Johns. 'Here, +simple Nocky, I'll do it.' He leapt off, and with much puffing +climbed the post, striking a match when he reached the top, and +moving the light along the arm, the lad standing and gazing at the +spectacle. + +'I have faced tantalization these twenty years with a temper as mild +as milk!' said Japheth; 'but such things as this don't come short of +devilry!' And flinging the match away, he slipped down to the +ground. + +'What's the matter?' asked Darton. + +'Not a letter, sacred or heathen--not so much as would tell us the +way to the great fireplace--ever I should sin to say it! Either the +moss and mildew have eat away the words, or we have arrived in a +land where the natyves have lost the art o' writing, and should ha' +brought our compass like Christopher Columbus.' + +'Let us take the straightest road,' said Darton placidly; 'I shan't +be sorry to get there--'tis a tiresome ride. I would have driven if +I had known.' + +'Nor I neither, sir,' said Enoch. 'These straps plough my shoulder +like a zull. If 'tis much further to your lady's home, Maister +Darton, I shall ask to be let carry half of these good things in my +innerds--hee, hee!' + +'Don't you be such a reforming radical, Enoch,' said Johns sternly. +'Here, I'll take the turkey.' + +This being done, they went forward by the right-hand lane, which +ascended a hill, the left winding away under a plantation. The pit- +a-pat of their horses' hoofs lessened up the slope; and the ironical +directing-post stood in solitude as before, holding out its blank +arms to the raw breeze, which brought a snore from the wood as if +Skrymir the Giant were sleeping there. + + + +CHAPTER II + + + +Three miles to the left of the travellers, along the road they had +not followed, rose an old house with mullioned windows of Ham-hill +stone, and chimneys of lavish solidity. It stood at the top of a +slope beside King's-Hintock village-street; and immediately in front +of it grew a large sycamore-tree, whose bared roots formed a +convenient staircase from the road below to the front door of the +dwelling. Its situation gave the house what little distinctive name +it possessed, namely, 'The Knap.' Some forty yards off a brook +dribbled past, which, for its size, made a great deal of noise. At +the back was a dairy barton, accessible for vehicles and live-stock +by a side 'drong.' Thus much only of the character of the homestead +could be divined out of doors at this shady evening-time. + +But within there was plenty of light to see by, as plenty was +construed at Hintock. Beside a Tudor fireplace, whose moulded four- +centred arch was nearly hidden by a figured blue-cloth blower, were +seated two women--mother and daughter--Mrs. Hall, and Sarah, or +Sally; for this was a part of the world where the latter +modification had not as yet been effaced as a vulgarity by the march +of intellect. The owner of the name was the young woman by whose +means Mr. Darton proposed to put an end to his bachelor condition on +the approaching day. + +The mother's bereavement had been so long ago as not to leave much +mark of its occurrence upon her now, either in face or clothes. She +had resumed the mob-cap of her early married life, enlivening its +whiteness by a few rose-du-Barry ribbons. Sally required no such +aids to pinkness. Roseate good-nature lit up her gaze; her features +showed curves of decision and judgment; and she might have been +regarded without much mistake as a warm-hearted, quick-spirited, +handsome girl. + +She did most of the talking, her mother listening with a half-absent +air, as she picked up fragments of red-hot wood ember with the +tongs, and piled them upon the brands. But the number of speeches +that passed was very small in proportion to the meanings exchanged. +Long experience together often enabled them to see the course of +thought in each other's minds without a word being spoken. Behind +them, in the centre of the room, the table was spread for supper, +certain whiffs of air laden with fat vapours, which ever and anon +entered from the kitchen, denoting its preparation there. + +'The new gown he was going to send you stays about on the way like +himself,' Sally's mother was saying. + +'Yes, not finished, I daresay,' cried Sally independently. 'Lord, I +shouldn't be amazed if it didn't come at all! Young men make such +kind promises when they are near you, and forget 'em when they go +away. But he doesn't intend it as a wedding-gown--he gives it to me +merely as a gown to wear when I like--a travelling-dress is what it +would be called by some. Come rathe or come late it don't much +matter, as I have a dress of my own to fall back upon. But what +time is it?' + +She went to the family clock and opened the glass, for the hour was +not otherwise discernible by night, and indeed at all times was +rather a thing to be investigated than beheld, so much more wall +than window was there in the apartment. 'It is nearly eight,' said +she. + +'Eight o'clock, and neither dress nor man,' said Mrs. Hall. + +'Mother, if you think to tantalize me by talking like that, you are +much mistaken! Let him be as late as he will--or stay away +altogether--I don't care,' said Sally. But a tender, minute quaver +in the negation showed that there was something forced in that +statement. + +Mrs. Hall perceived it, and drily observed that she was not so sure +about Sally not caring. 'But perhaps you don't care so much as I +do, after all,' she said. 'For I see what you don't, that it is a +good and flourishing match for you; a very honourable offer in Mr. +Darton. And I think I see a kind husband in him. So pray God +'twill go smooth, and wind up well.' + +Sally would not listen to misgivings. Of course it would go +smoothly, she asserted. 'How you are up and down, mother!' she went +on. 'At this moment, whatever hinders him, we are not so anxious to +see him as he is to be here, and his thought runs on before him, and +settles down upon us like the star in the east. Hark!' she +exclaimed, with a breath of relief, her eyes sparkling. 'I heard +something. Yes--here they are!' + +The next moment her mother's slower ear also distinguished the +familiar reverberation occasioned by footsteps clambering up the +roots of the sycamore. + +'Yes it sounds like them at last,' she said. 'Well, it is not so +very late after all, considering the distance.' + +The footfall ceased, and they arose, expecting a knock. They began +to think it might have been, after all, some neighbouring villager +under Bacchic influence, giving the centre of the road a wide berth, +when their doubts were dispelled by the new-comer's entry into the +passage. The door of the room was gently opened, and there +appeared, not the pair of travellers with whom we have already made +acquaintance, but a pale-faced man in the garb of extreme poverty-- +almost in rags. + +'O, it's a tramp--gracious me!' said Sally, starting back. + +His cheeks and eye-orbits were deep concaves--rather, it might be, +from natural weakness of constitution than irregular living, though +there were indications that he had led no careful life. He gazed at +the two women fixedly for a moment: then with an abashed, +humiliated demeanour, dropped his glance to the floor, and sank into +a chair without uttering a word. + +Sally was in advance of her mother, who had remained standing by the +fire. She now tried to discern the visitor across the candles. + +'Why--mother,' said Sally faintly, turning back to Mrs. Hall. 'It +is Phil, from Australia!' + +Mrs. Hall started, and grew pale, and a fit of coughing seized the +man with the ragged clothes. 'To come home like this!' she said. +'O, Philip--are you ill?' + +'No, no, mother,' replied he impatiently, as soon as he could speak. + +'But for God's sake how do you come here--and just now too?' + +'Well, I am here,' said the man. 'How it is I hardly know. I've +come home, mother, because I was driven to it. Things were against +me out there, and went from bad to worse.' + +'Then why didn't you let us know?--you've not writ a line for the +last two or three years.' + +The son admitted sadly that he had not. He said that he had hoped +and thought he might fetch up again, and be able to send good news. +Then he had been obliged to abandon that hope, and had finally come +home from sheer necessity--previously to making a new start. 'Yes, +things are very bad with me,' he repeated, perceiving their +commiserating glances at his clothes. + +They brought him nearer the fire, took his hat from his thin hand, +which was so small and smooth as to show that his attempts to fetch +up again had not been in a manual direction. His mother resumed her +inquiries, and dubiously asked if he had chosen to come that +particular night for any special reason. + +For no reason, he told her. His arrival had been quite at random. +Then Philip Hall looked round the room, and saw for the first time +that the table was laid somewhat luxuriously, and for a larger +number than themselves; and that an air of festivity pervaded their +dress. He asked quickly what was going on. + +'Sally is going to be married in a day or two,' replied the mother; +and she explained how Mr. Darton, Sally's intended husband, was +coming there that night with the groomsman, Mr. Johns, and other +details. 'We thought it must be their step when we heard you,' said +Mrs. Hall. + +The needy wanderer looked again on the floor. 'I see--I see,' he +murmured. 'Why, indeed, should I have come to-night? Such folk as +I are not wanted here at these times, naturally. And I have no +business here--spoiling other people's happiness.' + +'Phil,' said his mother, with a tear in her eye, but with a thinness +of lip and severity of manner which were presumably not more than +past events justified; 'since you speak like that to me, I'll speak +honestly to you. For these three years you have taken no thought +for us. You left home with a good supply of money, and strength and +education, and you ought to have made good use of it all. But you +come back like a beggar; and that you come in a very awkward time +for us cannot be denied. Your return to-night may do us much harm. +But mind--you are welcome to this home as long as it is mine. I +don't wish to turn you adrift. We will make the best of a bad job; +and I hope you are not seriously ill?' + +'O no. I have only this infernal cough.' + +She looked at him anxiously. 'I think you had better go to bed at +once,' she said. + +'Well--I shall be out of the way there,' said the son wearily. +'Having ruined myself, don't let me ruin you by being seen in these +togs, for Heaven's sake. Who do you say Sally is going to be +married to--a Farmer Darton?' + +'Yes--a gentleman-farmer--quite a wealthy man. Far better in +station than she could have expected. It is a good thing, +altogether.' + +'Well done, little Sal!' said her brother, brightening and looking +up at her with a smile. 'I ought to have written; but perhaps I +have thought of you all the more. But let me get out of sight. I +would rather go and jump into the river than be seen here. But have +you anything I can drink? I am confoundedly thirsty with my long +tramp.' + +'Yes, yes, we will bring something upstairs to you,' said Sally, +with grief in her face. + +'Ay, that will do nicely. But, Sally and mother--' He stopped, and +they waited. 'Mother, I have not told you all,' he resumed slowly, +still looking on the floor between his knees. 'Sad as what you see +of me is, there's worse behind.' + +His mother gazed upon him in grieved suspense, and Sally went and +leant upon the bureau, listening for every sound, and sighing. +Suddenly she turned round, saying, 'Let them come, I don't care! +Philip, tell the worst, and take your time.' + +'Well, then,' said the unhappy Phil, 'I am not the only one in this +mess. Would to Heaven I were! But--' + +'O, Phil!' + +'I have a wife as destitute as I.' + +'A wife?' said his mother. + +'Unhappily!' + +'A wife! Yes, that is the way with sons!' + +'And besides--' said he. + +'Besides! O, Philip, surely--' + +'I have two little children.' + +'Wife and children!' whispered Mrs. Hall, sinking down confounded. + +'Poor little things!' said Sally involuntarily. + +His mother turned again to him. 'I suppose these helpless beings +are left in Australia?' + +'No. They are in England.' + +'Well, I can only hope you've left them in a respectable place.' + +'I have not left them at all. They are here--within a few yards of +us. In short, they are in the stable.' + +'Where?' + +'In the stable. I did not like to bring them indoors till I had +seen you, mother, and broken the bad news a bit to you. They were +very tired, and are resting out there on some straw.' + +Mrs. Hall's fortitude visibly broke down. She had been brought up +not without refinement, and was even more moved by such a collapse +of genteel aims as this than a substantial dairyman's widow would in +ordinary have been moved. 'Well, it must be borne,' she said, in a +low voice, with her hands tightly joined. 'A starving son, a +starving wife, starving children! Let it be. But why is this come +to us now, to-day, to-night? Could no other misfortune happen to +helpless women than this, which will quite upset my poor girl's +chance of a happy life? Why have you done us this wrong, Philip? +What respectable man will come here, and marry open-eyed into a +family of vagabonds?' + +'Nonsense, mother!' said Sally vehemently, while her face flushed. +'Charley isn't the man to desert me. But if he should be, and won't +marry me because Phil's come, let him go and marry elsewhere. I +won't be ashamed of my own flesh and blood for any man in England-- +not I!' And then Sally turned away and burst into tears. + +'Wait till you are twenty years older and you will tell a different +tale,' replied her mother. + +The son stood up. 'Mother,' he said bitterly, 'as I have come, so I +will go. All I ask of you is that you will allow me and mine to lie +in your stable to-night. I give you my word that we'll be gone by +break of day, and trouble you no further!' + +Mrs. Hall, the mother, changed at that. 'O no,' she answered +hastily; 'never shall it be said that I sent any of my own family +from my door. Bring 'em in, Philip, or take me out to them.' + +'We will put 'em all into the large bedroom,' said Sally, +brightening, 'and make up a large fire. Let's go and help them in, +and call Rebekah.' (Rebekah was the woman who assisted at the dairy +and housework; she lived in a cottage hard by with her husband, who +attended to the cows.) + +Sally went to fetch a lantern from the back-kitchen, but her brother +said, 'You won't want a light. I lit the lantern that was hanging +there.' + +'What must we call your wife?' asked Mrs. Hall. + +'Helena,' said Philip. + +With shawls over their heads they proceeded towards the back door. + +'One minute before you go,' interrupted Philip. 'I--I haven't +confessed all.' + +'Then Heaven help us!' said Mrs. Hall, pushing to the door and +clasping her hands in calm despair. + +'We passed through Evershead as we came,' he continued, 'and I just +looked in at the "Sow-and-Acorn" to see if old Mike still kept on +there as usual. The carrier had come in from Sherton Abbas at that +moment, and guessing that I was bound for this place--for I think he +knew me--he asked me to bring on a dressmaker's parcel for Sally +that was marked "immediate." My wife had walked on with the +children. 'Twas a flimsy parcel, and the paper was torn, and I +found on looking at it that it was a thick warm gown. I didn't wish +you to see poor Helena in a shabby state. I was ashamed that you +should--'twas not what she was born to. I untied the parcel in the +road, took it on to her where she was waiting in the Lower Barn, and +told her I had managed to get it for her, and that she was to ask no +question. She, poor thing, must have supposed I obtained it on +trust, through having reached a place where I was known, for she put +it on gladly enough. She has it on now. Sally has other gowns, I +daresay.' + +Sally looked at her mother, speechless. + +'You have others, I daresay!' repeated Phil, with a sick man's +impatience. 'I thought to myself, "Better Sally cry than Helena +freeze." Well, is the dress of great consequence? 'Twas nothing +very ornamental, as far as I could see.' + +'No--no; not of consequence,' returned Sally sadly, adding in a +gentle voice, 'You will not mind if I lend her another instead of +that one, will you?' + +Philip's agitation at the confession had brought on another attack +of the cough, which seemed to shake him to pieces. He was so +obviously unfit to sit in a chair that they helped him upstairs at +once; and having hastily given him a cordial and kindled the bedroom +fire, they descended to fetch their unhappy new relations. + + + +CHAPTER III + + + +It was with strange feelings that the girl and her mother, lately so +cheerful, passed out of the back door into the open air of the +barton, laden with hay scents and the herby breath of cows. A fine +sleet had begun to fall, and they trotted across the yard quickly. +The stable-door was open; a light shone from it--from the lantern +which always hung there, and which Philip had lighted, as he said. +Softly nearing the door, Mrs. Hall pronounced the name 'Helena!' + +There was no answer for the moment. Looking in she was taken by +surprise. Two people appeared before her. For one, instead of the +drabbish woman she had expected, Mrs. Hall saw a pale, dark-eyed, +ladylike creature, whose personality ruled her attire rather than +was ruled by it. She was in a new and handsome gown, of course, and +an old bonnet. She was standing up, agitated; her hand was held by +her companion--none else than Sally's affianced, Farmer Charles +Darton, upon whose fine figure the pale stranger's eyes were fixed, +as his were fixed upon her. His other hand held the rein of his +horse, which was standing saddled as if just led in. + +At sight of Mrs. Hall they both turned, looking at her in a way +neither quite conscious nor unconscious, and without seeming to +recollect that words were necessary as a solution to the scene. In +another moment Sally entered also, when Mr. Darton dropped his +companion's hand, led the horse aside, and came to greet his +betrothed and Mrs. Hall. + +'Ah!' he said, smiling--with something like forced composure--'this +is a roundabout way of arriving, you will say, my dear Mrs. Hall. +But we lost our way, which made us late. I saw a light here, and +led in my horse at once--my friend Johns and my man have gone back +to the little inn with theirs, not to crowd you too much. No sooner +had I entered than I saw that this lady had taken temporary shelter +here--and found I was intruding.' + +'She is my daughter-in-law,' said Mrs. Hall calmly. 'My son, too, +is in the house, but he has gone to bed unwell.' + +Sally had stood staring wonderingly at the scene until this moment, +hardly recognizing Darton's shake of the hand. The spell that bound +her was broken by her perceiving the two little children seated on a +heap of hay. She suddenly went forward, spoke to them, and took one +on her arm and the other in her hand. + +'And two children?' said Mr. Darton, showing thus that he had not +been there long enough as yet to understand the situation. + +'My grandchildren,' said Mrs. Hall, with as much affected ease as +before. + +Philip Hall's wife, in spite of this interruption to her first +rencounter, seemed scarcely so much affected by it as to feel any +one's presence in addition to Mr. Darton's. However, arousing +herself by a quick reflection, she threw a sudden critical glance of +her sad eyes upon Mrs. Hall; and, apparently finding her +satisfactory, advanced to her in a meek initiative. Then Sally and +the stranger spoke some friendly words to each other, and Sally went +on with the children into the house. Mrs. Hall and Helena followed, +and Mr. Darton followed these, looking at Helena's dress and +outline, and listening to her voice like a man in a dream. + +By the time the others reached the house Sally had already gone +upstairs with the tired children. She rapped against the wall for +Rebekah to come in and help to attend to them, Rebekah's house being +a little 'spit-and-dab' cabin leaning against the substantial stone- +work of Mrs. Hall's taller erection. When she came a bed was made +up for the little ones, and some supper given to them. On +descending the stairs after seeing this done Sally went to the +sitting-room. Young Mrs. Hall entered it just in advance of her, +having in the interim retired with her mother-in-law to take off her +bonnet, and otherwise make herself presentable. Hence it was +evident that no further communication could have passed between her +and Mr. Darton since their brief interview in the stable. + +Mr. Japheth Johns now opportunely arrived, and broke up the +restraint of the company, after a few orthodox meteorological +commentaries had passed between him and Mrs. Hall by way of +introduction. They at once sat down to supper, the present of wine +and turkey not being produced for consumption to-night, lest the +premature display of those gifts should seem to throw doubt on Mrs. +Hall's capacities as a provider. + +'Drink hearty, Mr. Johns--drink hearty,' said that matron +magnanimously. 'Such as it is there's plenty of. But perhaps +cider-wine is not to your taste?--though there's body in it.' + +'Quite the contrairy, ma'am--quite the contrairy,' said the +dairyman. 'For though I inherit the malt-liquor principle from my +father, I am a cider-drinker on my mother's side. She came from +these parts, you know. And there's this to be said for't--'tis a +more peaceful liquor, and don't lie about a man like your hotter +drinks. With care, one may live on it a twelvemonth without +knocking down a neighbour, or getting a black eye from an old +acquaintance.' + +The general conversation thus begun was continued briskly, though it +was in the main restricted to Mrs. Hall and Japheth, who in truth +required but little help from anybody. There being slight call upon +Sally's tongue, she had ample leisure to do what her heart most +desired, namely, watch her intended husband and her sister-in-law +with a view of elucidating the strange momentary scene in which her +mother and herself had surprised them in the stable. If that scene +meant anything, it meant, at least, that they had met before. That +there had been no time for explanations Sally could see, for their +manner was still one of suppressed amazement at each other's +presence there. Darton's eyes, too, fell continually on the gown +worn by Helena as if this were an added riddle to his perplexity; +though to Sally it was the one feature in the case which was no +mystery. He seemed to feel that fate had impishly changed his vis- +a-vis in the lover's jig he was about to foot; that while the gown +had been expected to enclose a Sally, a Helena's face looked out +from the bodice; that some long-lost hand met his own from the +sleeves. + +Sally could see that whatever Helena might know of Darton, she knew +nothing of how the dress entered into his embarrassment. And at +moments the young girl would have persuaded herself that Darton's +looks at her sister-in-law were entirely the fruit of the clothes +query. But surely at other times a more extensive range of +speculation and sentiment was expressed by her lover's eye than that +which the changed dress would account for. + +Sally's independence made her one of the least jealous of women. +But there was something in the relations of these two visitors which +ought to be explained. + +Japheth Johns continued to converse in his well-known style, +interspersing his talk with some private reflections on the position +of Darton and Sally, which, though the sparkle in his eye showed +them to be highly entertaining to himself, were apparently not quite +communicable to the company. At last he withdrew for the night, +going off to the roadside inn half-a-mile back, whither Darton +promised to follow him in a few minutes. + +Half-an-hour passed, and then Mr. Darton also rose to leave, Sally +and her sister-in-law simultaneously wishing him good-night as they +retired upstairs to their rooms. But on his arriving at the front +door with Mrs. Hall a sharp shower of rain began to come down, when +the widow suggested that he should return to the fire-side till the +storm ceased. + +Darton accepted her proposal, but insisted that, as it was getting +late, and she was obviously tired, she should not sit up on his +account, since he could let himself out of the house, and would +quite enjoy smoking a pipe by the hearth alone. Mrs. Hall assented; +and Darton was left by himself. He spread his knees to the brands, +lit up his tobacco as he had said, and sat gazing into the fire, and +at the notches of the chimney-crook which hung above. + +An occasional drop of rain rolled down the chimney with a hiss, and +still he smoked on; but not like a man whose mind was at rest. In +the long run, however, despite his meditations, early hours afield +and a long ride in the open air produced their natural result. He +began to doze. + +How long he remained in this half-unconscious state he did not know. +He suddenly opened his eyes. The back-brand had burnt itself in +two, and ceased to flame; the light which he had placed on the +mantelpiece had nearly gone out. But in spite of these deficiencies +there was a light in the apartment, and it came from elsewhere. +Turning his head he saw Philip Hall's wife standing at the entrance +of the room with a bed-candle in one hand, a small brass tea-kettle +in the other, and HIS gown, as it certainly seemed, still upon her. + +'Helena!' said Darton, starting up. + +Her countenance expressed dismay, and her first words were an +apology. 'I--did not know you were here, Mr. Darton,' she said, +while a blush flashed to her cheek. 'I thought every one had +retired--I was coming to make a little water boil; my husband seems +to be worse. But perhaps the kitchen fire can be lighted up again.' + +'Don't go on my account. By all means put it on here as you +intended,' said Darton. 'Allow me to help you.' He went forward to +take the kettle from her hand, but she did not allow him, and placed +it on the fire herself. + +They stood some way apart, one on each side of the fireplace, +waiting till the water should boil, the candle on the mantel between +them, and Helena with her eyes on the kettle. Darton was the first +to break the silence. 'Shall I call Sally?' he said. + +'O no,' she quickly returned. 'We have given trouble enough +already. We have no right here. But we are the sport of fate, and +were obliged to come.' + +'No right here!' said he in surprise. + +'None. I can't explain it now,' answered Helena. 'This kettle is +very slow.' + +There was another pause; the proverbial dilatoriness of watched pots +was never more clearly exemplified. + +Helena's face was of that sort which seems to ask for assistance +without the owner's knowledge--the very antipodes of Sally's, which +was self-reliance expressed. Darton's eyes travelled from the +kettle to Helena's face, then back to the kettle, then to the face +for rather a longer time. 'So I am not to know anything of the +mystery that has distracted me all the evening?' he said. 'How is +it that a woman, who refused me because (as I supposed) my position +was not good enough for her taste, is found to be the wife of a man +who certainly seems to be worse off than I?' + +'He had the prior claim,' said she. + +'What! you knew him at that time?' + +'Yes, yes! Please say no more,' she implored. + +'Whatever my errors, I have paid for them during the last five +years!' + +The heart of Darton was subject to sudden overflowings. He was kind +to a fault. 'I am sorry from my soul,' he said, involuntarily +approaching her. Helena withdrew a step or two, at which he became +conscious of his movement, and quickly took his former place. Here +he stood without speaking, and the little kettle began to sing. + +'Well, you might have been my wife if you had chosen,' he said at +last. 'But that's all past and gone. However, if you are in any +trouble or poverty I shall be glad to be of service, and as your +relation by marriage I shall have a right to be. Does your uncle +know of your distress?' + +'My uncle is dead. He left me without a farthing. And now we have +two children to maintain.' + +'What, left you nothing? How could he be so cruel as that?' + +'I disgraced myself in his eyes.' + +'Now,' said Darton earnestly, 'let me take care of the children, at +least while you are so unsettled. YOU belong to another, so I +cannot take care of you.' + +'Yes you can,' said a voice; and suddenly a third figure stood +beside them. It was Sally. 'You can, since you seem to wish to?' +she repeated. 'She no longer belongs to another . . . My poor +brother is dead!' + +Her face was red, her eyes sparkled, and all the woman came to the +front. 'I have heard it!' she went on to him passionately. 'You +can protect her now as well as the children!' She turned then to +her agitated sister-in-law. 'I heard something,' said Sally (in a +gentle murmur, differing much from her previous passionate words), +'and I went into his room. It must have been the moment you left. +He went off so quickly, and weakly, and it was so unexpected, that I +couldn't leave even to call you.' + +Darton was just able to gather from the confused discourse which +followed that, during his sleep by the fire, this brother whom he +had never seen had become worse; and that during Helena's absence +for water the end had unexpectedly come. The two young women +hastened upstairs, and he was again left alone. + + +After standing there a short time he went to the front door and +looked out; till, softly closing it behind him, he advanced and +stood under the large sycamore-tree. The stars were flickering +coldly, and the dampness which had just descended upon the earth in +rain now sent up a chill from it. Darton was in a strange position, +and he felt it. The unexpected appearance, in deep poverty, of +Helena--a young lady, daughter of a deceased naval officer, who had +been brought up by her uncle, a solicitor, and had refused Darton in +marriage years ago--the passionate, almost angry demeanour of Sally +at discovering them, the abrupt announcement that Helena was a +widow; all this coming together was a conjuncture difficult to cope +with in a moment, and made him question whether he ought to leave +the house or offer assistance. But for Sally's manner he would +unhesitatingly have done the latter. + +He was still standing under the tree when the door in front of him +opened, and Mrs. Hall came out. She went round to the garden-gate +at the side without seeing him. Darton followed her, intending to +speak. + +Pausing outside, as if in thought, she proceeded to a spot where the +sun came earliest in spring-time, and where the north wind never +blew; it was where the row of beehives stood under the wall. +Discerning her object, he waited till she had accomplished it. + +It was the universal custom thereabout to wake the bees by tapping +at their hives whenever a death occurred in the household, under the +belief that if this were not done the bees themselves would pine +away and perish during the ensuing year. As soon as an interior +buzzing responded to her tap at the first hive Mrs. Hall went on to +the second, and thus passed down the row. As soon as she came back +he met her. + +'What can I do in this trouble, Mrs. Hall?' he said. + +'O--nothing, thank you, nothing,' she said in a tearful voice, now +just perceiving him. 'We have called Rebekah and her husband, and +they will do everything necessary.' She told him in a few words the +particulars of her son's arrival, broken in health--indeed, at +death's very door, though they did not suspect it--and suggested, as +the result of a conversation between her and her daughter, that the +wedding should be postponed. + +'Yes, of course,' said Darton. 'I think now to go straight to the +inn and tell Johns what has happened.' It was not till after he had +shaken hands with her that he turned hesitatingly and added, 'Will +you tell the mother of his children that, as they are now left +fatherless, I shall be glad to take the eldest of them, if it would +be any convenience to her and to you?' + +Mrs. Hall promised that her son's widow should he told of the offer, +and they parted. He retired down the rooty slope and disappeared in +the direction of the inn, where he informed Johns of the +circumstances. Meanwhile Mrs. Hall had entered the house, Sally was +downstairs in the sitting-room alone, and her mother explained to +her that Darton had readily assented to the postponement. + +'No doubt he has,' said Sally, with sad emphasis. 'It is not put +off for a week, or a month, or a year. I shall never marry him, and +she will!' + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + +Time passed, and the household on the Knap became again serene under +the composing influences of daily routine. A desultory, very +desultory correspondence, dragged on between Sally Hall and Darton, +who, not quite knowing how to take her petulant words on the night +of her brother's death, had continued passive thus long. Helena and +her children remained at the dairy-house, almost of necessity, and +Darton therefore deemed it advisable to stay away. + +One day, seven months later on, when Mr. Darton was as usual at his +farm, twenty miles from Hintock, a note reached him from Helena. +She thanked him for his kind offer about her children, which her +mother-in-law had duly communicated, and stated that she would be +glad to accept it as regarded the eldest, the boy. Helena had, in +truth, good need to do so, for her uncle had left her penniless, and +all application to some relatives in the north had failed. There +was, besides, as she said, no good school near Hintock to which she +could send the child. + +On a fine summer day the boy came. He was accompanied half-way by +Sally and his mother--to the 'White Horse,' at Chalk Newton--where +he was handed over to Darton's bailiff in a shining spring-cart, who +met them there. + +He was entered as a day-scholar at a popular school at Casterbridge, +three or four miles from Darton's, having first been taught by +Darton to ride a forest-pony, on which he cantered to and from the +aforesaid fount of knowledge, and (as Darton hoped) brought away a +promising headful of the same at each diurnal expedition. The +thoughtful taciturnity into which Darton had latterly fallen was +quite dissipated by the presence of this boy. + +When the Christmas holidays came it was arranged that he should +spend them with his mother. The journey was, for some reason or +other, performed in two stages, as at his coming, except that Darton +in person took the place of the bailiff, and that the boy and +himself rode on horseback. + +Reaching the renowned 'White Horse,' Darton inquired if Miss and +young Mrs. Hall were there to meet little Philip (as they had agreed +to be). He was answered by the appearance of Helena alone at the +door. + +'At the last moment Sally would not come,' she faltered. + +That meeting practically settled the point towards which these long- +severed persons were converging. But nothing was broached about it +for some time yet. Sally Hall had, in fact, imparted the first +decisive motion to events by refusing to accompany Helena. She soon +gave them a second move by writing the following note + + +'[Private.] + +'DEAR CHARLES,--Living here so long and intimately with Helena, I +have naturally learnt her history, especially that of it which +refers to you. I am sure she would accept you as a husband at the +proper time, and I think you ought to give her the opportunity. You +inquire in an old note if I am sorry that I showed temper (which it +WASN'T) that night when I heard you talking to her. No, Charles, I +am not sorry at all for what I said then.--Yours sincerely, SALLY +HALL.' + + +Thus set in train, the transfer of Darton's heart back to its +original quarters proceeded by mere lapse of time. In the following +July, Darton went to his friend Japheth to ask him at last to fulfil +the bridal office which had been in abeyance since the previous +January twelvemonths. + +'With all my heart, man o' constancy!' said Dairyman Johns warmly. +'I've lost most of my genteel fair complexion haymaking this hot +weather, 'tis true, but I'll do your business as well as them that +look better. There be scents and good hair-oil in the world yet, +thank God, and they'll take off the roughest o' my edge. I'll +compliment her. "Better late than never, Sally Hall," I'll say.' + +'It is not Sally,' said Darton hurriedly. 'It is young Mrs. Hall.' + +Japheth's face, as soon as he really comprehended, became a picture +of reproachful dismay. 'Not Sally?' he said. 'Why not Sally? I +can't believe it! Young Mrs. Hall! Well, well--where's your +wisdom?' + +Darton shortly explained particulars; but Johns would not be +reconciled. 'She was a woman worth having if ever woman was,' he +cried. 'And now to let her go!' + +'But I suppose I can marry where I like,' said Darton. + +'H'm,' replied the dairyman, lifting his eyebrows expressively. +'This don't become you, Charles--it really do not. If I had done +such a thing you would have sworn I was a curst no'thern fool to be +drawn off the scent by such a red-herring doll-oll-oll.' + +Farmer Darton responded in such sharp terms to this laconic opinion +that the two friends finally parted in a way they had never parted +before. Johns was to be no groomsman to Darton after all. He had +flatly declined. Darton went off sorry, and even unhappy, +particularly as Japheth was about to leave that side of the county, +so that the words which had divided them were not likely to be +explained away or softened down. + +A short time after the interview Darton was united to Helena at a +simple matter-of fact wedding; and she and her little girl joined +the boy who had already grown to look on Darton's house as home. + +For some months the farmer experienced an unprecedented happiness +and satisfaction. There had been a flaw in his life, and it was as +neatly mended as was humanly possible. But after a season the +stream of events followed less clearly, and there were shades in his +reveries. Helena was a fragile woman, of little staying power, +physically or morally, and since the time that he had originally +known her--eight or ten years before--she had been severely tried. +She had loved herself out, in short, and was now occasionally given +to moping. Sometimes she spoke regretfully of the gentilities of +her early life, and instead of comparing her present state with her +condition as the wife of the unlucky Hall, she mused rather on what +it had been before she took the first fatal step of clandestinely +marrying him. She did not care to please such people as those with +whom she was thrown as a thriving farmer's wife. She allowed the +pretty trifles of agricultural domesticity to glide by her as sorry +details, and had it not been for the children Darton's house would +have seemed but little brighter than it had been before. + +This led to occasional unpleasantness, until Darton sometimes +declared to himself that such endeavours as his to rectify early +deviations of the heart by harking back to the old point mostly +failed of success. 'Perhaps Johns was right,' he would say. 'I +should have gone on with Sally. Better go with the tide and make +the best of its course than stem it at the risk of a capsize.' But +he kept these unmelodious thoughts to himself, and was outwardly +considerate and kind. + +This somewhat barren tract of his life had extended to less than a +year and a half when his ponderings were cut short by the loss of +the woman they concerned. When she was in her grave he thought +better of her than when she had been alive; the farm was a worse +place without her than with her, after all. No woman short of +divine could have gone through such an experience as hers with her +first husband without becoming a little soured. Her stagnant +sympathies, her sometimes unreasonable manner, had covered a heart +frank and well meaning, and originally hopeful and warm. She left +him a tiny red infant in white wrappings. To make life as easy as +possible to this touching object became at once his care. + +As this child learnt to walk and talk Darton learnt to see +feasibility in a scheme which pleased him. Revolving the experiment +which he had hitherto made upon life, he fancied he had gained +wisdom from his mistakes and caution from his miscarriages. + +What the scheme was needs no penetration to discover. Once more he +had opportunity to recast and rectify his ill-wrought situations by +returning to Sally Hall, who still lived quietly on under her +mother's roof at Hintock. Helena had been a woman to lend pathos +and refinement to a home; Sally was the woman to brighten it. She +would not, as Helena did, despise the rural simplicities of a +farmer's fireside. Moreover, she had a pre-eminent qualification +for Darton's household; no other woman could make so desirable a +mother to her brother's two children and Darton's one as Sally-- +while Darton, now that Helena had gone, was a more promising husband +for Sally than he had ever been when liable to reminders from an +uncured sentimental wound. + +Darton was not a man to act rapidly, and the working out of his +reparative designs might have been delayed for some time. But there +came a winter evening precisely like the one which had darkened over +that former ride to Hintock, and he asked himself why he should +postpone longer, when the very landscape called for a repetition of +that attempt. + +He told his man to saddle the mare, booted and spurred himself with +a younger horseman's nicety, kissed the two youngest children, and +rode off. To make the journey a complete parallel to the first, he +would fain have had his old acquaintance Japheth Johns with him. +But Johns, alas! was missing. His removal to the other side of the +county had left unrepaired the breach which had arisen between him +and Darton; and though Darton had forgiven him a hundred times, as +Johns had probably forgiven Darton, the effort of reunion in present +circumstances was one not likely to be made. + +He screwed himself up to as cheerful a pitch as he could without his +former crony, and became content with his own thoughts as he rode, +instead of the words of a companion. The sun went down; the boughs +appeared scratched in like an etching against the sky; old crooked +men with faggots at their backs said 'Good-night, sir,' and Darton +replied 'Good-night' right heartily. + +By the time he reached the forking roads it was getting as dark as +it had been on the occasion when Johns climbed the directing-post. +Darton made no mistake this time. 'Nor shall I be able to mistake, +thank Heaven, when I arrive,' he murmured. It gave him peculiar +satisfaction to think that the proposed marriage, like his first, +was of the nature of setting in order things long awry, and not a +momentary freak of fancy. + +Nothing hindered the smoothness of his journey, which seemed not +half its former length. Though dark, it was only between five and +six o'clock when the bulky chimneys of Mrs. Hall's residence +appeared in view behind the sycamore-tree. On second thoughts he +retreated and put up at the ale-house as in former time; and when he +had plumed himself before the inn mirror, called for something to +drink, and smoothed out the incipient wrinkles of care, he walked on +to the Knap with a quick step. + + + +CHAPTER V + + + +That evening Sally was making 'pinners' for the milkers, who were +now increased by two, for her mother and herself no longer joined in +milking the cows themselves. But upon the whole there was little +change in the household economy, and not much in its appearance, +beyond such minor particulars as that the crack over the window, +which had been a hundred years coming, was a trifle wider; that the +beams were a shade blacker; that the influence of modernism had +supplanted the open chimney corner by a grate; that Rebekah, who had +worn a cap when she had plenty of hair, had left it off now she had +scarce any, because it was reported that caps were not fashionable; +and that Sally's face had naturally assumed a more womanly and +experienced cast. + +Mrs. Hall was actually lifting coals with the tongs, as she had used +to do. + +'Five years ago this very night, if I am not mistaken--' she said, +laying on an ember. + +'Not this very night--though 'twas one night this week,' said the +correct Sally. + +'Well, 'tis near enough. Five years ago Mr. Darton came to marry +you, and my poor boy Phil came home to die.' She sighed. 'Ah, +Sally,' she presently said, 'if you had managed well Mr. Darton +would have had you, Helena or none.' + +'Don't be sentimental about that, mother,' begged Sally. 'I didn't +care to manage well in such a case. Though I liked him, I wasn't so +anxious. I would never have married the man in the midst of such a +hitch as that was,' she added with decision; 'and I don't think I +would if he were to ask me now.' + +'I am not sure about that, unless you have another in your eye.' + +'I wouldn't; and I'll tell you why. I could hardly marry him for +love at this time o' day. And as we've quite enough to live on if +we give up the dairy to-morrow, I should have no need to marry for +any meaner reason . . . I am quite happy enough as I am, and there's +an end of it.' + +Now it was not long after this dialogue that there came a mild rap +at the door, and in a moment there entered Rebekah, looking as +though a ghost had arrived. The fact was that that accomplished +skimmer and churner (now a resident in the house) had overheard the +desultory observations between mother and daughter, and on opening +the door to Mr. Darton thought the coincidence must have a grisly +meaning in it. Mrs. Hall welcomed the farmer with warm surprise, as +did Sally, and for a moment they rather wanted words. + +'Can you push up the chimney-crook for me, Mr Darton? the notches +hitch,' said the matron. He did it, and the homely little act +bridged over the awkward consciousness that he had been a stranger +for four years. + +Mrs. Hall soon saw what he had come for, and left the principals +together while she went to prepare him a late tea, smiling at +Sally's recent hasty assertions of indifference, when she saw how +civil Sally was. When tea was ready she joined them. She fancied +that Darton did not look so confident as when he had arrived; but +Sally was quite light-hearted, and the meal passed pleasantly. + +About seven he took his leave of them. Mrs. Hall went as far as the +door to light him down the slope. On the doorstep he said frankly-- +'I came to ask your daughter to marry me; chose the night and +everything, with an eye to a favourable answer. But she won't.' + +'Then she's a very ungrateful girl!' emphatically said Mrs. Hall. + +Darton paused to shape his sentence, and asked, 'I--I suppose +there's nobody else more favoured?' + +'I can't say that there is, or that there isn't,' answered Mrs. +Hall. 'She's private in some things. I'm on your side, however, +Mr. Darton, and I'll talk to her.' + +'Thank 'ee, thank 'ee!' said the farmer in a gayer accent; and with +this assurance the not very satisfactory visit came to an end. +Darton descended the roots of the sycamore, the light was withdrawn, +and the door closed. At the bottom of the slope he nearly ran +against a man about to ascend. + +'Can a jack-o'-lent believe his few senses on such a dark night, or +can't he?' exclaimed one whose utterance Darton recognized in a +moment, despite its unexpectedness. 'I dare not swear he can, +though I fain would!' The speaker was Johns. + +Darton said he was glad of this opportunity, bad as it was, of +putting an end to the silence of years, and asked the dairyman what +he was travelling that way for. + +Japheth showed the old jovial confidence in a moment. 'I'm going to +see your--relations--as they always seem to me,' he said--'Mrs. Hall +and Sally. Well, Charles, the fact is I find the natural +barbarousness of man is much increased by a bachelor life, and, as +your leavings were always good enough for me, I'm trying +civilization here.' He nodded towards the house. + +'Not with Sally--to marry her?' said Darton, feeling something like +a rill of ice water between his shoulders. + +'Yes, by the help of Providence and my personal charms. And I think +I shall get her. I am this road every week--my present dairy is +only four miles off, you know, and I see her through the window. +'Tis rather odd that I was going to speak practical to-night to her +for the first time. You've just called?' + +'Yes, for a short while. But she didn't say a word about you.' + +'A good sign, a good sign. Now that decides me. I'll swing the +mallet and get her answer this very night as I planned.' + +A few more remarks, and Darton, wishing his friend joy of Sally in a +slightly hollow tone of jocularity, bade him good-bye. Johns +promised to write particulars, and ascended, and was lost in the +shade of the house and tree. A rectangle of light appeared when +Johns was admitted, and all was dark again. + +'Happy Japheth!' said Darton. 'This then is the explanation!' + +He determined to return home that night. In a quarter of an hour he +passed out of the village, and the next day went about his swede- +lifting and storing as if nothing had occurred. + +He waited and waited to hear from Johns whether the wedding-day was +fixed: but no letter came. He learnt not a single particular till, +meeting Johns one day at a horse-auction, Darton exclaimed genially- +-rather more genially than he felt--'When is the joyful day to be?' + +To his great surprise a reciprocity of gladness was not conspicuous +in Johns. 'Not at all,' he said, in a very subdued tone. ''Tis a +bad job; she won't have me.' + +Darton held his breath till he said with treacherous solicitude, +'Try again--'tis coyness.' + +'O no,' said Johns decisively. 'There's been none of that. We +talked it over dozens of times in the most fair and square way. She +tells me plainly, I don't suit her. 'Twould be simply annoying her +to ask her again. Ah, Charles, you threw a prize away when you let +her slip five years ago.' + +'I did--I did,' said Darton. + +He returned from that auction with a new set of feelings in play. +He had certainly made a surprising mistake in thinking Johns his +successful rival. It really seemed as if he might hope for Sally +after all. + +This time, being rather pressed by business, Darton had recourse to +pen-and-ink, and wrote her as manly and straightforward a proposal +as any woman could wish to receive. The reply came promptly:- + + +'DEAR MR. DARTON,--I am as sensible as any woman can be of the +goodness that leads you to make me this offer a second time. Better +women than I would be proud of the honour, for when I read your nice +long speeches on mangold-wurzel, and such like topics, at the +Casterbridge Farmers' Club, I do feel it an honour, I assure you. +But my answer is just the same as before. I will not try to explain +what, in truth, I cannot explain--my reasons; I will simply say that +I must decline to be married to you. With good wishes as in former +times, I am, your faithful friend, + +'SALLY HALL.' + + +Darton dropped the letter hopelessly. Beyond the negative, there +was just a possibility of sarcasm in it--'nice long speeches on +mangold-wurzel' had a suspicious sound. However, sarcasm or none, +there was the answer, and he had to be content. + +He proceeded to seek relief in a business which at this time +engrossed much of his attention--that of clearing up a curious +mistake just current in the county, that he had been nearly ruined +by the recent failure of a local bank. A farmer named Darton had +lost heavily, and the similarity of name had probably led to the +error. Belief in it was so persistent that it demanded several days +of letter-writing to set matters straight, and persuade the world +that he was as solvent as ever he had been in his life. He had +hardly concluded this worrying task when, to his delight, another +letter arrived in the handwriting of Sally. + +Darton tore it open; it was very short. + + +'DEAR MR. DARTON,--We have been so alarmed these last few days by +the report that you were ruined by the stoppage of --'s Bank, that, +now it is contradicted I hasten, by my mother's wish, to say how +truly glad we are to find there is no foundation for the report. +After your kindness to my poor brother's children, I can do no less +than write at such a moment. We had a letter from each of them a +few days ago.--Your faithful friend, + +'SALLY HALL.' + + +'Mercenary little woman!' said Darton to himself with a smile. +'Then that was the secret of her refusal this time--she thought I +was ruined.' + +Now, such was Darton, that as hours went on he could not help +feeling too generously towards Sally to condemn her in this. What +did he want in a wife? he asked himself. Love and integrity. What +next? Worldly wisdom. And was there really more than worldly +wisdom in her refusal to go aboard a sinking ship? She now knew it +was otherwise. 'Begad,' he said, 'I'll try her again.' + +The fact was he had so set his heart upon Sally, and Sally alone, +that nothing was to be allowed to baulk him; and his reasoning was +purely formal. + +Anniversaries having been unpropitious, he waited on till a bright +day late in May--a day when all animate nature was fancying, in its +trusting, foolish way, that it was going to bask out of doors for +evermore. As he rode through Long-Ash Lane it was scarce +recognizable as the track of his two winter journeys. No mistake +could be made now, even with his eyes shut. The cuckoo's note was +at its best, between April tentativeness and midsummer decrepitude, +and the reptiles in the sun behaved as winningly as kittens on a +hearth. Though afternoon, and about the same time as on the last +occasion, it was broad day and sunshine when he entered Hintock, and +the details of the Knap dairy-house were visible far up the road. +He saw Sally in the garden, and was set vibrating. He had first +intended to go on to the inn; but 'No,' he said; 'I'll tie my horse +to the garden-gate. If all goes well it can soon be taken round: +if not, I mount and ride away' + +The tall shade of the horseman darkened the room in which Mrs. Hall +sat, and made her start, for he had ridden by a side path to the top +of the slope, where riders seldom came. In a few seconds he was in +the garden with Sally. + +Five--ay, three minutes--did the business at the back of that row of +bees. Though spring had come, and heavenly blue consecrated the +scene, Darton succeeded not. 'NO,' said Sally firmly. 'I will +never, never marry you, Mr. Darton. I would have done it once; but +now I never can.' + +'But!'--implored Mr. Darton. And with a burst of real eloquence he +went on to declare all sorts of things that he would do for her. He +would drive her to see her mother every week--take her to London-- +settle so much money upon her--Heaven knows what he did not promise, +suggest, and tempt her with. But it availed nothing. She +interposed with a stout negative, which closed the course of his +argument like an iron gate across a highway. Darton paused. + +'Then,' said he simply, 'you hadn't heard of my supposed failure +when you declined last time?' + +'I had not,' she said. 'But if I had 'twould have been all the +same.' + +'And 'tis not because of any soreness from my slighting you years +ago?' + +'No. That soreness is long past.' + +'Ah--then you despise me, Sally?' + +'No,' she slowly answered. 'I don't altogether despise you. I +don't think you quite such a hero as I once did--that's all. The +truth is, I am happy enough as I am; and I don't mean to marry at +all. Now, may _I_ ask a favour, sir?' She spoke with an ineffable +charm, which, whenever he thought of it, made him curse his loss of +her as long as he lived. + +'To any extent.' + +'Please do not put this question to me any more. Friends as long as +you like, but lovers and married never.' + +'I never will,' said Darton. 'Not if I live a hundred years.' + +And he never did. That he had worn out his welcome in her heart was +only too plain. + +When his step-children had grown up, and were placed out in life, +all communication between Darton and the Hall family ceased. It was +only by chance that, years after, he learnt that Sally, +notwithstanding the solicitations her attractions drew down upon +her, had refused several offers of marriage, and steadily adhered to +her purpose of leading a single life + +May 1884. + + + + +THE DISTRACTED PREACHER + + + + +CHAPTER I--HOW HIS COLD WAS CURED + + + +Something delayed the arrival of the Wesleyan minister, and a young +man came temporarily in his stead. It was on the thirteenth of +January 183- that Mr. Stockdale, the young man in question, made his +humble entry into the village, unknown, and almost unseen. But when +those of the inhabitants who styled themselves of his connection +became acquainted with him, they were rather pleased with the +substitute than otherwise, though he had scarcely as yet acquired +ballast of character sufficient to steady the consciences of the +hundred-and-forty Methodists of pure blood who, at this time, lived +in Nether-Moynton, and to give in addition supplementary support to +the mixed race which went to church in the morning and chapel in the +evening, or when there was a tea--as many as a hundred-and-ten +people more, all told, and including the parish-clerk in the winter- +time, when it was too dark for the vicar to observe who passed up +the street at seven o'clock--which, to be just to him, he was never +anxious to do. + +It was owing to this overlapping of creeds that the celebrated +population-puzzle arose among the denser gentry of the district +around Nether-Moynton: how could it be that a parish containing +fifteen score of strong full-grown Episcopalians, and nearly +thirteen score of well-matured Dissenters, numbered barely two-and- +twenty score adults in all? + +The young man being personally interesting, those with whom he came +in contact were content to waive for a while the graver question of +his sufficiency. It is said that at this time of his life his eyes +were affectionate, though without a ray of levity; that his hair was +curly, and his figure tall; that he was, in short, a very lovable +youth, who won upon his female hearers as soon as they saw and heard +him, and caused them to say, 'Why didn't we know of this before he +came, that we might have gied him a warmer welcome!' + +The fact was that, knowing him to be only provisionally selected, +and expecting nothing remarkable in his person or doctrine, they and +the rest of his flock in Nether-Moynton had felt almost as +indifferent about his advent as if they had been the soundest +church-going parishioners in the country, and he their true and +appointed parson. Thus when Stockdale set foot in the place nobody +had secured a lodging for him, and though his journey had given him +a bad cold in the head, he was forced to attend to that business +himself. On inquiry he learnt that the only possible accommodation +in the village would be found at the house of one Mrs. Lizzy +Newberry, at the upper end of the street. + +It was a youth who gave this information, and Stockdale asked him +who Mrs. Newberry might be. + +The boy said that she was a widow-woman, who had got no husband, +because he was dead. Mr. Newberry, he added, had been a well-to-do +man enough, as the saying was, and a farmer; but he had gone off in +a decline. As regarded Mrs. Newberry's serious side, Stockdale +gathered that she was one of the trimmers who went to church and +chapel both. + +'I'll go there,' said Stockdale, feeling that, in the absence of +purely sectarian lodgings, he could do no better. + +'She's a little particular, and won't hae gover'ment folks, or +curates, or the pa'son's friends, or such like,' said the lad +dubiously. + +'Ah, that may be a promising sign: I'll call. Or no; just you go +up and ask first if she can find room for me. I have to see one or +two persons on another matter. You will find me down at the +carrier's.' + +In a quarter of an hour the lad came back, and said that Mrs. +Newberry would have no objection to accommodate him, whereupon +Stockdale called at the house. + +It stood within a garden-hedge, and seemed to be roomy and +comfortable. He saw an elderly woman, with whom he made +arrangements to come the same night, since there was no inn in the +place, and he wished to house himself as soon as possible; the +village being a local centre from which he was to radiate at once to +the different small chapels in the neighbourhood. He forthwith sent +his luggage to Mrs. Newberry's from the carrier's, where he had +taken shelter, and in the evening walked up to his temporary home. + +As he now lived there, Stockdale felt it unnecessary to knock at the +door; and entering quietly he had the pleasure of hearing footsteps +scudding away like mice into the back quarters. He advanced to the +parlour, as the front room was called, though its stone floor was +scarcely disguised by the carpet, which only over-laid the trodden +areas, leaving sandy deserts under the bulging mouldings of the +table-legs, playing with brass furniture. But the room looked snug +and cheerful. The firelight shone out brightly, trembling on the +knobs and handles, and lurking in great strength on the under +surface of the chimney-piece. A deep arm-chair, covered with +horsehair, and studded with a countless throng of brass nails, was +pulled up on one side of the fireplace. The tea-things were on the +table, the teapot cover was open, and a little hand-bell had been +laid at that precise point towards which a person seated in the +great chair might be expected instinctively to stretch his hand. + +Stockdale sat down, not objecting to his experience of the room thus +far, and began his residence by tinkling the bell. A little girl +crept in at the summons, and made tea for him. Her name, she said, +was Marther Sarer, and she lived out there, nodding towards the road +and village generally. Before Stockdale had got far with his meal, +a tap sounded on the door behind him, and on his telling the +inquirer to come in, a rustle of garments caused him to turn his +head. He saw before him a fine and extremely well-made young woman, +with dark hair, a wide, sensible, beautiful forehead, eyes that +warmed him before he knew it, and a mouth that was in itself a +picture to all appreciative souls. + +'Can I get you anything else for tea?' she said, coming forward a +step or two, an expression of liveliness on her features, and her +hand waving the door by its edge. + +'Nothing, thank you,' said Stockdale, thinking less of what he +replied than of what might be her relation to the household. + +'You are quite sure?' said the young woman, apparently aware that he +had not considered his answer. + +He conscientiously examined the tea-things, and found them all +there. 'Quite sure, Miss Newberry,' he said. + +'It is Mrs. Newberry,' she said. 'Lizzy Newberry, I used to be +Lizzy Simpkins.' + +'O, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Newberry.' And before he had occasion +to say more she left the room. + +Stockdale remained in some doubt till Martha Sarah came to clear the +table. 'Whose house is this, my little woman,' said he. + +'Mrs. Lizzy Newberry's, sir.' + +'Then Mrs. Newberry is not the old lady I saw this afternoon?' + +'No. That's Mrs. Newberry's mother. It was Mrs. Newberry who comed +in to you just by now, because she wanted to see if you was good- +looking.' + +Later in the evening, when Stockdale was about to begin supper, she +came again. 'I have come myself, Mr. Stockdale,' she said. The +minister stood up in acknowledgment of the honour. 'I am afraid +little Marther might not make you understand. What will you have +for supper?--there's cold rabbit, and there's a ham uncut.' + +Stockdale said he could get on nicely with those viands, and supper +was laid. He had no more than cut a slice when tap-tap came to the +door again. The minister had already learnt that this particular +rhythm in taps denoted the fingers of his enkindling landlady, and +the doomed young fellow buried his first mouthful under a look of +receptive blandness. + +'We have a chicken in the house, Mr. Stockdale--I quite forgot to +mention it just now. Perhaps you would like Marther Sarer to bring +it up?' + +Stockdale had advanced far enough in the art of being a young man to +say that he did not want the chicken, unless she brought it up +herself; but when it was uttered he blushed at the daring gallantry +of the speech, perhaps a shade too strong for a serious man and a +minister. In three minutes the chicken appeared, but, to his great +surprise, only in the hands of Martha Sarah. Stockdale was +disappointed, which perhaps it was intended that he should be. + +He had finished supper, and was not in the least anticipating Mrs. +Newberry again that night, when she tapped and entered as before. +Stockdale's gratified look told that she had lost nothing by not +appearing when expected. It happened that the cold in the head from +which the young man suffered had increased with the approach of +night, and before she had spoken he was seized with a violent fit of +sneezing which he could not anyhow repress. + +Mrs. Newberry looked full of pity. 'Your cold is very bad to-night, +Mr. Stockdale.' + +Stockdale replied that it was rather troublesome. + +'And I've a good mind'--she added archly, looking at the cheerless +glass of water on the table, which the abstemious minister was going +to drink. + +'Yes, Mrs. Newberry?' + +'I've a good mind that you should have something more likely to cure +it than that cold stuff.' + +'Well,' said Stockdale, looking down at the glass, 'as there is no +inn here, and nothing better to be got in the village, of course it +will do.' + +To this she replied, 'There is something better, not far off, though +not in the house. I really think you must try it, or you may be +ill. Yes, Mr. Stockdale, you shall.' She held up her finger, +seeing that he was about to speak. 'Don't ask what it is; wait, and +you shall see.' + +Lizzy went away, and Stockdale waited in a pleasant mood. Presently +she returned with her bonnet and cloak on, saying, 'I am so sorry, +but you must help me to get it. Mother has gone to bed. Will you +wrap yourself up, and come this way, and please bring that cup with +you?' + +Stockdale, a lonely young fellow, who had for weeks felt a great +craving for somebody on whom to throw away superfluous interest, and +even tenderness, was not sorry to join her; and followed his guide +through the back door, across the garden, to the bottom, where the +boundary was a wall. This wall was low, and beyond it Stockdale +discerned in the night shades several grey headstones, and the +outlines of the church roof and tower. + +'It is easy to get up this way,' she said, stepping upon a bank +which abutted on the wall; then putting her foot on the top of the +stonework, and descending a spring inside, where the ground was much +higher, as is the manner of graveyards to be. Stockdale did the +same, and followed her in the dusk across the irregular ground till +they came to the tower door, which, when they had entered, she +softly closed behind them. + +'You can keep a secret?' she said, in a musical voice. + +'Like an iron chest!' said he fervently. + +Then from under her cloak she produced a small lighted lantern, +which the minister had not noticed that she carried at all. The +light showed them to be close to the singing-gallery stairs, under +which lay a heap of lumber of all sorts, but consisting mostly of +decayed framework, pews, panels, and pieces of flooring, that from +time to time had been removed from their original fixings in the +body of the edifice and replaced by new. + +'Perhaps you will drag some of those boards aside?' she said, +holding the lantern over her head to light him better. 'Or will you +take the lantern while I move them?' + +'I can manage it,' said the young man, and acting as she ordered, he +uncovered, to his surprise, a row of little barrels bound with wood +hoops, each barrel being about as large as the nave of a heavy +waggon-wheel. + +When they were laid open Lizzy fixed her eyes on him, as if she +wondered what he would say. + +'You know what they are?' she asked, finding that he did not speak. + +'Yes, barrels,' said Stockdale simply. He was an inland man, the +son of highly respectable parents, and brought up with a single eye +to the ministry; and the sight suggested nothing beyond the fact +that such articles were there. + +'You are quite right, they are barrels,' she said, in an emphatic +tone of candour that was not without a touch of irony. + +Stockdale looked at her with an eye of sudden misgiving. 'Not +smugglers' liquor?' he said. + +'Yes,' said she. 'They are tubs of spirit that have accidentally +come over in the dark from France.' + +In Nether-Moynton and its vicinity at this date people always smiled +at the sort of sin called in the outside world illicit trading; and +these little kegs of gin and brandy were as well known to the +inhabitants as turnips. So that Stockdale's innocent ignorance, and +his look of alarm when he guessed the sinister mystery, seemed to +strike Lizzy first as ludicrous, and then as very awkward for the +good impression that she wished to produce upon him. + +'Smuggling is carried on here by some of the people,' she said in a +gentle, apologetic voice. 'It has been their practice for +generations, and they think it no harm. Now, will you roll out one +of the tubs?' + +'What to do with it?' said the minister. + +'To draw a little from it to cure your cold,' she answered. 'It is +so 'nation strong that it drives away that sort of thing in a jiffy. +O, it is all right about our taking it. I may have what I like; the +owner of the tubs says so. I ought to have had some in the house, +and then I shouldn't ha' been put to this trouble; but I drink none +myself, and so I often forget to keep it indoors.' + +'You are allowed to help yourself, I suppose, that you may not +inform where their hiding-place is?' + +'Well, no; not that particularly; but I may take any if I want it. +So help yourself.' + +'I will, to oblige you, since you have a right to it,' murmured the +minister; and though he was not quite satisfied with his part in the +performance, he rolled one of the 'tubs' out from the corner into +the middle of the tower floor. 'How do you wish me to get it out-- +with a gimlet, I suppose?' + +'No, I'll show you,' said his interesting companion; and she held up +with her other hand a shoemaker's awl and a hammer. 'You must never +do these things with a gimlet, because the wood-dust gets in; and +when the buyers pour out the brandy that would tell them that the +tub had been broached. An awl makes no dust, and the hole nearly +closes up again. Now tap one of the hoops forward.' + +Stockdale took the hammer and did so. + +'Now make the hole in the part that was covered by the hoop.' + +He made the hole as directed. 'It won't run out,' he said. + +'O yes it will,' said she. 'Take the tub between your knees, and +squeeze the heads; and I'll hold the cup.' + +Stockdale obeyed; and the pressure taking effect upon the tub, which +seemed, to be thin, the spirit spirted out in a stream. When the +cup was full he ceased pressing, and the flow immediately stopped. +'Now we must fill up the keg with water,' said Lizzy, 'or it will +cluck like forty hens when it is handled, and show that 'tis not +full.' + +'But they tell you you may take it?' + +'Yes, the SMUGGLERS: but the BUYERS must not know that the +smugglers have been kind to me at their expense.' + +'I see,' said Stockdale doubtfully. 'I much question the honesty of +this proceeding.' + +By her direction he held the tub with the hole upwards, and while he +went through the process of alternately pressing and ceasing to +press, she produced a bottle of water, from which she took +mouthfuls, conveying each to the keg by putting her pretty lips to +the hole, where it was sucked in at each recovery of the cask from +pressure. When it was again full he plugged the hole, knocked the +hoop down to its place, and buried the tub in the lumber as before. + +'Aren't the smugglers afraid that you will tell?' he asked, as they +recrossed the churchyard. + +'O no; they are not afraid of that. I couldn't do such a thing.' + +'They have put you into a very awkward corner,' said Stockdale +emphatically. 'You must, of course, as an honest person, sometimes +feel that it is your duty to inform--really you must.' + +'Well, I have never particularly felt it as a duty; and, besides, my +first husband--' She stopped, and there was some confusion in her +voice. Stockdale was so honest and unsophisticated that he did not +at once discern why she paused: but at last he did perceive that +the words were a slip, and that no woman would have uttered 'first +husband' by accident unless she had thought pretty frequently of a +second. He felt for her confusion, and allowed her time to recover +and proceed. 'My husband,' she said, in a self-corrected tone, +'used to know of their doings, and so did my father, and kept the +secret. I cannot inform, in fact, against anybody.' + +'I see the hardness of it,' he continued, like a man who looked far +into the moral of things. 'And it is very cruel that you should be +tossed and tantalized between your memories and your conscience. I +do hope, Mrs. Newberry, that you will soon see your way out of this +unpleasant position.' + +'Well, I don't just now,' she murmured. + +By this time they had passed over the wall and entered the house, +where she brought him a glass and hot water, and left him to his own +reflections. He looked after her vanishing form, asking himself +whether he, as a respectable man, and a minister, and a shining +light, even though as yet only of the halfpenny-candle sort, were +quite justified in doing this thing. A sneeze settled the question; +and he found that when the fiery liquor was lowered by the addition +of twice or thrice the quantity of water, it was one of the +prettiest cures for a cold in the head that he had ever known, +particularly at this chilly time of the year. + +Stockdale sat in the deep chair about twenty minutes sipping and +meditating, till he at length took warmer views of things, and +longed for the morrow, when he would see Mrs. Newberry again. He +then felt that, though chronologically at a short distance, it would +in an emotional sense be very long before to-morrow came, and walked +restlessly round the room. His eye was attracted by a framed and +glazed sampler in which a running ornament of fir-trees and peacocks +surrounded the following pretty bit of sentiment:- + + +'Rose-leaves smell when roses thrive, +Here's my work while I'm alive; +Rose-leaves smell when shrunk and shed, +Here's my work when I am dead. + +'Lizzy Simpkins. Fear God. Honour the King. +'Aged 11 years. + + +''Tis hers,' he said to himself. 'Heavens, how I like that name!' + +Before he had done thinking that no other name from Abigail to +Zenobia would have suited his young landlady so well, tap-tap came +again upon the door; and the minister started as her face appeared +yet another time, looking so disinterested that the most ingenious +would have refrained from asserting that she had come to affect his +feelings by her seductive eyes. + +'Would you like a fire in your room, Mr. Stockdale, on account of +your cold?' + +The minister, being still a little pricked in the conscience for +countenancing her in watering the spirits, saw here a way to self- +chastisement. 'No, I thank you,' he said firmly; 'it is not +necessary. I have never been used to one in my life, and it would +be giving way to luxury too far.' + +'Then I won't insist,' she said, and disconcerted him by vanishing +instantly. + +Wondering if she was vexed by his refusal, he wished that he had +chosen to have a fire, even though it should have scorched him out +of bed and endangered his self-discipline for a dozen days. +However, he consoled himself with what was in truth a rare +consolation for a budding lover, that he was under the same roof +with Lizzy; her guest, in fact, to take a poetical view of the term +lodger; and that he would certainly see her on the morrow. + +The morrow came, and Stockdale rose early, his cold quite gone. He +had never in his life so longed for the breakfast hour as he did +that day, and punctually at eight o'clock, after a short walk, to +reconnoitre the premises, he re-entered the door of his dwelling. +Breakfast passed, and Martha Sarah attended, but nobody came +voluntarily as on the night before to inquire if there were other +wants which he had not mentioned, and which she would attempt to +gratify. He was disappointed, and went out, hoping to see her at +dinner. Dinner time came; he sat down to the meal, finished it, +lingered on for a whole hour, although two new teachers were at that +moment waiting at the chapel-door to speak to him by appointment. +It was useless to wait longer, and he slowly went his way down the +lane, cheered by the thought that, after all, he would see her in +the evening, and perhaps engage again in the delightful tub- +broaching in the neighbouring church tower, which proceeding he +resolved to render more moral by steadfastly insisting that no water +should be introduced to fill up, though the tub should cluck like +all the hens in Christendom. But nothing could disguise the fact +that it was a queer business; and his countenance fell when he +thought how much more his mind was interested in that matter than in +his serious duties. + +However, compunction vanished with the decline of day. Night came, +and his tea and supper; but no Lizzy Newberry, and no sweet +temptations. At last the minister could bear it no longer, and said +to his quaint little attendant, 'Where is Mrs. Newberry to-day?' +judiciously handing a penny as he spoke. + +'She's busy,' said Martha. + +'Anything serious happened?' he asked, handing another penny, and +revealing yet additional pennies in the background. + +'O no--nothing at all!' said she, with breathless confidence. +'Nothing ever happens to her. She's only biding upstairs in bed +because 'tis her way sometimes.' + +Being a young man of some honour, he would not question further, and +assuming that Lizzy must have a bad headache, or other slight +ailment, in spite of what the girl had said, he went to bed +dissatisfied, not even setting eyes on old Mrs. Simpkins. 'I said +last night that I should see her to-morrow,' he reflected; 'but that +was not to be!' + +Next day he had better fortune, or worse, meeting her at the foot of +the stairs in the morning, and being favoured by a visit or two from +her during the day--once for the purpose of making kindly inquiries +about his comfort, as on the first evening, and at another time to +place a bunch of winter-violets on his table, with a promise to +renew them when they drooped. On these occasions there was +something in her smile which showed how conscious she was of the +effect she produced, though it must be said that it was rather a +humorous than a designing consciousness, and savoured more of pride +than of vanity. + +As for Stockdale, he clearly perceived that he possessed unlimited +capacity for backsliding, and wished that tutelary saints were not +denied to Dissenters. He set a watch upon his tongue and eyes for +the space of one hour and a half, after which he found it was +useless to struggle further, and gave himself up to the situation. +'The other minister will be here in a month,' he said to himself +when sitting over the fire. 'Then I shall be off, and she will +distract my mind no more! . . . And then, shall I go on living by +myself for ever? No; when my two years of probation are finished, I +shall have a furnished house to live in, with a varnished door and a +brass knocker; and I'll march straight back to her, and ask her +flat, as soon as the last plate is on the dresser! + +Thus a titillating fortnight was passed by young Stockdale, during +which time things proceeded much as such matters have done ever +since the beginning of history. He saw the object of attachment +several times one day, did not see her at all the next, met her when +he least expected to do so, missed her when hints and signs as to +where she should be at a given hour almost amounted to an +appointment. This mild coquetry was perhaps fair enough under the +circumstances of their being so closely lodged, and Stockdale put up +with it as philosophically as he was able. Being in her own house, +she could, after vexing him or disappointing him of her presence, +easily win him back by suddenly surrounding him with those little +attentions which her position as his landlady put it in her power to +bestow. When he had waited indoors half the day to see her, and on +finding that she would not be seen, had gone off in a huff to the +dreariest and dampest walk he could discover, she would restore +equilibrium in the evening with 'Mr. Stockdale, I have fancied you +must feel draught o' nights from your bedroom window, and so I have +been putting up thicker curtains this afternoon while you were out;' +or, 'I noticed that you sneezed twice again this morning, Mr. +Stockdale. Depend upon it that cold is hanging about you yet; I am +sure it is--I have thought of it continually; and you must let me +make a posset for you.' + +Sometimes in coming home he found his sitting-room rearranged, +chairs placed where the table had stood, and the table ornamented +with the few fresh flowers and leaves that could be obtained at this +season, so as to add a novelty to the room. At times she would be +standing on a chair outside the house, trying to nail up a branch of +the monthly rose which the winter wind had blown down; and of course +he stepped forward to assist her, when their hands got mixed in +passing the shreds and nails. Thus they became friends again after +a disagreement. She would utter on these occasions some pretty and +deprecatory remark on the necessity of her troubling him anew; and +he would straightway say that he would do a hundred times as much +for her if she should so require. + + + +CHAPTER II--HOW HE SAW TWO OTHER MEN + + + +Matters being in this advancing state, Stockdale was rather +surprised one cloudy evening, while sitting in his room, at hearing +her speak in low tones of expostulation to some one at the door. It +was nearly dark, but the shutters were not yet closed, nor the +candles lighted; and Stockdale was tempted to stretch his head +towards the window. He saw outside the door a young man in clothes +of a whitish colour, and upon reflection judged their wearer to be +the well-built and rather handsome miller who lived below. The +miller's voice was alternately low and firm, and sometimes it +reached the level of positive entreaty; but what the words were +Stockdale could in no way hear. + +Before the colloquy had ended, the minister's attention was +attracted by a second incident. Opposite Lizzy's home grew a clump +of laurels, forming a thick and permanent shade. One of the laurel +boughs now quivered against the light background of sky, and in a +moment the head of a man peered out, and remained still. He seemed +to be also much interested in the conversation at the door, and was +plainly lingering there to watch and listen. Had Stockdale stood in +any other relation to Lizzy than that of a lover, he might have gone +out and investigated the meaning of this: but being as yet but an +unprivileged ally, he did nothing more than stand up and show +himself against the firelight, whereupon the listener disappeared, +and Lizzy and the miller spoke in lower tones. + +Stockdale was made so uneasy by the circumstance, that as soon as +the miller was gone, he said, 'Mrs. Newberry, are you aware that you +were watched just now, and your conversation heard?' + +'When?' she said. + +'When you were talking to that miller. A man was looking from the +laurel-tree as jealously as if he could have eaten you.' + +She showed more concern than the trifling event seemed to demand, +and he added, 'Perhaps you were talking of things you did not wish +to be overheard?' + +'I was talking only on business,' she said. + +'Lizzy, be frank!' said the young man. 'If it was only on business, +why should anybody wish to listen to you?' + +She looked curiously at him. 'What else do you think it could be, +then?' + +'Well--the only talk between a young woman and man that is likely to +amuse an eavesdropper.' + +'Ah yes,' she said, smiling in spite of her preoccupation. 'Well, +my cousin Owlett has spoken to me about matrimony, every now and +then, that's true; but he was not speaking of it then. I wish he +had been speaking of it, with all my heart. It would have been much +less serious for me.' + +'O Mrs. Newberry!' + +'It would. Not that I should ha' chimed in with him, of course. I +wish it for other reasons. I am glad, Mr. Stockdale, that you have +told me of that listener. It is a timely warning, and I must see my +cousin again.' + +'But don't go away till I have spoken,' said the minister. 'I'll +out with it at once, and make no more ado. Let it be Yes or No +between us, Lizzy; please do!' And he held out his hand, in which +she freely allowed her own to rest, but without speaking. + +'You mean Yes by that?' he asked, after waiting a while. + +'You may be my sweetheart, if you will.' + +'Why not say at once you will wait for me until I have a house and +can come back to marry you.' + +'Because I am thinking--thinking of something else,' she said with +embarrassment. 'It all comes upon me at once, and I must settle one +thing at a time.' + +'At any rate, dear Lizzy, you can assure me that the miller shall +not be allowed to speak to you except on business? You have never +directly encouraged him?' + +She parried the question by saying, 'You see, he and his party have +been in the habit of leaving things on my premises sometimes, and as +I have not denied him, it makes him rather forward.' + +'Things--what things?' + +'Tubs--they are called Things here.' + +'But why don't you deny him, my dear Lizzy?' + +'I cannot well.' + +'You are too timid. It is unfair of him to impose so upon you, and +get your good name into danger by his smuggling tricks. Promise me +that the next time he wants to leave his tubs here you will let me +roll them into the street?' + +She shook her head. 'I would not venture to offend the neighbours +so much as that,' said she, 'or do anything that would be so likely +to put poor Owlett into the hands of the excisemen.' + +Stockdale sighed, and said that he thought hers a mistaken +generosity when it extended to assisting those who cheated the king +of his dues. 'At any rate, you will let me make him keep his +distance as your lover, and tell him flatly that you are not for +him?' + +'Please not, at present,' she said. 'I don't wish to offend my old +neighbours. It is not only Owlett who is concerned.' + +'This is too bad,' said Stockdale impatiently. + +'On my honour, I won't encourage him as my lover,' Lizzy answered +earnestly. 'A reasonable man will be satisfied with that.' + +'Well, so I am,' said Stockdale, his countenance clearing. + + + +CHAPTER III--THE MYSTERIOUS GREATCOAT + + + +Stockdale now began to notice more particularly a feature in the +life of his fair landlady, which he had casually observed but +scarcely ever thought of before. It was that she was markedly +irregular in her hours of rising. For a week or two she would be +tolerably punctual, reaching the ground-floor within a few minutes +of half-past seven. Then suddenly she would not be visible till +twelve at noon, perhaps for three or four days in succession; and +twice he had certain proof that she did not leave her room till +half-past three in the afternoon. The second time that this extreme +lateness came under his notice was on a day when he had particularly +wished to consult with her about his future movements; and he +concluded, as he always had done, that she had a cold, headache, or +other ailment, unless she had kept herself invisible to avoid +meeting and talking to him, which he could hardly believe. The +former supposition was disproved, however, by her innocently saying, +some days later, when they were speaking on a question of health, +that she had never had a moment's heaviness, headache, or illness of +any kind since the previous January twelvemonth. + +'I am glad to hear it,' said he. 'I thought quite otherwise.' + +'What, do I look sickly?' she asked, turning up her face to show the +impossibility of his gazing on it and holding such a belief for a +moment. + +'Not at all; I merely thought so from your being sometimes obliged +to keep your room through the best part of the day.' + +'O, as for that--it means nothing,' she murmured, with a look which +some might have called cold, and which was the worst look that he +liked to see upon her. 'It is pure sleepiness, Mr. Stockdale.' + +'Never!' + +'It is, I tell you. When I stay in my room till half-past three in +the afternoon, you may always be sure that I slept soundly till +three, or I shouldn't have stayed there.' + +'It is dreadful,' said Stockdale, thinking of the disastrous effects +of such indulgence upon the household of a minister, should it +become a habit of everyday occurrence. + +'But then,' she said, divining his good and prescient thoughts, 'it +only happens when I stay awake all night. I don't go to sleep till +five or six in the morning sometimes.' + +'Ah, that's another matter,' said Stockdale. 'Sleeplessness to such +an alarming extent is real illness. Have you spoken to a doctor?' + +'O no--there is no need for doing that--it is all natural to me.' +And she went away without further remark. + +Stockdale might have waited a long time to know the real cause of +her sleeplessness, had it not happened that one dark night he was +sitting in his bedroom jotting down notes for a sermon, which +occupied him perfunctorily for a considerable time after the other +members of the household had retired. He did not get to bed till +one o'clock. Before he had fallen asleep he heard a knocking at the +front door, first rather timidly performed, and then louder. Nobody +answered it, and the person knocked again. As the house still +remained undisturbed, Stockdale got out of bed, went to his window, +which overlooked the door, and opening it, asked who was there. + +A young woman's voice replied that Susan Wallis was there, and that +she had come to ask if Mrs. Newberry could give her some mustard to +make a plaster with, as her father was taken very ill on the chest. + +The minister, having neither bell nor servant, was compelled to act +in person. 'I will call Mrs. Newberry,' he said. Partly dressing +himself; he went along the passage and tapped at Lizzy's door. She +did not answer, and, thinking of her erratic habits in the matter of +sleep, he thumped the door persistently, when he discovered, by its +moving ajar under his knocking, that it had only been gently pushed +to. As there was now a sufficient entry for the voice, he knocked +no longer, but said in firm tones, 'Mrs. Newberry, you are wanted.' + +The room was quite silent; not a breathing, not a rustle, came from +any part of it. Stockdale now sent a positive shout through the +open space of the door: 'Mrs. Newberry!'--still no answer, or +movement of any kind within. Then he heard sounds from the opposite +room, that of Lizzy's mother, as if she had been aroused by his +uproar though Lizzy had not, and was dressing herself hastily. +Stockdale softly closed the younger woman's door and went on to the +other, which was opened by Mrs. Simpkins before he could reach it. +She was in her ordinary clothes, and had a light in her hand. + +'What's the person calling about?' she said in alarm. + +Stockdale told the girl's errand, adding seriously, 'I cannot wake +Mrs. Newberry.' + +'It is no matter,' said her mother. 'I can let the girl have what +she wants as well as my daughter.' And she came out of the room and +went downstairs. + +Stockdale retired towards his own apartment, saying, however, to +Mrs. Simpkins from the landing, as if on second thoughts, 'I suppose +there is nothing the matter with Mrs. Newberry, that I could not +wake her?' + +'O no,' said the old lady hastily. 'Nothing at all.' + +Still the minister was not satisfied. 'Will you go in and see?' he +said. 'I should be much more at ease.' + +Mrs. Simpkins returned up the staircase, went to her daughter's +room, and came out again almost instantly. 'There is nothing at all +the matter with Lizzy,' she said; and descended again to attend to +the applicant, who, having seen the light, had remained quiet during +this interval. + +Stockdale went into his room and lay down as before. He heard +Lizzy's mother open the front door, admit the girl, and then the +murmured discourse of both as they went to the store-cupboard for +the medicament required. The girl departed, the door was fastened, +Mrs. Simpkins came upstairs, and the house was again in silence. +Still the minister did not fall asleep. He could not get rid of a +singular suspicion, which was all the more harassing in being, if +true, the most unaccountable thing within his experience. That +Lizzy Newberry was in her bedroom when he made such a clamour at the +door he could not possibly convince himself; notwithstanding that he +had heard her come upstairs at the usual time, go into her chamber, +and shut herself up in the usual way. Yet all reason was so much +against her being elsewhere, that he was constrained to go back +again to the unlikely theory of a heavy sleep, though he had heard +neither breath nor movement during a shouting and knocking loud +enough to rouse the Seven Sleepers. + +Before coming to any positive conclusion he fell asleep himself, and +did not awake till day. He saw nothing of Mrs. Newberry in the +morning, before he went out to meet the rising sun, as he liked to +do when the weather was fine; but as this was by no means unusual, +he took no notice of it. At breakfast-time he knew that she was not +far off by hearing her in the kitchen, and though he saw nothing of +her person, that back apartment being rigorously closed against his +eyes, she seemed to be talking, ordering, and bustling about among +the pots and skimmers in so ordinary a manner, that there was no +reason for his wasting more time in fruitless surmise. + +The minister suffered from these distractions, and his extemporized +sermons were not improved thereby. Already he often said Romans for +Corinthians in the pulpit, and gave out hymns in strange cramped +metres, that hitherto had always been skipped, because the +congregation could not raise a tune to fit them. He fully resolved +that as soon as his few weeks of stay approached their end he would +cut the matter short, and commit himself by proposing a definite +engagement, repenting at leisure if necessary. + +With this end in view, he suggested to her on the evening after her +mysterious sleep that they should take a walk together just before +dark, the latter part of the proposition being introduced that they +might return home unseen. She consented to go; and away they went +over a stile, to a shrouded footpath suited for the occasion. But, +in spite of attempts on both sides, they were unable to infuse much +spirit into the ramble. She looked rather paler than usual, and +sometimes turned her head away. + +'Lizzy,' said Stockdale reproachfully, when they had walked in +silence a long distance. + +'Yes,' said she. + +'You yawned--much my company is to you!' He put it in that way, but +he was really wondering whether her yawn could possibly have more to +do with physical weariness from the night before than mental +weariness of that present moment. Lizzy apologized, and owned that +she was rather tired, which gave him an opening for a direct +question on the point; but his modesty would not allow him to put it +to her; and he uncomfortably resolved to wait. + +The month of February passed with alternations of mud and frost, +rain and sleet, east winds and north-westerly gales. The hollow +places in the ploughed fields showed themselves as pools of water, +which had settled there from the higher levels, and had not yet +found time to soak away. The birds began to get lively, and a +single thrush came just before sunset each evening, and sang +hopefully on the large elm-tree which stood nearest to Mrs. +Newberry's house. Cold blasts and brittle earth had given place to +an oozing dampness more unpleasant in itself than frost; but it +suggested coming spring, and its unpleasantness was of a bearable +kind. + +Stockdale had been going to bring about a practical understanding +with Lizzy at least half-a-dozen times; but, what with the mystery +of her apparent absence on the night of the neighbour's call, and +her curious way of lying in bed at unaccountable times, he felt a +check within him whenever he wanted to speak out. Thus they still +lived on as indefinitely affianced lovers, each of whom hardly +acknowledged the other's claim to the name of chosen one. Stockdale +persuaded himself that his hesitation was owing to the postponement +of the ordained minister's arrival, and the consequent delay in his +own departure, which did away with all necessity for haste in his +courtship; but perhaps it was only that his discretion was +reasserting itself, and telling him that he had better get clearer +ideas of Lizzy before arranging for the grand contract of his life +with her. She, on her part, always seemed ready to be urged further +on that question than he had hitherto attempted to go; but she was +none the less independent, and to a degree which would have kept +from flagging the passion of a far more mutable man. + +On the evening of the first of March he went casually into his +bedroom about dusk, and noticed lying on a chair a greatcoat, hat, +and breeches. Having no recollection of leaving any clothes of his +own in that spot, he went and examined them as well as he could in +the twilight, and found that they did not belong to him. He paused +for a moment to consider how they might have got there. He was the +only man living in the house; and yet these were not his garments, +unless he had made a mistake. No, they were not his. He called up +Martha Sarah. + +'How did these things come in my room?' he said, flinging the +objectionable articles to the floor. + +Martha said that Mrs. Newberry had given them to her to brush, and +that she had brought them up there thinking they must be Mr. +Stockdale's, as there was no other gentleman a-lodging there. + +'Of course you did,' said Stockdale. 'Now take them down to your +mis'ess, and say they are some clothes I have found here and know +nothing about.' + +As the door was left open he heard the conversation downstairs. +'How stupid!' said Mrs. Newberry, in a tone of confusion. 'Why, +Marther Sarer, I did not tell you to take 'em to Mr. Stockdale's +room?' + +'I thought they must be his as they was so muddy,' said Martha +humbly. + +'You should have left 'em on the clothes-horse,' said the young +mistress severely; and she came upstairs with the garments on her +arm, quickly passed Stockdale's room, and threw them forcibly into a +closet at the end of a passage. With this the incident ended, and +the house was silent again. + +There would have been nothing remarkable in finding such clothes in +a widow's house had they been clean; or moth-eaten, or creased, or +mouldy from long lying by; but that they should be splashed with +recent mud bothered Stockdale a good deal. When a young pastor is +in the aspen stage of attachment, and open to agitation at the +merest trifles, a really substantial incongruity of this complexion +is a disturbing thing. However, nothing further occurred at that +time; but he became watchful, and given to conjecture, and was +unable to forget the circumstance. + +One morning, on looking from his window, he saw Mrs. Newberry +herself brushing the tails of a long drab greatcoat, which, if he +mistook not, was the very same garment as the one that had adorned +the chair of his room. It was densely splashed up to the hollow of +the back with neighbouring Nether-Moynton mud, to judge by its +colour, the spots being distinctly visible to him in the sunlight. +The previous day or two having been wet, the inference was +irresistible that the wearer had quite recently been walking some +considerable distance about the lanes and fields. Stockdale opened +the window and looked out, and Mrs. Newberry turned her head. Her +face became slowly red; she never had looked prettier, or more +incomprehensible, he waved his hand affectionately, and said good- +morning; she answered with embarrassment, having ceased her +occupation on the instant that she saw him, and rolled up the coat +half-cleaned. + +Stockdale shut the window. Some simple explanation of her +proceeding was doubtless within the bounds of possibility; but he +himself could not think of one; and he wished that she had placed +the matter beyond conjecture by voluntarily saying something about +it there and then. + +But, though Lizzy had not offered an explanation at the moment, the +subject was brought forward by her at the next time of their +meeting. She was chatting to him concerning some other event, and +remarked that it happened about the time when she was dusting some +old clothes that had belonged to her poor husband. + +'You keep them clean out of respect to his memory?' said Stockdale +tentatively. + +'I air and dust them sometimes,' she said, with the most charming +innocence in the world. + +'Do dead men come out of their graves and walk in mud?' murmured the +minister, in a cold sweat at the deception that she was practising. + +'What did you say?' asked Lizzy. + +'Nothing, nothing,' said he mournfully. 'Mere words--a phrase that +will do for my sermon next Sunday.' It was too plain that Lizzy was +unaware that he had seen actual pedestrian splashes upon the skirts +of the tell-tale overcoat, and that she imagined him to believe it +had come direct from some chest or drawer. + +The aspect of the case was now considerably darker. Stockdale was +so much depressed by it that he did not challenge her explanation, +or threaten to go off as a missionary to benighted islanders, or +reproach her in any way whatever. He simply parted from her when +she had done talking, and lived on in perplexity, till by degrees +his natural manner became sad and constrained. + + + +CHAPTER IV--AT THE TIME OF THE NEW MOON + + + +The following Thursday was changeable, damp, and gloomy; and the +night threatened to be windy and unpleasant. Stockdale had gone +away to Knollsea in the morning, to be present at some commemoration +service there, and on his return he was met by the attractive Lizzy +in the passage. Whether influenced by the tide of cheerfulness +which had attended him that day, or by the drive through the open +air, or whether from a natural disposition to let bygones alone, he +allowed himself to be fascinated into forgetfulness of the greatcoat +incident, and upon the whole passed a pleasant evening; not so much +in her society as within sound of her voice, as she sat talking in +the back parlour to her mother, till the latter went to bed. +Shortly after this Mrs. Newberry retired, and then Stockdale +prepared to go upstairs himself. But before he left the room he +remained standing by the dying embers awhile, thinking long of one +thing and another; and was only aroused by the flickering of his +candle in the socket as it suddenly declined and went out. Knowing +that there were a tinder-box, matches, and another candle in his +bedroom, he felt his way upstairs without a light. On reaching his +chamber he laid his hand on every possible ledge and corner for the +tinderbox, but for a long time in vain. Discovering it at length, +Stockdale produced a spark, and was kindling the brimstone, when he +fancied that he heard a movement in the passage. He blew harder at +the lint, the match flared up, and looking by aid of the blue light +through the door, which had been standing open all this time, he was +surprised to see a male figure vanishing round the top of the +staircase with the evident intention of escaping unobserved. The +personage wore the clothes which Lizzy had been brushing, and +something in the outline and gait suggested to the minister that the +wearer was Lizzy herself. + +But he was not sure of this; and, greatly excited, Stockdale +determined to investigate the mystery, and to adopt his own way for +doing it. He blew out the match without lighting the candle, went +into the passage, and proceeded on tiptoe towards Lizzy's room. A +faint grey square of light in the direction of the chamber-window as +he approached told him that the door was open, and at once suggested +that the occupant was gone. He turned and brought down his fist +upon the handrail of the staircase: 'It was she; in her late +husband's coat and hat!' + +Somewhat relieved to find that there was no intruder in the case, +yet none the less surprised, the minister crept down the stairs, +softly put on his boots, overcoat, and hat, and tried the front +door. It was fastened as usual: he went to the back door, found +this unlocked, and emerged into the garden. The night was mild and +moonless, and rain had lately been falling, though for the present +it had ceased. There was a sudden dropping from the trees and +bushes every now and then, as each passing wind shook their boughs. +Among these sounds Stockdale heard the faint fall of feet upon the +road outside, and he guessed from the step that it was Lizzy's. He +followed the sound, and, helped by the circumstance of the wind +blowing from the direction in which the pedestrian moved, he got +nearly close to her, and kept there, without risk of being +overheard. While he thus followed her up the street or lane, as it +might indifferently be called, there being more hedge than houses on +either side, a figure came forward to her from one of the cottage +doors. Lizzy stopped; the minister stepped upon the grass and +stopped also. + +'Is that Mrs. Newberry?' said the man who had come out, whose voice +Stockdale recognized as that of one of the most devout members of +his congregation. + +'It is,' said Lizzy. + +'I be quite ready--I've been here this quarter-hour.' + +'Ah, John,' said she, 'I have bad news; there is danger to-night for +our venture.' + +'And d'ye tell o't! I dreamed there might be.' + +'Yes,' she said hurriedly; 'and you must go at once round to where +the chaps are waiting, and tell them they will not be wanted till +to-morrow night at the same time. I go to burn the lugger off.' + +'I will,' he said; and instantly went off through a gate, Lizzy +continuing her way. + +On she tripped at a quickening pace till the lane turned into the +turnpike-road, which she crossed, and got into the track for +Ringsworth. Here she ascended the hill without the least +hesitation, passed the lonely hamlet of Holworth, and went down the +vale on the other side. Stockdale had never taken any extensive +walks in this direction, but he was aware that if she persisted in +her course much longer she would draw near to the coast, which was +here between two and three miles distant from Nether-Moynton; and as +it had been about a quarter-past eleven o'clock when they set out, +her intention seemed to be to reach the shore about midnight. + +Lizzy soon ascended a small mound, which Stockdale at the same time +adroitly skirted on the left; and a dull monotonous roar burst upon +his ear. The hillock was about fifty yards from the top of the +cliffs, and by day it apparently commanded a full view of the bay. +There was light enough in the sky to show her disguised figure +against it when she reached the top, where she paused, and +afterwards sat down. Stockdale, not wishing on any account to alarm +her at this moment, yet desirous of being near her, sank upon his +hands and knees, crept a little higher up, and there stayed still. + +The wind was chilly, the ground damp, and his position one in which +he did not care to remain long. However, before he had decided to +leave it, the young man heard voices behind him. What they +signified he did not know; but, fearing that Lizzy was in danger, he +was about to run forward and warn her that she might be seen, when +she crept to the shelter of a little bush which maintained a +precarious existence in that exposed spot; and her form was absorbed +in its dark and stunted outline as if she had become part of it. +She had evidently heard the men as well as he. They passed near +him, talking in loud and careless tones, which could be heard above +the uninterrupted washings of the sea, and which suggested that they +were not engaged in any business at their own risk. This proved to +be the fact: some of their words floated across to him, and caused +him to forget at once the coldness of his situation. + +'What's the vessel?' + +'A lugger, about fifty tons.' + +'From Cherbourg, I suppose?' + +'Yes, 'a b'lieve.' + +'But it don't all belong to Owlett?' + +'O no. He's only got a share. There's another or two in it--a +farmer and such like, but the names I don't know.' + +The voices died away, and the heads and shoulders of the men +diminished towards the cliff, and dropped out of sight. + +'My darling has been tempted to buy a share by that unbeliever +Owlett,' groaned the minister, his honest affection for Lizzy having +quickened to its intensest point during these moments of risk to her +person and name. 'That's why she's here,' he said to himself. 'O, +it will be the ruin of her!' + +His perturbation was interrupted by the sudden bursting out of a +bright and increasing light from the spot where Lizzy was in hiding. +A few seconds later, and before it had reached the height of a +blaze, he heard her rush past him down the hollow like a stone from +a sling, in the direction of home. The light now flared high and +wide, and showed its position clearly. She had kindled a bough of +furze and stuck it into the bush under which she had been crouching; +the wind fanned the flame, which crackled fiercely, and threatened +to consume the bush as well as the bough. Stockdale paused just +long enough to notice thus much, and then followed rapidly the route +taken by the young woman. His intention was to overtake her, and +reveal himself as a friend; but run as he would he could see nothing +of her. Thus he flew across the open country about Holworth, +twisting his legs and ankles in unexpected fissures and descents, +till, on coming to the gate between the downs and the road, he was +forced to pause to get breath. There was no audible movement either +in front or behind him, and he now concluded that she had not outrun +him, but that, hearing him at her heels, and believing him one of +the excise party, she had hidden herself somewhere on the way, and +let him pass by. + +He went on at a more leisurely pace towards the village. On +reaching the house he found his surmise to be correct, for the gate +was on the latch, and the door unfastened, just as he had left them. +Stockdale closed the door behind him, and waited silently in the +passage. In about ten minutes he heard the same light footstep that +he had heard in going out; it paused at the gate, which opened and +shut softly, and then the door-latch was lifted, and Lizzy came in. + +Stockdale went forward and said at once, 'Lizzy, don't be +frightened. I have been waiting up for you.' + +She started, though she had recognized the voice. 'It is Mr. +Stockdale, isn't it?' she said. + +'Yes,' he answered, becoming angry now that she was safe indoors, +and not alarmed. 'And a nice game I've found you out in to-night. +You are in man's clothes, and I am ashamed of you!' + +Lizzy could hardly find a voice to answer this unexpected reproach. + +'I am only partly in man's clothes,' she faltered, shrinking back to +the wall. 'It is only his greatcoat and hat and breeches that I've +got on, which is no harm, as he was my own husband; and I do it only +because a cloak blows about so, and you can't use your arms. I have +got my own dress under just the same--it is only tucked in! Will +you go away upstairs and let me pass? I didn't want you to see me +at such a time as this!' + +'But I have a right to see you! How do you think there can be +anything between us now?' Lizzy was silent. 'You are a smuggler,' +he continued sadly. + +'I have only a share in the run,' she said. + +'That makes no difference. Whatever did you engage in such a trade +as that for, and keep it such a secret from me all this time?' + +'I don't do it always. I only do it in winter-time when 'tis new +moon.' + +'Well, I suppose that's because it can't be done anywhen else . . . +You have regularly upset me, Lizzy.' + +'I am sorry for that,' Lizzy meekly replied. + +'Well now,' said he more tenderly, 'no harm is done as yet. Won't +you for the sake of me give up this blamable and dangerous practice +altogether?' + +'I must do my best to save this run,' said she, getting rather husky +in the throat. 'I don't want to give you up--you know that; but I +don't want to lose my venture. I don't know what to do now! Why I +have kept it so secret from you is that I was afraid you would be +angry if you knew.' + +'I should think so! I suppose if I had married you without finding +this out you'd have gone on with it just the same?' + +'I don't know. I did not think so far ahead. I only went to-night +to burn the folks off, because we found that the excisemen knew +where the tubs were to be landed.' + +'It is a pretty mess to be in altogether, is this,' said the +distracted young minister. 'Well, what will you do now?' + +Lizzy slowly murmured the particulars of their plan, the chief of +which were that they meant to try their luck at some other point of +the shore the next night; that three landing-places were always +agreed upon before the run was attempted, with the understanding +that, if the vessel was 'burnt off' from the first point, which was +Ringsworth, as it had been by her to-night, the crew should attempt +to make the second, which was Lulstead Cove, on the second night; +and if there, too, danger threatened, they should on the third night +try the third place, which was behind a headland further west. + +'Suppose the officers hinder them landing there too?' he said, his +attention to this interesting programme displacing for a moment his +concern at her share in it. + +'Then we shan't try anywhere else all this dark--that's what we call +the time between moon and moon--and perhaps they'll string the tubs +to a stray-line, and sink 'em a little-ways from shore, and take the +bearings; and then when they have a chance they'll go to creep for +'em.' + +'What's that?' + +'O, they'll go out in a boat and drag a creeper--that's a grapnel-- +along the bottom till it catch hold of the stray-line.' + +The minister stood thinking; and there was no sound within doors but +the tick of the clock on the stairs, and the quick breathing of +Lizzy, partly from her walk and partly from agitation, as she stood +close to the wall, not in such complete darkness but that he could +discern against its whitewashed surface the greatcoat and broad hat +which covered her. + +'Lizzy, all this is very wrong,' he said. 'Don't you remember the +lesson of the tribute-money? "Render unto Caesar the things that +are Caesar's." Surely you have heard that read times enough in your +growing up?' + +'He's dead,' she pouted. + +'But the spirit of the text is in force just the same.' + +'My father did it, and so did my grandfather, and almost everybody +in Nether-Moynton lives by it, and life would be so dull if it +wasn't for that, that I should not care to live at all.' + +'I am nothing to live for, of course,' he replied bitterly. 'You +would not think it worth while to give up this wild business and +live for me alone?' + +'I have never looked at it like that.' + +'And you won't promise and wait till I am ready?' + +'I cannot give you my word to-night.' And, looking thoughtfully +down, she gradually moved and moved away, going into the adjoining +room, and closing the door between them. She remained there in the +dark till he was tired of waiting, and had gone up to his own +chamber. + +Poor Stockdale was dreadfully depressed all the next day by the +discoveries of the night before. Lizzy was unmistakably a +fascinating young woman, but as a minister's wife she was hardly to +be contemplated. 'If I had only stuck to father's little grocery +business, instead of going in for the ministry, she would have +suited me beautifully!' he said sadly, until he remembered that in +that case he would never have come from his distant home to Nether- +Moynton, and never have known her. + +The estrangement between them was not complete, but it was +sufficient to keep them out of each other's company. Once during +the day he met her in the garden-path, and said, turning a +reproachful eye upon her, 'Do you promise, Lizzy?' But she did not +reply. The evening drew on, and he knew well enough that Lizzy +would repeat her excursion at night--her half-offended manner had +shown that she had not the slightest intention of altering her plans +at present. He did not wish to repeat his own share of the +adventure; but, act as he would, his uneasiness on her account +increased with the decline of day. Supposing that an accident +should befall her, he would never forgive himself for not being +there to help, much as he disliked the idea of seeming to +countenance such unlawful escapades. + + + +CHAPTER V--HOW THEY WENT TO LULSTEAD COVE + + + +As he had expected, she left the house at the same hour at night, +this time passing his door without stealth, as if she knew very well +that he would be watching, and were resolved to brave his +displeasure. He was quite ready, opened the door quickly, and +reached the back door almost as soon as she. + +'Then you will go, Lizzy?' he said as he stood on the step beside +her, who now again appeared as a little man with a face altogether +unsuited to his clothes. + +'I must,' she said, repressed by his stern manner. + +'Then I shall go too,' said he. + +'And I am sure you will enjoy it!' she exclaimed in more buoyant +tones. 'Everybody does who tries it.' + +'God forbid that I should!' he said. 'But I must look after you.' + +They opened the wicket and went up the road abreast of each other, +but at some distance apart, scarcely a word passing between them. +The evening was rather less favourable to smuggling enterprise than +the last had been, the wind being lower, and the sky somewhat clear +towards the north. + +'It is rather lighter,' said Stockdale. + +''Tis, unfortunately,' said she. 'But it is only from those few +stars over there. The moon was new to-day at four o'clock, and I +expected clouds. I hope we shall be able to do it this dark, for +when we have to sink 'em for long it makes the stuff taste bleachy, +and folks don't like it so well.' + +Her course was different from that of the preceding night, branching +off to the left over Lord's Barrow as soon as they had got out of +the lane and crossed the highway. By the time they reached Chaldon +Down, Stockdale, who had been in perplexed thought as to what he +should say to her, decided that he would not attempt expostulation +now, while she was excited by the adventure, but wait till it was +over, and endeavour to keep her from such practices in future. It +occurred to him once or twice, as they rambled on, that should they +be surprised by the excisemen, his situation would be more awkward +than hers, for it would be difficult to prove his true motive in +coming to the spot; but the risk was a slight consideration beside +his wish to be with her. + +They now arrived at a ravine which lay on the outskirts of Chaldon, +a village two miles on their way towards the point of the shore they +sought. Lizzy broke the silence this time: 'I have to wait here to +meet the carriers. I don't know if they have come yet. As I told +you, we go to Lulstead Cove to-night, and it is two miles further +than Ringsworth.' + +It turned out that the men had already come; for while she spoke two +or three dozen heads broke the line of the slope, and a company of +them at once descended from the bushes where they had been lying in +wait. These carriers were men whom Lizzy and other proprietors +regularly employed to bring the tubs from the boat to a hiding-place +inland. They were all young fellows of Nether-Moynton, Chaldon, and +the neighbourhood, quiet and inoffensive persons, who simply engaged +to carry the cargo for Lizzy and her cousin Owlett, as they would +have engaged in any other labour for which they were fairly well +paid. + +At a word from her they closed in together. 'You had better take it +now,' she said to them; and handed to each a packet. It contained +six shillings, their remuneration for the night's undertaking, which +was paid beforehand without reference to success or failure; but, +besides this, they had the privilege of selling as agents when the +run was successfully made. As soon as it was done, she said to +them, 'The place is the old one near Lulstead Cove;' the men till +that moment not having been told whither they were bound, for +obvious reasons. 'Owlett will meet you there,' added Lizzy. 'I +shall follow behind, to see that we are not watched.' + +The carriers went on, and Stockdale and Mrs. Newberry followed at a +distance of a stone's throw. 'What do these men do by day?' he +said. + +'Twelve or fourteen of them are labouring men. Some are +brickmakers, some carpenters, some shoe-makers, some thatchers. +They are all known to me very well. Nine of 'em are of your own +congregation.' + +'I can't help that,' said Stockdale. + +'O, I know you can't. I only told you. The others are more church- +inclined, because they supply the pa'son with all the spirits he +requires, and they don't wish to show unfriendliness to a customer.' + +'How do you choose 'em?' said Stockdale. + +'We choose 'em for their closeness, and because they are strong and +surefooted, and able to carry a heavy load a long way without being +tired.' + +Stockdale sighed as she enumerated each particular, for it proved +how far involved in the business a woman must be who was so well +acquainted with its conditions and needs. And yet he felt more +tenderly towards her at this moment than he had felt all the +foregoing day. Perhaps it was that her experienced manner and hold +indifference stirred his admiration in spite of himself. + +'Take my arm, Lizzy,' he murmured. + +'I don't want it,' she said. 'Besides, we may never be to each +other again what we once have been.' + +'That depends upon you,' said he, and they went on again as before. + +The hired carriers paced along over Chaldon Down with as little +hesitation as if it had been day, avoiding the cart-way, and leaving +the village of East Chaldon on the left, so as to reach the crest of +the hill at a lonely trackless place not far from the ancient +earthwork called Round Pound. An hour's brisk walking brought them +within sound of the sea, not many hundred yards from Lulstead Cove. +Here they paused, and Lizzy and Stockdale came up with them, when +they went on together to the verge of the cliff. One of the men now +produced an iron bar, which he drove firmly into the soil a yard +from the edge, and attached to it a rope that he had uncoiled from +his body. They all began to descend, partly stepping, partly +sliding down the incline, as the rope slipped through their hands. + +'You will not go to the bottom, Lizzy?' said Stockdale anxiously. + +'No. I stay here to watch,' she said. 'Owlett is down there.' + +The men remained quite silent when they reached the shore; and the +next thing audible to the two at the top was the dip of heavy oars, +and the dashing of waves against a boat's bow. In a moment the keel +gently touched the shingle, and Stockdale heard the footsteps of the +thirty-six carriers running forwards over the pebbles towards the +point of landing. + +There was a sousing in the water as of a brood of ducks plunging in, +showing that the men had not been particular about keeping their +legs, or even their waists, dry from the brine: but it was +impossible to see what they were doing, and in a few minutes the +shingle was trampled again. The iron bar sustaining the rope, on +which Stockdale's hand rested, began to swerve a little, and the +carriers one by one appeared climbing up the sloping cliff; dripping +audibly as they came, and sustaining themselves by the guide-rope. +Each man on reaching the top was seen to be carrying a pair of tubs, +one on his back and one on his chest, the two being slung together +by cords passing round the chine hoops, and resting on the carrier's +shoulders. Some of the stronger men carried three by putting an +extra one on the top behind, but the customary load was a pair, +these being quite weighty enough to give their bearer the sensation +of having chest and backbone in contact after a walk of four or five +miles. + +'Where is Owlett?' said Lizzy to one of them. + +'He will not come up this way,' said the carrier. 'He's to bide on +shore till we be safe off.' Then, without waiting for the rest, the +foremost men plunged across the down; and, when the last had +ascended, Lizzy pulled up the rope, wound it round her arm, wriggled +the bar from the sod, and turned to follow the carriers. + +'You are very anxious about Owlett's safety,' said the minister. + +'Was there ever such a man!' said Lizzy. 'Why, isn't he my cousin?' + +'Yes. Well, it is a bad night's work,' said Stockdale heavily. +'But I'll carry the bar and rope for you.' + +'Thank God, the tubs have got so far all right,' said she. + +Stockdale shook his head, and, taking the bar, walked by her side +towards the downs; and the moan of the sea was heard no more. + +'Is this what you meant the other day when you spoke of having +business with Owlett?' the young man asked. + +'This is it,' she replied. 'I never see him on any other matter.' + +'A partnership of that kind with a young man is very odd.' + +'It was begun by my father and his, who were brother-laws.' + +Her companion could not blind himself to the fact that where tastes +and pursuits were so akin as Lizzy's and Owlett's, and where risks +were shared, as with them, in every undertaking, there would be a +peculiar appropriateness in her answering Owlett's standing question +on matrimony in the affirmative. This did not soothe Stockdale, its +tendency being rather to stimulate in him an effort to make the pair +as inappropriate as possible, and win her away from this nocturnal +crew to correctness of conduct and a minister's parlour in some far- +removed inland county. + +They had been walking near enough to the file of carriers for +Stockdale to perceive that, when they got into the road to the +village, they split up into two companies of unequal size, each of +which made off in a direction of its own. One company, the smaller +of the two, went towards the church, and by the time that Lizzy and +Stockdale reached their own house these men had scaled the +churchyard wall, and were proceeding noiselessly over the grass +within. + +'I see that Owlett has arranged for one batch to be put in the +church again,' observed Lizzy. 'Do you remember my taking you there +the first night you came?' + +'Yes, of course,' said Stockdale. 'No wonder you had permission to +broach the tubs--they were his, I suppose?' + +'No, they were not--they were mine; I had permission from myself. +The day after that they went several miles inland in a waggon-load +of manure, and sold very well.' + +At this moment the group of men who had made off to the left some +time before began leaping one by one from the hedge opposite Lizzy's +house, and the first man, who had no tubs upon his shoulders, came +forward. + +'Mrs. Newberry, isn't it?' he said hastily. + +'Yes, Jim,' said she. 'What's the matter?' + +'I find that we can't put any in Badger's Clump to-night, Lizzy,' +said Owlett. 'The place is watched. We must sling the apple-tree +in the orchet if there's time. We can't put any more under the +church lumber than I have sent on there, and my mixen hev already +more in en than is safe.' + +'Very well,' she said. 'Be quick about it--that's all. What can I +do?' + +'Nothing at all, please. Ah, it is the minister!--you two that +can't do anything had better get indoors and not be zeed.' + +While Owlett thus conversed, in a tone so full of contraband anxiety +and so free from lover's jealousy, the men who followed him had been +descending one by one from the hedge; and it unfortunately happened +that when the hindmost took his leap, the cord slipped which +sustained his tubs: the result was that both the kegs fell into the +road, one of them being stove in by the blow. + +''Od drown it all!' said Owlett, rushing back. + +'It is worth a good deal, I suppose?' said Stockdale. + +'O no--about two guineas and half to us now,' said Lizzy excitedly. +'It isn't that--it is the smell! It is so blazing strong before it +has been lowered by water, that it smells dreadfully when spilt in +the road like that! I do hope Latimer won't pass by till it is gone +off.' + +Owlett and one or two others picked up the burst tub and began to +scrape and trample over the spot, to disperse the liquor as much as +possible; and then they all entered the gate of Owlett's orchard, +which adjoined Lizzy's garden on the right. Stockdale did not care +to follow them, for several on recognizing him had looked +wonderingly at his presence, though they said nothing. Lizzy left +his side and went to the bottom of the garden, looking over the +hedge into the orchard, where the men could be dimly seen bustling +about, and apparently hiding the tubs. All was done noiselessly, +and without a light; and when it was over they dispersed in +different directions, those who had taken their cargoes to the +church having already gone off to their homes. + +Lizzy returned to the garden-gate, over which Stockdale was still +abstractedly leaning. 'It is all finished: I am going indoors +now,' she said gently. 'I will leave the door ajar for you.' + +'O no--you needn't,' said Stockdale; 'I am coming too.' + +But before either of them had moved, the faint clatter of horses' +hoofs broke upon the ear, and it seemed to come from the point where +the track across the down joined the hard road. + +'They are just too late!' cried Lizzy exultingly. + +'Who?' said Stockdale. + +'Latimer, the riding-officer, and some assistant of his. We had +better go indoors.' + +They entered the house, and Lizzy bolted the door. 'Please don't +get a light, Mr. Stockdale,' she said. + +'Of course I will not,' said he. + +'I thought you might be on the side of the king,' said Lizzy, with +faintest sarcasm. + +'I am,' said Stockdale. 'But, Lizzy Newberry, I love you, and you +know it perfectly well; and you ought to know, if you do not, what I +have suffered in my conscience on your account these last few days!' + +'I guess very well,' she said hurriedly. 'Yet I don't see why. Ah, +you are better than I!' + +The trotting of the horses seemed to have again died away, and the +pair of listeners touched each other's fingers in the cold 'Good- +night' of those whom something seriously divided. They were on the +landing, but before they had taken three steps apart, the tramp of +the horsemen suddenly revived, almost close to the house. Lizzy +turned to the staircase window, opened the casement about an inch, +and put her face close to the aperture. 'Yes, one of 'em is +Latimer,' she whispered. 'He always rides a white horse. One would +think it was the last colour for a man in that line.' + +Stockdale looked, and saw the white shape of the animal as it passed +by; but before the riders had gone another ten yards, Latimer reined +in his horse, and said something to his companion which neither +Stockdale nor Lizzy could hear. Its drift was, however, soon made +evident, for the other man stopped also; and sharply turning the +horses' heads they cautiously retraced their steps. When they were +again opposite Mrs. Newberry's garden, Latimer dismounted, and the +man on the dark horse did the same. + +Lizzy and Stockdale, intently listening and observing the +proceedings, naturally put their heads as close as possible to the +slit formed by the slightly opened casement; and thus it occurred +that at last their cheeks came positively into contact. They went +on listening, as if they did not know of the singular incident which +had happened to their faces, and the pressure of each to each rather +increased than lessened with the lapse of time. + +They could hear the excisemen sniffing the air like hounds as they +paced slowly along. When they reached the spot where the tub had +burst, both stopped on the instant. + +'Ay, ay, 'tis quite strong here,' said the second officer. 'Shall +we knock at the door?' + +'Well, no,' said Latimer. 'Maybe this is only a trick to put us off +the scent. They wouldn't kick up this stink anywhere near their +hiding-place. I have known such things before.' + +'Anyhow, the things, or some of 'em, must have been brought this +way,' said the other. + +'Yes,' said Latimer musingly. 'Unless 'tis all done to tole us the +wrong way. I have a mind that we go home for to-night without +saying a word, and come the first thing in the morning with more +hands. I know they have storages about here, but we can do nothing +by this owl's light. We will look round the parish and see if +everybody is in bed, John; and if all is quiet, we will do as I +say.' + +They went on, and the two inside the window could hear them passing +leisurely through the whole village, the street of which curved +round at the bottom and entered the turnpike road at another +junction. This way the excisemen followed, and the amble of their +horses died quite away. + +'What will you do?' said Stockdale, withdrawing from his position. + +She knew that he alluded to the coming search by the officers, to +divert her attention from their own tender incident by the casement, +which he wished to be passed over as a thing rather dreamt of than +done. 'O, nothing,' she replied, with as much coolness as she could +command under her disappointment at his manner. 'We often have such +storms as this. You would not be frightened if you knew what fools +they are. Fancy riding o' horseback through the place: of course +they will hear and see nobody while they make that noise; but they +are always afraid to get off, in case some of our fellows should +burst out upon 'em, and tie them up to the gate-post, as they have +done before now. Good-night, Mr. Stockdale.' + +She closed the window and went to her room, where a tear fell from +her eyes; and that not because of the alertness of the riding- +officers. + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE GREAT SEARCH AT NETHER-MOYNTON + + + +Stockdale was so excited by the events of the evening, and the +dilemma that he was placed in between conscience and love, that he +did not sleep, or even doze, but remained as broadly awake as at +noonday. As soon as the grey light began to touch ever so faintly +the whiter objects in his bedroom he arose, dressed himself, and +went downstairs into the road. + +The village was already astir. Several of the carriers had heard +the well-known tramp of Latimer's horse while they were undressing +in the dark that night, and had already communicated with each other +and Owlett on the subject. The only doubt seemed to be about the +safety of those tubs which had been left under the church gallery- +stairs, and after a short discussion at the corner of the mill, it +was agreed that these should be removed before it got lighter, and +hidden in the middle of a double hedge bordering the adjoining +field. However, before anything could be carried into effect, the +footsteps of many men were heard coming down the lane from the +highway. + +'Damn it, here they be,' said Owlett, who, having already drawn the +hatch and started his mill for the day, stood stolidly at the mill- +door covered with flour, as if the interest of his whole soul was +bound up in the shaking walls around him. + +The two or three with whom he had been talking dispersed to their +usual work, and when the excise officers, and the formidable body of +men they had hired, reached the village cross, between the mill and +Mrs. Newberry's house, the village wore the natural aspect of a +place beginning its morning labours. + +'Now,' said Latimer to his associates, who numbered thirteen men in +all, 'what I know is that the things are somewhere in this here +place. We have got the day before us, and 'tis hard if we can't +light upon 'em and get 'em to Budmouth Custom-house before night. +First we will try the fuel-houses, and then we'll work our way into +the chimmers, and then to the ricks and stables, and so creep round. +You have nothing but your noses to guide ye, mind, so use 'em to-day +if you never did in your lives before.' + +Then the search began. Owlett, during the early part, watched from +his mill-window, Lizzy from the door of her house, with the greatest +self-possession. A farmer down below, who also had a share in the +run, rode about with one eye on his fields and the other on Latimer +and his myrmidons, prepared to put them off the scent if he should +be asked a question. Stockdale, who was no smuggler at all, felt +more anxiety than the worst of them, and went about his studies with +a heavy heart, coming frequently to the door to ask Lizzy some +question or other on the consequences to her of the tubs being +found. + +'The consequences,' she said quietly, 'are simply that I shall lose +'em. As I have none in the house or garden, they can't touch me +personally.' + +'But you have some in the orchard?' + +'Owlett rents that of me, and he lends it to others. So it will be +hard to say who put any tubs there if they should be found.' + +There was never such a tremendous sniffing known as that which took +place in Nether-Moynton parish and its vicinity this day. All was +done methodically, and mostly on hands and knees. At different +hours of the day they had different plans. From daybreak to +breakfast-time the officers used their sense of smell in a direct +and straightforward manner only, pausing nowhere but at such places +as the tubs might be supposed to be secreted in at that very moment, +pending their removal on the following night. Among the places +tested and examined were + +Hollow trees Cupboards Culverts +Potato-graves Clock-cases Hedgerows +Fuel-houses Chimney-flues Faggot-ricks +Bedrooms Rainwater-butts Haystacks +Apple-lofts Pigsties Coppers and ovens. + +After breakfast they recommenced with renewed vigour, taking a new +line; that is to say, directing their attention to clothes that +might be supposed to have come in contact with the tubs in their +removal from the shore, such garments being usually tainted with the +spirit, owing to its oozing between the staves. They now sniffed at +- + +Smock-frocks Smiths' and shoemakers' aprons +Old shirts and waistcoats Knee-naps and hedging-gloves +Coats and hats Tarpaulins +Breeches and leggings Market-cloaks +Women's shawls and gowns Scarecrows + +And as soon as the mid-day meal was over, they pushed their search +into places where the spirits might have been thrown away in alarm:- + +Horse-ponds Mixens Sinks in yards +Stable-drains Wet ditches Road-scrapings, and +Cinder-heaps Cesspools Back-door gutters. + +But still these indefatigable excisemen discovered nothing more than +the original tell-tale smell in the road opposite Lizzy's house, +which even yet had not passed off. + +'I'll tell ye what it is, men,' said Latimer, about three o'clock in +the afternoon, 'we must begin over again. Find them tubs I will.' + +The men, who had been hired for the day, looked at their hands and +knees, muddy with creeping on all fours so frequently, and rubbed +their noses, as if they had almost had enough of it; for the +quantity of bad air which had passed into each one's nostril had +rendered it nearly as insensible as a flue. However, after a +moment's hesitation, they prepared to start anew, except three, +whose power of smell had quite succumbed under the excessive wear +and tear of the day. + +By this time not a male villager was to be seen in the parish. +Owlett was not at his mill, the farmers were not in their fields, +the parson was not in his garden, the smith had left his forge, and +the wheelwright's shop was silent. + +'Where the divil are the folk gone?' said Latimer, waking up to the +fact of their absence, and looking round. 'I'll have 'em up for +this! Why don't they come and help us? There's not a man about the +place but the Methodist parson, and he's an old woman. I demand +assistance in the king's name!' + +'We must find the jineral public afore we can demand that,' said his +lieutenant. + +'Well, well, we shall do better without 'em,' said Latimer, who +changed his moods at a moment's notice. 'But there's great cause of +suspicion in this silence and this keeping out of sight, and I'll +bear it in mind. Now we will go across to Owlett's orchard, and see +what we can find there.' + +Stockdale, who heard this discussion from the garden-gate, over +which he had been leaning, was rather alarmed, and thought it a +mistake of the villagers to keep so completely out of the way. He +himself, like the excisemen, had been wondering for the last half- +hour what could have become of them. Some labourers were of +necessity engaged in distant fields, but the master-workmen should +have been at home; though one and all, after just showing themselves +at their shops, had apparently gone off for the day. He went in to +Lizzy, who sat at a back window sewing, and said, 'Lizzy, where are +the men?' + +Lizzy laughed. 'Where they mostly are when they're run so hard as +this.' She cast her eyes to heaven. 'Up there,' she said. + +Stockdale looked up. 'What--on the top of the church tower?' he +asked, seeing the direction of her glance. + +'Yes.' + +'Well, I expect they will soon have to come down,' said he gravely. +'I have been listening to the officers, and they are going to search +the orchard over again, and then every nook in the church.' + +Lizzy looked alarmed for the first time. 'Will you go and tell our +folk?' she said. 'They ought to be let know.' Seeing his +conscience struggling within him like a boiling pot, she added, 'No, +never mind, I'll go myself.' + +She went out, descended the garden, and climbed over the churchyard +wall at the same time that the preventive-men were ascending the +road to the orchard. Stockdale could do no less than follow her. +By the time that she reached the tower entrance he was at her side, +and they entered together. + +Nether-Moynton church-tower was, as in many villages, without a +turret, and the only way to the top was by going up to the singers' +gallery, and thence ascending by a ladder to a square trap-door in +the floor of the bell-loft, above which a permanent ladder was +fixed, passing through the bells to a hole in the roof. When Lizzy +and Stockdale reached the gallery and looked up, nothing but the +trap-door and the five holes for the bell-ropes appeared. The +ladder was gone. + +'There's no getting up,' said Stockdale. + +'O yes, there is,' said she. 'There's an eye looking at us at this +moment through a knot-hole in that trap-door.' + +And as she spoke the trap opened, and the dark line of the ladder +was seen descending against the white-washed wall. When it touched +the bottom Lizzy dragged it to its place, and said, 'If you'll go +up, I'll follow.' + +The young man ascended, and presently found himself among +consecrated bells for the first time in his life, nonconformity +having been in the Stockdale blood for some generations. He eyed +them uneasily, and looked round for Lizzy. Owlett stood here, +holding the top of the ladder. + +'What, be you really one of us?' said the miller. + +'It seems so,' said Stockdale sadly. + +'He's not,' said Lizzy, who overheard. 'He's neither for nor +against us. He'll do us no harm.' + +She stepped up beside them, and then they went on to the next stage, +which, when they had clambered over the dusty bell-carriages, was of +easy ascent, leading towards the hole through which the pale sky +appeared, and into the open air. Owlett remained behind for a +moment, to pull up the lower ladder. + +'Keep down your heads,' said a voice, as soon as they set foot on +the flat. + +Stockdale here beheld all the missing parishioners, lying on their +stomachs on the tower roof, except a few who, elevated on their +hands and knees, were peeping through the embrasures of the parapet. +Stockdale did the same, and saw the village lying like a map below +him, over which moved the figures of the excisemen, each +foreshortened to a crablike object, the crown of his hat forming a +circular disc in the centre of him. Some of the men had turned +their heads when the young preacher's figure arose among them. + +'What, Mr. Stockdale?' said Matt Grey, in a tone of surprise. + +'I'd as lief that it hadn't been,' said Jim Clarke. 'If the pa'son +should see him a trespassing here in his tower, 'twould be none the +better for we, seeing how 'a do hate chapel-members. He'd never buy +a tub of us again, and he's as good a customer as we have got this +side o' Warm'll.' + +'Where is the pa'son?' said Lizzy. + +'In his house, to be sure, that he mid see nothing of what's going +on--where all good folks ought to be, and this young man likewise.' + +'Well, he has brought some news,' said Lizzy. 'They are going to +search the orchet and church; can we do anything if they should +find?' + +'Yes,' said her cousin Owlett. 'That's what we've been talking o', +and we have settled our line. Well, be dazed!' + +The exclamation was caused by his perceiving that some of the +searchers, having got into the orchard, and begun stooping and +creeping hither and thither, were pausing in the middle, where a +tree smaller than the rest was growing. They drew closer, and bent +lower than ever upon the ground. + +'O, my tubs!' said Lizzy faintly, as she peered through the parapet +at them. + +'They have got 'em, 'a b'lieve,' said Owlett. + +The interest in the movements of the officers was so keen that not a +single eye was looking in any other direction; but at that moment a +shout from the church beneath them attracted the attention of the +smugglers, as it did also of the party in the orchard, who sprang to +their feet and went towards the churchyard wall. At the same time +those of the Government men who had entered the church unperceived +by the smugglers cried aloud, 'Here be some of 'em at last.' + +The smugglers remained in a blank silence, uncertain whether 'some +of 'em' meant tubs or men; but again peeping cautiously over the +edge of the tower they learnt that tubs were the things descried; +and soon these fated articles were brought one by one into the +middle of the churchyard from their hiding-place under the gallery- +stairs. + +'They are going to put 'em on Hinton's vault till they find the +rest!' said Lizzy hopelessly. The excisemen had, in fact, begun to +pile up the tubs on a large stone slab which was fixed there; and +when all were brought out from the tower, two or three of the men +were left standing by them, the rest of the party again proceeding +to the orchard. + +The interest of the smugglers in the next manoeuvres of their +enemies became painfully intense. Only about thirty tubs had been +secreted in the lumber of the tower, but seventy were hidden in the +orchard, making up all that they had brought ashore as yet, the +remainder of the cargo having been tied to a sinker and dropped +overboard for another night's operations. The excisemen, having re- +entered the orchard, acted as if they were positive that here lay +hidden the rest of the tubs, which they were determined to find +before nightfall. They spread themselves out round the field, and +advancing on all fours as before, went anew round every apple-tree +in the enclosure. The young tree in the middle again led them to +pause, and at length the whole company gathered there in a way which +signified that a second chain of reasoning had led to the same +results as the first. + +When they had examined the sod hereabouts for some minutes, one of +the men rose, ran to a disused porch of the church where tools were +kept, and returned with the sexton's pickaxe and shovel, with which +they set to work. + +'Are they really buried there?' said the minister, for the grass was +so green and uninjured that it was difficult to believe it had been +disturbed. The smugglers were too interested to reply, and +presently they saw, to their chagrin, the officers stand several on +each side of the tree; and, stooping and applying their hands to the +soil, they bodily lifted the tree and the turf around it. The +apple-tree now showed itself to be growing in a shallow box, with +handles for lifting at each of the four sides. Under the site of +the tree a square hole was revealed, and an exciseman went and +looked down. + +'It is all up now,' said Owlett quietly. 'And now all of ye get +down before they notice we are here; and be ready for our next move. +I had better bide here till dark, or they may take me on suspicion, +as 'tis on my ground. I'll be with ye as soon as daylight begins to +pink in.' + +'And I?' said Lizzy. + +'You please look to the linch-pins and screws; then go indoors and +know nothing at all. The chaps will do the rest.' + +The ladder was replaced, and all but Owlett descended, the men +passing off one by one at the back of the church, and vanishing on +their respective errands. + +Lizzy walked boldly along the street, followed closely by the +minister. + +'You are going indoors, Mrs. Newberry?' he said. + +She knew from the words 'Mrs. Newberry' that the division between +them had widened yet another degree. + +'I am not going home,' she said. 'I have a little thing to do +before I go in. Martha Sarah will get your tea.' + +'O, I don't mean on that account,' said Stockdale. 'What CAN you +have to do further in this unhallowed affair?' + +'Only a little,' she said. + +'What is that? I'll go with you.' + +'No, I shall go by myself. Will you please go indoors? I shall be +there in less than an hour.' + +'You are not going to run any danger, Lizzy?' said the young man, +his tenderness reasserting itself. + +'None whatever--worth mentioning,' answered she, and went down +towards the Cross. + +Stockdale entered the garden gate, and stood behind it looking on. +The excisemen were still busy in the orchard, and at last he was +tempted to enter, and watch their proceedings. When he came closer +he found that the secret cellar, of whose existence he had been +totally unaware, was formed by timbers placed across from side to +side about a foot under the ground, and grassed over. + +The excisemen looked up at Stockdale's fair and downy countenance, +and evidently thinking him above suspicion, went on with their work +again. As soon as all the tubs were taken out, they began tearing +up the turf; pulling out the timbers, and breaking in the sides, +till the cellar was wholly dismantled and shapeless, the apple-tree +lying with its roots high to the air. But the hole which had in its +time held so much contraband merchandize was never completely filled +up, either then or afterwards, a depression in the greensward +marking the spot to this day. + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE WALK TO WARM'ELL CROSS AND AFTERWARDS + + + +As the goods had all to be carried to Budmouth that night, the +excisemen's next object was to find horses and carts for the +journey, and they went about the village for that purpose. Latimer +strode hither and thither with a lump of chalk in his hand, marking +broad-arrows so vigorously on every vehicle and set of harness that +he came across, that it seemed as if he would chalk broad-arrows on +the very hedges and roads. The owner of every conveyance so marked +was bound to give it up for Government purposes. Stockdale, who had +had enough of the scene, turned indoors thoughtful and depressed. +Lizzy was already there, having come in at the back, though she had +not yet taken off her bonnet. She looked tired, and her mood was +not much brighter than his own. They had but little to say to each +other; and the minister went away and attempted to read; but at this +he could not succeed, and he shook the little bell for tea. + +Lizzy herself brought in the tray, the girl having run off into the +village during the afternoon, too full of excitement at the +proceedings to remember her state of life. However, almost before +the sad lovers had said anything to each other, Martha came in in a +steaming state. + +'O, there's such a stoor, Mrs. Newberry and Mr. Stockdale! The +king's excisemen can't get the carts ready nohow at all! They +pulled Thomas Ballam's, and William Rogers's, and Stephen Sprake's +carts into the road, and off came the wheels, and down fell the +carts; and they found there was no linch-pins in the arms; and then +they tried Samuel Shane's waggon, and found that the screws were +gone from he, and at last they looked at the dairyman's cart, and +he's got none neither! They have gone now to the blacksmith's to +get some made, but he's nowhere to be found!' + +Stockdale looked at Lizzy, who blushed very slightly, and went out +of the room, followed by Martha Sarah. But before they had got +through the passage there was a rap at the front door, and Stockdale +recognized Latimer's voice addressing Mrs. Newberry, who had turned +back. + +'For God's sake, Mrs. Newberry, have you seen Hardman the blacksmith +up this way? If we could get hold of him, we'd e'en a'most drag him +by the hair of his head to his anvil, where he ought to be.' + +'He's an idle man, Mr. Latimer,' said Lizzy archly. 'What do you +want him for?' + +'Why, there isn't a horse in the place that has got more than three +shoes on, and some have only two. The waggon-wheels be without +strakes, and there's no linch-pins to the carts. What with that, +and the bother about every set of harness being out of order, we +shan't be off before nightfall--upon my soul we shan't. 'Tis a +rough lot, Mrs. Newberry, that you've got about you here; but +they'll play at this game once too often, mark my words they will! +There's not a man in the parish that don't deserve to be whipped.' + +It happened that Hardman was at that moment a little further up the +lane, smoking his pipe behind a holly-bush. When Latimer had done +speaking he went on in this direction, and Hardman, hearing the +exciseman's steps, found curiosity too strong for prudence. He +peeped out from the bush at the very moment that Latimer's glance +was on it. There was nothing left for him to do but to come forward +with unconcern. + +'I've been looking for you for the last hour!' said Latimer with a +glare in his eye. + +'Sorry to hear that,' said Hardman. 'I've been out for a stroll, to +look for more hid tubs, to deliver 'em up to Gover'ment.' + +'O yes, Hardman, we know it,' said Latimer, with withering sarcasm. +'We know that you'll deliver 'em up to Gover'ment. We know that all +the parish is helping us, and have been all day! Now you please +walk along with me down to your shop, and kindly let me hire ye in +the king's name.' + +They went down the lane together; and presently there resounded from +the smithy the ring of a hammer not very briskly swung. However, +the carts and horses were got into some sort of travelling +condition, but it was not until after the clock had struck six, when +the muddy roads were glistening under the horizontal light of the +fading day. The smuggled tubs were soon packed into the vehicles, +and Latimer, with three of his assistants, drove slowly out of the +village in the direction of the port of Budmouth, some considerable +number of miles distant, the other excisemen being left to watch for +the remainder of the cargo, which they knew to have been sunk +somewhere between Ringsworth and Lulstead Cove, and to unearth +Owlett, the only person clearly implicated by the discovery of the +cave. + +Women and children stood at the doors as the carts, each chalked +with the Government pitchfork, passed in the increasing twilight; +and as they stood they looked at the confiscated property with a +melancholy expression that told only too plainly the relation which +they bore to the trade. + +'Well, Lizzy,' said Stockdale, when the crackle of the wheels had +nearly died away. 'This is a fit finish to your adventure. I am +truly thankful that you have got off without suspicion, and the loss +only of the liquor. Will you sit down and let me talk to you?' + +'By and by,' she said. 'But I must go out now.' + +'Not to that horrid shore again?' he said blankly. + +'No, not there. I am only going to see the end of this day's +business.' + +He did not answer to this, and she moved towards the door slowly, as +if waiting for him to say something more. + +'You don't offer to come with me,' she added at last. 'I suppose +that's because you hate me after all this?' + +'Can you say it, Lizzy, when you know I only want to save you from +such practices? Come with you of course I will, if it is only to +take care of you. But why will you go out again?' + +'Because I cannot rest indoors. Something is happening, and I must +know what. Now, come!' And they went into the dusk together. + +When they reached the turnpike-road she turned to the right, and he +soon perceived that they were following the direction of the +excisemen and their load. He had given her his arm, and every now +and then she suddenly pulled it back, to signify that he was to halt +a moment and listen. They had walked rather quickly along the first +quarter of a mile, and on the second or third time of standing still +she said, 'I hear them ahead--don't you?' + +'Yes,' he said; 'I hear the wheels. But what of that?' + +'I only want to know if they get clear away from the neighbourhood.' + +'Ah,' said he, a light breaking upon him. 'Something desperate is +to be attempted!--and now I remember there was not a man about the +village when we left.' + +'Hark!' she murmured. The noise of the cartwheels had stopped, and +given place to another sort of sound. + +''Tis a scuffle!' said Stockdale. 'There'll be murder! Lizzy, let +go my arm; I am going on. On my conscience, I must not stay here +and do nothing!' + +'There'll be no murder, and not even a broken head,' she said. 'Our +men are thirty to four of them: no harm will be done at all.' + +'Then there IS an attack!' exclaimed Stockdale; 'and you knew it was +to be. Why should you side with men who break the laws like this?' + +'Why should you side with men who take from country traders what +they have honestly bought wi' their own money in France?' said she +firmly. + +'They are not honestly bought,' said he. + +'They are,' she contradicted. 'I and Owlett and the others paid +thirty shillings for every one of the tubs before they were put on +board at Cherbourg, and if a king who is nothing to us sends his +people to steal our property, we have a right to steal it back +again.' + +Stockdale did not stop to argue the matter, but went quickly in the +direction of the noise, Lizzy keeping at his side. 'Don't you +interfere, will you, dear Richard?' she said anxiously, as they drew +near. 'Don't let us go any closer: 'tis at Warm'ell Cross where +they are seizing 'em. You can do no good, and you may meet with a +hard blow!' + +'Let us see first what is going on,' he said. But before they had +got much further the noise of the cartwheels began again; and +Stockdale soon found that they were coming towards him. In another +minute the three carts came up, and Stockdale and Lizzy stood in the +ditch to let them pass. + +Instead of being conducted by four men, as had happened when they +went out of the village, the horses and carts were now accompanied +by a body of from twenty to thirty, all of whom, as Stockdale +perceived to his astonishment, had blackened faces. Among them +walked six or eight huge female figures, whom, from their wide +strides, Stockdale guessed to be men in disguise. As soon as the +party discerned Lizzy and her companion four or five fell back, and +when the carts had passed, came close to the pair. + +'There is no walking up this way for the present,' said one of the +gaunt women, who wore curls a foot long, dangling down the sides of +her face, in the fashion of the time. Stockdale recognized this +lady's voice as Owlett's. + +'Why not?' said Stockdale. 'This is the public highway.' + +'Now look here, youngster,' said Owlett. 'O, 'tis the Methodist +parson!--what, and Mrs. Newberry! Well, you'd better not go up that +way, Lizzy. They've all run off, and folks have got their own +again.' + +The miller then hastened on and joined his comrades. Stockdale and +Lizzy also turned back. 'I wish all this hadn't been forced upon +us,' she said regretfully. 'But if those excisemen had got off with +the tubs, half the people in the parish would have been in want for +the next month or two.' + +Stockdale was not paying much attention to her words, and he said, +'I don't think I can go back like this. Those four poor excisemen +may be murdered for all I know.' + +'Murdered!' said Lizzy impatiently. 'We don't do murder here.' + +'Well, I shall go as far as Warm'ell Cross to see,' said Stockdale +decisively; and, without wishing her safe home or anything else, the +minister turned back. Lizzy stood looking at him till his form was +absorbed in the shades; and then, with sadness, she went in the +direction of Nether-Moynton. + +The road was lonely, and after nightfall at this time of the year +there was often not a passer for hours. Stockdale pursued his way +without hearing a sound beyond that of his own footsteps; and in due +time he passed beneath the trees of the plantation which surrounded +the Warm'ell Cross-road. Before he had reached the point of +intersection he heard voices from the thicket. + +'Hoi-hoi-hoi! Help, help!' + +The voices were not at all feeble or despairing, but they were +unmistakably anxious. Stockdale had no weapon, and before plunging +into the pitchy darkness of the plantation he pulled a stake from +the hedge, to use in case of need. When he got among the trees he +shouted--'What's the matter--where are you?' + +'Here,' answered the voices; and, pushing through the brambles in +that direction, he came near the objects of his search. + +'Why don't you come forward?' said Stockdale. + +'We be tied to the trees!' + +'Who are you?' + +'Poor Will Latimer the exciseman!' said one plaintively. 'Just come +and cut these cords, there's a good man. We were afraid nobody +would pass by to-night.' + +Stockdale soon loosened them, upon which they stretched their limbs +and stood at their ease. + +'The rascals!' said Latimer, getting now into a rage, though he had +seemed quite meek when Stockdale first came up. ''Tis the same set +of fellows. I know they were Moynton chaps to a man.' + +'But we can't swear to 'em,' said another. 'Not one of 'em spoke.' + +'What are you going to do?' said Stockdale. + +'I'd fain go back to Moynton, and have at 'em again!' said Latimer. + +'So would we!' said his comrades. + +'Fight till we die!' said Latimer. + +'We will, we will!' said his men. + +'But,' said Latimer, more frigidly, as they came out of the +plantation, 'we don't KNOW that these chaps with black faces were +Moynton men? And proof is a hard thing.' + +'So it is,' said the rest. + +'And therefore we won't do nothing at all,' said Latimer, with +complete dispassionateness. 'For my part, I'd sooner be them than +we. The clitches of my arms are burning like fire from the cords +those two strapping women tied round 'em. My opinion is, now I have +had time to think o't, that you may serve your Gover'ment at too +high a price. For these two nights and days I have not had an +hour's rest; and, please God, here's for home-along.' + +The other officers agreed heartily to this course; and, thanking +Stockdale for his timely assistance, they parted from him at the +Cross, taking themselves the western road, and Stockdale going back +to Nether-Moynton. + +During that walk the minister was lost in reverie of the most +painful kind. As soon as he got into the house, and before entering +his own rooms, he advanced to the door of the little back parlour in +which Lizzy usually sat with her mother. He found her there alone. +Stockdale went forward, and, like a man in a dream, looked down upon +the table that stood between him and the young woman, who had her +bonnet and cloak still on. As he did not speak, she looked up from +her chair at him, with misgiving in her eye. + +'Where are they gone?' he then said listlessly. + +'Who?--I don't know. I have seen nothing of them since. I came +straight in here.' + +'If your men can manage to get off with those tubs, it will be a +great profit to you, I suppose?' + +'A share will be mine, a share my cousin Owlett's, a share to each +of the two farmers, and a share divided amongst the men who helped +us.' + +'And you still think,' he went on slowly, 'that you will not give +this business up?' + +Lizzy rose, and put her hand upon his shoulder. 'Don't ask that,' +she whispered. 'You don't know what you are asking. I must tell +you, though I meant not to do it. What I make by that trade is all +I have to keep my mother and myself with.' + +He was astonished. 'I did not dream of such a thing,' he said. 'I +would rather have swept the streets, had I been you. What is money +compared with a clear conscience?' + +'My conscience is clear. I know my mother, but the king I have +never seen. His dues are nothing to me. But it is a great deal to +me that my mother and I should live.' + +'Marry me, and promise to give it up. I will keep your mother.' + +'It is good of you,' she said, trembling a little. 'Let me think of +it by myself. I would rather not answer now.' + +She reserved her answer till the next day, and came into his room +with a solemn face. 'I cannot do what you wished!' she said +passionately. 'It is too much to ask. My whole life ha' been +passed in this way.' Her words and manner showed that before +entering she had been struggling with herself in private, and that +the contention had been strong. + +Stockdale turned pale, but he spoke quietly. 'Then, Lizzy, we must +part. I cannot go against my principles in this matter, and I +cannot make my profession a mockery. You know how I love you, and +what I would do for you; but this one thing I cannot do.' + +'But why should you belong to that profession?' she burst out. 'I +have got this large house; why can't you marry me, and live here +with us, and not be a Methodist preacher any more? I assure you, +Richard, it is no harm, and I wish you could only see it as I do! +We only carry it on in winter: in summer it is never done at all. +It stirs up one's dull life at this time o' the year, and gives +excitement, which I have got so used to now that I should hardly +know how to do 'ithout it. At nights, when the wind blows, instead +of being dull and stupid, and not noticing whether it do blow or +not, your mind is afield, even if you are not afield yourself; and +you are wondering how the chaps are getting on; and you walk up and +down the room, and look out o' window, and then you go out yourself, +and know your way about as well by night as by day, and have +hairbreadth escapes from old Latimer and his fellows, who are too +stupid ever to really frighten us, and only make us a bit nimble.' + +'He frightened you a little last night, anyhow: and I would advise +you to drop it before it is worse.' + +She shook her head. 'No, I must go on as I have begun. I was born +to it. It is in my blood, and I can't be cured. O, Richard, you +cannot think what a hard thing you have asked, and how sharp you try +me when you put me between this and my love for 'ee!' + +Stockdale was leaning with his elbow on the mantelpiece, his hands +over his eyes. 'We ought never to have met, Lizzy,' he said. 'It +was an ill day for us! I little thought there was anything so +hopeless and impossible in our engagement as this. Well, it is too +late now to regret consequences in this way. I have had the +happiness of seeing you and knowing you at least.' + +'You dissent from Church, and I dissent from State,' she said. 'And +I don't see why we are not well matched.' + +He smiled sadly, while Lizzy remained looking down, her eyes +beginning to overflow. + +That was an unhappy evening for both of them, and the days that +followed were unhappy days. Both she and he went mechanically about +their employments, and his depression was marked in the village by +more than one of his denomination with whom he came in contact. But +Lizzy, who passed her days indoors, was unsuspected of being the +cause: for it was generally understood that a quiet engagement to +marry existed between her and her cousin Owlett, and had existed for +some time. + +Thus uncertainly the week passed on; till one morning Stockdale said +to her: 'I have had a letter, Lizzy. I must call you that till I +am gone.' + +'Gone?' said she blankly. + +'Yes,' he said. 'I am going from this place. I felt it would be +better for us both that I should not stay after what has happened. +In fact, I couldn't stay here, and look on you from day to day, +without becoming weak and faltering in my course. I have just heard +of an arrangement by which the other minister can arrive here in +about a week; and let me go elsewhere.' + +That he had all this time continued so firmly fixed in his +resolution came upon her as a grievous surprise. 'You never loved +me!' she said bitterly. + +'I might say the same,' he returned; 'but I will not. Grant me one +favour. Come and hear my last sermon on the day before I go.' + +Lizzy, who was a church-goer on Sunday mornings, frequently attended +Stockdale's chapel in the evening with the rest of the double- +minded; and she promised. + +It became known that Stockdale was going to leave, and a good many +people outside his own sect were sorry to hear it. The intervening +days flew rapidly away, and on the evening of the Sunday which +preceded the morning of his departure Lizzy sat in the chapel to +hear him for the last time. The little building was full to +overflowing, and he took up the subject which all had expected, that +of the contraband trade so extensively practised among them. His +hearers, in laying his words to their own hearts, did not perceive +that they were most particularly directed against Lizzy, till the +sermon waxed warm, and Stockdale nearly broke down with emotion. In +truth his own earnestness, and her sad eyes looking up at him, were +too much for the young man's equanimity. He hardly knew how he +ended. He saw Lizzy, as through a mist, turn and go away with the +rest of the congregation; and shortly afterwards followed her home. + +She invited him to supper, and they sat down alone, her mother +having, as was usual with her on Sunday nights, gone to bed early. + +'We will part friends, won't we?' said Lizzy, with forced gaiety, +and never alluding to the sermon: a reticence which rather +disappointed him. + +'We will,' he said, with a forced smile on his part; and they sat +down. + +It was the first meal that they had ever shared together in their +lives, and probably the last that they would so share. When it was +over, and the indifferent conversation could no longer be continued, +he arose and took her hand. 'Lizzy,' he said, 'do you say we must +part--do you?' + +'You do,' she said solemnly. 'I can say no more.' + +'Nor I,' said he. 'If that is your answer, good-bye!' + +Stockdale bent over her and kissed her, and she involuntarily +returned his kiss. 'I shall go early,' he said hurriedly. 'I shall +not see you again.' + +And he did leave early. He fancied, when stepping forth into the +grey morning light, to mount the van which was to carry him away, +that he saw a face between the parted curtains of Lizzy's window, +but the light was faint, and the panes glistened with wet; so he +could not be sure. Stockdale mounted the vehicle, and was gone; and +on the following Sunday the new minister preached in the chapel of +the Moynton Wesleyans. + + +One day, two years after the parting, Stockdale, now settled in a +midland town, came into Nether-Moynton by carrier in the original +way. Jogging along in the van that afternoon he had put questions +to the driver, and the answers that he received interested the +minister deeply. The result of them was that he went without the +least hesitation to the door of his former lodging. It was about +six o'clock in the evening, and the same time of year as when he had +left; now, too, the ground was damp and glistening, the west was +bright, and Lizzy's snowdrops were raising their heads in the border +under the wall. + +Lizzy must have caught sight of him from the window, for by the time +that he reached the door she was there holding it open: and then, +as if she had not sufficiently considered her act of coming out, she +drew herself back, saying with some constraint, 'Mr. Stockdale!' + +'You knew it was,' said Stockdale, taking her hand. 'I wrote to say +I should call.' + +'Yes, but you did not say when,' she answered. + +'I did not. I was not quite sure when my business would lead me to +these parts.' + +'You only came because business brought you near?' + +'Well, that is the fact; but I have often thought I should like to +come on purpose to see you . . . But what's all this that has +happened? I told you how it would be, Lizzy, and you would not +listen to me.' + +'I would not,' she said sadly. 'But I had been brought up to that +life; and it was second nature to me. However, it is all over now. +The officers have blood-money for taking a man dead or alive, and +the trade is going to nothing. We were hunted down like rats.' + +'Owlett is quite gone, I hear.' + +'Yes. He is in America. We had a dreadful struggle that last time, +when they tried to take him. It is a perfect miracle that he lived +through it; and it is a wonder that I was not killed. I was shot in +the hand. It was not by aim; the shot was really meant for my +cousin; but I was behind, looking on as usual, and the bullet came +to me. It bled terribly, but I got home without fainting; and it +healed after a time. You know how he suffered?' + +'No,' said Stockdale. 'I only heard that he just escaped with his +life.' + +'He was shot in the back; but a rib turned the ball. He was badly +hurt. We would not let him be took. The men carried him all night +across the meads to Kingsbere, and hid him in a barn, dressing his +wound as well as they could, till he was so far recovered as to be +able to get about. He had gied up his mill for some time; and at +last he got to Bristol, and took a passage to America, and he's +settled in Wisconsin.' + +'What do you think of smuggling now?' said the minister gravely. + +'I own that we were wrong,' said she. 'But I have suffered for it. +I am very poor now, and my mother has been dead these twelve months +. . . But won't you come in, Mr. Stockdale?' + +Stockdale went in; and it is to be supposed that they came to an +understanding; for a fortnight later there was a sale of Lizzy's +furniture, and after that a wedding at a chapel in a neighbouring +town. + +He took her away from her old haunts to the home that he had made +for himself in his native county, where she studied her duties as a +minister's wife with praiseworthy assiduity. It is said that in +after years she wrote an excellent tract called Render unto Caesar; +or, The Repentant Villagers, in which her own experience was +anonymously used as the introductory story. Stockdale got it +printed, after making some corrections, and putting in a few +powerful sentences of his own; and many hundreds of copies were +distributed by the couple in the course of their married life. + +April 1879. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg eText Wessex Tales + diff --git a/old/westl10.zip b/old/westl10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b7b8dc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/westl10.zip |