Chapter 1 of The Woodlanders.
The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
CHAPTER I.
The rambler who, for old association or other
reasons, should trace the forsaken coach-road
running almost in a meridional line from Bristol
to the south shore of England, would find
himself during the latter half of his journey
in the vicinity of some extensive woodlands,
interspersed with apple-orchards.
Here the trees, timber or fruit-bearing, as
the case may be, make the wayside hedges ragged
by their drip and shade, stretching over the
road with easeful horizontality, as if they
found the unsubstantial air an adequate support
for their limbs.
At one place, where a hill is crossed, the
largest of the woods shows itself bisected
by the high-way, as the head of thick hair
is bisected by the white line of its parting.
The spot is lonely.
The physiognomy of a deserted highway expresses
solitude to a degree that is not reached by
mere dales or downs, and bespeaks a tomb-like
stillness more emphatic than that of glades
and pools.
The contrast of what is with what might be
probably accounts for this.
To step, for instance, at the place under
notice, from the hedge of the plantation into
the adjoining pale thoroughfare, and pause
amid its emptiness for a moment, was to exchange
by the act of a single stride the simple absence
of human companionship for an incubus of the
forlorn.
At this spot, on the lowering evening of a
by-gone winter's day, there stood a man who
had entered upon the scene much in the aforesaid
manner.
Alighting into the road from a stile hard
by, he, though by no means a "chosen vessel"
for impressions, was temporarily influenced
by some such feeling of being suddenly more
alone than before he had emerged upon the
highway.
It could be seen by a glance at his rather
finical style of dress that he did not belong
to the country proper; and from his air, after
a while, that though there might be a sombre
beauty in the scenery, music in the breeze,
and a wan procession of coaching ghosts in
the sentiment of this old turnpike-road, he
was mainly puzzled about the way.
The dead men's work that had been expended
in climbing that hill, the blistered soles
that had trodden it, and the tears that had
wetted it, were not his concern; for fate
had given him no time for any but practical
things.
He looked north and south, and mechanically
prodded the ground with his walking-stick.
A closer glance at his face corroborated the
testimony of his clothes.
It was self-complacent, yet there was small
apparent ground for such complacence.
Nothing irradiated it; to the eye of the magician
in character, if not to the ordinary observer,
the expression enthroned there was absolute
submission to and belief in a little assortment
of forms and habitudes.
At first not a soul appeared who could enlighten
him as he desired, or seemed likely to appear
that night.
But presently a slight noise of laboring wheels
and the steady dig of a horse's shoe-tips
became audible; and there loomed in the notch
of the hill and plantation that the road formed
here at the summit a carrier's van drawn by
a single horse.
When it got nearer, he said, with some relief
to himself, "'Tis Mrs. Dollery's—this will
help me."
The vehicle was half full of passengers, mostly
women.
He held up his stick at its approach, and
the woman who was driving drew rein.
"I've been trying to find a short way to Little
Hintock this last half-hour, Mrs. Dollery,"
he said.
"But though I've been to Great Hintock and
Hintock House half a dozen times I am at fault
about the small village.
You can help me, I dare say?"
She assured him that she could—that as she
went to Great Hintock her van passed near
it—that it was only up the lane that branched
out of the lane into which she was about to
turn—just ahead.
"Though," continued Mrs. Dollery, "'tis such
a little small place that, as a town gentleman,
you'd need have a candle and lantern to find
it if ye don't know where 'tis.
Bedad!
I wouldn't live there if they'd pay me to.
Now at Great Hintock you do see the world
a bit."
He mounted and sat beside her, with his feet
outside, where they were ever and anon brushed
over by the horse's tail.
This van, driven and owned by Mrs. Dollery,
was rather a movable attachment of the roadway
than an extraneous object, to those who knew
it well.
The old horse, whose hair was of the roughness
and color of heather, whose leg-joints, shoulders,
and hoofs were distorted by harness and drudgery
from colthood—though if all had their rights,
he ought, symmetrical in outline, to have
been picking the herbage of some Eastern plain
instead of tugging here—had trodden this
road almost daily for twenty years.
Even his subjection was not made congruous
throughout, for the harness being too short,
his tail was not drawn through the crupper,
so that the breeching slipped awkwardly to
one side.
He knew every subtle incline of the seven
or eight miles of ground between Hintock and
Sherton Abbas—the market-town to which he
journeyed—as accurately as any surveyor
could have learned it by a Dumpy level.
The vehicle had a square black tilt which
nodded with the motion of the wheels, and
at a point in it over the driver's head was
a hook to which the reins were hitched at
times, when they formed a catenary curve from
the horse's shoulders.
Somewhere about the axles was a loose chain,
whose only known purpose was to clink as it
went.
Mrs. Dollery, having to hop up and down many
times in the service of her passengers, wore,
especially in windy weather, short leggings
under her gown for modesty's sake, and instead
of a bonnet a felt hat tied down with a handkerchief,
to guard against an earache to which she was
frequently subject.
In the rear of the van was a glass window,
which she cleaned with her pocket-handkerchief
every market-day before starting.
Looking at the van from the back, the spectator
could thus see through its interior a square
piece of the same sky and landscape that he
saw without, but intruded on by the profiles
of the seated passengers, who, as they rumbled
onward, their lips moving and heads nodding
in animated private converse, remained in
happy unconsciousness that their mannerisms
and facial peculiarities were sharply defined
to the public eye.
This hour of coming home from market was the
happy one, if not the happiest, of the week
for them.
Snugly ensconced under the tilt, they could
forget the sorrows of the world without, and
survey life and recapitulate the incidents
of the day with placid smiles.
The passengers in the back part formed a group
to themselves, and while the new-comer spoke
to the proprietress, they indulged in a confidential
chat about him as about other people, which
the noise of the van rendered inaudible to
himself and Mrs. Dollery, sitting forward.
"'Tis Barber Percombe—he that's got the
waxen woman in his window at the top of Abbey
Street," said one.
"What business can bring him from his shop
out here at this time and not a journeyman
hair-cutter, but a master-barber that's left
off his pole because 'tis not genteel!"
They listened to his conversation, but Mr.
Percombe, though he had nodded and spoken
genially, seemed indisposed to gratify the
curiosity which he had aroused; and the unrestrained
flow of ideas which had animated the inside
of the van before his arrival was checked
thenceforward.
Thus they rode on till they turned into a
half-invisible little lane, whence, as it
reached the verge of an eminence, could be
discerned in the dusk, about half a mile to
the right, gardens and orchards sunk in a
concave, and, as it were, snipped out of the
woodland.
From this self-contained place rose in stealthy
silence tall stems of smoke, which the eye
of imagination could trace downward to their
root on quiet hearth-stones festooned overhead
with hams and flitches.
It was one of those sequestered spots outside
the gates of the world where may usually be
found more meditation than action, and more
passivity than meditation; where reasoning
proceeds on narrow premises, and results in
inferences wildly imaginative; yet where,
from time to time, no less than in other places,
dramas of a grandeur and unity truly Sophoclean
are enacted in the real, by virtue of the
concentrated passions and closely knit interdependence
of the lives therein.
This place was the Little Hintock of the master-barber's
search.
The coming night gradually obscured the smoke
of the chimneys, but the position of the sequestered
little world could still be distinguished
by a few faint lights, winking more or less
ineffectually through the leafless boughs,
and the undiscerned songsters they bore, in
the form of balls of feathers, at roost among
them.
Out of the lane followed by the van branched
a yet smaller lane, at the corner of which
the barber alighted, Mrs. Dollery's van going
on to the larger village, whose superiority
to the despised smaller one as an exemplar
of the world's movements was not particularly
apparent in its means of approach.
"A very clever and learned young doctor, who,
they say, is in league with the devil, lives
in the place you be going to—not because
there's anybody for'n to cure there, but because
'tis the middle of his district."
The observation was flung at the barber by
one of the women at parting, as a last attempt
to get at his errand that way.
But he made no reply, and without further
pause the pedestrian plunged towards the umbrageous
nook, and paced cautiously over the dead leaves
which nearly buried the road or street of
the hamlet.
As very few people except themselves passed
this way after dark, a majority of the denizens
of Little Hintock deemed window-curtains unnecessary;
and on this account Mr. Percombe made it his
business to stop opposite the casements of
each cottage that he came to, with a demeanor
which showed that he was endeavoring to conjecture,
from the persons and things he observed within,
the whereabouts of somebody or other who resided
here.
Only the smaller dwellings interested him;
one or two houses, whose size, antiquity,
and rambling appurtenances signified that
notwithstanding their remoteness they must
formerly have been, if they were not still,
inhabited by people of a certain social standing,
being neglected by him entirely.
Smells of pomace, and the hiss of fermenting
cider, which reached him from the back quarters
of other tenements, revealed the recent occupation
of some of the inhabitants, and joined with
the scent of decay from the perishing leaves
underfoot.
Half a dozen dwellings were passed without
result.
The next, which stood opposite a tall tree,
was in an exceptional state of radiance, the
flickering brightness from the inside shining
up the chimney and making a luminous mist
of the emerging smoke.
The interior, as seen through the window,
caused him to draw up with a terminative air
and watch.
The house was rather large for a cottage,
and the door, which opened immediately into
the living-room, stood ajar, so that a ribbon
of light fell through the opening into the
dark atmosphere without.
Every now and then a moth, decrepit from the
late season, would flit for a moment across
the out-coming rays and disappear again into
the night.
CHAPTER II.
In the room from which this cheerful blaze
proceeded, he beheld a girl seated on a willow
chair, and busily occupied by the light of
the fire, which was ample and of wood.
With a bill-hook in one hand and a leather
glove, much too large for her, on the other,
she was making spars, such as are used by
thatchers, with great rapidity.
She wore a leather apron for this purpose,
which was also much too large for her figure.
On her left hand lay a bundle of the straight,
smooth sticks called spar-gads—the raw material
of her manufacture; on her right, a heap of
chips and ends—the refuse—with which the
fire was maintained; in front, a pile of the
finished articles.
To produce them she took up each gad, looked
critically at it from end to end, cut it to
length, split it into four, and sharpened
each of the quarters with dexterous blows,
which brought it to a triangular point precisely
resembling that of a bayonet.
Beside her, in case she might require more
light, a brass candlestick stood on a little
round table, curiously formed of an old coffin-stool,
with a deal top nailed on, the white surface
of the latter contrasting oddly with the black
carved oak of the substructure.
The social position of the household in the
past was almost as definitively shown by the
presence of this article as that of an esquire
or nobleman by his old helmets or shields.
It had been customary for every well-to-do
villager, whose tenure was by copy of court-roll,
or in any way more permanent than that of
the mere cotter, to keep a pair of these stools
for the use of his own dead; but for the last
generation or two a feeling of cui bono had
led to the discontinuance of the custom, and
the stools were frequently made use of in
the manner described.
The young woman laid down the bill-hook for
a moment and examined the palm of her right
hand, which, unlike the other, was ungloved,
and showed little hardness or roughness about
it.
The palm was red and blistering, as if this
present occupation were not frequent enough
with her to subdue it to what it worked in.
As with so many right hands born to manual
labor, there was nothing in its fundamental
shape to bear out the physiological conventionalism
that gradations of birth, gentle or mean,
show themselves primarily in the form of this
member.
Nothing but a cast of the die of destiny had
decided that the girl should handle the tool;
and the fingers which clasped the heavy ash
haft might have skilfully guided the pencil
or swept the string, had they only been set
to do it in good time.
Her face had the usual fulness of expression
which is developed by a life of solitude.
Where the eyes of a multitude beat like waves
upon a countenance they seem to wear away
its individuality; but in the still water
of privacy every tentacle of feeling and sentiment
shoots out in visible luxuriance, to be interpreted
as readily as a child's look by an intruder.
In years she was no more than nineteen or
twenty, but the necessity of taking thought
at a too early period of life had forced the
provisional curves of her childhood's face
to a premature finality.
Thus she had but little pretension to beauty,
save in one prominent particular—her hair.
Its abundance made it almost unmanageable;
its color was, roughly speaking, and as seen
here by firelight, brown, but careful notice,
or an observation by day, would have revealed
that its true shade was a rare and beautiful
approximation to chestnut.
On this one bright gift of Time to the particular
victim of his now before us the new-comer's
eyes were fixed; meanwhile the fingers of
his right hand mechanically played over something
sticking up from his waistcoat-pocket—the
bows of a pair of scissors, whose polish made
them feebly responsive to the light within.
In her present beholder's mind the scene formed
by the girlish spar-maker composed itself
into a post-Raffaelite picture of extremest
quality, wherein the girl's hair alone, as
the focus of observation, was depicted with
intensity and distinctness, and her face,
shoulders, hands, and figure in general, being
a blurred mass of unimportant detail lost
in haze and obscurity.
He hesitated no longer, but tapped at the
door and entered.
The young woman turned at the crunch of his
boots on the sanded floor, and exclaiming,
"Oh, Mr. Percombe, how you frightened me!"
quite lost her color for a moment.
He replied, "You should shut your door—then
you'd hear folk open it."
"I can't," she said; "the chimney smokes so.
Mr. Percombe, you look as unnatural out of
your shop as a canary in a thorn-hedge.
Surely you have not come out here on my account—for—"
"Yes—to have your answer about this."
He touched her head with his cane, and she
winced.
"Do you agree?" he continued.
"It is necessary that I should know at once,
as the lady is soon going away, and it takes
time to make up."
"Don't press me—it worries me.
I was in hopes you had thought no more of
it.
I can NOT part with it—so there!"
"Now, look here, Marty," said the barber,
sitting down on the coffin-stool table.
"How much do you get for making these spars?"
"Hush—father's up-stairs awake, and he don't
know that I am doing his work."
"Well, now tell me," said the man, more softly.
"How much do you get?"
"Eighteenpence a thousand," she said, reluctantly.
"Who are you making them for?"
"Mr. Melbury, the timber-dealer, just below
here."
"And how many can you make in a day?"
"In a day and half the night, three bundles—that's
a thousand and a half."
"Two and threepence."
The barber paused.
"Well, look here," he continued, with the
remains of a calculation in his tone, which
calculation had been the reduction to figures
of the probable monetary magnetism necessary
to overpower the resistant force of her present
purse and the woman's love of comeliness,
"here's a sovereign—a gold sovereign, almost
new."
He held it out between his finger and thumb.
"That's as much as you'd earn in a week and
a half at that rough man's work, and it's
yours for just letting me snip off what you've
got too much of."
The girl's bosom moved a very little.
"Why can't the lady send to some other girl
who don't value her hair—not to me?" she
exclaimed.
"Why, simpleton, because yours is the exact
shade of her own, and 'tis a shade you can't
match by dyeing.
But you are not going to refuse me now I've
come all the way from Sherton o' purpose?"
"I say I won't sell it—to you or anybody."
"Now listen," and he drew up a little closer
beside her.
"The lady is very rich, and won't be particular
to a few shillings; so I will advance to this
on my own responsibility—I'll make the one
sovereign two, rather than go back empty-handed."
"No, no, no!" she cried, beginning to be much
agitated.
"You are a-tempting me, Mr. Percombe.
You go on like the Devil to Dr. Faustus in
the penny book.
But I don't want your money, and won't agree.
Why did you come?
I said when you got me into your shop and
urged me so much, that I didn't mean to sell
my hair!"
The speaker was hot and stern.
"Marty, now hearken.
The lady that wants it wants it badly.
And, between you and me, you'd better let
her have it.
'Twill be bad for you if you don't."
"Bad for me?
Who is she, then?"
The barber held his tongue, and the girl repeated
the question.
"I am not at liberty to tell you.
And as she is going abroad soon it makes no
difference who she is at all."
"She wants it to go abroad wi'?"
Percombe assented by a nod.
The girl regarded him reflectively.
"Barber Percombe," she said, "I know who 'tis.
'Tis she at the House—Mrs. Charmond!"
"That's my secret.
However, if you agree to let me have it, I'll
tell you in confidence."
"I'll certainly not let you have it unless
you tell me the truth.
It is Mrs. Charmond."
The barber dropped his voice.
"Well—it is.
You sat in front of her in church the other
day, and she noticed how exactly your hair
matched her own.
Ever since then she's been hankering for it,
and at last decided to get it.
As she won't wear it till she goes off abroad,
she knows nobody will recognize the change.
I'm commissioned to get it for her, and then
it is to be made up.
I shouldn't have vamped all these miles for
any less important employer.
Now, mind—'tis as much as my business with
her is worth if it should be known that I've
let out her name; but honor between us two,
Marty, and you'll say nothing that would injure
me?"
"I don't wish to tell upon her," said Marty,
coolly.
"But my hair is my own, and I'm going to keep
it."
"Now, that's not fair, after what I've told
you," said the nettled barber.
"You see, Marty, as you are in the same parish,
and in one of her cottages, and your father
is ill, and wouldn't like to turn out, it
would be as well to oblige her.
I say that as a friend.
But I won't press you to make up your mind
to-night.
You'll be coming to market to-morrow, I dare
say, and you can call then.
If you think it over you'll be inclined to
bring what I want, I know."
"I've nothing more to say," she answered.
Her companion saw from her manner that it
was useless to urge her further by speech.
"As you are a trusty young woman," he said,
"I'll put these sovereigns up here for ornament,
that you may see how handsome they are.
Bring the hair to-morrow, or return the sovereigns."
He stuck them edgewise into the frame of a
small mantle looking-glass.
"I hope you'll bring it, for your sake and
mine.
I should have thought she could have suited
herself elsewhere; but as it's her fancy it
must be indulged if possible.
If you cut it off yourself, mind how you do
it so as to keep all the locks one way."
He showed her how this was to be done.
"But I sha'nt," she replied, with laconic
indifference.
"I value my looks too much to spoil 'em.
She wants my hair to get another lover with;
though if stories are true she's broke the
heart of many a noble gentleman already."
"Lord, it's wonderful how you guess things,
Marty," said the barber.
"I've had it from them that know that there
certainly is some foreign gentleman in her
eye.
However, mind what I ask."
"She's not going to get him through me."
Percombe had retired as far as the door; he
came back, planted his cane on the coffin-stool,
and looked her in the face.
"Marty South," he said, with deliberate emphasis,
"YOU'VE GOT A LOVER YOURSELF, and that's why
you won't let it go!"
She reddened so intensely as to pass the mild
blush that suffices to heighten beauty; she
put the yellow leather glove on one hand,
took up the hook with the other, and sat down
doggedly to her work without turning her face
to him again.
He regarded her head for a moment, went to
the door, and with one look back at her, departed
on his way homeward.
Marty pursued her occupation for a few minutes,
then suddenly laying down the bill-hook, she
jumped up and went to the back of the room,
where she opened a door which disclosed a
staircase so whitely scrubbed that the grain
of the wood was wellnigh sodden away by such
cleansing.
At the top she gently approached a bedroom,
and without entering, said, "Father, do you
want anything?"
A weak voice inside answered in the negative;
adding, "I should be all right by to-morrow
if it were not for the tree!"
"The tree again—always the tree!
Oh, father, don't worry so about that.
You know it can do you no harm."
"Who have ye had talking to ye down-stairs?"
"A Sherton man called—nothing to trouble
about," she said, soothingly.
"Father," she went on, "can Mrs. Charmond
turn us out of our house if she's minded to?"
"Turn us out?
No.
Nobody can turn us out till my poor soul is
turned out of my body.
'Tis life-hold, like Ambrose Winterborne's.
But when my life drops 'twill be hers—not
till then."
His words on this subject so far had been
rational and firm enough.
But now he lapsed into his moaning strain:
"And the tree will do it—that tree will
soon be the death of me."
"Nonsense, you know better.
How can it be?"
She refrained from further speech, and descended
to the ground-floor again.
"Thank Heaven, then," she said to herself,
"what belongs to me I keep."
CHAPTER III.
The 
lights in the village went out, house after
house, till there only remained two in the
darkness.
One of these came from a residence on the
hill-side, of which there is nothing to say
at present; the other shone from the window
of Marty South.
Precisely the same outward effect was produced
here, however, by her rising when the clock
struck ten and hanging up a thick cloth curtain.
The door it was necessary to keep ajar in
hers, as in most cottages, because of the
smoke; but she obviated the effect of the
ribbon of light through the chink by hanging
a cloth over that also.
She was one of those people who, if they have
to work harder than their neighbors, prefer
to keep the necessity a secret as far as possible;
and but for the slight sounds of wood-splintering
which came from within, no wayfarer would
have perceived that here the cottager did
not sleep as elsewhere.
Eleven, twelve, one o'clock struck; the heap
of spars grew higher, and the pile of chips
and ends more bulky.
Even the light on the hill had now been extinguished;
but still she worked on.
When the temperature of the night without
had fallen so low as to make her chilly, she
opened a large blue umbrella to ward off the
draught from the door.
The two sovereigns confronted her from the
looking-glass in such a manner as to suggest
a pair of jaundiced eyes on the watch for
an opportunity.
Whenever she sighed for weariness she lifted
her gaze towards them, but withdrew it quickly,
stroking her tresses with her fingers for
a moment, as if to assure herself that they
were still secure.
When the clock struck three she arose and
tied up the spars she had last made in a bundle
resembling those that lay against the wall.
She wrapped round her a long red woollen cravat
and opened the door.
The night in all its fulness met her flatly
on the threshold, like the very brink of an
absolute void, or the antemundane Ginnung-Gap
believed in by her Teuton forefathers.
For her eyes were fresh from the blaze, and
here there was no street-lamp or lantern to
form a kindly transition between the inner
glare and the outer dark.
A lingering wind brought to her ear the creaking
sound of two over-crowded branches in the
neighboring wood which were rubbing each other
into wounds, and other vocalized sorrows of
the trees, together with the screech of owls,
and the fluttering tumble of some awkward
wood-pigeon ill-balanced on its roosting-bough.
But the pupils of her young eyes soon expanded,
and she could see well enough for her purpose.
Taking a bundle of spars under each arm, and
guided by the serrated line of tree-tops against
the sky, she went some hundred yards or more
down the lane till she reached a long open
shed, carpeted around with the dead leaves
that lay about everywhere.
Night, that strange personality, which within
walls brings ominous introspectiveness and
self-distrust, but under the open sky banishes
such subjective anxieties as too trivial for
thought, inspired Marty South with a less
perturbed and brisker manner now.
She laid the spars on the ground within the
shed and returned for more, going to and fro
till her whole manufactured stock were deposited
here.
This erection was the wagon-house of the chief
man of business hereabout, Mr. George Melbury,
the timber, bark, and copse-ware merchant
for whom Marty's father did work of this sort
by the piece.
It formed one of the many rambling out-houses
which surrounded his dwelling, an equally
irregular block of building, whose immense
chimneys could just be discerned even now.
The four huge wagons under the shed were built
on those ancient lines whose proportions have
been ousted by modern patterns, their shapes
bulging and curving at the base and ends like
Trafalgar line-of-battle ships, with which
venerable hulks, indeed, these vehicles evidenced
a constructed spirit curiously in harmony.
One was laden with sheep-cribs, another with
hurdles, another with ash poles, and the fourth,
at the foot of which she had placed her thatching-spars
was half full of similar bundles.
She was pausing a moment with that easeful
sense of accomplishment which follows work
done that has been a hard struggle in the
doing, when she heard a woman's voice on the
other side of the hedge say, anxiously, "George!"
In a moment the name was repeated, with "Do
come indoors!
What are you doing there?"
The cart-house adjoined the garden, and before
Marty had moved she saw enter the latter from
the timber-merchant's back door an elderly
woman sheltering a candle with her hand, the
light from which cast a moving thorn-pattern
of shade on Marty's face.
Its rays soon fell upon a man whose clothes
were roughly thrown on, standing in advance
of the speaker.
He was a thin, slightly stooping figure, with
a small nervous mouth and a face cleanly shaven;
and he walked along the path with his eyes
bent on the ground.
In the pair Marty South recognized her employer
Melbury and his wife.
She was the second Mrs. Melbury, the first
having died shortly after the birth of the
timber-merchant's only child.
"'Tis no use to stay in bed," he said, as
soon as she came up to where he was pacing
restlessly about.
"I can't sleep—I keep thinking of things,
and worrying about the girl, till I'm quite
in a fever of anxiety."
He went on to say that he could not think
why "she (Marty knew he was speaking of his
daughter) did not answer his letter.
She must be ill—she must, certainly," he
said.
"No, no.
'Tis all right, George," said his wife; and
she assured him that such things always did
appear so gloomy in the night-time, if people
allowed their minds to run on them; that when
morning came it was seen that such fears were
nothing but shadows.
"Grace is as well as you or I," she declared.
But he persisted that she did not see all—that
she did not see as much as he.
His daughter's not writing was only one part
of his worry.
On account of her he was anxious concerning
money affairs, which he would never alarm
his mind about otherwise.
The reason he gave was that, as she had nobody
to depend upon for a provision but himself,
he wished her, when he was gone, to be securely
out of risk of poverty.
To this Mrs. Melbury replied that Grace would
be sure to marry well, and that hence a hundred
pounds more or less from him would not make
much difference.
Her husband said that that was what she, Mrs.
Melbury, naturally thought; but there she
was wrong, and in that lay the source of his
trouble.
"I have a plan in my head about her," he said;
"and according to my plan she won't marry
a rich man."
"A plan for her not to marry well?" said his
wife, surprised.
"Well, in one sense it is that," replied Melbury.
"It is a plan for her to marry a particular
person, and as he has not so much money as
she might expect, it might be called as you
call it.
I may not be able to carry it out; and even
if I do, it may not be a good thing for her.
I want her to marry Giles Winterborne."
His companion repeated the name.
"Well, it is all right," she said, presently.
"He adores the very ground she walks on; only
he's close, and won't show it much."
Marty South appeared startled, and could not
tear herself away.
Yes, the timber-merchant asserted, he knew
that well enough.
Winterborne had been interested in his daughter
for years; that was what had led him into
the notion of their union.
And he knew that she used to have no objection
to him.
But it was not any difficulty about that which
embarrassed him.
It was that, since he had educated her so
well, and so long, and so far above the level
of daughters thereabout, it was "wasting her"
to give her to a man of no higher standing
than the young man in question.
"That's what I have been thinking," said Mrs.
Melbury.
"Well, then, Lucy, now you've hit it," answered
the timber-merchant, with feeling.
"There lies my trouble.
I vowed to let her marry him, and to make
her as valuable as I could to him by schooling
her as many years and as thoroughly as possible.
I mean to keep my vow.
I made it because I did his father a terrible
wrong; and it was a weight on my conscience
ever since that time till this scheme of making
amends occurred to me through seeing that
Giles liked her."
"Wronged his father?" asked Mrs. Melbury.
"Yes, grievously wronged him," said her husband.
"Well, don't think of it to-night," she urged.
"Come indoors."
"No, no, the air cools my head.
I shall not stay long."
He was silent a while; then he told her, as
nearly as Marty could gather, that his first
wife, his daughter Grace's mother, was first
the sweetheart of Winterborne's father, who
loved her tenderly, till he, the speaker,
won her away from him by a trick, because
he wanted to marry her himself.
He sadly went on to say that the other man's
happiness was ruined by it; that though he
married Winterborne's mother, it was but a
half-hearted business with him.
Melbury added that he was afterwards very
miserable at what he had done; but that as
time went on, and the children grew up, and
seemed to be attached to each other, he determined
to do all he could to right the wrong by letting
his daughter marry the lad; not only that,
but to give her the best education he could
afford, so as to make the gift as valuable
a one as it lay in his power to bestow.
"I still mean to do it," said Melbury.
"Then do," said she.
"But all these things trouble me," said he;
"for I feel I am sacrificing her for my own
sin; and I think of her, and often come down
here and look at this."
"Look at what?" asked his wife.
He took the candle from her hand, held it
to the ground, and removed a tile which lay
in the garden-path.
"'Tis the track of her shoe that she made
when she ran down here the day before she
went away all those months ago.
I covered it up when she was gone; and when
I come here and look at it, I ask myself again,
why should she be sacrificed to a poor man?"
"It is not altogether a sacrifice," said the
woman.
"He is in love with her, and he's honest and
upright.
If she encourages him, what can you wish for
more?"
"I wish for nothing definite.
But there's a lot of things possible for her.
Why, Mrs. Charmond is wanting some refined
young lady, I hear, to go abroad with her—as
companion or something of the kind.
She'd jump at Grace."
"That's all uncertain.
Better stick to what's sure."
"True, true," said Melbury; "and I hope it
will be for the best.
Yes, let me get 'em married up as soon as
I can, so as to have it over and done with."
He continued looking at the imprint, while
he added, "Suppose she should be dying, and
never make a track on this path any more?"
"She'll write soon, depend upon't.
Come, 'tis wrong to stay here and brood so."
He admitted it, but said he could not help
it.
"Whether she write or no, I shall fetch her
in a few days."
And thus speaking, he covered the track, and
preceded his wife indoors.
Melbury, perhaps, was an unlucky man in having
within him the sentiment which could indulge
in this foolish fondness about the imprint
of a daughter's footstep.
Nature does not carry on her government with
a view to such feelings, and when advancing
years render the open hearts of those who
possess them less dexterous than formerly
in shutting against the blast, they must suffer
"buffeting at will by rain and storm" no less
than Little Celandines.
But her own existence, and not Mr. Melbury's,
was the centre of Marty's consciousness, and
it was in relation to this that the matter
struck her as she slowly withdrew.
"That, then, is the secret of it all," she
said.
"And Giles Winterborne is not for me, and
the less I think of him the better."
She returned to her cottage.
The sovereigns were staring at her from the
looking-glass as she had left them.
With a preoccupied countenance, and with tears
in her eyes, she got a pair of scissors, and
began mercilessly cutting off the long locks
of her hair, arranging and tying them with
their points all one way, as the barber had
directed.
Upon the pale scrubbed deal of the coffin-stool
table they stretched like waving and ropy
weeds over the washed gravel-bed of a clear
stream.
She would not turn again to the little looking-glass,
out of humanity to herself, knowing what a
deflowered visage would look back at her,
and almost break her heart; she dreaded it
as much as did her own ancestral goddess Sif
the reflection in the pool after the rape
of her locks by Loke the malicious.
She steadily stuck to business, wrapped the
hair in a parcel, and sealed it up, after
which she raked out the fire and went to bed,
having first set up an alarum made of a candle
and piece of thread, with a stone attached.
But such a reminder was unnecessary to-night.
Having tossed till about five o'clock, Marty
heard the sparrows walking down their long
holes in the thatch above her sloping ceiling
to their orifice at the eaves; whereupon she
also arose, and descended to the ground-floor
again.
It was still dark, but she began moving about
the house in those automatic initiatory acts
and touches which represent among housewives
the installation of another day.
While thus engaged she heard the rumbling
of Mr. Melbury's wagons, and knew that there,
too, the day's toil had begun.
An armful of gads thrown on the still hot
embers caused them to blaze up cheerfully
and bring her diminished head-gear into sudden
prominence as a shadow.
At this a step approached the door.
"Are folk astir here yet?"
inquired a voice she knew well.
"Yes, Mr. Winterborne," said Marty, throwing
on a tilt bonnet, which completely hid the
recent ravages of the scissors.
"Come in!"
The door was flung back, and there stepped
in upon the mat a man not particularly young
for a lover, nor particularly mature for a
person of affairs.
There was reserve in his glance, and restraint
upon his mouth.
He carried a horn lantern which hung upon
a swivel, and wheeling as it dangled marked
grotesque shapes upon the shadier part of
the walls.
He said that he had looked in on his way down,
to tell her that they did not expect her father
to make up his contract if he was not well.
Mr. Melbury would give him another week, and
they would go their journey with a short load
that day.
"They are done," said Marty, "and lying in
the cart-house."
"Done!" he repeated.
"Your father has not been too ill to work
after all, then?"
She made some evasive reply.
"I'll show you where they be, if you are going
down," she added.
They went out and walked together, the pattern
of the air-holes in the top of the lantern
being thrown upon the mist overhead, where
they appeared of giant size, as if reaching
the tent-shaped sky.
They had no remarks to make to each other,
and they uttered none.
Hardly anything could be more isolated or
more self-contained than the lives of these
two walking here in the lonely antelucan hour,
when gray shades, material and mental, are
so very gray.
And yet, looked at in a certain way, their
lonely courses formed no detached design at
all, but were part of the pattern in the great
web of human doings then weaving in both hemispheres,
from the White Sea to Cape Horn.
The shed was reached, and she pointed out
the spars.
Winterborne regarded them silently, then looked
at her.
"Now, Marty, I believe—" he said, and shook
his head.
"What?"
"That you've done the work yourself."
"Don't you tell anybody, will you, Mr. Winterborne?"
she pleaded, by way of answer.
"Because I am afraid Mr. Melbury may refuse
my work if he knows it is mine."
"But how could you learn to do it?
'Tis a trade."
"Trade!" said she.
"I'd be bound to learn it in two hours."
"Oh no, you wouldn't, Mrs. Marty."
Winterborne held down his lantern, and examined
the cleanly split hazels as they lay.
"Marty," he said, with dry admiration, "your
father with his forty years of practice never
made a spar better than that.
They are too good for the thatching of houses—they
are good enough for the furniture.
But I won't tell.
Let me look at your hands—your poor hands!"
He had a kindly manner of a quietly severe
tone; and when she seemed reluctant to show
her hands, he took hold of one and examined
it as if it were his own.
Her fingers were blistered.
"They'll get harder in time," she said.
"For if father continues ill, I shall have
to go on wi' it.
Now I'll help put 'em up in wagon."
Winterborne without speaking set down his
lantern, lifted her as she was about to stoop
over the bundles, placed her behind him, and
began throwing up the bundles himself.
"Rather than you should do it I will," he
said.
"But the men will be here directly.
Why, Marty!—whatever has happened to your
head?
Lord, it has shrunk to nothing—it looks
an apple upon a gate-post!"
Her heart swelled, and she could not speak.
At length she managed to groan, looking on
the ground, "I've made myself ugly—and hateful—that's
what I've done!"
"No, no," he answered.
"You've only cut your hair—I see now.
"Then why must you needs say that about apples
and gate-posts?"
"Let me see."
"No, no!"
She ran off into the gloom of the sluggish
dawn.
He did not attempt to follow her.
When she reached her father's door she stood
on the step and looked back.
Mr. Melbury's men had arrived, and were loading
up the spars, and their lanterns appeared
from the distance at which she stood to have
wan circles round them, like eyes weary with
watching.
She observed them for a few seconds as they
set about harnessing the horses, and then
went indoors.
CHAPTER IV.
There was now a distinct manifestation of
morning in the air, and presently the bleared
white visage of a sunless winter day emerged
like a dead-born child.
The villagers everywhere had already bestirred
themselves, rising at this time of the year
at the far less dreary hour of absolute darkness.
It had been above an hour earlier, before
a single bird had untucked his head, that
twenty lights were struck in as many bedrooms,
twenty pairs of shutters opened, and twenty
pairs of eyes stretched to the sky to forecast
the weather for the day.
Owls that had been catching mice in the out-houses,
rabbits that had been eating the wintergreens
in the gardens, and stoats that had been sucking
the blood of the rabbits, discerning that
their human neighbors were on the move, discreetly
withdrew from publicity, and were seen and
heard no more that day.
The daylight revealed the whole of Mr. Melbury's
homestead, of which the wagon-sheds had been
an outlying erection.
It formed three sides of an open quadrangle,
and consisted of all sorts of buildings, the
largest and central one being the dwelling
itself.
The fourth side of the quadrangle was the
public road.
It was a dwelling-house of respectable, roomy,
almost dignified aspect; which, taken with
the fact that there were the remains of other
such buildings thereabout, indicated that
Little Hintock had at some time or other been
of greater importance than now, as its old
name of Hintock St. Osmond also testified.
The house was of no marked antiquity, yet
of well-advanced age; older than a stale novelty,
but no canonized antique; faded, not hoary;
looking at you from the still distinct middle-distance
of the early Georgian time, and awakening
on that account the instincts of reminiscence
more decidedly than the remoter and far grander
memorials which have to speak from the misty
reaches of mediaevalism.
The faces, dress, passions, gratitudes, and
revenues of the great-great-grandfathers and
grandmothers who had been the first to gaze
from those rectangular windows, and had stood
under that key-stoned doorway, could be divined
and measured by homely standards of to-day.
It was a house in whose reverberations queer
old personal tales were yet audible if properly
listened for; and not, as with those of the
castle and cloister, silent beyond the possibility
of echo.
The garden-front remained much as it had always
been, and there was a porch and entrance that
way.
But the principal house-door opened on the
square yard or quadrangle towards the road,
formerly a regular carriage entrance, though
the middle of the area was now made use of
for stacking timber, fagots, bundles, and
other products of the wood.
It was divided from the lane by a lichen-coated
wall, in which hung a pair of gates, flanked
by piers out of the perpendicular, with a
round white ball on the top of each.
The building on the left of the enclosure
was a long-backed erection, now used for spar-making,
sawing, crib-framing, and copse-ware manufacture
in general.
Opposite were the wagon-sheds where Marty
had deposited her spars.
Here Winterborne had remained after the girl's
abrupt departure, to see that the wagon-loads
were properly made up.
Winterborne was connected with the Melbury
family in various ways.
In addition to the sentimental relationship
which arose from his father having been the
first Mrs. Melbury's lover, Winterborne's
aunt had married and emigrated with the brother
of the timber-merchant many years before—an
alliance that was sufficient to place Winterborne,
though the poorer, on a footing of social
intimacy with the Melburys.
As in most villages so secluded as this, intermarriages
were of Hapsburgian frequency among the inhabitants,
and there were hardly two houses in Little
Hintock unrelated by some matrimonial tie
or other.
For this reason a curious kind of partnership
existed between Melbury and the younger man—a
partnership based upon an unwritten code,
by which each acted in the way he thought
fair towards the other, on a give-and-take
principle.
Melbury, with his timber and copse-ware business,
found that the weight of his labor came in
winter and spring.
Winterborne was in the apple and cider trade,
and his requirements in cartage and other
work came in the autumn of each year.
Hence horses, wagons, and in some degree men,
were handed over to him when the apples began
to fall; he, in return, lending his assistance
to Melbury in the busiest wood-cutting season,
as now.
Before he had left the shed a boy came from
the house to ask him to remain till Mr. Melbury
had seen him.
Winterborne thereupon crossed over to the
spar-house where two or three men were already
at work, two of them being travelling spar-makers
from White-hart Lane, who, when this kind
of work began, made their appearance regularly,
and when it was over disappeared in silence
till the season came again.
Firewood was the one thing abundant in Little
Hintock; and a blaze of gad-cuds made the
outhouse gay with its light, which vied with
that of the day as yet.
In the hollow shades of the roof could be
seen dangling etiolated arms of ivy which
had crept through the joints of the tiles
and were groping in vain for some support,
their leaves being dwarfed and sickly for
want of sunlight; others were pushing in with
such force at the eaves as to lift from their
supports the shelves that were fixed there.
Besides the itinerant journey-workers there
were also present John Upjohn, engaged in
the hollow-turnery trade, who lived hard by;
old Timothy Tangs and young Timothy Tangs,
top and bottom sawyers, at work in Mr. Melbury's
pit outside; Farmer Bawtree, who kept the
cider-house, and Robert Creedle, an old man
who worked for Winterborne, and stood warming
his hands; these latter being enticed in by
the ruddy blaze, though they had no particular
business there.
None of them call for any remark except, perhaps,
Creedle.
To have completely described him it would
have been necessary to write a military memoir,
for he wore under his smock-frock a cast-off
soldier's jacket that had seen hot service,
its collar showing just above the flap of
the frock; also a hunting memoir, to include
the top-boots that he had picked up by chance;
also chronicles of voyaging and shipwreck,
for his pocket-knife had been given him by
a weather-beaten sailor.
But Creedle carried about with him on his
uneventful rounds these silent testimonies
of war, sport, and adventure, and thought
nothing of their associations or their stories.
Copse-work, as it was called, being an occupation
which the secondary intelligence of the hands
and arms could carry on without requiring
the sovereign attention of the head, the minds
of its professors wandered considerably from
the objects before them; hence the tales,
chronicles, and ramifications of family history
which were recounted here were of a very exhaustive
kind, and sometimes so interminable as to
defy description.
Winterborne, seeing that Melbury had not arrived,
stepped back again outside the door; and the
conversation interrupted by his momentary
presence flowed anew, reaching his ears as
an accompaniment to the regular dripping of
the fog from the plantation boughs around.
The topic at present handled was a highly
popular and frequent one—the personal character
of Mrs. Charmond, the owner of the surrounding
woods and groves.
"My brother-in-law told me, and I have no
reason to doubt it," said Creedle, "that she'd
sit down to her dinner with a frock hardly
higher than her elbows.
'Oh, you wicked woman!' he said to himself
when he first see her, 'you go to your church,
and sit, and kneel, as if your knee-jints
were greased with very saint's anointment,
and tell off your Hear-us-good-Lords like
a business man counting money; and yet you
can eat your victuals such a figure as that!'
Whether she's a reformed character by this
time I can't say; but I don't care who the
man is, that's how she went on when my brother-in-law
lived there."
"Did she do it in her husband's time?"
"That I don't know—hardly, I should think,
considering his temper.
Ah!"
Here Creedle threw grieved remembrance into
physical form by slowly resigning his head
to obliquity and letting his eyes water.
"That man!
'Not if the angels of heaven come down, Creedle,'
he said, 'shall you do another day's work
for me!'
Yes—he'd say anything—anything; and would
as soon take a winged creature's name in vain
as yours or mine!
Well, now I must get these spars home-along,
and to-morrow, thank God, I must see about
using 'em."
An old woman now entered upon the scene.
She was Mr. Melbury's servant, and passed
a great part of her time in crossing the yard
between the house-door and the spar-shed,
whither she had come now for fuel.
She had two facial aspects—one, of a soft
and flexible kind, she used indoors when assisting
about the parlor or upstairs; the other, with
stiff lines and corners, when she was bustling
among the men in the spar-house or out-of-doors.
"Ah, Grammer Oliver," said John Upjohn, "it
do do my heart good to see a old woman like
you so dapper and stirring, when I bear in
mind that after fifty one year counts as two
did afore!
But your smoke didn't rise this morning till
twenty minutes past seven by my beater; and
that's late, Grammer Oliver."
"If you was a full-sized man, John, people
might take notice of your scornful meanings.
But your growing up was such a scrimped and
scanty business that really a woman couldn't
feel hurt if you were to spit fire and brimstone
itself at her.
Here," she added, holding out a spar-gad to
one of the workmen, from which dangled a long
black-pudding—"here's something for thy
breakfast, and if you want tea you must fetch
it from in-doors."
"Mr. Melbury is late this morning," said the
bottom-sawyer.
"Yes.
'Twas a dark dawn," said Mrs. Oliver.
"Even when I opened the door, so late as I
was, you couldn't have told poor men from
gentlemen, or John from a reasonable-sized
object.
And I don't think maister's slept at all well
to-night.
He's anxious about his daughter; and I know
what that is, for I've cried bucketfuls for
my own."
When the old woman had gone Creedle said,
"He'll fret his gizzard green if he don't
soon hear from that maid of his.
Well, learning is better than houses and lands.
But to keep a maid at school till she is taller
out of pattens than her mother was in 'em—'tis
tempting Providence."
"It seems no time ago that she was a little
playward girl," said young Timothy Tangs.
"I can mind her mother," said the hollow-turner.
"Always a teuny, delicate piece; her touch
upon your hand was as soft and cool as wind.
She was inoculated for the small-pox and had
it beautifully fine, just about the time that
I was out of my apprenticeship—ay, and a
long apprenticeship 'twas.
I served that master of mine six years and
three hundred and fourteen days."
The hollow-turner pronounced the days with
emphasis, as if, considering their number,
they were a rather more remarkable fact than
the years.
"Mr. Winterborne's father walked with her
at one time," said old Timothy Tangs.
"But Mr. Melbury won her.
She was a child of a woman, and would cry
like rain if so be he huffed her.
Whenever she and her husband came to a puddle
in their walks together he'd take her up like
a half-penny doll and put her over without
dirting her a speck.
And if he keeps the daughter so long at boarding-school,
he'll make her as nesh as her mother was.
But here he comes."
Just before this moment Winterborne had seen
Melbury crossing the court from his door.
He was carrying an open letter in his hand,
and came straight to Winterborne.
His gloom of the preceding night had quite
gone.
"I'd no sooner made up my mind, Giles, to
go and see why Grace didn't come or write
than I get a letter from her—'Clifton: Wednesday.
My dear father,' says she, 'I'm coming home
to-morrow' (that's to-day), 'but I didn't
think it worth while to write long beforehand.'
The little rascal, and didn't she!
Now, Giles, as you are going to Sherton market
to-day with your apple-trees, why not join
me and Grace there, and we'll drive home all
together?"
He made the proposal with cheerful energy;
he was hardly the same man as the man of the
small dark hours.
Ever it happens that even among the moodiest
the tendency to be cheered is stronger than
the tendency to be cast down; and a soul's
specific gravity stands permanently less than
that of the sea of troubles into which it
is thrown.
Winterborne, though not demonstrative, replied
to this suggestion with something like alacrity.
There was not much doubt that Marty's grounds
for cutting off her hair were substantial
enough, if Ambrose's eyes had been a reason
for keeping it on.
As for the timber-merchant, it was plain that
his invitation had been given solely in pursuance
of his scheme for uniting the pair.
He had made up his mind to the course as a
duty, and was strenuously bent upon following
it out.
Accompanied by Winterborne, he now turned
towards the door of the spar-house, when his
footsteps were heard by the men as aforesaid.
"Well, John, and Lot," he said, nodding as
he entered.
"A rimy morning."
"'Tis, sir!" said Creedle, energetically;
for, not having as yet been able to summon
force sufficient to go away and begin work,
he felt the necessity of throwing some into
his speech.
"I don't care who the man is, 'tis the rimiest
morning we've had this fall."
"I heard you wondering why I've kept my daughter
so long at boarding-school," resumed Mr. Melbury,
looking up from the letter which he was reading
anew by the fire, and turning to them with
the suddenness that was a trait in him.
"Hey?" he asked, with affected shrewdness.
"But you did, you know.
Well, now, though it is my own business more
than anybody else's, I'll tell ye.
When I was a boy, another boy—the pa'son's
son—along with a lot of others, asked me
'Who dragged Whom round the walls of What?'
and I said, 'Sam Barrett, who dragged his
wife in a chair round the tower corner when
she went to be churched.'
They laughed at me with such torrents of scorn
that I went home ashamed, and couldn't sleep
for shame; and I cried that night till my
pillow was wet: till at last I thought to
myself there and then—'They may laugh at
me for my ignorance, but that was father's
fault, and none o' my making, and I must bear
it.
But they shall never laugh at my children,
if I have any: I'll starve first!'
Thank God, I've been able to keep her at school
without sacrifice; and her scholarship is
such that she stayed on as governess for a
time.
Let 'em laugh now if they can: Mrs. Charmond
herself is not better informed than my girl
Grace."
There was something between high indifference
and humble emotion in his delivery, which
made it difficult for them to reply.
Winterborne's interest was of a kind which
did not show itself in words; listening, he
stood by the fire, mechanically stirring the
embers with a spar-gad.
"You'll be, then, ready, Giles?"
Melbury continued, awaking from a reverie.
"Well, what was the latest news at Shottsford
yesterday, Mr. Bawtree?"
"Well, Shottsford is Shottsford still—you
can't victual your carcass there unless you've
got money; and you can't buy a cup of genuine
there, whether or no....But as the saying
is, 'Go abroad and you'll hear news of home.'
It seems that our new neighbor, this young
Dr. What's-his-name, is a strange, deep, perusing
gentleman; and there's good reason for supposing
he has sold his soul to the wicked one."
"'Od name it all," murmured the timber-merchant,
unimpressed by the news, but reminded of other
things by the subject of it; "I've got to
meet a gentleman this very morning? and yet
I've planned to go to Sherton Abbas for the
maid."
"I won't praise the doctor's wisdom till I
hear what sort of bargain he's made," said
the top-sawyer.
"'Tis only an old woman's tale," said Bawtree.
"But it seems that he wanted certain books
on some mysterious science or black-art, and
in order that the people hereabout should
not know anything about his dark readings,
he ordered 'em direct from London, and not
from the Sherton book-seller.
The parcel was delivered by mistake at the
pa'son's, and he wasn't at home; so his wife
opened it, and went into hysterics when she
read 'em, thinking her husband had turned
heathen, and 'twould be the ruin of the children.
But when he came he said he knew no more about
'em than she; and found they were this Mr.
Fitzpier's property.
So he wrote 'Beware!' outside, and sent 'em
on by the sexton."
"He must be a curious young man," mused the
hollow-turner.
"He must," said Timothy Tangs.
"Nonsense," said Mr. Melbury, authoritatively,
"he's only a gentleman fond of science and
philosophy and poetry, and, in fact, every
kind of knowledge; and being lonely here,
he passes his time in making such matters
his hobby."
"Well," said old Timothy, "'tis a strange
thing about doctors that the worse they be
the better they be.
I mean that if you hear anything of this sort
about 'em, ten to one they can cure ye as
nobody else can."
"True," said Bawtree, emphatically.
"And for my part I shall take my custom from
old Jones and go to this one directly I've
anything the matter with me.
That last medicine old Jones gave me had no
taste in it at all."
Mr. Melbury, as became a well-informed man,
did not listen to these recitals, being moreover
preoccupied with the business appointment
which had come into his head.
He walked up and down, looking on the floor—his
usual custom when undecided.
That stiffness about the arm, hip, and knee-joint
which was apparent when he walked was the
net product of the divers sprains and over-exertions
that had been required of him in handling
trees and timber when a young man, for he
was of the sort called self-made, and had
worked hard.
He knew the origin of every one of these cramps:
that in his left shoulder had come of carrying
a pollard, unassisted, from Tutcombe Bottom
home; that in one leg was caused by the crash
of an elm against it when they were felling;
that in the other was from lifting a bole.
On many a morrow after wearying himself by
these prodigious muscular efforts, he had
risen from his bed fresh as usual; his lassitude
had departed, apparently forever; and confident
in the recuperative power of his youth, he
had repeated the strains anew.
But treacherous Time had been only hiding
ill results when they could be guarded against,
for greater accumulation when they could not.
In his declining years the store had been
unfolded in the form of rheumatisms, pricks,
and spasms, in every one of which Melbury
recognized some act which, had its consequence
been contemporaneously made known, he would
wisely have abstained from repeating.
On a summons by Grammer Oliver to breakfast,
he left the shed.
Reaching the kitchen, where the family breakfasted
in winter to save house-labor, he sat down
by the fire, and looked a long time at the
pair of dancing shadows cast by each fire-iron
and dog-knob on the whitewashed chimney-corner—a
yellow one from the window, and a blue one
from the fire.
"I don't quite know what to do to-day," he
said to his wife at last.
"I've recollected that I promised to meet
Mrs. Charmond's steward in Round Wood at twelve
o'clock, and yet I want to go for Grace."
"Why not let Giles fetch her by himself?
'Twill bring 'em together all the quicker."
"I could do that—but I should like to go
myself.
I always have gone, without fail, every time
hitherto.
It has been a great pleasure to drive into
Sherton, and wait and see her arrive; and
perhaps she'll be disappointed if I stay away."
"You may be disappointed, but I don't think
she will, if you send Giles," said Mrs. Melbury,
dryly.
"Very well—I'll send him."
Melbury was often persuaded by the quietude
of his wife's words when strenuous argument
would have had no effect.
This second Mrs. Melbury was a placid woman,
who had been nurse to his child Grace before
her mother's death.
After that melancholy event little Grace had
clung to the nurse with much affection; and
ultimately Melbury, in dread lest the only
woman who cared for the girl should be induced
to leave her, persuaded the mild Lucy to marry
him.
The arrangement—for it was little more—had
worked satisfactorily enough; Grace had thriven,
and Melbury had not repented.
He returned to the spar-house and found Giles
near at hand, to whom he explained the change
of plan.
"As she won't arrive till five o'clock, you
can get your business very well over in time
to receive her," said Melbury.
"The green gig will do for her; you'll spin
along quicker with that, and won't be late
upon the road.
Her boxes can be called for by one of the
wagons."
Winterborne, knowing nothing of the timber-merchant's
restitutory aims, quietly thought all this
to be a kindly chance.
Wishing even more than her father to despatch
his apple-tree business in the market before
Grace's arrival, he prepared to start at once.
Melbury was careful that the turnout should
be seemly.
The gig-wheels, for instance, were not always
washed during winter-time before a journey,
the muddy roads rendering that labor useless;
but they were washed to-day.
The harness was blacked, and when the rather
elderly white horse had been put in, and Winterborne
was in his seat ready to start, Mr. Melbury
stepped out with a blacking-brush, and with
his own hands touched over the yellow hoofs
of the animal.
"You see, Giles," he said, as he blacked,
"coming from a fashionable school, she might
feel shocked at the homeliness of home; and
'tis these little things that catch a dainty
woman's eye if they are neglected.
We, living here alone, don't notice how the
whitey-brown creeps out of the earth over
us; but she, fresh from a city—why, she'll
notice everything!"
"That she will," said Giles.
"And scorn us if we don't mind."
"Not scorn us."
"No, no, no—that's only words.
She's too good a girl to do that.
But when we consider what she knows, and what
she has seen since she last saw us, 'tis as
well to meet her views as nearly as possible.
Why, 'tis a year since she was in this old
place, owing to her going abroad in the summer,
which I agreed to, thinking it best for her;
and naturally we shall look small, just at
first—I only say just at first."
Mr. Melbury's tone evinced a certain exultation
in the very sense of that inferiority he affected
to deplore; for this advanced and refined
being, was she not his own all the time?
Not so Giles; he felt doubtful—perhaps a
trifle cynical—for that strand was wound
into him with the rest.
He looked at his clothes with misgiving, then
with indifference.
It was his custom during the planting season
to carry a specimen apple-tree to market with
him as an advertisement of what he dealt in.
This had been tied across the gig; and as
it would be left behind in the town, it would
cause no inconvenience to Miss Grace Melbury
coming home.
He drove away, the twigs nodding with each
step of the horse; and Melbury went in-doors.
Before the gig had passed out of sight, Mr.
Melbury reappeared and shouted after—
"Here, Giles," he said, breathlessly following
with some wraps, "it may be very chilly to-night,
and she may want something extra about her.
And, Giles," he added, when the young man,
having taken the articles, put the horse in
motion once more, "tell her that I should
have come myself, but I had particular business
with Mrs. Charmond's agent, which prevented
me.
Don't forget."
He watched Winterborne out of sight, saying,
with a jerk—a shape into which emotion with
him often resolved itself—"There, now, I
hope the two will bring it to a point and
have done with it!
'Tis a pity to let such a girl throw herself
away upon him—a thousand pities!...And yet
'tis my duty for his father's sake."
CHAPTER V.
Winterborne sped on his way to Sherton Abbas
without elation and without discomposure.
Had he regarded his inner self spectacularly,
as lovers are now daily more wont to do, he
might have felt pride in the discernment of
a somewhat rare power in him—that of keeping
not only judgment but emotion suspended in
difficult cases.
But he noted it not.
Neither did he observe what was also the fact,
that though he cherished a true and warm feeling
towards Grace Melbury, he was not altogether
her fool just now.
It must be remembered that he had not seen
her for a year.
Arrived at the entrance to a long flat lane,
which had taken the spirit out of many a pedestrian
in times when, with the majority, to travel
meant to walk, he saw before him the trim
figure of a young woman in pattens, journeying
with that steadfast concentration which means
purpose and not pleasure.
He was soon near enough to see that she was
Marty South.
Click, click, click went the pattens; and
she did not turn her head.
She had, however, become aware before this
that the driver of the approaching gig was
Giles.
She had shrunk from being overtaken by him
thus; but as it was inevitable, she had braced
herself up for his inspection by closing her
lips so as to make her mouth quite unemotional,
and by throwing an additional firmness into
her tread.
"Why do you wear pattens, Marty?
The turnpike is clean enough, although the
lanes are muddy."
"They save my boots."
"But twelve miles in pattens—'twill twist
your feet off.
Come, get up and ride with me."
She hesitated, removed her pattens, knocked
the gravel out of them against the wheel,
and mounted in front of the nodding specimen
apple-tree.
She had so arranged her bonnet with a full
border and trimmings that her lack of long
hair did not much injure her appearance; though
Giles, of course, saw that it was gone, and
may have guessed her motive in parting with
it, such sales, though infrequent, being not
unheard of in that locality.
But nature's adornment was still hard by—in
fact, within two feet of him, though he did
not know it.
In Marty's basket was a brown paper packet,
and in the packet the chestnut locks, which,
by reason of the barber's request for secrecy,
she had not ventured to intrust to other hands.
Giles asked, with some hesitation, how her
father was getting on.
He was better, she said; he would be able
to work in a day or two; he would be quite
well but for his craze about the tree falling
on him.
"You know why I don't ask for him so often
as I might, I suppose?" said Winterborne.
"Or don't you know?"
"I think I do."
"Because of the houses?"
She nodded.
"Yes.
I am afraid it may seem that my anxiety is
about those houses, which I should lose by
his death, more than about him.
Marty, I do feel anxious about the houses,
since half my income depends upon them; but
I do likewise care for him; and it almost
seems wrong that houses should be leased for
lives, so as to lead to such mixed feelings."
"After father's death they will be Mrs. Charmond's?"
"They'll be hers."
"They are going to keep company with my hair,"
she thought.
Thus talking, they reached the town.
By no pressure would she ride up the street
with him.
"That's the right of another woman," she said,
with playful malice, as she put on her pattens.
"I wonder what you are thinking of!
Thank you for the lift in that handsome gig.
Good-by."
He blushed a little, shook his head at her,
and drove on ahead into the streets—the
churches, the abbey, and other buildings on
this clear bright morning having the liny
distinctness of architectural drawings, as
if the original dream and vision of the conceiving
master-mason, some mediaeval Vilars or other
unknown to fame, were for a few minutes flashed
down through the centuries to an unappreciative
age.
Giles saw their eloquent look on this day
of transparency, but could not construe it.
He turned into the inn-yard.
Marty, following the same track, marched promptly
to the hair-dresser's, Mr. Percombe's.
Percombe was the chief of his trade in Sherton
Abbas.
He had the patronage of such county offshoots
as had been obliged to seek the shelter of
small houses in that ancient town, of the
local clergy, and so on, for some of whom
he had made wigs, while others among them
had compensated for neglecting him in their
lifetime by patronizing him when they were
dead, and letting him shave their corpses.
On the strength of all this he had taken down
his pole, and called himself "Perruquier to
the aristocracy."
Nevertheless, this sort of support did not
quite fill his children's mouths, and they
had to be filled.
So, behind his house there was a little yard,
reached by a passage from the back street,
and in that yard was a pole, and under the
pole a shop of quite another description than
the ornamental one in the front street.
Here on Saturday nights from seven till ten
he took an almost innumerable succession of
twopences from the farm laborers who flocked
thither in crowds from the country.
And thus he lived.
Marty, of course, went to the front shop,
and handed her packet to him silently.
"Thank you," said the barber, quite joyfully.
"I hardly expected it after what you said
last night."
She turned aside, while a tear welled up and
stood in each eye at this reminder.
"Nothing of what I told you," he whispered,
there being others in the shop.
"But I can trust you, I see."
She had now reached the end of this distressing
business, and went listlessly along the street
to attend to other errands.
These occupied her till four o'clock, at which
time she recrossed the market-place.
It was impossible to avoid rediscovering Winterborne
every time she passed that way, for standing,
as he always did at this season of the year,
with his specimen apple-tree in the midst,
the boughs rose above the heads of the crowd,
and brought a delightful suggestion of orchards
among the crowded buildings there.
When her eye fell upon him for the last time
he was standing somewhat apart, holding the
tree like an ensign, and looking on the ground
instead of pushing his produce as he ought
to have been doing.
He was, in fact, not a very successful seller
either of his trees or of his cider, his habit
of speaking his mind, when he spoke at all,
militating against this branch of his business.
While she regarded him he suddenly lifted
his eyes in a direction away from Marty, his
face simultaneously kindling with recognition
and surprise.
She followed his gaze, and saw walking across
to him a flexible young creature in whom she
perceived the features of her she had known
as Miss Grace Melbury, but now looking glorified
and refined above her former level.
Winterborne, being fixed to the spot by his
apple-tree, could not advance to meet her;
he held out his spare hand with his hat in
it, and with some embarrassment beheld her
coming on tiptoe through the mud to the middle
of the square where he stood.
Miss Melbury's arrival so early was, as Marty
could see, unexpected by Giles, which accounted
for his not being ready to receive her.
Indeed, her father had named five o'clock
as her probable time, for which reason that
hour had been looming out all the day in his
forward perspective, like an important edifice
on a plain.
Now here she was come, he knew not how, and
his arranged welcome stultified.
His face became gloomy at her necessity for
stepping into the road, and more still at
the little look of embarrassment which appeared
on hers at having to perform the meeting with
him under an apple-tree ten feet high in the
middle of the market-place.
Having had occasion to take off the new gloves
she had bought to come home in, she held out
to him a hand graduating from pink at the
tips of the fingers to white at the palm;
and the reception formed a scene, with the
tree over their heads, which was not by any
means an ordinary one in Sherton Abbas streets.
Nevertheless, the greeting on her looks and
lips was of a restrained type, which perhaps
was not unnatural.
For true it was that Giles Winterborne, well-attired
and well-mannered as he was for a yeoman,
looked rough beside her.
It had sometimes dimly occurred to him, in
his ruminating silence at Little Hintock,
that external phenomena—such as the lowness
or height or color of a hat, the fold of a
coat, the make of a boot, or the chance attitude
or occupation of a limb at the instant of
view—may have a great influence upon feminine
opinion of a man's worth—so frequently founded
on non-essentials; but a certain causticity
of mental tone towards himself and the world
in general had prevented to-day, as always,
any enthusiastic action on the strength of
that reflection; and her momentary instinct
of reserve at first sight of him was the penalty
he paid for his laxness.
He gave away the tree to a by-stander, as
soon as he could find one who would accept
the cumbersome gift, and the twain moved on
towards the inn at which he had put up.
Marty made as if to step forward for the pleasure
of being recognized by Miss Melbury; but abruptly
checking herself, she glided behind a carrier's
van, saying, dryly, "No; I baint wanted there,"
and critically regarded Winterborne's companion.
It would have been very difficult to describe
Grace Melbury with precision, either now or
at any time.
Nay, from the highest point of view, to precisely
describe a human being, the focus of a universe—how
impossible!
But, apart from transcendentalism, there never
probably lived a person who was in herself
more completely a reductio ad absurdum of
attempts to appraise a woman, even externally,
by items of face and figure.
Speaking generally, it may be said that she
was sometimes beautiful, at other times not
beautiful, according to the state of her health
and spirits.
In simple corporeal presentment she was of
a fair and clear complexion, rather pale than
pink, slim in build and elastic in movement.
Her look expressed a tendency to wait for
others' thoughts before uttering her own;
possibly also to wait for others' deeds before
her own doing.
In her small, delicate mouth, which had perhaps
hardly settled down to its matured curves,
there was a gentleness that might hinder sufficient
self-assertion for her own good.
She had well-formed eyebrows which, had her
portrait been painted, would probably have
been done in Prout's or Vandyke brown.
There was nothing remarkable in her dress
just now, beyond a natural fitness and a style
that was recent for the streets of Sherton.
But, indeed, had it been the reverse, and
quite striking, it would have meant just as
little.
For there can be hardly anything less connected
with a woman's personality than drapery which
she has neither designed, manufactured, cut,
sewed, or even seen, except by a glance of
approval when told that such and such a shape
and color must be had because it has been
decided by others as imperative at that particular
time.
What people, therefore, saw of her in a cursory
view was very little; in truth, mainly something
that was not she.
The woman herself was a shadowy, conjectural
creature who had little to do with the outlines
presented to Sherton eyes; a shape in the
gloom, whose true description could only be
approximated by putting together a movement
now and a glance then, in that patient and
long-continued attentiveness which nothing
but watchful loving-kindness ever troubles
to give.
There was a little delay in their setting
out from the town, and Marty South took advantage
of it to hasten forward, with the view of
escaping them on the way, lest they should
feel compelled to spoil their tete-a-tete
by asking her to ride.
She walked fast, and one-third of the journey
was done, and the evening rapidly darkening,
before she perceived any sign of them behind
her.
Then, while ascending a hill, she dimly saw
their vehicle drawing near the lowest part
of the incline, their heads slightly bent
towards each other; drawn together, no doubt,
by their souls, as the heads of a pair of
horses well in hand are drawn in by the rein.
She walked still faster.
But between these and herself there was a
carriage, apparently a brougham, coming in
the same direction, with lighted lamps.
When it overtook her—which was not soon,
on account of her pace—the scene was much
darker, and the lights glared in her eyes
sufficiently to hide the details of the equipage.
It occurred to Marty that she might take hold
behind this carriage and so keep along with
it, to save herself the mortification of being
overtaken and picked up for pity's sake by
the coming pair.
Accordingly, as the carriage drew abreast
of her in climbing the long ascent, she walked
close to the wheels, the rays of the nearest
lamp penetrating her very pores.
She had only just dropped behind when the
carriage stopped, and to her surprise the
coachman asked her, over his shoulder, if
she would ride.
What made the question more surprising was
that it came in obedience to an order from
the interior of the vehicle.
Marty gladly assented, for she was weary,
very weary, after working all night and keeping
afoot all day.
She mounted beside the coachman, wondering
why this good-fortune had happened to her.
He was rather a great man in aspect, and she
did not like to inquire of him for some time.
At last she said, "Who has been so kind as
to ask me to ride?"
"Mrs. Charmond," replied her statuesque companion.
Marty was stirred at the name, so closely
connected with her last night's experiences.
"Is this her carriage?" she whispered.
"Yes; she's inside."
Marty reflected, and perceived that Mrs. Charmond
must have recognized her plodding up the hill
under the blaze of the lamp; recognized, probably,
her stubbly poll (since she had kept away
her face), and thought that those stubbles
were the result of her own desire.
Marty South was not so very far wrong.
Inside the carriage a pair of bright eyes
looked from a ripely handsome face, and though
behind those bright eyes was a mind of unfathomed
mysteries, beneath them there beat a heart
capable of quick extempore warmth—a heart
which could, indeed, be passionately and imprudently
warm on certain occasions.
At present, after recognizing the girl, she
had acted on a mere impulse, possibly feeling
gratified at the denuded appearance which
signified the success of her agent in obtaining
what she had required.
"'Tis wonderful that she should ask ye," observed
the magisterial coachman, presently.
"I have never known her do it before, for
as a rule she takes no interest in the village
folk at all."
Marty said no more, but occasionally turned
her head to see if she could get a glimpse
of the Olympian creature who as the coachman
had truly observed, hardly ever descended
from her clouds into the Tempe of the parishioners.
But she could discern nothing of the lady.
She also looked for Miss Melbury and Winterborne.
The nose of their horse sometimes came quite
near the back of Mrs. Charmond's carriage.
But they never attempted to pass it till the
latter conveyance turned towards the park
gate, when they sped by.
Here the carriage drew up that the gate might
be opened, and in the momentary silence Marty
heard a gentle oral sound, soft as a breeze.
"What's that?" she whispered.
"Mis'ess yawning."
"Why should she yawn?"
"Oh, because she's been used to such wonderfully
good life, and finds it dull here.
She'll soon be off again on account of it."
"So rich and so powerful, and yet to yawn!"
the girl murmured.
"Then things don't fay with she any more than
with we!"
Marty now alighted; the lamp again shone upon
her, and as the carriage rolled on, a soft
voice said to her from the interior, "Good-night."
"Good-night, ma'am," said Marty.
But she had not been able to see the woman
who began so greatly to interest her—the
second person of her own sex who had operated
strongly on her mind that day.
CHAPTER VI.
Meanwhile, Winterborne and Grace Melbury had
also undergone their little experiences of
the same homeward journey.
As he drove off with her out of the town the
glances of people fell upon them, the younger
thinking that Mr. Winterborne was in a pleasant
place, and wondering in what relation he stood
towards her.
Winterborne himself was unconscious of this.
Occupied solely with the idea of having her
in charge, he did not notice much with outward
eye, neither observing how she was dressed,
nor the effect of the picture they together
composed in the landscape.
Their conversation was in briefest phrase
for some time, Grace being somewhat disconcerted,
through not having understood till they were
about to start that Giles was to be her sole
conductor in place of her father.
When they were in the open country he spoke.
"Don't Brownley's farm-buildings look strange
to you, now they have been moved bodily from
the hollow where the old ones stood to the
top of the hill?"
She admitted that they did, though she should
not have seen any difference in them if he
had not pointed it out.
"They had a good crop of bitter-sweets; they
couldn't grind them all" (nodding towards
an orchard where some heaps of apples had
been left lying ever since the ingathering).
She said "Yes," but looking at another orchard.
"Why, you are looking at John-apple-trees!
You know bitter-sweets—you used to well
enough!"
"I am afraid I have forgotten, and it is getting
too dark to distinguish."
Winterborne did not continue.
It seemed as if the knowledge and interest
which had formerly moved Grace's mind had
quite died away from her.
He wondered whether the special attributes
of his image in the past had evaporated like
these other things.
However that might be, the fact at present
was merely this, that where he was seeing
John-apples and farm-buildings she was beholding
a far remoter scene—a scene no less innocent
and simple, indeed, but much contrasting—a
broad lawn in the fashionable suburb of a
fast city, the evergreen leaves shining in
the evening sun, amid which bounding girls,
gracefully clad in artistic arrangements of
blue, brown, red, black, and white, were playing
at games, with laughter and chat, in all the
pride of life, the notes of piano and harp
trembling in the air from the open windows
adjoining.
Moreover, they were girls—and this was a
fact which Grace Melbury's delicate femininity
could not lose sight of—whose parents Giles
would have addressed with a deferential Sir
or Madam.
Beside this visioned scene the homely farmsteads
did not quite hold their own from her present
twenty-year point of survey.
For all his woodland sequestration, Giles
knew the primitive simplicity of the subject
he had started, and now sounded a deeper note.
"'Twas very odd what we said to each other
years ago; I often think of it.
I mean our saying that if we still liked each
other when you were twenty and I twenty-five,
we'd—"
"It was child's tattle."
"H'm!" said Giles, suddenly.
"I mean we were young," said she, more considerately.
That gruff manner of his in making inquiries
reminded her that he was unaltered in much.
"Yes....I beg your pardon, Miss Melbury; your
father SENT me to meet you to-day."
"I know it, and I am glad of it."
He seemed satisfied with her tone and went
on: "At that time you were sitting beside
me at the back of your father's covered car,
when we were coming home from gypsying, all
the party being squeezed in together as tight
as sheep in an auction-pen.
It got darker and darker, and I said—I forget
the exact words—but I put my arm round your
waist and there you let it stay till your
father, sitting in front suddenly stopped
telling his story to Farmer Bollen, to light
his pipe.
The flash shone into the car, and showed us
all up distinctly; my arm flew from your waist
like lightning; yet not so quickly but that
some of 'em had seen, and laughed at us.
Yet your father, to our amazement, instead
of being angry, was mild as milk, and seemed
quite pleased.
Have you forgot all that, or haven't you?"
She owned that she remembered it very well,
now that he mentioned the circumstances.
"But, goodness!
I must have been in short frocks," she said.
"Come now, Miss Melbury, that won't do!
Short frocks, indeed!
You know better, as well as I."
Grace thereupon declared that she would not
argue with an old friend she valued so highly
as she valued him, saying the words with the
easy elusiveness that will be polite at all
costs.
It might possibly be true, she added, that
she was getting on in girlhood when that event
took place; but if it were so, then she was
virtually no less than an old woman now, so
far did the time seem removed from her present.
"Do you ever look at things philosophically
instead of personally?" she asked.
"I can't say that I do," answered Giles, his
eyes lingering far ahead upon a dark spot,
which proved to be a brougham.
"I think you may, sometimes, with advantage,"
said she.
"Look at yourself as a pitcher drifting on
the stream with other pitchers, and consider
what contrivances are most desirable for avoiding
cracks in general, and not only for saving
your poor one.
Shall I tell you all about Bath or Cheltenham,
or places on the Continent that I visited
last summer?"
"With all my heart."
She then described places and persons in such
terms as might have been used for that purpose
by any woman to any man within the four seas,
so entirely absent from that description was
everything specially appertaining to her own
existence.
When she had done she said, gayly, "Now do
you tell me in return what has happened in
Hintock since I have been away."
"Anything to keep the conversation away from
her and me," said Giles within him.
It was true cultivation had so far advanced
in the soil of Miss Melbury's mind as to lead
her to talk by rote of anything save of that
she knew well, and had the greatest interest
in developing—that is to say, herself.
He had not proceeded far with his somewhat
bald narration when they drew near the carriage
that had been preceding them for some time.
Miss Melbury inquired if he knew whose carriage
it was.
Winterborne, although he had seen it, had
not taken it into account.
On examination, he said it was Mrs. Charmond's.
Grace watched the vehicle and its easy roll,
and seemed to feel more nearly akin to it
than to the one she was in.
"Pooh!
We can polish off the mileage as well as they,
come to that," said Winterborne, reading her
mind; and rising to emulation at what it bespoke,
he whipped on the horse.
This it was which had brought the nose of
Mr. Melbury's old gray close to the back of
Mrs. Charmond's much-eclipsing vehicle.
"There's Marty South Sitting up with the coachman,"
said he, discerning her by her dress.
"Ah, poor Marty!
I must ask her to come to see me this very
evening.
How does she happen to be riding there?"
"I don't know.
It is very singular."
Thus these people with converging destinies
went along the road together, till Winterborne,
leaving the track of the carriage, turned
into Little Hintock, where almost the first
house was the timber-merchant's.
Pencils of dancing light streamed out of the
windows sufficiently to show the white laurestinus
flowers, and glance over the polished leaves
of laurel.
The interior of the rooms could be seen distinctly,
warmed up by the fire-flames, which in the
parlor were reflected from the glass of the
pictures and bookcase, and in the kitchen
from the utensils and ware.
"Let us look at the dear place for a moment
before we call them," she said.
In the kitchen dinner was preparing; for though
Melbury dined at one o'clock at other times,
to-day the meal had been kept back for Grace.
A rickety old spit was in motion, its end
being fixed in the fire-dog, and the whole
kept going by means of a cord conveyed over
pulleys along the ceiling to a large stone
suspended in a corner of the room.
Old Grammer Oliver came and wound it up with
a rattle like that of a mill.
In the parlor a large shade of Mrs. Melbury's
head fell on the wall and ceiling; but before
the girl had regarded this room many moments
their presence was discovered, and her father
and stepmother came out to welcome her.
The character of the Melbury family was of
that kind which evinces some shyness in showing
strong emotion among each other: a trait frequent
in rural households, and one which stands
in curiously inverse relation to most of the
peculiarities distinguishing villagers from
the people of towns.
Thus hiding their warmer feelings under commonplace
talk all round, Grace's reception produced
no extraordinary demonstrations.
But that more was felt than was enacted appeared
from the fact that her father, in taking her
in-doors, quite forgot the presence of Giles
without, as did also Grace herself.
He said nothing, but took the gig round to
the yard and called out from the spar-house
the man who particularly attended to these
matters when there was no conversation to
draw him off among the copse-workers inside.
Winterborne then returned to the door with
the intention of entering the house.
The family had gone into the parlor, and were
still absorbed in themselves.
The fire was, as before, the only light, and
it irradiated Grace's face and hands so as
to make them look wondrously smooth and fair
beside those of the two elders; shining also
through the loose hair about her temples as
sunlight through a brake.
Her father was surveying her in a dazed conjecture,
so much had she developed and progressed in
manner and stature since he last had set eyes
on her.
Observing these things, Winterborne remained
dubious by the door, mechanically tracing
with his fingers certain time-worn letters
carved in the jambs—initials of by-gone
generations of householders who had lived
and died there.
No, he declared to himself, he would not enter
and join the family; they had forgotten him,
and it was enough for to-day that he had brought
her home.
Still, he was a little surprised that her
father's eagerness to send him for Grace should
have resulted in such an anticlimax as this.
He walked softly away into the lane towards
his own house, looking back when he reached
the turning, from which he could get a last
glimpse of the timber-merchant's roof.
He hazarded guesses as to what Grace was saying
just at that moment, and murmured, with some
self-derision, "nothing about me!"
He looked also in the other direction, and
saw against the sky the thatched hip and solitary
chimney of Marty's cottage, and thought of
her too, struggling bravely along under that
humble shelter, among her spar-gads and pots
and skimmers.
At the timber-merchant's, in the mean time,
the conversation flowed; and, as Giles Winterborne
had rightly enough deemed, on subjects in
which he had no share.
Among the excluding matters there was, for
one, the effect upon Mr. Melbury of the womanly
mien and manners of his daughter, which took
him so much unawares that, though it did not
make him absolutely forget the existence of
her conductor homeward, thrust Giles's image
back into quite the obscurest cellarage of
his brain.
Another was his interview with Mrs. Charmond's
agent that morning, at which the lady herself
had been present for a few minutes.
Melbury had purchased some standing timber
from her a long time before, and now that
the date had come for felling it he was left
to pursue almost his own course.
This was what the household were actually
talking of during Giles's cogitation without;
and Melbury's satisfaction with the clear
atmosphere that had arisen between himself
and the deity of the groves which enclosed
his residence was the cause of a counterbalancing
mistiness on the side towards Winterborne.
"So thoroughly does she trust me," said Melbury,
"that I might fell, top, or lop, on my own
judgment, any stick o' timber whatever in
her wood, and fix the price o't, and settle
the matter.
But, name it all!
I wouldn't do such a thing.
However, it may be useful to have this good
understanding with her....I wish she took
more interest in the place, and stayed here
all the year round."
"I am afraid 'tis not her regard for you,
but her dislike of Hintock, that makes her
so easy about the trees," said Mrs. Melbury.
When dinner was over, Grace took a candle
and began to ramble pleasurably through the
rooms of her old home, from which she had
latterly become wellnigh an alien.
Each nook and each object revived a memory,
and simultaneously modified it.
The chambers seemed lower than they had appeared
on any previous occasion of her return, the
surfaces of both walls and ceilings standing
in such relations to the eye that it could
not avoid taking microscopic note of their
irregularities and old fashion.
Her own bedroom wore at once a look more familiar
than when she had left it, and yet a face
estranged.
The world of little things therein gazed at
her in helpless stationariness, as though
they had tried and been unable to make any
progress without her presence.
Over the place where her candle had been accustomed
to stand, when she had used to read in bed
till the midnight hour, there was still the
brown spot of smoke.
She did not know that her father had taken
especial care to keep it from being cleaned
off.
Having concluded her perambulation of this
now uselessly commodious edifice, Grace began
to feel that she had come a long journey since
the morning; and when her father had been
up himself, as well as his wife, to see that
her room was comfortable and the fire burning,
she prepared to retire for the night.
No sooner, however, was she in bed than her
momentary sleepiness took itself off, and
she wished she had stayed up longer.
She amused herself by listening to the old
familiar noises that she could hear to be
still going on down-stairs, and by looking
towards the window as she lay.
The blind had been drawn up, as she used to
have it when a girl, and she could just discern
the dim tree-tops against the sky on the neighboring
hill.
Beneath this meeting-line of light and shade
nothing was visible save one solitary point
of light, which blinked as the tree-twigs
waved to and fro before its beams.
From its position it seemed to radiate from
the window of a house on the hill-side.
The house had been empty when she was last
at home, and she wondered who inhabited the
place now.
Her conjectures, however, were not intently
carried on, and she was watching the light
quite idly, when it gradually changed color,
and at length shone blue as sapphire.
Thus it remained several minutes, and then
it passed through violet to red.
Her curiosity was so widely awakened by the
phenomenon that she sat up in bed, and stared
steadily at the shine.
An appearance of this sort, sufficient to
excite attention anywhere, was no less than
a marvel in Hintock, as Grace had known the
hamlet.
Almost every diurnal and nocturnal effect
in that woodland place had hitherto been the
direct result of the regular terrestrial roll
which produced the season's changes; but here
was something dissociated from these normal
sequences, and foreign to local habit and
knowledge.
It was about this moment that Grace heard
the household below preparing to retire, the
most emphatic noise in the proceeding being
that of her father bolting the doors.
Then the stairs creaked, and her father and
mother passed her chamber.
The last to come was Grammer Oliver.
Grace slid out of bed, ran across the room,
and lifting the latch, said, "I am not asleep,
Grammer.
Come in and talk to me."
Before the old woman had entered, Grace was
again under the bedclothes.
Grammer set down her candlestick, and seated
herself on the edge of Miss Melbury's coverlet.
"I want you to tell me what light that is
I see on the hill-side," said Grace.
Mrs. Oliver looked across.
"Oh, that," she said, "is from the doctor's.
He's often doing things of that sort.
Perhaps you don't know that we've a doctor
living here now—Mr. Fitzpiers by name?"
Grace admitted that she had not heard of him.
"Well, then, miss, he's come here to get up
a practice.
I know him very well, through going there
to help 'em scrub sometimes, which your father
said I might do, if I wanted to, in my spare
time.
Being a bachelor-man, he've only a lad in
the house.
Oh yes, I know him very well.
Sometimes he'll talk to me as if I were his
own mother."
"Indeed."
"Yes.
'Grammer,' he said one day, when I asked him
why he came here where there's hardly anybody
living, 'I'll tell you why I came here.
I took a map, and I marked on it where Dr.
Jones's practice ends to the north of this
district, and where Mr. Taylor's ends on the
south, and little Jimmy Green's on the east,
and somebody else's to the west.
Then I took a pair of compasses, and found
the exact middle of the country that was left
between these bounds, and that middle was
Little Hintock; so here I am....'
But, Lord, there: poor young man!"
"Why?"
"He said, 'Grammer Oliver, I've been here
three months, and although there are a good
many people in the Hintocks and the villages
round, and a scattered practice is often a
very good one, I don't seem to get many patients.
And there's no society at all; and I'm pretty
near melancholy mad,' he said, with a great
yawn.
'I should be quite if it were not for my books,
and my lab—laboratory, and what not.
Grammer, I was made for higher things.'
And then he'd yawn and yawn again."
"Was he really made for higher things, do
you think?
I mean, is he clever?"
"Well, no.
How can he be clever?
He may be able to jine up a broken man or
woman after a fashion, and put his finger
upon an ache if you tell him nearly where
'tis; but these young men—they should live
to my time of life, and then they'd see how
clever they were at five-and-twenty!
And yet he's a projick, a real projick, and
says the oddest of rozums.
'Ah, Grammer,' he said, at another time, 'let
me tell you that Everything is Nothing.
There's only Me and not Me in the whole world.'
And he told me that no man's hands could help
what they did, any more than the hands of
a clock....Yes, he's a man of strange meditations,
and his eyes seem to see as far as the north
star."
"He will soon go away, no doubt."
"I don't think so."
Grace did not say "Why?" and Grammer hesitated.
At last she went on: "Don't tell your father
or mother, miss, if I let you know a secret."
Grace gave the required promise.
"Well, he talks of buying me; so he won't
go away just yet."
"Buying you!—how?"
"Not my soul—my body, when I'm dead.
One day when I was there cleaning, he said,
'Grammer, you've a large brain—a very large
organ of brain,' he said.
'A woman's is usually four ounces less than
a man's; but yours is man's size.'
Well, then—hee, hee!—after he'd flattered
me a bit like that, he said he'd give me ten
pounds to have me as a natomy after my death.
Well, knowing I'd no chick nor chiel left,
and nobody with any interest in me, I thought,
faith, if I can be of any use to my fellow-creatures
after I'm gone they are welcome to my services;
so I said I'd think it over, and would most
likely agree and take the ten pounds.
Now this is a secret, miss, between us two.
The money would be very useful to me; and
I see no harm in it."
"Of course there's no harm.
But oh, Grammer, how can you think to do it?
I wish you hadn't told me."
"I wish I hadn't—if you don't like to know
it, miss.
But you needn't mind.
Lord—hee, hee!—I shall keep him waiting
many a year yet, bless ye!"
"I hope you will, I am sure."
The girl thereupon fell into such deep reflection
that conversation languished, and Grammer
Oliver, taking her candle, wished Miss Melbury
good-night.
The latter's eyes rested on the distant glimmer,
around which she allowed her reasoning fancy
to play in vague eddies that shaped the doings
of the philosopher behind that light on the
lines of intelligence just received.
It was strange to her to come back from the
world to Little Hintock and find in one of
its nooks, like a tropical plant in a hedgerow,
a nucleus of advanced ideas and practices
which had nothing in common with the life
around.
Chemical experiments, anatomical projects,
and metaphysical conceptions had found a strange
home here.
Thus she remained thinking, the imagined pursuits
of the man behind the light intermingling
with conjectural sketches of his personality,
till her eyes fell together with their own
heaviness, and she slept.
CHAPTER VII.
Kaleidoscopic dreams of a weird alchemist-surgeon,
Grammer Oliver's skeleton, and the face of
Giles Winterborne, brought Grace Melbury to
the morning of the next day.
It was fine.
A north wind was blowing—that not unacceptable
compromise between the atmospheric cutlery
of the eastern blast and the spongy gales
of the west quarter.
She looked from her window in the direction
of the light of the previous evening, and
could just discern through the trees the shape
of the surgeon's house.
Somehow, in the broad, practical daylight,
that unknown and lonely gentleman seemed to
be shorn of much of the interest which had
invested his personality and pursuits in the
hours of darkness, and as Grace's dressing
proceeded he faded from her mind.
Meanwhile, Winterborne, though half assured
of her father's favor, was rendered a little
restless by Miss Melbury's behavior.
Despite his dry self-control, he could not
help looking continually from his own door
towards the timber-merchant's, in the probability
of somebody's emergence therefrom.
His attention was at length justified by the
appearance of two figures, that of Mr. Melbury
himself, and Grace beside him.
They stepped out in a direction towards the
densest quarter of the wood, and Winterborne
walked contemplatively behind them, till all
three were soon under the trees.
Although the time of bare boughs had now set
in, there were sheltered hollows amid the
Hintock plantations and copses in which a
more tardy leave-taking than on windy summits
was the rule with the foliage.
This caused here and there an apparent mixture
of the seasons; so that in some of the dells
that they passed by holly-berries in full
red were found growing beside oak and hazel
whose leaves were as yet not far removed from
green, and brambles whose verdure was rich
and deep as in the month of August.
To Grace these well-known peculiarities were
as an old painting restored.
Now could be beheld that change from the handsome
to the curious which the features of a wood
undergo at the ingress of the winter months.
Angles were taking the place of curves, and
reticulations of surfaces—a change constituting
a sudden lapse from the ornate to the primitive
on Nature's canvas, and comparable to a retrogressive
step from the art of an advanced school of
painting to that of the Pacific Islander.
Winterborne followed, and kept his eye upon
the two figures as they threaded their way
through these sylvan phenomena.
Mr. Melbury's long legs, and gaiters drawn
in to the bone at the ankles, his slight stoop,
his habit of getting lost in thought and arousing
himself with an exclamation of "Hah!" accompanied
with an upward jerk of the head, composed
a personage recognizable by his neighbors
as far as he could be seen.
It seemed as if the squirrels and birds knew
him.
One of the former would occasionally run from
the path to hide behind the arm of some tree,
which the little animal carefully edged round
pari passu with Melbury and his daughters
movement onward, assuming a mock manner, as
though he were saying, "Ho, ho; you are only
a timber-merchant, and carry no gun!"
They went noiselessly over mats of starry
moss, rustled through interspersed tracts
of leaves, skirted trunks with spreading roots,
whose mossed rinds made them like hands wearing
green gloves; elbowed old elms and ashes with
great forks, in which stood pools of water
that overflowed on rainy days, and ran down
their stems in green cascades.
On older trees still than these, huge lobes
of fungi grew like lungs.
Here, as everywhere, the Unfulfilled Intention,
which makes life what it is, was as obvious
as it could be among the depraved crowds of
a city slum.
The leaf was deformed, the curve was crippled,
the taper was interrupted; the lichen eat
the vigor of the stalk, and the ivy slowly
strangled to death the promising sapling.
They dived amid beeches under which nothing
grew, the younger boughs still retaining their
hectic leaves, that rustled in the breeze
with a sound almost metallic, like the sheet-iron
foliage of the fabled Jarnvid wood.
Some flecks of white in Grace's drapery had
enabled Giles to keep her and her father in
view till this time; but now he lost sight
of them, and was obliged to follow by ear—no
difficult matter, for on the line of their
course every wood-pigeon rose from its perch
with a continued clash, dashing its wings
against the branches with wellnigh force enough
to break every quill.
By taking the track of this noise he soon
came to a stile.
Was it worth while to go farther?
He examined the doughy soil at the foot of
the stile, and saw among the large sole-and-heel
tracks an impression of a slighter kind from
a boot that was obviously not local, for Winterborne
knew all the cobblers' patterns in that district,
because they were very few to know.
The mud-picture was enough to make him swing
himself over and proceed.
The character of the woodland now changed.
The bases of the smaller trees were nibbled
bare by rabbits, and at divers points heaps
of fresh-made chips, and the newly-cut stool
of a tree, stared white through the undergrowth.
There had been a large fall of timber this
year, which explained the meaning of some
sounds that soon reached him.
A voice was shouting intermittently in a sort
of human bark, which reminded Giles that there
was a sale of trees and fagots that very day.
Melbury would naturally be present.
Thereupon Winterborne remembered that he himself
wanted a few fagots, and entered upon the
scene.
A large group of buyers stood round the auctioneer,
or followed him when, between his pauses,
he wandered on from one lot of plantation
produce to another, like some philosopher
of the Peripatetic school delivering his lectures
in the shady groves of the Lyceum.
His companions were timber-dealers, yeomen,
farmers, villagers, and others; mostly woodland
men, who on that account could afford to be
curious in their walking-sticks, which consequently
exhibited various monstrosities of vegetation,
the chief being cork-screw shapes in black
and white thorn, brought to that pattern by
the slow torture of an encircling woodbine
during their growth, as the Chinese have been
said to mould human beings into grotesque
toys by continued compression in infancy.
Two women, wearing men's jackets on their
gowns, conducted in the rear of the halting
procession a pony-cart containing a tapped
barrel of beer, from which they drew and replenished
horns that were handed round, with bread-and-cheese
from a basket.
The auctioneer adjusted himself to circumstances
by using his walking-stick as a hammer, and
knocked down the lot on any convenient object
that took his fancy, such as the crown of
a little boy's head, or the shoulders of a
by-stander who had no business there except
to taste the brew; a proceeding which would
have been deemed humorous but for the air
of stern rigidity which that auctioneer's
face preserved, tending to show that the eccentricity
was a result of that absence of mind which
is engendered by the press of affairs, and
no freak of fancy at all.
Mr. Melbury stood slightly apart from the
rest of the Peripatetics, and Grace beside
him, clinging closely to his arm, her modern
attire looking almost odd where everything
else was old-fashioned, and throwing over
the familiar garniture of the trees a homeliness
that seemed to demand improvement by the addition
of a few contemporary novelties also.
Grace seemed to regard the selling with the
interest which attaches to memories revived
after an interval of obliviousness.
Winterborne went and stood close to them;
the timber-merchant spoke, and continued his
buying; Grace merely smiled.
To justify his presence there Winterborne
began bidding for timber and fagots that he
did not want, pursuing the occupation in an
abstracted mood, in which the auctioneer's
voice seemed to become one of the natural
sounds of the woodland.
A few flakes of snow descended, at the sight
of which a robin, alarmed at these signs of
imminent winter, and seeing that no offence
was meant by the human invasion, came and
perched on the tip of the fagots that were
being sold, and looked into the auctioneer's
face, while waiting for some chance crumb
from the bread-basket.
Standing a little behind Grace, Winterborne
observed how one flake would sail downward
and settle on a curl of her hair, and how
another would choose her shoulder, and another
the edge of her bonnet, which took up so much
of his attention that his biddings proceeded
incoherently; and when the auctioneer said,
every now and then, with a nod towards him,
"Yours, Mr. Winterborne," he had no idea whether
he had bought fagots, poles, or logwood.
He regretted, with some causticity of humor,
that her father should show such inequalities
of temperament as to keep Grace tightly on
his arm to-day, when he had quite lately seemed
anxious to recognize their betrothal as a
fact.
And thus musing, and joining in no conversation
with other buyers except when directly addressed,
he followed the assemblage hither and thither
till the end of the auction, when Giles for
the first time realized what his purchases
had been.
Hundreds of fagots, and divers lots of timber,
had been set down to him, when all he had
required had been a few bundles of spray for
his odd man Robert Creedle's use in baking
and lighting fires.
Business being over, he turned to speak to
the timber merchant.
But Melbury's manner was short and distant;
and Grace, too, looked vexed and reproachful.
Winterborne then discovered that he had been
unwittingly bidding against her father, and
picking up his favorite lots in spite of him.
With a very few words they left the spot and
pursued their way homeward.
Giles was extremely sorry at what he had done,
and remained standing under the trees, all
the other men having strayed silently away.
He saw Melbury and his daughter pass down
a glade without looking back.
While they moved slowly through it a lady
appeared on horseback in the middle distance,
the line of her progress converging upon that
of Melbury's.
They met, Melbury took off his hat, and she
reined in her horse.
A conversation was evidently in progress between
Grace and her father and this equestrian,
in whom he was almost sure that he recognized
Mrs. Charmond, less by her outline than by
the livery of the groom who had halted some
yards off.
The interlocutors did not part till after
a prolonged pause, during which much seemed
to be said.
When Melbury and Grace resumed their walk
it was with something of a lighter tread than
before.
Winterborne then pursued his own course homeward.
He was unwilling to let coldness grow up between
himself and the Melburys for any trivial reason,
and in the evening he went to their house.
On drawing near the gate his attention was
attracted by the sight of one of the bedrooms
blinking into a state of illumination.
In it stood Grace lighting several candles,
her right hand elevating the taper, her left
hand on her bosom, her face thoughtfully fixed
on each wick as it kindled, as if she saw
in every flame's growth the rise of a life
to maturity.
He wondered what such unusual brilliancy could
mean to-night.
On getting in-doors he found her father and
step-mother in a state of suppressed excitement,
which at first he could not comprehend.
"I am sorry about my biddings to-day," said
Giles.
"I don't know what I was doing.
I have come to say that any of the lots you
may require are yours."
"Oh, never mind—never mind," replied the
timber-merchant, with a slight wave of his
hand, "I have so much else to think of that
I nearly had forgot it.
Just now, too, there are matters of a different
kind from trade to attend to, so don't let
it concern ye."
As the timber-merchant spoke, as it were,
down to him from a higher moral plane than
his own, Giles turned to Mrs. Melbury.
"Grace is going to the House to-morrow," she
said, quietly.
"She is looking out her things now.
I dare say she is wanting me this minute to
assist her."
Thereupon Mrs. Melbury left the room.
Nothing is more remarkable than the independent
personality of the tongue now and then.
Mr. Melbury knew that his words had been a
sort of boast.
He decried boasting, particularly to Giles;
yet whenever the subject was Grace, his judgment
resigned the ministry of speech in spite of
him.
Winterborne felt surprise, pleasure, and also
a little apprehension at the news.
He repeated Mrs. Melbury's words.
"Yes," said paternal pride, not sorry to have
dragged out of him what he could not in any
circumstances have kept in.
"Coming home from the woods this afternoon
we met Mrs. Charmond out for a ride.
She spoke to me on a little matter of business,
and then got acquainted with Grace.
'Twas wonderful how she took to Grace in a
few minutes; that freemasonry of education
made 'em close at once.
Naturally enough she was amazed that such
an article—ha, ha!—could come out of my
house.
At last it led on to Mis'ess Grace being asked
to the House.
So she's busy hunting up her frills and furbelows
to go in."
As Giles remained in thought without responding,
Melbury continued: "But I'll call her down-stairs."
"No, no; don't do that, since she's busy,"
said Winterborne.
Melbury, feeling from the young man's manner
that his own talk had been too much at Giles
and too little to him, repented at once.
His face changed, and he said, in lower tones,
with an effort, "She's yours, Giles, as far
as I am concerned."
"Thanks—my best thanks....But I think, since
it is all right between us about the biddings,
that I'll not interrupt her now.
I'll step homeward, and call another time."
On leaving the house he looked up at the bedroom
again.
Grace, surrounded by a sufficient number of
candles to answer all purposes of self-criticism,
was standing before a cheval-glass that her
father had lately bought expressly for her
use; she was bonneted, cloaked, and gloved,
and glanced over her shoulder into the mirror,
estimating her aspect.
Her face was lit with the natural elation
of a young girl hoping to inaugurate on the
morrow an intimate acquaintance with a new,
interesting, and powerful friend.
CHAPTER VIII.
The
inspiriting appointment which had led Grace
Melbury to indulge in a six-candle illumination
for the arrangement of her attire, carried
her over the ground the next morning with
a springy tread.
Her sense of being properly appreciated on
her own native soil seemed to brighten the
atmosphere and herbage around her, as the
glowworm's lamp irradiates the grass.
Thus she moved along, a vessel of emotion
going to empty itself on she knew not what.
Twenty minutes' walking through copses, over
a stile, and along an upland lawn brought
her to the verge of a deep glen, at the bottom
of which Hintock House appeared immediately
beneath her eye.
To describe it as standing in a hollow would
not express the situation of the manor-house;
it stood in a hole, notwithstanding that the
hole was full of beauty.
From the spot which Grace had reached a stone
could easily have been thrown over or into,
the birds'-nested chimneys of the mansion.
Its walls were surmounted by a battlemented
parapet; but the gray lead roofs were quite
visible behind it, with their gutters, laps,
rolls, and skylights, together with incised
letterings and shoe-patterns cut by idlers
thereon.
The front of the house exhibited an ordinary
manorial presentation of Elizabethan windows,
mullioned and hooded, worked in rich snuff-colored
freestone from local quarries.
The ashlar of the walls, where not overgrown
with ivy and other creepers, was coated with
lichen of every shade, intensifying its luxuriance
with its nearness to the ground, till, below
the plinth, it merged in moss.
Above the house to the back was a dense plantation,
the roots of whose trees were above the level
of the chimneys.
The corresponding high ground on which Grace
stood was richly grassed, with only an old
tree here and there.
A few sheep lay about, which, as they ruminated,
looked quietly into the bedroom windows.
The situation of the house, prejudicial to
humanity, was a stimulus to vegetation, on
which account an endless shearing of the heavy-armed
ivy was necessary, and a continual lopping
of trees and shrubs.
It was an edifice built in times when human
constitutions were damp-proof, when shelter
from the boisterous was all that men thought
of in choosing a dwelling-place, the insidious
being beneath their notice; and its hollow
site was an ocular reminder, by its unfitness
for modern lives, of the fragility to which
these have declined.
The highest architectural cunning could have
done nothing to make Hintock House dry and
salubrious; and ruthless ignorance could have
done little to make it unpicturesque.
It was vegetable nature's own home; a spot
to inspire the painter and poet of still life—if
they did not suffer too much from the relaxing
atmosphere—and to draw groans from the gregariously
disposed.
Grace descended the green escarpment by a
zigzag path into the drive, which swept round
beneath the slope.
The exterior of the house had been familiar
to her from her childhood, but she had never
been inside, and the approach to knowing an
old thing in a new way was a lively experience.
It was with a little flutter that she was
shown in; but she recollected that Mrs. Charmond
would probably be alone.
Up to a few days before this time that lady
had been accompanied in her comings, stayings,
and goings by a relative believed to be her
aunt; latterly, however, these two ladies
had separated, owing, it was supposed, to
a quarrel, and Mrs. Charmond had been left
desolate.
Being presumably a woman who did not care
for solitude, this deprivation might possibly
account for her sudden interest in Grace.
Mrs. Charmond was at the end of a gallery
opening from the hall when Miss Melbury was
announced, and saw her through the glass doors
between them.
She came forward with a smile on her face,
and told the young girl it was good of her
to come.
"Ah! you have noticed those," she said, seeing
that Grace's eyes were attracted by some curious
objects against the walls.
"They are man-traps.
My husband was a connoisseur in man-traps
and spring-guns and such articles, collecting
them from all his neighbors.
He knew the histories of all these—which
gin had broken a man's leg, which gun had
killed a man.
That one, I remember his saying, had been
set by a game-keeper in the track of a notorious
poacher; but the keeper, forgetting what he
had done, went that way himself, received
the charge in the lower part of his body,
and died of the wound.
I don't like them here, but I've never yet
given directions for them to be taken away."
She added, playfully, "Man-traps are of rather
ominous significance where a person of our
sex lives, are they not?"
Grace was bound to smile; but that side of
womanliness was one which her inexperience
had no great zest in contemplating.
"They are interesting, no doubt, as relics
of a barbarous time happily past," she said,
looking thoughtfully at the varied designs
of these instruments of torture—some with
semi-circular jaws, some with rectangular;
most of them with long, sharp teeth, but a
few with none, so that their jaws looked like
the blank gums of old age.
"Well, we must not take them too seriously,"
said Mrs. Charmond, with an indolent turn
of her head, and they moved on inward.
When she had shown her visitor different articles
in cabinets that she deemed likely to interest
her, some tapestries, wood-carvings, ivories,
miniatures, and so on—always with a mien
of listlessness which might either have been
constitutional, or partly owing to the situation
of the place—they sat down to an early cup
of tea.
"Will you pour it out, please?
Do," she said, leaning back in her chair,
and placing her hand above her forehead, while
her almond eyes—those long eyes so common
to the angelic legions of early Italian art—became
longer, and her voice more languishing.
She showed that oblique-mannered softness
which is perhaps most frequent in women of
darker complexion and more lymphatic temperament
than Mrs. Charmond's was; who lingeringly
smile their meanings to men rather than speak
them, who inveigle rather than prompt, and
take advantage of currents rather than steer.
"I am the most inactive woman when I am here,"
she said.
"I think sometimes I was born to live and
do nothing, nothing, nothing but float about,
as we fancy we do sometimes in dreams.
But that cannot be really my destiny, and
I must struggle against such fancies."
"I am so sorry you do not enjoy exertion—it
is quite sad!
I wish I could tend you and make you very
happy."
There was something so sympathetic, so appreciative,
in the sound of Grace's voice, that it impelled
people to play havoc with their customary
reservations in talking to her.
"It is tender and kind of you to feel that,"
said Mrs. Charmond.
"Perhaps I have given you the notion that
my languor is more than it really is.
But this place oppresses me, and I have a
plan of going abroad a good deal.
I used to go with a relative, but that arrangement
has dropped through."
Regarding Grace with a final glance of criticism,
she seemed to make up her mind to consider
the young girl satisfactory, and continued:
"Now I am often impelled to record my impressions
of times and places.
I have often thought of writing a 'New Sentimental
Journey.'
But I cannot find energy enough to do it alone.
When I am at different places in the south
of Europe I feel a crowd of ideas and fancies
thronging upon me continually, but to unfold
writing-materials, take up a cold steel pen,
and put these impressions down systematically
on cold, smooth paper—that I cannot do.
So I have thought that if I always could have
somebody at my elbow with whom I am in sympathy,
I might dictate any ideas that come into my
head.
And directly I had made your acquaintance
the other day it struck me that you would
suit me so well.
Would you like to undertake it?
You might read to me, too, if desirable.
Will you think it over, and ask your parents
if they are willing?"
"Oh yes," said Grace.
"I am almost sure they would be very glad."
"You are so accomplished, I hear; I should
be quite honored by such intellectual company."
Grace, modestly blushing, deprecated any such
idea.
"Do you keep up your lucubrations at Little
Hintock?"
"Oh no.
Lucubrations are not unknown at Little Hintock;
but they are not carried on by me."
"What—another student in that retreat?"
"There is a surgeon lately come, and I have
heard that he reads a great deal—I see his
light sometimes through the trees late at
night."
"Oh yes—a doctor—I believe I was told
of him.
It is a strange place for him to settle in."
"It is a convenient centre for a practice,
they say.
But he does not confine his studies to medicine,
it seems.
He investigates theology and metaphysics and
all sorts of subjects."
"What is his name?"
"Fitzpiers.
He represents a very old family, I believe,
the Fitzpierses of Buckbury-Fitzpiers—not
a great many miles from here."
"I am not sufficiently local to know the history
of the family.
I was never in the county till my husband
brought me here."
Mrs. Charmond did not care to pursue this
line of investigation.
Whatever mysterious merit might attach to
family antiquity, it was one which, though
she herself could claim it, her adaptable,
wandering weltburgerliche nature had grown
tired of caring about—a peculiarity that
made her a contrast to her neighbors.
"It is of rather more importance to know what
the man is himself than what his family is,"
she said, "if he is going to practise upon
us as a surgeon.
Have you seen him?"
Grace had not.
"I think he is not a very old man," she added.
"Has he a wife?"
"I am not aware that he has."
"Well, I hope he will be useful here.
I must get to know him when I come back.
It will be very convenient to have a medical
man—if he is clever—in one's own parish.
I get dreadfully nervous sometimes, living
in such an outlandish place; and Sherton is
so far to send to.
No doubt you feel Hintock to be a great change
after watering-place life."
"I do.
But it is home.
It has its advantages and its disadvantages."
Grace was thinking less of the solitude than
of the attendant circumstances.
They chatted on for some time, Grace being
set quite at her ease by her entertainer.
Mrs. Charmond was far too well-practised a
woman not to know that to show a marked patronage
to a sensitive young girl who would probably
be very quick to discern it, was to demolish
her dignity rather than to establish it in
that young girl's eyes.
So, being violently possessed with her idea
of making use of this gentle acquaintance,
ready and waiting at her own door, she took
great pains to win her confidence at starting.
Just before Grace's departure the two chanced
to pause before a mirror which reflected their
faces in immediate juxtaposition, so as to
bring into prominence their resemblances and
their contrasts.
Both looked attractive as glassed back by
the faithful reflector; but Grace's countenance
had the effect of making Mrs. Charmond appear
more than her full age.
There are complexions which set off each other
to great advantage, and there are those which
antagonize, the one killing or damaging its
neighbor unmercifully.
This was unhappily the case here.
Mrs. Charmond fell into a meditation, and
replied abstractedly to a cursory remark of
her companion's.
However, she parted from her young friend
in the kindliest tones, promising to send
and let her know as soon as her mind was made
up on the arrangement she had suggested.
When Grace had ascended nearly to the top
of the adjoining slope she looked back, and
saw that Mrs. Charmond still stood at the
door, meditatively regarding her.
Often during the previous night, after his
call on the Melburys, Winterborne's thoughts
ran upon Grace's announced visit to Hintock
House.
Why could he not have proposed to walk with
her part of the way?
Something told him that she might not, on
such an occasion, care for his company.
He was still more of that opinion when, standing
in his garden next day, he saw her go past
on the journey with such a pretty pride in
the event.
He wondered if her father's ambition, which
had purchased for her the means of intellectual
light and culture far beyond those of any
other native of the village, would conduce
to the flight of her future interests above
and away from the local life which was once
to her the movement of the world.
Nevertheless, he had her father's permission
to win her if he could; and to this end it
became desirable to bring matters soon to
a crisis, if he ever hoped to do so.
If she should think herself too good for him,
he could let her go and make the best of his
loss; but until he had really tested her he
could not say that she despised his suit.
The question was how to quicken events towards
an issue.
He thought and thought, and at last decided
that as good a way as any would be to give
a Christmas party, and ask Grace and her parents
to come as chief guests.
These ruminations were occupying him when
there became audible a slight knocking at
his front door.
He descended the path and looked out, and
beheld Marty South, dressed for out-door work.
"Why didn't you come, Mr. Winterborne?" she
said.
"I've been waiting there hours and hours,
and at last I thought I must try to find you."
"Bless my soul, I'd quite forgot," said Giles.
What he had forgotten was that there was a
thousand young fir-trees to be planted in
a neighboring spot which had been cleared
by the wood-cutters, and that he had arranged
to plant them with his own hands.
He had a marvellous power of making trees
grow.
Although he would seem to shovel in the earth
quite carelessly, there was a sort of sympathy
between himself and the fir, oak, or beech
that he was operating on, so that the roots
took hold of the soil in a few days.
When, on the other hand, any of the journeymen
planted, although they seemed to go through
an identically similar process, one quarter
of the trees would die away during the ensuing
August.
Hence Winterborne found delight in the work
even when, as at present, he contracted to
do it on portions of the woodland in which
he had no personal interest.
Marty, who turned her hand to anything, was
usually the one who performed the part of
keeping the trees in a perpendicular position
while he threw in the mould.
He accompanied her towards the spot, being
stimulated yet further to proceed with the
work by the knowledge that the ground was
close to the way-side along which Grace must
pass on her return from Hintock House.
"You've a cold in the head, Marty," he said,
as they walked.
"That comes of cutting off your hair."
"I suppose it do.
Yes; I've three headaches going on in my head
at the same time."
"Three headaches!"
"Yes, a rheumatic headache in my poll, a sick
headache over my eyes, and a misery headache
in the middle of my brain.
However, I came out, for I thought you might
be waiting and grumbling like anything if
I was not there."
The holes were already dug, and they set to
work.
Winterborne's fingers were endowed with a
gentle conjuror's touch in spreading the roots
of each little tree, resulting in a sort of
caress, under which the delicate fibres all
laid themselves out in their proper directions
for growth.
He put most of these roots towards the south-west;
for, he said, in forty years' time, when some
great gale is blowing from that quarter, the
trees will require the strongest holdfast
on that side to stand against it and not fall.
"How they sigh directly we put 'em upright,
though while they are lying down they don't
sigh at all," said Marty.
"Do they?" said Giles.
"I've never noticed it."
She erected one of the young pines into its
hole, and held up her finger; the soft musical
breathing instantly set in, which was not
to cease night or day till the grown tree
should be felled—probably long after the
two planters should be felled themselves.
"It seems to me," the girl continued, "as
if they sigh because they are very sorry to
begin life in earnest—just as we be."
"Just as we be?"
He looked critically at her.
"You ought not to feel like that, Marty."
Her only reply was turning to take up the
next tree; and they planted on through a great
part of the day, almost without another word.
Winterborne's mind ran on his contemplated
evening-party, his abstraction being such
that he hardly was conscious of Marty's presence
beside him.
From the nature of their employment, in which
he handled the spade and she merely held the
tree, it followed that he got good exercise
and she got none.
But she was an heroic girl, and though her
out-stretched hand was chill as a stone, and
her cheeks blue, and her cold worse than ever,
she would not complain while he was disposed
to continue work.
But when he paused she said, "Mr. Winterborne,
can I run down the lane and back to warm my
feet?"
"Why, yes, of course," he said, awakening
anew to her existence.
"Though I was just thinking what a mild day
it is for the season.
Now I warrant that cold of yours is twice
as bad as it was.
You had no business to chop that hair off,
Marty; it serves you almost right.
Look here, cut off home at once."
"A run down the lane will be quite enough."
"No, it won't.
You ought not to have come out to-day at all."
"But I should like to finish the—"
"Marty, I tell you to go home," said he, peremptorily.
"I can manage to keep the rest of them upright
with a stick or something."
She went away without saying any more.
When she had gone down the orchard a little
distance she looked back.
Giles suddenly went after her.
"Marty, it was for your good that I was rough,
you know.
But warm yourself in your own way, I don't
care."
When she had run off he fancied he discerned
a woman's dress through the holly-bushes which
divided the coppice from the road.
It was Grace at last, on her way back from
the interview with Mrs. Charmond.
He threw down the tree he was planting, and
was about to break through the belt of holly
when he suddenly became aware of the presence
of another man, who was looking over the hedge
on the opposite side of the way upon the figure
of the unconscious Grace.
He appeared as a handsome and gentlemanly
personage of six or eight and twenty, and
was quizzing her through an eye-glass.
Seeing that Winterborne was noticing him,
he let his glass drop with a click upon the
rail which protected the hedge, and walked
away in the opposite direction.
Giles knew in a moment that this must be Mr.
Fitzpiers.
When he was gone, Winterborne pushed through
the hollies, and emerged close beside the
interesting object of their contemplation.
CHAPTER IX.
"I heard the 
bushes move long before I saw you," she began.
"I said first, 'it is some terrible beast;'
next, 'it is a poacher;' next, 'it is a friend!'"
He regarded her with a slight smile, weighing,
not her speech, but the question whether he
should tell her that she had been watched.
He decided in the negative.
"You have been to the house?" he said.
"But I need not ask."
The fact was that there shone upon Miss Melbury's
face a species of exaltation, which saw no
environing details nor his own occupation;
nothing more than his bare presence.
"Why need you not ask?"
"Your face is like the face of Moses when
he came down from the Mount."
She reddened a little and said, "How can you
be so profane, Giles Winterborne?"
"How can you think so much of that class of
people?
Well, I beg pardon; I didn't mean to speak
so freely.
How do you like her house and her?"
"Exceedingly.
I had not been inside the walls since I was
a child, when it used to be let to strangers,
before Mrs. Charmond's late husband bought
the property.
She is SO nice!"
And Grace fell into such an abstracted gaze
at the imaginary image of Mrs. Charmond and
her niceness that it almost conjured up a
vision of that lady in mid-air before them.
"She has only been here a month or two, it
seems, and cannot stay much longer, because
she finds it so lonely and damp in winter.
She is going abroad.
Only think, she would like me to go with her."
Giles's features stiffened a little at the
news.
"Indeed; what for?
But I won't keep you standing here.
Hoi, Robert!" he cried to a swaying collection
of clothes in the distance, which was the
figure of Creedle his man.
"Go on filling in there till I come back."
"I'm a-coming, sir; I'm a-coming."
"Well, the reason is this," continued she,
as they went on together—"Mrs. Charmond
has a delightful side to her character—a
desire to record her impressions of travel,
like Alexandre Dumas, and Mery, and Sterne,
and others.
But she cannot find energy enough to do it
herself."
And Grace proceeded to explain Mrs. Charmond's
proposal at large.
"My notion is that Mery's style will suit
her best, because he writes in that soft,
emotional, luxurious way she has," Grace said,
musingly.
"Indeed!" said Winterborne, with mock awe.
"Suppose you talk over my head a little longer,
Miss Grace Melbury?"
"Oh, I didn't mean it!" she said, repentantly,
looking into his eyes.
"And as for myself, I hate French books.
And I love dear old Hintock, AND THE PEOPLE
IN IT, fifty times better than all the Continent.
But the scheme; I think it an enchanting notion,
don't you, Giles?"
"It is well enough in one sense, but it will
take you away," said he, mollified.
"Only for a short time.
We should return in May."
"Well, Miss Melbury, it is a question for
your father."
Winterborne walked with her nearly to her
house.
He had awaited her coming, mainly with the
view of mentioning to her his proposal to
have a Christmas party; but homely Christmas
gatherings in the venerable and jovial Hintock
style seemed so primitive and uncouth beside
the lofty matters of her converse and thought
that he refrained.
As soon as she was gone he turned back towards
the scene of his planting, and could not help
saying to himself as he walked, that this
engagement of his was a very unpromising business.
Her outing to-day had not improved it.
A woman who could go to Hintock House and
be friendly with its mistress, enter into
the views of its mistress, talk like her,
and dress not much unlike her, why, she would
hardly be contented with him, a yeoman, now
immersed in tree-planting, even though he
planted them well.
"And yet she's a true-hearted girl," he said,
thinking of her words about Hintock.
"I must bring matters to a point, and there's
an end of it."
When he reached the plantation he found that
Marty had come back, and dismissing Creedle,
he went on planting silently with the girl
as before.
"Suppose, Marty," he said, after a while,
looking at her extended arm, upon which old
scratches from briers showed themselves purple
in the cold wind—"suppose you know a person,
and want to bring that person to a good understanding
with you, do you think a Christmas party of
some sort is a warming-up thing, and likely
to be useful in hastening on the matter?"
"Is there to be dancing?"
"There might be, certainly."
"Will He dance with She?"
"Well, yes."
"Then it might bring things to a head, one
way or the other; I won't be the one to say
which."
"It shall be done," said Winterborne, not
to her, though he spoke the words quite loudly.
And as the day was nearly ended, he added,
"Here, Marty, I'll send up a man to plant
the rest to-morrow.
I've other things to think of just now."
She did not inquire what other things, for
she had seen him walking with Grace Melbury.
She looked towards the western sky, which
was now aglow like some vast foundery wherein
new worlds were being cast.
Across it the bare bough of a tree stretched
horizontally, revealing every twig against
the red, and showing in dark profile every
beck and movement of three pheasants that
were settling themselves down on it in a row
to roost.
"It will be fine to-morrow," said Marty, observing
them with the vermilion light of the sun in
the pupils of her eyes, "for they are a-croupied
down nearly at the end of the bough.
If it were going to be stormy they'd squeeze
close to the trunk.
The weather is almost all they have to think
of, isn't it, Mr. Winterborne? and so they
must be lighter-hearted than we."
"I dare say they are," said Winterborne.
Before taking a single step in the preparations,
Winterborne, with no great hopes, went across
that evening to the timber-merchant's to ascertain
if Grace and her parents would honor him with
their presence.
Having first to set his nightly gins in the
garden, to catch the rabbits that ate his
winter-greens, his call was delayed till just
after the rising of the moon, whose rays reached
the Hintock houses but fitfully as yet, on
account of the trees.
Melbury was crossing his yard on his way to
call on some one at the larger village, but
he readily turned and walked up and down the
path with the young man.
Giles, in his self-deprecatory sense of living
on a much smaller scale than the Melburys
did, would not for the world imply that his
invitation was to a gathering of any importance.
So he put it in the mild form of "Can you
come in for an hour, when you have done business,
the day after to-morrow; and Mrs. and Miss
Melbury, if they have nothing more pressing
to do?"
Melbury would give no answer at once.
"No, I can't tell you to-day," he said.
"I must talk it over with the women.
As far as I am concerned, my dear Giles, you
know I'll come with pleasure.
But how do I know what Grace's notions may
be?
You see, she has been away among cultivated
folks a good while; and now this acquaintance
with Mrs. Charmond—Well, I'll ask her.
I can say no more."
When Winterborne was gone the timber-merchant
went on his way.
He knew very well that Grace, whatever her
own feelings, would either go or not go, according
as he suggested; and his instinct was, for
the moment, to suggest the negative.
His errand took him past the church, and the
way to his destination was either across the
church-yard or along-side it, the distances
being the same.
For some reason or other he chose the former
way.
The moon was faintly lighting up the gravestones,
and the path, and the front of the building.
Suddenly Mr. Melbury paused, turned ill upon
the grass, and approached a particular headstone,
where he read, "In memory of John Winterborne,"
with the subjoined date and age.
It was the grave of Giles's father.
The timber-merchant laid his hand upon the
stone, and was humanized.
"Jack, my wronged friend!" he said.
"I'll be faithful to my plan of making amends
to 'ee."
When he reached home that evening, he said
to Grace and Mrs. Melbury, who were working
at a little table by the fire,
"Giles wants us to go down and spend an hour
with him the day after to-morrow; and I'm
thinking, that as 'tis Giles who asks us,
we'll go."
They assented without demur, and accordingly
the timber-merchant sent Giles the next morning
an answer in the affirmative.
Winterborne, in his modesty, or indifference,
had mentioned no particular hour in his invitation;
and accordingly Mr. Melbury and his family,
expecting no other guests, chose their own
time, which chanced to be rather early in
the afternoon, by reason of the somewhat quicker
despatch than usual of the timber-merchant's
business that day.
To show their sense of the unimportance of
the occasion, they walked quite slowly to
the house, as if they were merely out for
a ramble, and going to nothing special at
all; or at most intending to pay a casual
call and take a cup of tea.
At this hour stir and bustle pervaded the
interior of Winterborne's domicile from cellar
to apple-loft.
He had planned an elaborate high tea for six
o'clock or thereabouts, and a good roaring
supper to come on about eleven.
Being a bachelor of rather retiring habits,
the whole of the preparations devolved upon
himself and his trusty man and familiar, Robert
Creedle, who did everything that required
doing, from making Giles's bed to catching
moles in his field.
He was a survival from the days when Giles's
father held the homestead, and Giles was a
playing boy.
These two, with a certain dilatoriousness
which appertained to both, were now in the
heat of preparation in the bake-house, expecting
nobody before six o'clock.
Winterborne was standing before the brick
oven in his shirt-sleeves, tossing in thorn
sprays, and stirring about the blazing mass
with a long-handled, three-pronged Beelzebub
kind of fork, the heat shining out upon his
streaming face and making his eyes like furnaces,
the thorns crackling and sputtering; while
Creedle, having ranged the pastry dishes in
a row on the table till the oven should be
ready, was pressing out the crust of a final
apple-pie with a rolling-pin.
A great pot boiled on the fire, and through
the open door of the back kitchen a boy was
seen seated on the fender, emptying the snuffers
and scouring the candlesticks, a row of the
latter standing upside down on the hob to
melt out the grease.
Looking up from the rolling-pin, Creedle saw
passing the window first the timber-merchant,
in his second-best suit, Mrs. Melbury in her
best silk, and Grace in the fashionable attire
which, in part brought home with her from
the Continent, she had worn on her visit to
Mrs. Charmond's.
The eyes of the three had been attracted to
the proceedings within by the fierce illumination
which the oven threw out upon the operators
and their utensils.
"Lord, Lord! if they baint come a'ready!"
said Creedle.
"No—hey?" said Giles, looking round aghast;
while the boy in the background waved a reeking
candlestick in his delight.
As there was no help for it, Winterborne went
to meet them in the door-way.
"My dear Giles, I see we have made a mistake
in the time," said the timber-merchant's wife,
her face lengthening with concern.
"Oh, it is not much difference.
I hope you'll come in."
"But this means a regular randyvoo!" said
Mr. Melbury, accusingly, glancing round and
pointing towards the bake-house with his stick.
"Well, yes," said Giles.
"And—not Great Hintock band, and dancing,
surely?"
"I told three of 'em they might drop in if
they'd nothing else to do," Giles mildly admitted.
"Now, why the name didn't ye tell us 'twas
going to be a serious kind of thing before?
How should I know what folk mean if they don't
say?
Now, shall we come in, or shall we go home
and come back along in a couple of hours?"
"I hope you'll stay, if you'll be so good
as not to mind, now you are here.
I shall have it all right and tidy in a very
little time.
I ought not to have been so backward."
Giles spoke quite anxiously for one of his
undemonstrative temperament; for he feared
that if the Melburys once were back in their
own house they would not be disposed to turn
out again.
"'Tis we ought not to have been so forward;
that's what 'tis," said Mr. Melbury, testily.
"Don't keep us here in the sitting-room; lead
on to the bakehouse, man.
Now we are here we'll help ye get ready for
the rest.
Here, mis'ess, take off your things, and help
him out in his baking, or he won't get done
to-night.
I'll finish heating the oven, and set you
free to go and skiver up them ducks."
His eye had passed with pitiless directness
of criticism into yet remote recesses of Winterborne's
awkwardly built premises, where the aforesaid
birds were hanging.
"And I'll help finish the tarts," said Grace,
cheerfully.
"I don't know about that," said her father.
"'Tisn't quite so much in your line as it
is in your mother-law's and mine."
"Of course I couldn't let you, Grace!" said
Giles, with some distress.
"I'll do it, of course," said Mrs. Melbury,
taking off her silk train, hanging it up to
a nail, carefully rolling back her sleeves,
pinning them to her shoulders, and stripping
Giles of his apron for her own use.
So Grace pottered idly about, while her father
and his wife helped on the preparations.
A kindly pity of his household management,
which Winterborne saw in her eyes whenever
he caught them, depressed him much more than
her contempt would have done.
Creedle met Giles at the pump after a while,
when each of the others was absorbed in the
difficulties of a cuisine based on utensils,
cupboards, and provisions that were strange
to them.
He groaned to the young man in a whisper,
"This is a bruckle het, maister, I'm much
afeared!
Who'd ha' thought they'd ha' come so soon?"
The bitter placidity of Winterborne's look
adumbrated the misgivings he did not care
to express.
"Have you got the celery ready?" he asked,
quickly.
"Now that's a thing I never could mind; no,
not if you'd paid me in silver and gold.
And I don't care who the man is, I says that
a stick of celery that isn't scrubbed with
the scrubbing-brush is not clean."
"Very well, very well!
I'll attend to it.
You go and get 'em comfortable in-doors."
He hastened to the garden, and soon returned,
tossing the stalks to Creedle, who was still
in a tragic mood.
"If ye'd ha' married, d'ye see, maister,"
he said, "this caddle couldn't have happened
to us."
Everything being at last under way, the oven
set, and all done that could insure the supper
turning up ready at some time or other, Giles
and his friends entered the parlor, where
the Melburys again dropped into position as
guests, though the room was not nearly so
warm and cheerful as the blazing bakehouse.
Others now arrived, among them Farmer Bawtree
and the hollow-turner, and tea went off very
well.
Grace's disposition to make the best of everything,
and to wink at deficiencies in Winterborne's
menage, was so uniform and persistent that
he suspected her of seeing even more deficiencies
than he was aware of.
That suppressed sympathy which had showed
in her face ever since her arrival told him
as much too plainly.
"This muddling style of house-keeping is what
you've not lately been used to, I suppose?"
he said, when they were a little apart.
"No; but I like it; it reminds me so pleasantly
that everything here in dear old Hintock is
just as it used to be.
The oil is—not quite nice; but everything
else is."
"The oil?"
"On the chairs, I mean; because it gets on
one's dress.
Still, mine is not a new one."
Giles found that Creedle, in his zeal to make
things look bright, had smeared the chairs
with some greasy kind of furniture-polish,
and refrained from rubbing it dry in order
not to diminish the mirror-like effect that
the mixture produced as laid on.
Giles apologized and called Creedle; but he
felt that the Fates were against him.
CHAPTER X.
Supper-time came, and with it the hot-baked
from the oven, laid on a snowy cloth fresh
from the press, and reticulated with folds,
as in Flemish "Last Suppers."
Creedle and the boy fetched and carried with
amazing alacrity, the latter, to mollify his
superior and make things pleasant, expressing
his admiration of Creedle's cleverness when
they were alone.
"I s'pose the time when you learned all these
knowing things, Mr. Creedle, was when you
was in the militia?"
"Well, yes.
I seed the world at that time somewhat, certainly,
and many ways of strange dashing life.
Not but that Giles has worked hard in helping
me to bring things to such perfection to-day.
'Giles,' says I, though he's maister.
Not that I should call'n maister by rights,
for his father growed up side by side with
me, as if one mother had twinned us and been
our nourishing."
"I s'pose your memory can reach a long way
back into history, Mr. Creedle?"
"Oh yes.
Ancient days, when there was battles and famines
and hang-fairs and other pomps, seem to me
as yesterday.
Ah, many's the patriarch I've seed come and
go in this parish!
There, he's calling for more plates.
Lord, why can't 'em turn their plates bottom
upward for pudding, as they used to do in
former days?"
Meanwhile, in the adjoining room Giles was
presiding in a half-unconscious state.
He could not get over the initial failures
in his scheme for advancing his suit, and
hence he did not know that he was eating mouthfuls
of bread and nothing else, and continually
snuffing the two candles next him till he
had reduced them to mere glimmers drowned
in their own grease.
Creedle now appeared with a specially prepared
dish, which he served by elevating the little
three-legged pot that contained it, and tilting
the contents into a dish, exclaiming, simultaneously,
"Draw back, gentlemen and ladies, please!"
A splash followed.
Grace gave a quick, involuntary nod and blink,
and put her handkerchief to her face.
"Good heavens! what did you do that for, Creedle?"
said Giles, sternly, and jumping up.
"'Tis how I do it when they baint here, maister,"
mildly expostulated Creedle, in an aside audible
to all the company.
"Well, yes—but—" replied Giles.
He went over to Grace, and hoped none of it
had gone into her eye.
"Oh no," she said.
"Only a sprinkle on my face.
It was nothing."
"Kiss it and make it well," gallantly observed
Mr. Bawtree.
Miss Melbury blushed.
The timber-merchant said, quickly, "Oh, it
is nothing!
She must bear these little mishaps."
But there could be discerned in his face something
which said "I ought to have foreseen this."
Giles himself, since the untoward beginning
of the feast, had not quite liked to see Grace
present.
He wished he had not asked such people as
Bawtree and the hollow-turner.
He had done it, in dearth of other friends,
that the room might not appear empty.
In his mind's eye, before the event, they
had been the mere background or padding of
the scene, but somehow in reality they were
the most prominent personages there.
After supper they played cards, Bawtree and
the hollow-turner monopolizing the new packs
for an interminable game, in which a lump
of chalk was incessantly used—a game those
two always played wherever they were, taking
a solitary candle and going to a private table
in a corner with the mien of persons bent
on weighty matters.
The rest of the company on this account were
obliged to put up with old packs for their
round game, that had been lying by in a drawer
ever since the time that Giles's grandmother
was alive.
Each card had a great stain in the middle
of its back, produced by the touch of generations
of damp and excited thumbs now fleshless in
the grave; and the kings and queens wore a
decayed expression of feature, as if they
were rather an impecunious dethroned race
of monarchs hiding in obscure slums than real
regal characters.
Every now and then the comparatively few remarks
of the players at the round game were harshly
intruded on by the measured jingle of Farmer
Bawtree and the hollow-turner from the back
of the room:
"And I' will hold' a wa'-ger with you'
That all' these marks' are thirt'-y two!"
accompanied by rapping strokes with the chalk
on the table; then an exclamation, an argument,
a dealing of the cards; then the commencement
of the rhymes anew.
The timber-merchant showed his feelings by
talking with a satisfied sense of weight in
his words, and by praising the party in a
patronizing tone, when Winterborne expressed
his fear that he and his were not enjoying
themselves.
"Oh yes, yes; pretty much.
What handsome glasses those are!
I didn't know you had such glasses in the
house.
Now, Lucy" (to his wife), "you ought to get
some like them for ourselves."
And when they had abandoned cards, and Winterborne
was talking to Melbury by the fire, it was
the timber-merchant who stood with his back
to the mantle in a proprietary attitude, from
which post of vantage he critically regarded
Giles's person, rather as a superficies than
as a solid with ideas and feelings inside
it, saying, "What a splendid coat that one
is you have on, Giles!
I can't get such coats.
You dress better than I."
After supper there was a dance, the bandsmen
from Great Hintock having arrived some time
before.
Grace had been away from home so long that
she had forgotten the old figures, and hence
did not join in the movement.
Then Giles felt that all was over.
As for her, she was thinking, as she watched
the gyrations, of a very different measure
that she had been accustomed to tread with
a bevy of sylph-like creatures in muslin,
in the music-room of a large house, most of
whom were now moving in scenes widely removed
from this, both as regarded place and character.
A woman she did not know came and offered
to tell her fortune with the abandoned cards.
Grace assented to the proposal, and the woman
told her tale unskilfully, for want of practice,
as she declared.
Mr. Melbury was standing by, and exclaimed,
contemptuously, "Tell her fortune, indeed!
Her fortune has been told by men of science—what
do you call 'em?
Phrenologists.
You can't teach her anything new.
She's been too far among the wise ones to
be astonished at anything she can hear among
us folks in Hintock."
At last the time came for breaking up, Melbury
and his family being the earliest to leave,
the two card-players still pursuing their
game doggedly in the corner, where they had
completely covered Giles's mahogany table
with chalk scratches.
The three walked home, the distance being
short and the night clear.
"Well, Giles is a very good fellow," said
Mr. Melbury, as they struck down the lane
under boughs which formed a black filigree
in which the stars seemed set.
"Certainly he is," said Grace, quickly, and
in such a tone as to show that he stood no
lower, if no higher, in her regard than he
had stood before.
When they were opposite an opening through
which, by day, the doctor's house could be
seen, they observed a light in one of his
rooms, although it was now about two o'clock.
"The doctor is not abed yet," said Mrs. Melbury.
"Hard study, no doubt," said her husband.
"One would think that, as he seems to have
nothing to do about here by day, he could
at least afford to go to bed early at night.
'Tis astonishing how little we see of him."
Melbury's mind seemed to turn with much relief
to the contemplation of Mr. Fitzpiers after
the scenes of the evening.
"It is natural enough," he replied.
"What can a man of that sort find to interest
him in Hintock?
I don't expect he'll stay here long."
His mind reverted to Giles's party, and when
they were nearly home he spoke again, his
daughter being a few steps in advance: "It
is hardly the line of life for a girl like
Grace, after what she's been accustomed to.
I didn't foresee that in sending her to boarding-school
and letting her travel, and what not, to make
her a good bargain for Giles, I should be
really spoiling her for him.
Ah, 'tis a thousand pities!
But he ought to have her—he ought!"
At this moment the two exclusive, chalk-mark
men, having at last really finished their
play, could be heard coming along in the rear,
vociferously singing a song to march-time,
and keeping vigorous step to the same in far-reaching
strides—
"She may go, oh!
She may go, oh!
She may go to the d—— for me!"
The timber-merchant turned indignantly to
Mrs. Melbury.
"That's the sort of society we've been asked
to meet," he said.
"For us old folk it didn't matter; but for
Grace—Giles should have known better!"
Meanwhile, in the empty house from which the
guests had just cleared out, the subject of
their discourse was walking from room to room
surveying the general displacement of furniture
with no ecstatic feeling; rather the reverse,
indeed.
At last he entered the bakehouse, and found
there Robert Creedle sitting over the embers,
also lost in contemplation.
Winterborne sat down beside him.
"Well, Robert, you must be tired.
You'd better get on to bed."
"Ay, ay, Giles—what do I call ye?
Maister, I would say.
But 'tis well to think the day IS done, when
'tis done."
Winterborne had abstractedly taken the poker,
and with a wrinkled forehead was ploughing
abroad the wood-embers on the broad hearth,
till it was like a vast scorching Sahara,
with red-hot bowlders lying about everywhere.
"Do you think it went off well, Creedle?"
he asked.
"The victuals did; that I know.
And the drink did; that I steadfastly believe,
from the holler sound of the barrels.
Good, honest drink 'twere, the headiest mead
I ever brewed; and the best wine that berries
could rise to; and the briskest Horner-and-Cleeves
cider ever wrung down, leaving out the spice
and sperrits I put into it, while that egg-flip
would ha' passed through muslin, so little
curdled 'twere.
'Twas good enough to make any king's heart
merry—ay, to make his whole carcass smile.
Still, I don't deny I'm afeared some things
didn't go well with He and his."
Creedle nodded in a direction which signified
where the Melburys lived.
"I'm afraid, too, that it was a failure there!"
"If so, 'twere doomed to be so.
Not but what that snail might as well have
come upon anybody else's plate as hers."
"What snail?"
"Well, maister, there was a little one upon
the edge of her plate when I brought it out;
and so it must have been in her few leaves
of wintergreen."
"How the deuce did a snail get there?"
"That I don't know no more than the dead;
but there my gentleman was."
"But, Robert, of all places, that was where
he shouldn't have been!"
"Well, 'twas his native home, come to that;
and where else could we expect him to be?
I don't care who the man is, snails and caterpillars
always will lurk in close to the stump of
cabbages in that tantalizing way."
"He wasn't alive, I suppose?" said Giles,
with a shudder on Grace's account.
"Oh no.
He was well boiled.
I warrant him well boiled.
God forbid that a LIVE snail should be seed
on any plate of victuals that's served by
Robert Creedle....But Lord, there; I don't
mind 'em myself—them small ones, for they
were born on cabbage, and they've lived on
cabbage, so they must be made of cabbage.
But she, the close-mouthed little lady, she
didn't say a word about it; though 'twould
have made good small conversation as to the
nater of such creatures; especially as wit
ran short among us sometimes."
"Oh yes—'tis all over!" murmured Giles to
himself, shaking his head over the glooming
plain of embers, and lining his forehead more
than ever.
"Do you know, Robert," he said, "that she's
been accustomed to servants and everything
superfine these many years?
How, then, could she stand our ways?"
"Well, all I can say is, then, that she ought
to hob-and-nob elsewhere.
They shouldn't have schooled her so monstrous
high, or else bachelor men shouldn't give
randys, or if they do give 'em, only to their
own race."
"Perhaps that's true," said Winterborne, rising
and yawning a sigh.
CHAPTER XI.
"'Tis a pity—a thousand pities!" her father
kept saying next morning at breakfast, Grace
being still in her bedroom.
But how could he, with any self-respect, obstruct
Winterborne's suit at this stage, and nullify
a scheme he had labored to promote—was,
indeed, mechanically promoting at this moment?
A crisis was approaching, mainly as a result
of his contrivances, and it would have to
be met.
But here was the fact, which could not be
disguised: since seeing what an immense change
her last twelve months of absence had produced
in his daughter, after the heavy sum per annum
that he had been spending for several years
upon her education, he was reluctant to let
her marry Giles Winterborne, indefinitely
occupied as woodsman, cider-merchant, apple-farmer,
and what not, even were she willing to marry
him herself.
"She will be his wife if you don't upset her
notion that she's bound to accept him as an
understood thing," said Mrs. Melbury.
"Bless ye, she'll soon shake down here in
Hintock, and be content with Giles's way of
living, which he'll improve with what money
she'll have from you.
'Tis the strangeness after her genteel life
that makes her feel uncomfortable at first.
Why, when I saw Hintock the first time I thought
I never could like it.
But things gradually get familiar, and stone
floors seem not so very cold and hard, and
the hooting of the owls not so very dreadful,
and loneliness not so very lonely, after a
while."
"Yes, I believe ye.
That's just it.
I KNOW Grace will gradually sink down to our
level again, and catch our manners and way
of speaking, and feel a drowsy content in
being Giles's wife.
But I can't bear the thought of dragging down
to that old level as promising a piece of
maidenhood as ever lived—fit to ornament
a palace wi'—that I've taken so much trouble
to lift up.
Fancy her white hands getting redder every
day, and her tongue losing its pretty up-country
curl in talking, and her bounding walk becoming
the regular Hintock shail and wamble!"
"She may shail, but she'll never wamble,"
replied his wife, decisively.
When Grace came down-stairs he complained
of her lying in bed so late; not so much moved
by a particular objection to that form of
indulgence as discomposed by these other reflections.
The corners of her pretty mouth dropped a
little down.
"You used to complain with justice when I
was a girl," she said.
"But I am a woman now, and can judge for myself....But
it is not that; it is something else!"
Instead of sitting down she went outside the
door.
He was sorry.
The petulance that relatives show towards
each other is in truth directed against that
intangible Causality which has shaped the
situation no less for the offenders than the
offended, but is too elusive to be discerned
and cornered by poor humanity in irritated
mood.
Melbury followed her.
She had rambled on to the paddock, where the
white frost lay, and where starlings in flocks
of twenties and thirties were walking about,
watched by a comfortable family of sparrows
perched in a line along the string-course
of the chimney, preening themselves in the
rays of the sun.
"Come in to breakfast, my girl," he said.
"And as to Giles, use your own mind.
Whatever pleases you will please me."
"I am promised to him, father; and I cannot
help thinking that in honor I ought to marry
him, whenever I do marry."
He had a strong suspicion that somewhere in
the bottom of her heart there pulsed an old
simple indigenous feeling favorable to Giles,
though it had become overlaid with implanted
tastes.
But he would not distinctly express his views
on the promise.
"Very well," he said.
"But I hope I sha'n't lose you yet.
Come in to breakfast.
What did you think of the inside of Hintock
House the other day?"
"I liked it much."
"Different from friend Winterborne's?"
She said nothing; but he who knew her was
aware that she meant by her silence to reproach
him with drawing cruel comparisons.
"Mrs. Charmond has asked you to come again—when,
did you say?"
"She thought Tuesday, but would send the day
before to let me know if it suited her."
And with this subject upon their lips they
entered to breakfast.
Tuesday came, but no message from Mrs. Charmond.
Nor was there any on Wednesday.
In brief, a fortnight slipped by without a
sign, and it looked suspiciously as if Mrs.
Charmond were not going further in the direction
of "taking up" Grace at present.
Her father reasoned thereon.
Immediately after his daughter's two indubitable
successes with Mrs. Charmond—the interview
in the wood and a visit to the House—she
had attended Winterborne's party.
No doubt the out-and-out joviality of that
gathering had made it a topic in the neighborhood,
and that every one present as guests had been
widely spoken of—Grace, with her exceptional
qualities, above all.
What, then, so natural as that Mrs. Charmond
should have heard the village news, and become
quite disappointed in her expectations of
Grace at finding she kept such company?
Full of this post hoc argument, Mr. Melbury
overlooked the infinite throng of other possible
reasons and unreasons for a woman changing
her mind.
For instance, while knowing that his Grace
was attractive, he quite forgot that Mrs.
Charmond had also great pretensions to beauty.
In his simple estimate, an attractive woman
attracted all around.
So it was settled in his mind that her sudden
mingling with the villagers at the unlucky
Winterborne's was the cause of her most grievous
loss, as he deemed it, in the direction of
Hintock House.
"'Tis a thousand pities!" he would repeat
to himself.
"I am ruining her for conscience' sake!"
It was one morning later on, while these things
were agitating his mind, that, curiously enough,
something darkened the window just as they
finished breakfast.
Looking up, they saw Giles in person mounted
on horseback, and straining his neck forward,
as he had been doing for some time, to catch
their attention through the window.
Grace had been the first to see him, and involuntarily
exclaimed, "There he is—and a new horse!"
On their faces as they regarded Giles were
written their suspended thoughts and compound
feelings concerning him, could he have read
them through those old panes.
But he saw nothing: his features just now
were, for a wonder, lit up with a red smile
at some other idea.
So they rose from breakfast and went to the
door, Grace with an anxious, wistful manner,
her father in a reverie, Mrs. Melbury placid
and inquiring.
"We have come out to look at your horse,"
she said.
It could be seen that he was pleased at their
attention, and explained that he had ridden
a mile or two to try the animal's paces.
"I bought her," he added, with warmth so severely
repressed as to seem indifference, "because
she has been used to carry a lady."
Still Mr. Melbury did not brighten.
Mrs. Melbury said, "And is she quiet?"
Winterborne assured her that there was no
doubt of it.
"I took care of that.
She's five-and-twenty, and very clever for
her age."
"Well, get off and come in," said Melbury,
brusquely; and Giles dismounted accordingly.
This event was the concrete result of Winterborne's
thoughts during the past week or two.
The want of success with his evening party
he had accepted in as philosophic a mood as
he was capable of; but there had been enthusiasm
enough left in him one day at Sherton Abbas
market to purchase this old mare, which had
belonged to a neighboring parson with several
daughters, and was offered him to carry either
a gentleman or a lady, and to do odd jobs
of carting and agriculture at a pinch.
This obliging quadruped seemed to furnish
Giles with a means of reinstating himself
in Melbury's good opinion as a man of considerateness
by throwing out future possibilities to Grace.
The latter looked at him with intensified
interest this morning, in the mood which is
altogether peculiar to woman's nature, and
which, when reduced into plain words, seems
as impossible as the penetrability of matter—that
of entertaining a tender pity for the object
of her own unnecessary coldness.
The imperturbable poise which marked Winterborne
in general was enlivened now by a freshness
and animation that set a brightness in his
eye and on his cheek.
Mrs. Melbury asked him to have some breakfast,
and he pleasurably replied that he would join
them, with his usual lack of tactical observation,
not perceiving that they had all finished
the meal, that the hour was inconveniently
late, and that the note piped by the kettle
denoted it to be nearly empty; so that fresh
water had to be brought in, trouble taken
to make it boil, and a general renovation
of the table carried out.
Neither did he know, so full was he of his
tender ulterior object in buying that horse,
how many cups of tea he was gulping down one
after another, nor how the morning was slipping,
nor how he was keeping the family from dispersing
about their duties.
Then he told throughout the humorous story
of the horse's purchase, looking particularly
grim at some fixed object in the room, a way
he always looked when he narrated anything
that amused him.
While he was still thinking of the scene he
had described, Grace rose and said, "I have
to go and help my mother now, Mr. Winterborne."
"H'm!" he ejaculated, turning his eyes suddenly
upon her.
She repeated her words with a slight blush
of awkwardness; whereupon Giles, becoming
suddenly conscious, too conscious, jumped
up, saying, "To be sure, to be sure!" wished
them quickly good-morning, and bolted out
of the house.
Nevertheless he had, upon the whole, strengthened
his position, with her at least.
Time, too, was on his side, for (as her father
saw with some regret) already the homeliness
of Hintock life was fast becoming effaced
from her observation as a singularity; just
as the first strangeness of a face from which
we have for years been separated insensibly
passes off with renewed intercourse, and tones
itself down into simple identity with the
lineaments of the past.
Thus Mr. Melbury went out of the house still
unreconciled to the sacrifice of the gem he
had been at such pains in mounting.
He fain could hope, in the secret nether chamber
of his mind, that something would happen,
before the balance of her feeling had quite
turned in Winterborne's favor, to relieve
his conscience and preserve her on her elevated
plane.
He could not forget that Mrs. Charmond had
apparently abandoned all interest in his daughter
as suddenly as she had conceived it, and was
as firmly convinced as ever that the comradeship
which Grace had shown with Giles and his crew
by attending his party had been the cause.
Matters lingered on thus.
And then, as a hoop by gentle knocks on this
side and on that is made to travel in specific
directions, the little touches of circumstance
in the life of this young girl shaped the
curves of her career.
CHAPTER XII.
It was a day of rather bright weather for
the season.
Miss Melbury went out for a morning walk,
and her ever-regardful father, having an hour's
leisure, offered to walk with her.
The breeze was fresh and quite steady, filtering
itself through the denuded mass of twigs without
swaying them, but making the point of each
ivy-leaf on the trunks scratch its underlying
neighbor restlessly.
Grace's lips sucked in this native air of
hers like milk.
They soon reached a place where the wood ran
down into a corner, and went outside it towards
comparatively open ground.
Having looked round about, they were intending
to re-enter the copse when a fox quietly emerged
with a dragging brush, trotted past them tamely
as a domestic cat, and disappeared amid some
dead fern.
They walked on, her father merely observing,
after watching the animal, "They are hunting
somewhere near."
Farther up they saw in the mid-distance the
hounds running hither and thither, as if there
were little or no scent that day.
Soon divers members of the hunt appeared on
the scene, and it was evident from their movements
that the chase had been stultified by general
puzzle-headedness as to the whereabouts of
the intended victim.
In a minute a farmer rode up to the two pedestrians,
panting with acteonic excitement, and Grace
being a few steps in advance, he addressed
her, asking if she had seen the fox.
"Yes," said she.
"We saw him some time ago—just out there."
"Did you cry Halloo?"
"We said nothing."
"Then why the d—— didn't you, or get the
old buffer to do it for you?" said the man,
as he cantered away.
She looked rather disconcerted at this reply,
and observing her father's face, saw that
it was quite red.
"He ought not to have spoken to ye like that!"
said the old man, in the tone of one whose
heart was bruised, though it was not by the
epithet applied to himself.
"And he wouldn't if he had been a gentleman.
'Twas not the language to use to a woman of
any niceness.
You, so well read and cultivated—how could
he expect ye to know what tom-boy field-folk
are in the habit of doing?
If so be you had just come from trimming swedes
or mangolds—joking with the rough work-folk
and all that—I could have stood it.
But hasn't it cost me near a hundred a year
to lift you out of all that, so as to show
an example to the neighborhood of what a woman
can be?
Grace, shall I tell you the secret of it?
'Twas because I was in your company.
If a black-coated squire or pa'son had been
walking with you instead of me he wouldn't
have spoken so."
"No, no, father; there's nothing in you rough
or ill-mannered!"
"I tell you it is that!
I've noticed, and I've noticed it many times,
that a woman takes her color from the man
she's walking with.
The woman who looks an unquestionable lady
when she's with a polished-up fellow, looks
a mere tawdry imitation article when she's
hobbing and nobbing with a homely blade.
You sha'n't be treated like that for long,
or at least your children sha'n't.
You shall have somebody to walk with you who
looks more of a dandy than I—please God
you shall!"
"But, my dear father," she said, much distressed,
"I don't mind at all.
I don't wish for more honor than I already
have!"
"A perplexing and ticklish possession is a
daughter," according to Menander or some old
Greek poet, and to nobody was one ever more
so than to Melbury, by reason of her very
dearness to him.
As for Grace, she began to feel troubled;
she did not perhaps wish there and then to
unambitiously devote her life to Giles Winterborne,
but she was conscious of more and more uneasiness
at the possibility of being the social hope
of the family.
"You would like to have more honor, if it
pleases me?" asked her father, in continuation
of the subject.
Despite her feeling she assented to this.
His reasoning had not been without its weight
upon her.
"Grace," he said, just before they had reached
the house, "if it costs me my life you shall
marry well!
To-day has shown me that whatever a young
woman's niceness, she stands for nothing alone.
You shall marry well."
He breathed heavily, and his breathing was
caught up by the breeze, which seemed to sigh
a soft remonstrance.
She looked calmly at him.
"And how about Mr. Winterborne?" she asked.
"I mention it, father, not as a matter of
sentiment, but as a question of keeping faith."
The timber-merchant's eyes fell for a moment.
"I don't know—I don't know," he said.
"'Tis a trying strait.
Well, well; there's no hurry.
We'll wait and see how he gets on."
That evening he called her into his room,
a snug little apartment behind the large parlor.
It had at one time been part of the bakehouse,
with the ordinary oval brick oven in the wall;
but Mr. Melbury, in turning it into an office,
had built into the cavity an iron safe, which
he used for holding his private papers.
The door of the safe was now open, and his
keys were hanging from it.
"Sit down, Grace, and keep me company," he
said.
"You may amuse yourself by looking over these."
He threw out a heap of papers before her.
"What are they?" she asked.
"Securities of various sorts."
He unfolded them one by one.
"Papers worth so much money each.
Now here's a lot of turnpike bonds for one
thing.
Would you think that each of these pieces
of paper is worth two hundred pounds?"
"No, indeed, if you didn't say so."
"'Tis so, then.
Now here are papers of another sort.
They are for different sums in the three-per-cents.
Now these are Port Breedy Harbor bonds.
We have a great stake in that harbor, you
know, because I send off timber there.
Open the rest at your pleasure.
They'll interest ye."
"Yes, I will, some day," said she, rising.
"Nonsense, open them now.
You ought to learn a little of such matters.
A young lady of education should not be ignorant
of money affairs altogether.
Suppose you should be left a widow some day,
with your husband's title-deeds and investments
thrown upon your hands—"
"Don't say that, father—title-deeds; it
sounds so vain!"
"It does not.
Come to that, I have title-deeds myself.
There, that piece of parchment represents
houses in Sherton Abbas."
"Yes, but—" She hesitated, looked at the
fire, and went on in a low voice: "If what
has been arranged about me should come to
anything, my sphere will be quite a middling
one."
"Your sphere ought not to be middling," he
exclaimed, not in passion, but in earnest
conviction.
"You said you never felt more at home, more
in your element, anywhere than you did that
afternoon with Mrs. Charmond, when she showed
you her house and all her knick-knacks, and
made you stay to tea so nicely in her drawing-room—surely
you did!"
"Yes, I did say so," admitted Grace.
"Was it true?"
"Yes, I felt so at the time.
The feeling is less strong now, perhaps."
"Ah!
Now, though you don't see it, your feeling
at the time was the right one, because your
mind and body were just in full and fresh
cultivation, so that going there with her
was like meeting like.
Since then you've been biding with us, and
have fallen back a little, and so you don't
feel your place so strongly.
Now, do as I tell ye, and look over these
papers and see what you'll be worth some day.
For they'll all be yours, you know; who have
I got to leave 'em to but you?
Perhaps when your education is backed up by
what these papers represent, and that backed
up by another such a set and their owner,
men such as that fellow was this morning may
think you a little more than a buffer's girl."
So she did as commanded, and opened each of
the folded representatives of hard cash that
her father put before her.
To sow in her heart cravings for social position
was obviously his strong desire, though in
direct antagonism to a better feeling which
had hitherto prevailed with him, and had,
indeed, only succumbed that morning during
the ramble.
She wished that she was not his worldly hope;
the responsibility of such a position was
too great.
She had made it for herself mainly by her
appearance and attractive behavior to him
since her return.
"If I had only come home in a shabby dress,
and tried to speak roughly, this might not
have happened," she thought.
She deplored less the fact than the sad possibilities
that might lie hidden therein.
Her father then insisted upon her looking
over his checkbook and reading the counterfoils.
This, also, she obediently did, and at last
came to two or three which had been drawn
to defray some of the late expenses of her
clothes, board, and education.
"I, too, cost a good deal, like the horses
and wagons and corn," she said, looking up
sorrily.
"I didn't want you to look at those; I merely
meant to give you an idea of my investment
transactions.
But if you do cost as much as they, never
mind.
You'll yield a better return."
"Don't think of me like that!" she begged.
"A mere chattel."
"A what?
Oh, a dictionary word.
Well, as that's in your line I don't forbid
it, even if it tells against me," he said,
good-humoredly.
And he looked her proudly up and down.
A few minutes later Grammer Oliver came to
tell them that supper was ready, and in giving
the information she added, incidentally, "So
we shall soon lose the mistress of Hintock
House for some time, I hear, Maister Melbury.
Yes, she's going off to foreign parts to-morrow,
for the rest of the winter months; and be-chok'd
if I don't wish I could do the same, for my
wynd-pipe is furred like a flue."
When the old woman had left the room, Melbury
turned to his daughter and said, "So, Grace,
you've lost your new friend, and your chance
of keeping her company and writing her travels
is quite gone from ye!"
Grace said nothing.
"Now," he went on, emphatically, "'tis Winterborne's
affair has done this.
Oh yes, 'tis.
So let me say one word.
Promise me that you will not meet him again
without my knowledge."
"I never do meet him, father, either without
your knowledge or with it."
"So much the better.
I don't like the look of this at all.
And I say it not out of harshness to him,
poor fellow, but out of tenderness to you.
For how could a woman, brought up delicately
as you have been, bear the roughness of a
life with him?"
She sighed; it was a sigh of sympathy with
Giles, complicated by a sense of the intractability
of circumstances.
At that same hour, and almost at that same
minute, there was a conversation about Winterborne
in progress in the village street, opposite
Mr. Melbury's gates, where Timothy Tangs the
elder and Robert Creedle had accidentally
met.
The sawyer was asking Creedle if he had heard
what was all over the parish, the skin of
his face being drawn two ways on the matter—towards
brightness in respect of it as news, and towards
concern in respect of it as circumstance.
"Why, that poor little lonesome thing, Marty
South, is likely to lose her father.
He was almost well, but is much worse again.
A man all skin and grief he ever were, and
if he leave Little Hintock for a better land,
won't it make some difference to your Maister
Winterborne, neighbor Creedle?"
"Can I be a prophet in Israel?" said Creedle.
"Won't it!
I was only shaping of such a thing yesterday
in my poor, long-seeing way, and all the work
of the house upon my one shoulders!
You know what it means?
It is upon John South's life that all Mr.
Winterborne's houses hang.
If so be South die, and so make his decease,
thereupon the law is that the houses fall
without the least chance of absolution into
HER hands at the House.
I told him so; but the words of the faithful
be only as wind!"
CHAPTER XIII.
The news was true.
The life—the one fragile life—that had
been used as a measuring-tape of time by law,
was in danger of being frayed away.
It was the last of a group of lives which
had served this purpose, at the end of whose
breathings the small homestead occupied by
South himself, the larger one of Giles Winterborne,
and half a dozen others that had been in the
possession of various Hintock village families
for the previous hundred years, and were now
Winterborne's, would fall in and become part
of the encompassing estate.
Yet a short two months earlier Marty's father,
aged fifty-five years, though something of
a fidgety, anxious being, would have been
looked on as a man whose existence was so
far removed from hazardous as any in the parish,
and as bidding fair to be prolonged for another
quarter of a century.
Winterborne walked up and down his garden
next day thinking of the contingency.
The sense that the paths he was pacing, the
cabbage-plots, the apple-trees, his dwelling,
cider-cellar, wring-house, stables, and weathercock,
were all slipping away over his head and beneath
his feet, as if they were painted on a magic-lantern
slide, was curious.
In spite of John South's late indisposition
he had not anticipated danger.
To inquire concerning his health had been
to show less sympathy than to remain silent,
considering the material interest he possessed
in the woodman's life, and he had, accordingly,
made a point of avoiding Marty's house.
While he was here in the garden somebody came
to fetch him.
It was Marty herself, and she showed her distress
by her unconsciousness of a cropped poll.
"Father is still so much troubled in his mind
about that tree," she said.
"You know the tree I mean, Mr. Winterborne?
the tall one in front of the house, that he
thinks will blow down and kill us.
Can you come and see if you can persuade him
out of his notion?
I can do nothing."
He accompanied her to the cottage, and she
conducted him upstairs.
John South was pillowed up in a chair between
the bed and the window exactly opposite the
latter, towards which his face was turned.
"Ah, neighbor Winterborne," he said.
"I wouldn't have minded if my life had only
been my own to lose; I don't vallie it in
much of itself, and can let it go if 'tis
required of me.
But to think what 'tis worth to you, a young
man rising in life, that do trouble me!
It seems a trick of dishonesty towards ye
to go off at fifty-five!
I could bear up, I know I could, if it were
not for the tree—yes, the tree, 'tis that's
killing me.
There he stands, threatening my life every
minute that the wind do blow.
He'll come down upon us and squat us dead;
and what will ye do when the life on your
property is taken away?"
"Never you mind me—that's of no consequence,"
said Giles.
"Think of yourself alone."
He looked out of the window in the direction
of the woodman's gaze.
The tree was a tall elm, familiar to him from
childhood, which stood at a distance of two-thirds
its own height from the front of South's dwelling.
Whenever the wind blew, as it did now, the
tree rocked, naturally enough; and the sight
of its motion and sound of its sighs had gradually
bred the terrifying illusion in the woodman's
mind that it would descend and kill him.
Thus he would sit all day, in spite of persuasion,
watching its every sway, and listening to
the melancholy Gregorian melodies which the
air wrung out of it.
This fear it apparently was, rather than any
organic disease which was eating away the
health of John South.
As the tree waved, South waved his head, making
it his flugel-man with abject obedience.
"Ah, when it was quite a small tree," he said,
"and I was a little boy, I thought one day
of chopping it off with my hook to make a
clothes-line prop with.
But I put off doing it, and then I again thought
that I would; but I forgot it, and didn't.
And at last it got too big, and now 'tis my
enemy, and will be the death o' me.
Little did I think, when I let that sapling
stay, that a time would come when it would
torment me, and dash me into my grave."
"No, no," said Winterborne and Marty, soothingly.
But they thought it possible that it might
hasten him into his grave, though in another
way than by falling.
"I tell you what," added Winterborne, "I'll
climb up this afternoon and shroud off the
lower boughs, and then it won't be so heavy,
and the wind won't affect it so."
"She won't allow it—a strange woman come
from nobody knows where—she won't have it
done."
"You mean Mrs. Charmond?
Oh, she doesn't know there's such a tree on
her estate.
Besides, shrouding is not felling, and I'll
risk that much."
He went out, and when afternoon came he returned,
took a billhook from the woodman's shed, and
with a ladder climbed into the lower part
of the tree, where he began lopping off—"shrouding,"
as they called it at Hintock—the lowest
boughs.
Each of these quivered under his attack, bent,
cracked, and fell into the hedge.
Having cut away the lowest tier, he stepped
off the ladder, climbed a few steps higher,
and attacked those at the next level.
Thus he ascended with the progress of his
work far above the top of the ladder, cutting
away his perches as he went, and leaving nothing
but a bare stem below him.
The work was troublesome, for the tree was
large.
The afternoon wore on, turning dark and misty
about four o'clock.
From time to time Giles cast his eyes across
towards the bedroom window of South, where,
by the flickering fire in the chamber, he
could see the old man watching him, sitting
motionless with a hand upon each arm of the
chair.
Beside him sat Marty, also straining her eyes
towards the skyey field of his operations.
A curious question suddenly occurred to Winterborne,
and he stopped his chopping.
He was operating on another person's property
to prolong the years of a lease by whose termination
that person would considerably benefit.
In that aspect of the case he doubted if he
ought to go on.
On the other hand he was working to save a
man's life, and this seemed to empower him
to adopt arbitrary measures.
The wind had died down to a calm, and while
he was weighing the circumstances he saw coming
along the road through the increasing mist
a figure which, indistinct as it was, he knew
well.
It was Grace Melbury, on her way out from
the house, probably for a short evening walk
before dark.
He arranged himself for a greeting from her,
since she could hardly avoid passing immediately
beneath the tree.
But Grace, though she looked up and saw him,
was just at that time too full of the words
of her father to give him any encouragement.
The years-long regard that she had had for
him was not kindled by her return into a flame
of sufficient brilliancy to make her rebellious.
Thinking that she might not see him, he cried,
"Miss Melbury, here I am."
She looked up again.
She was near enough to see the expression
of his face, and the nails in his soles, silver-bright
with constant walking.
But she did not reply; and dropping her glance
again, went on.
Winterborne's face grew strange; he mused,
and proceeded automatically with his work.
Grace meanwhile had not gone far.
She had reached a gate, whereon she had leaned
sadly, and whispered to herself, "What shall
I do?"
A sudden fog came on, and she curtailed her
walk, passing under the tree again on her
return.
Again he addressed her.
"Grace," he said, when she was close to the
trunk, "speak to me."
She shook her head without stopping, and went
on to a little distance, where she stood observing
him from behind the hedge.
Her coldness had been kindly meant.
If it was to be done, she had said to herself,
it should be begun at once.
While she stood out of observation Giles seemed
to recognize her meaning; with a sudden start
he worked on, climbing higher, and cutting
himself off more and more from all intercourse
with the sublunary world.
At last he had worked himself so high up the
elm, and the mist had so thickened, that he
could only just be discerned as a dark-gray
spot on the light-gray sky: he would have
been altogether out of notice but for the
stroke of his billhook and the flight of a
bough downward, and its crash upon the hedge
at intervals.
It was not to be done thus, after all: plainness
and candor were best.
She went back a third time; he did not see
her now, and she lingeringly gazed up at his
unconscious figure, loath to put an end to
any kind of hope that might live on in him
still.
"Giles— Mr. Winterborne," she said.
He was so high amid the fog that he did not
hear.
"Mr. Winterborne!" she cried again, and this
time he stopped, looked down, and replied.
"My silence just now was not accident," she
said, in an unequal voice.
"My father says it is best not to think too
much of that—engagement, or understanding
between us, that you know of.
I, too, think that upon the whole he is right.
But we are friends, you know, Giles, and almost
relations."
"Very well," he answered, as if without surprise,
in a voice which barely reached down the tree.
"I have nothing to say in objection—I cannot
say anything till I've thought a while."
She added, with emotion in her tone, "For
myself, I would have married you—some day—I
think.
But I give way, for I see it would be unwise."
He made no reply, but sat back upon a bough,
placed his elbow in a fork, and rested his
head upon his hand.
Thus he remained till the fog and the night
had completely enclosed him from her view.
Grace heaved a divided sigh, with a tense
pause between, and moved onward, her heart
feeling uncomfortably big and heavy, and her
eyes wet.
Had Giles, instead of remaining still, immediately
come down from the tree to her, would she
have continued in that filial acquiescent
frame of mind which she had announced to him
as final?
If it be true, as women themselves have declared,
that one of their sex is never so much inclined
to throw in her lot with a man for good and
all as five minutes after she has told him
such a thing cannot be, the probabilities
are that something might have been done by
the appearance of Winterborne on the ground
beside Grace.
But he continued motionless and silent in
that gloomy Niflheim or fog-land which involved
him, and she proceeded on her way.
The spot seemed now to be quite deserted.
The light from South's window made rays on
the fog, but did not reach the tree.
A quarter of an hour passed, and all was blackness
overhead.
Giles had not yet come down.
Then the tree seemed to shiver, then to heave
a sigh; a movement was audible, and Winterborne
dropped almost noiselessly to the ground.
He had thought the matter out, and having
returned the ladder and billhook to their
places, pursued his way homeward.
He would not allow this incident to affect
his outer conduct any more than the danger
to his leaseholds had done, and went to bed
as usual.
Two simultaneous troubles do not always make
a double trouble; and thus it came to pass
that Giles's practical anxiety about his houses,
which would have been enough to keep him awake
half the night at any other time, was displaced
and not reinforced by his sentimental trouble
about Grace Melbury.
This severance was in truth more like a burial
of her than a rupture with her; but he did
not realize so much at present; even when
he arose in the morning he felt quite moody
and stern: as yet the second note in the gamut
of such emotions, a tender regret for his
loss, had not made itself heard.
A load of oak timber was to be sent away that
morning to a builder whose works were in a
town many miles off.
The proud trunks were taken up from the silent
spot which had known them through the buddings
and sheddings of their growth for the foregoing
hundred years; chained down like slaves to
a heavy timber carriage with enormous red
wheels, and four of the most powerful of Melbury's
horses were harnessed in front to draw them.
The horses wore their bells that day.
There were sixteen to the team, carried on
a frame above each animal's shoulders, and
tuned to scale, so as to form two octaves,
running from the highest note on the right
or off-side of the leader to the lowest on
the left or near-side of the shaft-horse.
Melbury was among the last to retain horse-bells
in that neighborhood; for, living at Little
Hintock, where the lanes yet remained as narrow
as before the days of turnpike roads, these
sound-signals were still as useful to him
and his neighbors as they had ever been in
former times.
Much backing was saved in the course of a
year by the warning notes they cast ahead;
moreover, the tones of all the teams in the
district being known to the carters of each,
they could tell a long way off on a dark night
whether they were about to encounter friends
or strangers.
The fog of the previous evening still lingered
so heavily over the woods that the morning
could not penetrate the trees till long after
its time.
The load being a ponderous one, the lane crooked,
and the air so thick, Winterborne set out,
as he often did, to accompany the team as
far as the corner, where it would turn into
a wider road.
So they rumbled on, shaking the foundations
of the roadside cottages by the weight of
their progress, the sixteen bells chiming
harmoniously over all, till they had risen
out of the valley and were descending towards
the more open route, the sparks rising from
their creaking skid and nearly setting fire
to the dead leaves alongside.
Then occurred one of the very incidents against
which the bells were an endeavor to guard.
Suddenly there beamed into their eyes, quite
close to them, the two lamps of a carriage,
shorn of rays by the fog.
Its approach had been quite unheard, by reason
of their own noise.
The carriage was a covered one, while behind
it could be discerned another vehicle laden
with luggage.
Winterborne went to the head of the team,
and heard the coachman telling the carter
that he must turn back.
The carter declared that this was impossible.
"You can turn if you unhitch your string-horses,"
said the coachman.
"It is much easier for you to turn than for
us," said Winterborne.
"We've five tons of timber on these wheels
if we've an ounce."
"But I've another carriage with luggage at
my back."
Winterborne admitted the strength of the argument.
"But even with that," he said, "you can back
better than we.
And you ought to, for you could hear our bells
half a mile off."
"And you could see our lights."
"We couldn't, because of the fog."
"Well, our time's precious," said the coachman,
haughtily.
"You are only going to some trumpery little
village or other in the neighborhood, while
we are going straight to Italy."
"Driving all the way, I suppose," said Winterborne,
sarcastically.
The argument continued in these terms till
a voice from the interior of the carriage
inquired what was the matter.
It was a lady's.
She was briefly informed of the timber people's
obstinacy; and then Giles could hear her telling
the footman to direct the timber people to
turn their horses' heads.
The message was brought, and Winterborne sent
the bearer back to say that he begged the
lady's pardon, but that he could not do as
she requested; that though he would not assert
it to be impossible, it was impossible by
comparison with the slight difficulty to her
party to back their light carriages.
As fate would have it, the incident with Grace
Melbury on the previous day made Giles less
gentle than he might otherwise have shown
himself, his confidence in the sex being rudely
shaken.
In fine, nothing could move him, and the carriages
were compelled to back till they reached one
of the sidings or turnouts constructed in
the bank for the purpose.
Then the team came on ponderously, and the
clanging of its sixteen bells as it passed
the discomfited carriages, tilted up against
the bank, lent a particularly triumphant tone
to the team's progress—a tone which, in
point of fact, did not at all attach to its
conductor's feelings.
Giles walked behind the timber, and just as
he had got past the yet stationary carriages
he heard a soft voice say, "Who is that rude
man?
Not Melbury?"
The sex of the speaker was so prominent in
the voice that Winterborne felt a pang of
regret.
"No, ma'am.
A younger man, in a smaller way of business
in Little Hintock.
Winterborne is his name."
Thus they parted company.
"Why, Mr. Winterborne," said the wagoner,
when they were out of hearing, "that was She—Mrs.
Charmond!
Who'd ha' thought it?
What in the world can a woman that does nothing
be cock-watching out here at this time o'
day for?
Oh, going to Italy—yes to be sure, I heard
she was going abroad, she can't endure the
winter here."
Winterborne was vexed at the incident; the
more so that he knew Mr. Melbury, in his adoration
of Hintock House, would be the first to blame
him if it became known.
But saying no more, he accompanied the load
to the end of the lane, and then turned back
with an intention to call at South's to learn
the result of the experiment of the preceding
evening.
It chanced that a few minutes before this
time Grace Melbury, who now rose soon enough
to breakfast with her father, in spite of
the unwontedness of the hour, had been commissioned
by him to make the same inquiry at South's.
Marty had been standing at the door when Miss
Melbury arrived.
Almost before the latter had spoken, Mrs.
Charmond's carriages, released from the obstruction
up the lane, came bowling along, and the two
girls turned to regard the spectacle.
Mrs. Charmond did not see them, but there
was sufficient light for them to discern her
outline between the carriage windows.
A noticeable feature in her tournure was a
magnificent mass of braided locks.
"How well she looks this morning!" said Grace,
forgetting Mrs. Charmond's slight in her generous
admiration.
"Her hair so becomes her worn that way.
I have never seen any more beautiful!"
"Nor have I, miss," said Marty, dryly, unconsciously
stroking her crown.
Grace watched the carriages with lingering
regret till they were out of sight.
She then learned of Marty that South was no
better.
Before she had come away Winterborne approached
the house, but seeing that one of the two
girls standing on the door-step was Grace,
he suddenly turned back again and sought the
shelter of his own home till she should have
gone away.
CHAPTER XIV.
The encounter with the carriages having sprung
upon Winterborne's mind the image of Mrs.
Charmond, his thoughts by a natural channel
went from her to the fact that several cottages
and other houses in the two Hintocks, now
his own, would fall into her possession in
the event of South's death.
He marvelled what people could have been thinking
about in the past to invent such precarious
tenures as these; still more, what could have
induced his ancestors at Hintock, and other
village people, to exchange their old copyholds
for life-leases.
But having naturally succeeded to these properties
through his father, he had done his best to
keep them in order, though he was much struck
with his father's negligence in not insuring
South's life.
After breakfast, still musing on the circumstances,
he went upstairs, turned over his bed, and
drew out a flat canvas bag which lay between
the mattress and the sacking.
In this he kept his leases, which had remained
there unopened ever since his father's death.
It was the usual hiding-place among rural
lifeholders for such documents.
Winterborne sat down on the bed and looked
them over.
They were ordinary leases for three lives,
which a member of the South family, some fifty
years before this time, had accepted of the
lord of the manor in lieu of certain copyholds
and other rights, in consideration of having
the dilapidated houses rebuilt by said lord.
They had come into his father's possession
chiefly through his mother, who was a South.
Pinned to the parchment of one of the indentures
was a letter, which Winterborne had never
seen before.
It bore a remote date, the handwriting being
that of some solicitor or agent, and the signature
the landholder's.
It was to the effect that at any time before
the last of the stated lives should drop,
Mr. Giles Winterborne, senior, or his representative,
should have the privilege of adding his own
and his son's life to the life remaining on
payment of a merely nominal sum; the concession
being in consequence of the elder Winterborne's
consent to demolish one of the houses and
relinquish its site, which stood at an awkward
corner of the lane and impeded the way.
The house had been pulled down years before.
Why Giles's father had not taken advantage
of his privilege to insert his own and his
son's lives it was impossible to say.
The likelihood was that death alone had hindered
him in the execution of his project, as it
surely was, the elder Winterborne having been
a man who took much pleasure in dealing with
house property in his small way.
Since one of the Souths still survived, there
was not much doubt that Giles could do what
his father had left undone, as far as his
own life was concerned.
This possibility cheered him much, for by
those houses hung many things.
Melbury's doubt of the young man's fitness
to be the husband of Grace had been based
not a little on the precariousness of his
holdings in Little and Great Hintock.
He resolved to attend to the business at once,
the fine for renewal being a sum that he could
easily muster.
His scheme, however, could not be carried
out in a day; and meanwhile he would run up
to South's, as he had intended to do, to learn
the result of the experiment with the tree.
Marty met him at the door.
"Well, Marty," he said; and was surprised
to read in her face that the case was not
so hopeful as he had imagined.
"I am sorry for your labor," she said.
"It is all lost.
He says the tree seems taller than ever."
Winterborne looked round at it.
Taller the tree certainly did seem, the gauntness
of its now naked stem being more marked than
before.
"It quite terrified him when he first saw
what you had done to it this morning," she
added.
"He declares it will come down upon us and
cleave us, like 'the sword of the Lord and
of Gideon.'"
"Well; can I do anything else?" asked he.
"The doctor says the tree ought to be cut
down."
"Oh—you've had the doctor?"
"I didn't send for him.
Mrs. Charmond, before she left, heard that
father was ill, and told him to attend him
at her expense."
"That was very good of her.
And he says it ought to be cut down.
We mustn't cut it down without her knowledge,
I suppose."
He went up-stairs.
There the old man sat, staring at the now
gaunt tree as if his gaze were frozen on to
its trunk.
Unluckily the tree waved afresh by this time,
a wind having sprung up and blown the fog
away, and his eyes turned with its wavings.
They heard footsteps—a man's, but of a lighter
type than usual.
"There is Doctor Fitzpiers again," she said,
and descended.
Presently his tread was heard on the naked
stairs.
Mr. Fitzpiers entered the sick-chamber just
as a doctor is more or less wont to do on
such occasions, and pre-eminently when the
room is that of a humble cottager, looking
round towards the patient with that preoccupied
gaze which so plainly reveals that he has
wellnigh forgotten all about the case and
the whole circumstances since he dismissed
them from his mind at his last exit from the
same apartment.
He nodded to Winterborne, with whom he was
already a little acquainted, recalled the
case to his thoughts, and went leisurely on
to where South sat.
Fitzpiers was, on the whole, a finely formed,
handsome man.
His eyes were dark and impressive, and beamed
with the light either of energy or of susceptivity—it
was difficult to say which; it might have
been a little of both.
That quick, glittering, practical eye, sharp
for the surface of things and for nothing
beneath it, he had not.
But whether his apparent depth of vision was
real, or only an artistic accident of his
corporeal moulding, nothing but his deeds
could reveal.
His face was rather soft than stern, charming
than grand, pale than flushed; his nose—if
a sketch of his features be de rigueur for
a person of his pretensions—was artistically
beautiful enough to have been worth doing
in marble by any sculptor not over-busy, and
was hence devoid of those knotty irregularities
which often mean power; while the double-cyma
or classical curve of his mouth was not without
a looseness in its close.
Nevertheless, either from his readily appreciative
mien, or his reflective manner, or the instinct
towards profound things which was said to
possess him, his presence bespoke the philosopher
rather than the dandy or macaroni—an effect
which was helped by the absence of trinkets
or other trivialities from his attire, though
this was more finished and up to date than
is usually the case among rural practitioners.
Strict people of the highly respectable class,
knowing a little about him by report, might
have said that he seemed likely to err rather
in the possession of too many ideas than too
few; to be a dreamy 'ist of some sort, or
too deeply steeped in some false kind of 'ism.
However this may be, it will be seen that
he was undoubtedly a somewhat rare kind of
gentleman and doctor to have descended, as
from the clouds, upon Little Hintock.
"This is an extraordinary case," he said at
last to Winterborne, after examining South
by conversation, look, and touch, and learning
that the craze about the elm was stronger
than ever.
"Come down-stairs, and I'll tell you what
I think."
They accordingly descended, and the doctor
continued, "The tree must be cut down, or
I won't answer for his life."
"'Tis Mrs. Charmond's tree, and I suppose
we must get permission?" said Giles.
"If so, as she is gone away, I must speak
to her agent."
"Oh—never mind whose tree it is—what's
a tree beside a life!
Cut it down.
I have not the honor of knowing Mrs. Charmond
as yet, but I am disposed to risk that much
with her."
"'Tis timber," rejoined Giles, more scrupulous
than he would have been had not his own interests
stood so closely involved.
"They'll never fell a stick about here without
it being marked first, either by her or the
agent."
"Then we'll inaugurate a new era forthwith.
How long has he complained of the tree?" asked
the doctor of Marty.
"Weeks and weeks, sir.
The shape of it seems to haunt him like an
evil spirit.
He says that it is exactly his own age, that
it has got human sense, and sprouted up when
he was born on purpose to rule him, and keep
him as its slave.
Others have been like it afore in Hintock."
They could hear South's voice up-stairs "Oh,
he's rocking this way; he must come!
And then my poor life, that's worth houses
upon houses, will be squashed out o' me.
Oh!
oh!"
"That's how he goes on," she added.
"And he'll never look anywhere else but out
of the window, and scarcely have the curtains
drawn."
"Down with it, then, and hang Mrs. Charmond,"
said Mr. Fitzpiers.
"The best plan will be to wait till the evening,
when it is dark, or early in the morning before
he is awake, so that he doesn't see it fall,
for that would terrify him worse than ever.
Keep the blind down till I come, and then
I'll assure him, and show him that his trouble
is over."
The doctor then departed, and they waited
till the evening.
When it was dusk, and the curtains drawn,
Winterborne directed a couple of woodmen to
bring a crosscut-saw, and the tall, threatening
tree was soon nearly off at its base.
He would not fell it completely then, on account
of the possible crash, but next morning, before
South was awake, they went and lowered it
cautiously, in a direction away from the cottage.
It was a business difficult to do quite silently;
but it was done at last, and the elm of the
same birth-year as the woodman's lay stretched
upon the ground.
The weakest idler that passed could now set
foot on marks formerly made in the upper forks
by the shoes of adventurous climbers only;
once inaccessible nests could be examined
microscopically; and on swaying extremities
where birds alone had perched, the by-standers
sat down.
As soon as it was broad daylight the doctor
came, and Winterborne entered the house with
him.
Marty said that her father was wrapped up
and ready, as usual, to be put into his chair.
They ascended the stairs, and soon seated
him.
He began at once to complain of the tree,
and the danger to his life and Winterborne's
house-property in consequence.
The doctor signalled to Giles, who went and
drew back the printed cotton curtains.
"'Tis gone, see," said Mr. Fitzpiers.
As soon as the old man saw the vacant patch
of sky in place of the branched column so
familiar to his gaze, he sprang up, speechless,
his eyes rose from their hollows till the
whites showed all round; he fell back, and
a bluish whiteness overspread him.
Greatly alarmed, they put him on the bed.
As soon as he came a little out of his fit,
he gasped, "Oh, it is gone!—where?—where?"
His whole system seemed paralyzed by amazement.
They were thunder-struck at the result of
the experiment, and did all they could.
Nothing seemed to avail.
Giles and Fitzpiers went and came, but uselessly.
He lingered through the day, and died that
evening as the sun went down.
"D—d if my remedy hasn't killed him!"
murmured the doctor.
CHAPTER XV.
When Melbury heard what had happened he seemed
much moved, and walked thoughtfully about
the premises.
On South's own account he was genuinely sorry;
and on Winterborne's he was the more grieved
in that this catastrophe had so closely followed
the somewhat harsh dismissal of Giles as the
betrothed of his daughter.
He was quite angry with circumstances for
so heedlessly inflicting on Giles a second
trouble when the needful one inflicted by
himself was all that the proper order of events
demanded.
"I told Giles's father when he came into those
houses not to spend too much money on lifehold
property held neither for his own life nor
his son's," he exclaimed.
"But he wouldn't listen to me.
And now Giles has to suffer for it."
"Poor Giles!" murmured Grace.
"Now, Grace, between us two, it is very, very
remarkable.
It is almost as if I had foreseen this; and
I am thankful for your escape, though I am
sincerely sorry for Giles.
Had we not dismissed him already, we could
hardly have found it in our hearts to dismiss
him now.
So I say, be thankful.
I'll do all I can for him as a friend; but
as a pretender to the position of my son-in
law, that can never be thought of more."
And yet at that very moment the impracticability
to which poor Winterborne's suit had been
reduced was touching Grace's heart to a warmer
sentiment on his behalf than she had felt
for years concerning him.
He, meanwhile, was sitting down alone in the
old familiar house which had ceased to be
his, taking a calm if somewhat dismal survey
of affairs.
The pendulum of the clock bumped every now
and then against one side of the case in which
it swung, as the muffled drum to his worldly
march.
Looking out of the window he could perceive
that a paralysis had come over Creedle's occupation
of manuring the garden, owing, obviously,
to a conviction that they might not be living
there long enough to profit by next season's
crop.
He looked at the leases again and the letter
attached.
There was no doubt that he had lost his houses
by an accident which might easily have been
circumvented if he had known the true conditions
of his holding.
The time for performance had now lapsed in
strict law; but might not the intention be
considered by the landholder when she became
aware of the circumstances, and his moral
right to retain the holdings for the term
of his life be conceded?
His heart sank within him when he perceived
that despite all the legal reciprocities and
safeguards prepared and written, the upshot
of the matter amounted to this, that it depended
upon the mere caprice—good or ill—of the
woman he had met the day before in such an
unfortunate way, whether he was to possess
his houses for life or no.
While he was sitting and thinking a step came
to the door, and Melbury appeared, looking
very sorry for his position.
Winterborne welcomed him by a word and a look,
and went on with his examination of the parchments.
His visitor sat down.
"Giles," he said, "this is very awkward, and
I am sorry for it.
What are you going to do?"
Giles informed him of the real state of affairs,
and how barely he had missed availing himself
of his chance of renewal.
"What a misfortune!
Why was this neglected?
Well, the best thing you can do is to write
and tell her all about it, and throw yourself
upon her generosity."
"I would rather not," murmured Giles.
"But you must," said Melbury.
In short, he argued so cogently that Giles
allowed himself to be persuaded, and the letter
to Mrs. Charmond was written and sent to Hintock
House, whence, as he knew, it would at once
be forwarded to her.
Melbury feeling that he had done so good an
action in coming as almost to extenuate his
previous arbitrary conduct to nothing, went
home; and Giles was left alone to the suspense
of waiting for a reply from the divinity who
shaped the ends of the Hintock population.
By this time all the villagers knew of the
circumstances, and being wellnigh like one
family, a keen interest was the result all
round.
Everybody thought of Giles; nobody thought
of Marty.
Had any of them looked in upon her during
those moonlight nights which preceded the
burial of her father, they would have seen
the girl absolutely alone in the house with
the dead man.
Her own chamber being nearest the stairs,
the coffin had been placed there for convenience;
and at a certain hour of the night, when the
moon arrived opposite the window, its beams
streamed across the still profile of South,
sublimed by the august presence of death,
and onward a few feet farther upon the face
of his daughter, lying in her little bed in
the stillness of a repose almost as dignified
as that of her companion—the repose of a
guileless soul that had nothing more left
on earth to lose, except a life which she
did not overvalue.
South was buried, and a week passed, and Winterborne
watched for a reply from Mrs. Charmond.
Melbury was very sanguine as to its tenor;
but Winterborne had not told him of the encounter
with her carriage, when, if ever he had heard
an affronted tone on a woman's lips, he had
heard it on hers.
The postman's time for passing was just after
Melbury's men had assembled in the spar-house;
and Winterborne, who when not busy on his
own account would lend assistance there, used
to go out into the lane every morning and
meet the post-man at the end of one of the
green rides through the hazel copse, in the
straight stretch of which his laden figure
could be seen a long way off.
Grace also was very anxious; more anxious
than her father; more, perhaps, than Winterborne
himself.
This anxiety led her into the spar-house on
some pretext or other almost every morning
while they were awaiting the reply.
Fitzpiers too, though he did not personally
appear, was much interested, and not altogether
easy in his mind; for he had been informed
by an authority of what he had himself conjectured,
that if the tree had been allowed to stand,
the old man would have gone on complaining,
but might have lived for twenty years.
Eleven times had Winterborne gone to that
corner of the ride, and looked up its long
straight slope through the wet grays of winter
dawn.
But though the postman's bowed figure loomed
in view pretty regularly, he brought nothing
for Giles.
On the twelfth day the man of missives, while
yet in the extreme distance, held up his hand,
and Winterborne saw a letter in it.
He took it into the spar-house before he broke
the seal, and those who were there gathered
round him while he read, Grace looking in
at the door.
The letter was not from Mrs. Charmond herself,
but her agent at Sherton.
Winterborne glanced it over and looked up.
"It's all over," he said.
"Ah!" said they altogether.
"Her lawyer is instructed to say that Mrs.
Charmond sees no reason for disturbing the
natural course of things, particularly as
she contemplates pulling the houses down,"
he said, quietly.
"Only think of that!" said several.
Winterborne had turned away, and said vehemently
to himself, "Then let her pull 'em down, and
be d—d to her!"
Creedle looked at him with a face of seven
sorrows, saying, "Ah, 'twas that sperrit that
lost 'em for ye, maister!"
Winterborne subdued his feelings, and from
that hour, whatever they were, kept them entirely
to himself.
There could be no doubt that, up to this last
moment, he had nourished a feeble hope of
regaining Grace in the event of this negotiation
turning out a success.
Not being aware of the fact that her father
could have settled upon her a fortune sufficient
to enable both to live in comfort, he deemed
it now an absurdity to dream any longer of
such a vanity as making her his wife, and
sank into silence forthwith.
Yet whatever the value of taciturnity to a
man among strangers, it is apt to express
more than talkativeness when he dwells among
friends.
The countryman who is obliged to judge the
time of day from changes in external nature
sees a thousand successive tints and traits
in the landscape which are never discerned
by him who hears the regular chime of a clock,
because they are never in request.
In like manner do we use our eyes on our taciturn
comrade.
The infinitesimal movement of muscle, curve,
hair, and wrinkle, which when accompanied
by a voice goes unregarded, is watched and
translated in the lack of it, till virtually
the whole surrounding circle of familiars
is charged with the reserved one's moods and
meanings.
This was the condition of affairs between
Winterborne and his neighbors after his stroke
of ill-luck.
He held his tongue; and they observed him,
and knew that he was discomposed.
Mr. Melbury, in his compunction, thought more
of the matter than any one else, except his
daughter.
Had Winterborne been going on in the old fashion,
Grace's father could have alluded to his disapproval
of the alliance every day with the greatest
frankness; but to speak any further on the
subject he could not find it in his heart
to do now.
He hoped that Giles would of his own accord
make some final announcement that he entirely
withdrew his pretensions to Grace, and so
get the thing past and done with.
For though Giles had in a measure acquiesced
in the wish of her family, he could make matters
unpleasant if he chose to work upon Grace;
and hence, when Melbury saw the young man
approaching along the road one day, he kept
friendliness and frigidity exactly balanced
in his eye till he could see whether Giles's
manner was presumptive or not.
His manner was that of a man who abandoned
all claims.
"I am glad to meet ye, Mr. Melbury," he said,
in a low voice, whose quality he endeavored
to make as practical as possible.
"I am afraid I shall not be able to keep that
mare I bought, and as I don't care to sell
her, I should like—if you don't object—to
give her to Miss Melbury.
The horse is very quiet, and would be quite
safe for her."
Mr. Melbury was rather affected at this.
"You sha'n't hurt your pocket like that on
our account, Giles.
Grace shall have the horse, but I'll pay you
what you gave for her, and any expense you
may have been put to for her keep."
He would not hear of any other terms, and
thus it was arranged.
They were now opposite Melbury's house, and
the timber-merchant pressed Winterborne to
enter, Grace being out of the way.
"Pull round the settle, Giles," said the timber-merchant,
as soon as they were within.
"I should like to have a serious talk with
you."
Thereupon he put the case to Winterborne frankly,
and in quite a friendly way.
He declared that he did not like to be hard
on a man when he was in difficulty; but he
really did not see how Winterborne could marry
his daughter now, without even a house to
take her to.
Giles quite acquiesced in the awkwardness
of his situation.
But from a momentary feeling that he would
like to know Grace's mind from her own lips,
he did not speak out positively there and
then.
He accordingly departed somewhat abruptly,
and went home to consider whether he would
seek to bring about a meeting with her.
In the evening, while he sat quietly pondering,
he fancied that he heard a scraping on the
wall outside his house.
The boughs of a monthly rose which grew there
made such a noise sometimes, but as no wind
was stirring he knew that it could not be
the rose-tree.
He took up the candle and went out.
Nobody was near.
As he turned, the light flickered on the whitewashed
rough case of the front, and he saw words
written thereon in charcoal, which he read
as follows:
"O Giles, you've lost your dwelling-place,
And therefore, Giles, you'll lose your Grace."
Giles went in-doors.
He had his suspicions as to the scrawler of
those lines, but he could not be sure.
What suddenly filled his heart far more than
curiosity about their authorship was a terrible
belief that they were turning out to be true,
try to see Grace as he might.
They decided the question for him.
He sat down and wrote a formal note to Melbury,
in which he briefly stated that he was placed
in such a position as to make him share to
the full Melbury's view of his own and his
daughter's promise, made some years before;
to wish that it should be considered as cancelled,
and they themselves quite released from any
obligation on account of it.
Having fastened up this their plenary absolution,
he determined to get it out of his hands and
have done with it; to which end he went off
to Melbury's at once.
It was now so late that the family had all
retired; he crept up to the house, thrust
the note under the door, and stole away as
silently as he had come.
Melbury himself was the first to rise the
next morning, and when he had read the letter
his relief was great.
"Very honorable of Giles, very honorable,"
he kept saying to himself.
"I shall not forget him.
Now to keep her up to her own true level."
It happened that Grace went out for an early
ramble that morning, passing through the door
and gate while her father was in the spar-house.
To go in her customary direction she could
not avoid passing Winterborne's house.
The morning sun was shining flat upon its
white surface, and the words, which still
remained, were immediately visible to her.
She read them.
Her face flushed to crimson.
She could see Giles and Creedle talking together
at the back; the charred spar-gad with which
the lines had been written lay on the ground
beneath the wall.
Feeling pretty sure that Winterborne would
observe her action, she quickly went up to
the wall, rubbed out "lose" and inserted "keep"
in its stead.
Then she made the best of her way home without
looking behind her.
Giles could draw an inference now if he chose.
There could not be the least doubt that gentle
Grace was warming to more sympathy with, and
interest in, Giles Winterborne than ever she
had done while he was her promised lover;
that since his misfortune those social shortcomings
of his, which contrasted so awkwardly with
her later experiences of life, had become
obscured by the generous revival of an old
romantic attachment to him.
Though mentally trained and tilled into foreignness
of view, as compared with her youthful time,
Grace was not an ambitious girl, and might,
if left to herself, have declined Winterborne
without much discontent or unhappiness.
Her feelings just now were so far from latent
that the writing on the wall had thus quickened
her to an unusual rashness.
Having returned from her walk she sat at breakfast
silently.
When her step-mother had left the room she
said to her father, "I have made up my mind
that I should like my engagement to Giles
to continue, for the present at any rate,
till I can see further what I ought to do."
Melbury looked much surprised.
"Nonsense," he said, sharply.
"You don't know what you are talking about.
Look here."
He handed across to her the letter received
from Giles.
She read it, and said no more.
Could he have seen her write on the wall?
She did not know.
Fate, it seemed, would have it this way, and
there was nothing to do but to acquiesce.
It was a few hours after this that Winterborne,
who, curiously enough, had NOT perceived Grace
writing, was clearing away the tree from the
front of South's late dwelling.
He saw Marty standing in her door-way, a slim
figure in meagre black, almost without womanly
contours as yet.
He went up to her and said, "Marty, why did
you write that on my wall last night?
It WAS you, you know."
"Because it was the truth.
I didn't mean to let it stay, Mr. Winterborne;
but when I was going to rub it out you came,
and I was obliged to run off."
"Having prophesied one thing, why did you
alter it to another?
Your predictions can't be worth much."
"I have not altered it."
"But you have."
"No."
"It is altered.
Go and see."
She went, and read that, in spite of losing
his dwelling-place, he would KEEP his Grace.
Marty came back surprised.
"Well, I never," she said.
"Who can have made such nonsense of it?"
"Who, indeed?" said he.
"I have rubbed it all out, as the point of
it is quite gone."
"You'd no business to rub it out.
I didn't tell you to.
I meant to let it stay a little longer."
"Some idle boy did it, no doubt," she murmured.
As this seemed very probable, and the actual
perpetrator was unsuspected, Winterborne said
no more, and dismissed the matter from his
mind.
From this day of his life onward for a considerable
time, Winterborne, though not absolutely out
of his house as yet, retired into the background
of human life and action thereabout—a feat
not particularly difficult of performance
anywhere when the doer has the assistance
of a lost prestige.
Grace, thinking that Winterborne saw her write,
made no further sign, and the frail bark of
fidelity that she had thus timidly launched
was stranded and lost.
CHAPTER XVI.
Dr. Fitzpiers lived on the slope of the hill,
in a house of much less pretension, both as
to architecture and as to magnitude, than
the timber-merchant's.
The latter had, without doubt, been once the
manorial residence appertaining to the snug
and modest domain of Little Hintock, of which
the boundaries were now lost by its absorption
with others of its kind into the adjoining
estate of Mrs. Charmond.
Though the Melburys themselves were unaware
of the fact, there was every reason to believe—at
least so the parson said—that the owners
of that little manor had been Melbury's own
ancestors, the family name occurring in numerous
documents relating to transfers of land about
the time of the civil wars.
Mr. Fitzpiers's dwelling, on the contrary,
was small, cottage-like, and comparatively
modern.
It had been occupied, and was in part occupied
still, by a retired farmer and his wife, who,
on the surgeon's arrival in quest of a home,
had accommodated him by receding from their
front rooms into the kitchen quarter, whence
they administered to his wants, and emerged
at regular intervals to receive from him a
not unwelcome addition to their income.
The cottage and its garden were so regular
in their arrangement that they might have
been laid out by a Dutch designer of the time
of William and Mary.
In a low, dense hedge, cut to wedge-shape,
was a door over which the hedge formed an
arch, and from the inside of the door a straight
path, bordered with clipped box, ran up the
slope of the garden to the porch, which was
exactly in the middle of the house front,
with two windows on each side.
Right and left of the path were first a bed
of gooseberry bushes; next of currant; next
of raspberry; next of strawberry; next of
old-fashioned flowers; at the corners opposite
the porch being spheres of box resembling
a pair of school globes.
Over the roof of the house could be seen the
orchard, on yet higher ground, and behind
the orchard the forest-trees, reaching up
to the crest of the hill.
Opposite the garden door and visible from
the parlor window was a swing-gate leading
into a field, across which there ran a footpath.
The swing-gate had just been repainted, and
on one fine afternoon, before the paint was
dry, and while gnats were still dying thereon,
the surgeon was standing in his sitting-room
abstractedly looking out at the different
pedestrians who passed and repassed along
that route.
Being of a philosophical stamp, he perceived
that the character of each of these travellers
exhibited itself in a somewhat amusing manner
by his or her method of handling the gate.
As regarded the men, there was not much variety:
they gave the gate a kick and passed through.
The women were more contrasting.
To them the sticky wood-work was a barricade,
a disgust, a menace, a treachery, as the case
might be.
The first that he noticed was a bouncing woman
with her skirts tucked up and her hair uncombed.
She grasped the gate without looking, giving
it a supplementary push with her shoulder,
when the white imprint drew from her an exclamation
in language not too refined.
She went to the green bank, sat down and rubbed
herself in the grass, cursing the while.
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the doctor.
The next was a girl, with her hair cropped
short, in whom the surgeon recognized the
daughter of his late patient, the woodman
South.
Moreover, a black bonnet that she wore by
way of mourning unpleasantly reminded him
that he had ordered the felling of a tree
which had caused her parent's death and Winterborne's
losses.
She walked and thought, and not recklessly;
but her preoccupation led her to grasp unsuspectingly
the bar of the gate, and touch it with her
arm.
Fitzpiers felt sorry that she should have
soiled that new black frock, poor as it was,
for it was probably her only one.
She looked at her hand and arm, seemed but
little surprised, wiped off the disfigurement
with an almost unmoved face, and as if without
abandoning her original thoughts.
Thus she went on her way.
Then there came over the green quite a different
sort of personage.
She walked as delicately as if she had been
bred in town, and as firmly as if she had
been bred in the country; she seemed one who
dimly knew her appearance to be attractive,
but who retained some of the charm of being
ignorant of that fact by forgetting it in
a general pensiveness.
She approached the gate.
To let such a creature touch it even with
a tip of her glove was to Fitzpiers almost
like letting her proceed to tragical self-destruction.
He jumped up and looked for his hat, but was
unable to find the right one; glancing again
out of the window he saw that he was too late.
Having come up, she stopped, looked at the
gate, picked up a little stick, and using
it as a bayonet, pushed open the obstacle
without touching it at all.
He steadily watched her till she had passed
out of sight, recognizing her as the very
young lady whom he had seen once before and
been unable to identify.
Whose could that emotional face be?
All the others he had seen in Hintock as yet
oppressed him with their crude rusticity;
the contrast offered by this suggested that
she hailed from elsewhere.
Precisely these thoughts had occurred to him
at the first time of seeing her; but he now
went a little further with them, and considered
that as there had been no carriage seen or
heard lately in that spot she could not have
come a very long distance.
She must be somebody staying at Hintock House?
Possibly Mrs. Charmond, of whom he had heard
so much—at any rate an inmate, and this
probability was sufficient to set a mild radiance
in the surgeon's somewhat dull sky.
Fitzpiers sat down to the book he had been
perusing.
It happened to be that of a German metaphysician,
for the doctor was not a practical man, except
by fits, and much preferred the ideal world
to the real, and the discovery of principles
to their application.
The young lady remained in his thoughts.
He might have followed her; but he was not
constitutionally active, and preferred a conjectural
pursuit.
However, when he went out for a ramble just
before dusk he insensibly took the direction
of Hintock House, which was the way that Grace
had been walking, it having happened that
her mind had run on Mrs. Charmond that day,
and she had walked to the brow of a hill whence
the house could be seen, returning by another
route.
Fitzpiers in his turn reached the edge of
the glen, overlooking the manor-house.
The shutters were shut, and only one chimney
smoked.
The mere aspect of the place was enough to
inform him that Mrs. Charmond had gone away
and that nobody else was staying there.
Fitzpiers felt a vague disappointment that
the young lady was not Mrs. Charmond, of whom
he had heard so much; and without pausing
longer to gaze at a carcass from which the
spirit had flown, he bent his steps homeward.
Later in the evening Fitzpiers was summoned
to visit a cottage patient about two miles
distant.
Like the majority of young practitioners in
his position he was far from having assumed
the dignity of being driven his rounds by
a servant in a brougham that flashed the sunlight
like a mirror; his way of getting about was
by means of a gig which he drove himself,
hitching the rein of the horse to the gate
post, shutter hook, or garden paling of the
domicile under visitation, or giving pennies
to little boys to hold the animal during his
stay—pennies which were well earned when
the cases to be attended were of a certain
cheerful kind that wore out the patience of
the little boys.
On this account of travelling alone, the night
journeys which Fitzpiers had frequently to
take were dismal enough, a serious apparent
perversity in nature ruling that whenever
there was to be a birth in a particularly
inaccessible and lonely place, that event
should occur in the night.
The surgeon, having been of late years a town
man, hated the solitary midnight woodland.
He was not altogether skilful with the reins,
and it often occurred to his mind that if
in some remote depths of the trees an accident
were to happen, the fact of his being alone
might be the death of him.
Hence he made a practice of picking up any
countryman or lad whom he chanced to pass
by, and under the disguise of treating him
to a nice drive, obtained his companionship
on the journey, and his convenient assistance
in opening gates.
The doctor had started on his way out of the
village on the night in question when the
light of his lamps fell upon the musing form
of Winterborne, walking leisurely along, as
if he had no object in life.
Winterborne was a better class of companion
than the doctor usually could get, and he
at once pulled up and asked him if he would
like a drive through the wood that fine night.
Giles seemed rather surprised at the doctor's
friendliness, but said that he had no objection,
and accordingly mounted beside Mr. Fitzpiers.
They drove along under the black boughs which
formed a network upon the stars, all the trees
of a species alike in one respect, and no
two of them alike in another.
Looking up as they passed under a horizontal
bough they sometimes saw objects like large
tadpoles lodged diametrically across it, which
Giles explained to be pheasants there at roost;
and they sometimes heard the report of a gun,
which reminded him that others knew what those
tadpole shapes represented as well as he.
Presently the doctor said what he had been
going to say for some time:
"Is there a young lady staying in this neighborhood—a
very attractive girl—with a little white
boa round her neck, and white fur round her
gloves?"
Winterborne of course knew in a moment that
Grace, whom he had caught the doctor peering
at, was represented by these accessaries.
With a wary grimness, partly in his character,
partly induced by the circumstances, he evaded
an answer by saying, "I saw a young lady talking
to Mrs. Charmond the other day; perhaps it
was she."
Fitzpiers concluded from this that Winterborne
had not seen him looking over the hedge.
"It might have been," he said.
"She is quite a gentlewoman—the one I mean.
She cannot be a permanent resident in Hintock
or I should have seen her before.
Nor does she look like one."
"She is not staying at Hintock House?"
"No; it is closed."
"Then perhaps she is staying at one of the
cottages, or farmhouses?"
"Oh no—you mistake.
She was a different sort of girl altogether."
As Giles was nobody, Fitzpiers treated him
accordingly, and apostrophized the night in
continuation:
"'She moved upon this earth a shape of brightness,
A power, that from its objects scarcely drew
One impulse of her being—in her lightness
Most like some radiant cloud of morning dew,
Which wanders through the waste air's pathless
blue,
To nourish some far desert: she did seem
Beside me, gathering beauty as she grew,
Like the bright shade of some immortal dream
Which walks, when tempests sleep, the wave
of life's dark stream.'"
The consummate charm of the lines seemed to
Winterborne, though he divined that they were
a quotation, to be somehow the result of his
lost love's charms upon Fitzpiers.
"You seem to be mightily in love with her,
sir," he said, with a sensation of heart-sickness,
and more than ever resolved not to mention
Grace by name.
"Oh no—I am not that, Winterborne; people
living insulated, as I do by the solitude
of this place, get charged with emotive fluid
like a Leyden-jar with electric, for want
of some conductor at hand to disperse it.
Human love is a subjective thing—the essence
itself of man, as that great thinker Spinoza
the philosopher says—ipsa hominis essentia—it
is joy accompanied by an idea which we project
against any suitable object in the line of
our vision, just as the rainbow iris is projected
against an oak, ash, or elm tree indifferently.
So that if any other young lady had appeared
instead of the one who did appear, I should
have felt just the same interest in her, and
have quoted precisely the same lines from
Shelley about her, as about this one I saw.
Such miserable creatures of circumstance are
we all!"
"Well, it is what we call being in love down
in these parts, whether or no," said Winterborne.
"You are right enough if you admit that I
am in love with something in my own head,
and no thing in itself outside it at all."
"Is it part of a country doctor's duties to
learn that view of things, may I ask, sir?"
said Winterborne, adopting the Socratic {Greek
word: irony} with such well-assumed simplicity
that Fitzpiers answered, readily,
"Oh no.
The real truth is, Winterborne, that medical
practice in places like this is a very rule-of-thumb
matter; a bottle of bitter stuff for this
and that old woman—the bitterer the better—compounded
from a few simple stereotyped prescriptions;
occasional attendance at births, where mere
presence is almost sufficient, so healthy
and strong are the people; and a lance for
an abscess now and then.
Investigation and experiment cannot be carried
on without more appliances than one has here—though
I have attempted it a little."
Giles did not enter into this view of the
case; what he had been struck with was the
curious parallelism between Mr. Fitzpiers's
manner and Grace's, as shown by the fact of
both of them straying into a subject of discourse
so engrossing to themselves that it made them
forget it was foreign to him.
Nothing further passed between himself and
the doctor in relation to Grace till they
were on their way back.
They had stopped at a way-side inn for a glass
of brandy and cider hot, and when they were
again in motion, Fitzpiers, possibly a little
warmed by the liquor, resumed the subject
by saying, "I should like very much to know
who that young lady was."
"What difference can it make, if she's only
the tree your rainbow falls on?"
"Ha! ha!
True."
"You have no wife, sir?"
"I have no wife, and no idea of one.
I hope to do better things than marry and
settle in Hintock.
Not but that it is well for a medical man
to be married, and sometimes, begad, 'twould
be pleasant enough in this place, with the
wind roaring round the house, and the rain
and the boughs beating against it.
I hear that you lost your life-holds by the
death of South?"
"I did.
I lost in more ways than one."
They had reached the top of Hintock Lane or
Street, if it could be called such where three-quarters
of the road-side consisted of copse and orchard.
One of the first houses to be passed was Melbury's.
A light was shining from a bedroom window
facing lengthwise of the lane.
Winterborne glanced at it, and saw what was
coming.
He had withheld an answer to the doctor's
inquiry to hinder his knowledge of Grace;
but, as he thought to himself, "who hath gathered
the wind in his fists? who hath bound the
waters in a garment?" he could not hinder
what was doomed to arrive, and might just
as well have been outspoken.
As they came up to the house, Grace's figure
was distinctly visible, drawing the two white
curtains together which were used here instead
of blinds.
"Why, there she is!" said Fitzpiers.
"How does she come there?"
"In the most natural way in the world.
It is her home.
Mr. Melbury is her father."
"Oh, indeed—indeed—indeed!
How comes he to have a daughter of that stamp?"
Winterborne laughed coldly.
"Won't money do anything," he said, "if you've
promising material to work upon?
Why shouldn't a Hintock girl, taken early
from home, and put under proper instruction,
become as finished as any other young lady,
if she's got brains and good looks to begin
with?"
"No reason at all why she shouldn't," murmured
the surgeon, with reflective disappointment.
"Only I didn't anticipate quite that kind
of origin for her."
"And you think an inch or two less of her
now."
There was a little tremor in Winterborne's
voice as he spoke.
"Well," said the doctor, with recovered warmth,
"I am not so sure that I think less of her.
At first it was a sort of blow; but, dammy!
I'll stick up for her.
She's charming, every inch of her!"
"So she is," said Winterborne, "but not to
me."
From this ambiguous expression of the reticent
woodlander's, Dr. Fitzpiers inferred that
Giles disliked Miss Melbury because of some
haughtiness in her bearing towards him, and
had, on that account, withheld her name.
The supposition did not tend to diminish his
admiration for her.
CHAPTER XVII.
Grace's exhibition of herself, in the act
of pulling-to the window-curtains, had been
the result of an unfortunate incident in the
house that day—nothing less than the illness
of Grammer Oliver, a woman who had never till
now lain down for such a reason in her life.
Like others to whom unbroken years of health
has made the idea of keeping their bed almost
as repugnant as death itself, she had continued
on foot till she literally fell on the floor;
and though she had, as yet, been scarcely
a day off duty, she had sickened into quite
a different personage from the independent
Grammer of the yard and spar-house.
Ill as she was, on one point she was firm.
On no account would she see a doctor; in other
words, Fitzpiers.
The room in which Grace had been discerned
was not her own, but the old woman's.
On the girl's way to bed she had received
a message from Grammer, to the effect that
she would much like to speak to her that night.
Grace entered, and set the candle on a low
chair beside the bed, so that the profile
of Grammer as she lay cast itself in a keen
shadow upon the whitened wall, her large head
being still further magnified by an enormous
turban, which was, really, her petticoat wound
in a wreath round her temples.
Grace put the room a little in order, and
approaching the sick woman, said, "I am come,
Grammer, as you wish.
Do let us send for the doctor before it gets
later."
"I will not have him," said Grammer Oliver,
decisively.
"Then somebody to sit up with you."
"Can't abear it!
No; I wanted to see you, Miss Grace, because
'ch have something on my mind.
Dear Miss Grace, I TOOK THAT MONEY OF THE
DOCTOR, AFTER ALL!"
"What money?"
"The ten pounds."
Grace did not quite understand.
"The ten pounds he offered me for my head,
because I've a large brain.
I signed a paper when I took the money, not
feeling concerned about it at all.
I have not liked to tell ye that it was really
settled with him, because you showed such
horror at the notion.
Well, having thought it over more at length,
I wish I hadn't done it; and it weighs upon
my mind.
John South's death of fear about the tree
makes me think that I shall die of this....'Ch
have been going to ask him again to let me
off, but I hadn't the face."
"Why?"
"I've spent some of the money—more'n two
pounds o't.
It do wherrit me terribly; and I shall die
o' the thought of that paper I signed with
my holy cross, as South died of his trouble."
"If you ask him to burn the paper he will,
I'm sure, and think no more of it."
"'Ch have done it once already, miss.
But he laughed cruel like.
'Yours is such a fine brain, Grammer, 'er
said, 'that science couldn't afford to lose
you.
Besides, you've taken my money.'...Don't let
your father know of this, please, on no account
whatever!"
"No, no.
I will let you have the money to return to
him."
Grammer rolled her head negatively upon the
pillow.
"Even if I should be well enough to take it
to him, he won't like it.
Though why he should so particular want to
look into the works of a poor old woman's
head-piece like mine when there's so many
other folks about, I don't know.
I know how he'll answer me: 'A lonely person
like you, Grammer,' er woll say.
'What difference is it to you what becomes
of ye when the breath's out of your body?'
Oh, it do trouble me!
If you only knew how he do chevy me round
the chimmer in my dreams, you'd pity me.
How I could do it I can't think!
But 'ch was always so rackless!...If I only
had anybody to plead for me!"
"Mrs. Melbury would, I am sure."
"Ay; but he wouldn't hearken to she!
It wants a younger face than hers to work
upon such as he."
Grace started with comprehension.
"You don't think he would do it for me?" she
said.
"Oh, wouldn't he!"
"I couldn't go to him, Grammer, on any account.
I don't know him at all."
"Ah, if I were a young lady," said the artful
Grammer, "and could save a poor old woman's
skellington from a heathen doctor instead
of a Christian grave, I would do it, and be
glad to.
But nobody will do anything for a poor old
familiar friend but push her out of the way."
"You are very ungrateful, Grammer, to say
that.
But you are ill, I know, and that's why you
speak so.
Now believe me, you are not going to die yet.
Remember you told me yourself that you meant
to keep him waiting many a year."
"Ay, one can joke when one is well, even in
old age; but in sickness one's gayety falters
to grief; and that which seemed small looks
large; and the grim far-off seems near."
Grace's eyes had tears in them.
"I don't like to go to him on such an errand,
Grammer," she said, brokenly.
"But I will, to ease your mind."
It was with extreme reluctance that Grace
cloaked herself next morning for the undertaking.
She was all the more indisposed to the journey
by reason of Grammer's allusion to the effect
of a pretty face upon Dr. Fitzpiers; and hence
she most illogically did that which, had the
doctor never seen her, would have operated
to stultify the sole motive of her journey;
that is to say, she put on a woollen veil,
which hid all her face except an occasional
spark of her eyes.
Her own wish that nothing should be known
of this strange and grewsome proceeding, no
less than Grammer Oliver's own desire, led
Grace to take every precaution against being
discovered.
She went out by the garden door as the safest
way, all the household having occupations
at the other side.
The morning looked forbidding enough when
she stealthily opened it.
The battle between frost and thaw was continuing
in mid-air: the trees dripped on the garden-plots,
where no vegetables would grow for the dripping,
though they were planted year after year with
that curious mechanical regularity of country
people in the face of hopelessness; the moss
which covered the once broad gravel terrace
was swamped; and Grace stood irresolute.
Then she thought of poor Grammer, and her
dreams of the doctor running after her, scalpel
in hand, and the possibility of a case so
curiously similar to South's ending in the
same way; thereupon she stepped out into the
drizzle.
The nature of her errand, and Grammer Oliver's
account of the compact she had made, lent
a fascinating horror to Grace's conception
of Fitzpiers.
She knew that he was a young man; but her
single object in seeking an interview with
him put all considerations of his age and
social aspect from her mind.
Standing as she stood, in Grammer Oliver's
shoes, he was simply a remorseless Jove of
the sciences, who would not have mercy, and
would have sacrifice; a man whom, save for
this, she would have preferred to avoid knowing.
But since, in such a small village, it was
improbable that any long time could pass without
their meeting, there was not much to deplore
in her having to meet him now.
But, as need hardly be said, Miss Melbury's
view of the doctor as a merciless, unwavering,
irresistible scientist was not quite in accordance
with fact.
The real Dr. Fitzpiers was a man of too many
hobbies to show likelihood of rising to any
great eminence in the profession he had chosen,
or even to acquire any wide practice in the
rural district he had marked out as his field
of survey for the present.
In the course of a year his mind was accustomed
to pass in a grand solar sweep through all
the zodiacal signs of the intellectual heaven.
Sometimes it was in the Ram, sometimes in
the Bull; one month he would be immersed in
alchemy, another in poesy; one month in the
Twins of astrology and astronomy; then in
the Crab of German literature and metaphysics.
In justice to him it must be stated that he
took such studies as were immediately related
to his own profession in turn with the rest,
and it had been in a month of anatomical ardor
without the possibility of a subject that
he had proposed to Grammer Oliver the terms
she had mentioned to her mistress.
As may be inferred from the tone of his conversation
with Winterborne, he had lately plunged into
abstract philosophy with much zest; perhaps
his keenly appreciative, modern, unpractical
mind found this a realm more to his taste
than any other.
Though his aims were desultory, Fitzpiers's
mental constitution was not without its admirable
side; a keen inquirer he honestly was, even
if the midnight rays of his lamp, visible
so far through the trees of Hintock, lighted
rank literatures of emotion and passion as
often as, or oftener than, the books and matériel
of science.
But whether he meditated the Muses or the
philosophers, the loneliness of Hintock life
was beginning to tell upon his impressionable
nature.
Winter in a solitary house in the country,
without society, is tolerable, nay, even enjoyable
and delightful, given certain conditions,
but these are not the conditions which attach
to the life of a professional man who drops
down into such a place by mere accident.
They were present to the lives of Winterborne,
Melbury, and Grace; but not to the doctor's.
They are old association—an almost exhaustive
biographical or historical acquaintance with
every object, animate and inanimate, within
the observer's horizon.
He must know all about those invisible ones
of the days gone by, whose feet have traversed
the fields which look so gray from his windows;
recall whose creaking plough has turned those
sods from time to time; whose hands planted
the trees that form a crest to the opposite
hill; whose horses and hounds have torn through
that underwood; what birds affect that particular
brake; what domestic dramas of love, jealousy,
revenge, or disappointment have been enacted
in the cottages, the mansion, the street,
or on the green.
The spot may have beauty, grandeur, salubrity,
convenience; but if it lack memories it will
ultimately pall upon him who settles there
without opportunity of intercourse with his
kind.
In such circumstances, maybe, an old man dreams
of an ideal friend, till he throws himself
into the arms of any impostor who chooses
to wear that title on his face.
A young man may dream of an ideal friend likewise,
but some humor of the blood will probably
lead him to think rather of an ideal mistress,
and at length the rustle of a woman's dress,
the sound of her voice, or the transit of
her form across the field of his vision, will
enkindle his soul with a flame that blinds
his eyes.
The discovery of the attractive Grace's name
and family would have been enough in other
circumstances to lead the doctor, if not to
put her personality out of his head, to change
the character of his interest in her.
Instead of treasuring her image as a rarity,
he would at most have played with it as a
toy.
He was that kind of a man.
But situated here he could not go so far as
amative cruelty.
He dismissed all reverential thought about
her, but he could not help taking her seriously.
He went on to imagine the impossible.
So far, indeed, did he go in this futile direction
that, as others are wont to do, he constructed
dialogues and scenes in which Grace had turned
out to be the mistress of Hintock Manor-house,
the mysterious Mrs. Charmond, particularly
ready and willing to be wooed by himself and
nobody else.
"Well, she isn't that," he said, finally.
"But she's a very sweet, nice, exceptional
girl."
The next morning he breakfasted alone, as
usual.
It was snowing with a fine-flaked desultoriness
just sufficient to make the woodland gray,
without ever achieving whiteness.
There was not a single letter for Fitzpiers,
only a medical circular and a weekly newspaper.
To sit before a large fire on such mornings,
and read, and gradually acquire energy till
the evening came, and then, with lamp alight,
and feeling full of vigor, to pursue some
engrossing subject or other till the small
hours, had hitherto been his practice.
But to-day he could not settle into his chair.
That self-contained position he had lately
occupied, in which the only attention demanded
was the concentration of the inner eye, all
outer regard being quite gratuitous, seemed
to have been taken by insidious stratagem,
and for the first time he had an interest
outside the house.
He walked from one window to another, and
became aware that the most irksome of solitudes
is not the solitude of remoteness, but that
which is just outside desirable company.
The breakfast hour went by heavily enough,
and the next followed, in the same half-snowy,
half-rainy style, the weather now being the
inevitable relapse which sooner or later succeeds
a time too radiant for the season, such as
they had enjoyed in the late midwinter at
Hintock.
To people at home there these changeful tricks
had their interests; the strange mistakes
that some of the more sanguine trees had made
in budding before their month, to be incontinently
glued up by frozen thawings now; the similar
sanguine errors of impulsive birds in framing
nests that were now swamped by snow-water,
and other such incidents, prevented any sense
of wearisomeness in the minds of the natives.
But these were features of a world not familiar
to Fitzpiers, and the inner visions to which
he had almost exclusively attended having
suddenly failed in their power to absorb him,
he felt unutterably dreary.
He wondered how long Miss Melbury was going
to stay in Hintock.
The season was unpropitious for accidental
encounters with her out-of-doors, and except
by accident he saw not how they were to become
acquainted.
One thing was clear—any acquaintance with
her could only, with a due regard to his future,
be casual, at most of the nature of a flirtation;
for he had high aims, and they would some
day lead him into other spheres than this.
Thus desultorily thinking he flung himself
down upon the couch, which, as in many draughty
old country houses, was constructed with a
hood, being in fact a legitimate development
from the settle.
He tried to read as he reclined, but having
sat up till three o'clock that morning, the
book slipped from his hand and he fell asleep.
CHAPTER XVIII.
It was at this time that Grace approached
the house.
Her knock, always soft in virtue of her nature,
was softer to-day by reason of her strange
errand.
However, it was heard by the farmer's wife
who kept the house, and Grace was admitted.
Opening the door of the doctor's room the
housewife glanced in, and imagining Fitzpiers
absent, asked Miss Melbury to enter and wait
a few minutes while she should go and find
him, believing him to be somewhere on the
premises.
Grace acquiesced, went in, and sat down close
to the door.
As soon as the door was shut upon her she
looked round the room, and started at perceiving
a handsome man snugly ensconced in the couch,
like the recumbent figure within some canopied
mural tomb of the fifteenth century, except
that his hands were by no means clasped in
prayer.
She had no doubt that this was the doctor.
Awaken him herself she could not, and her
immediate impulse was to go and pull the broad
ribbon with a brass rosette which hung at
one side of the fireplace.
But expecting the landlady to re-enter in
a moment she abandoned this intention, and
stood gazing in great embarrassment at the
reclining philosopher.
The windows of Fitzpiers's soul being at present
shuttered, he probably appeared less impressive
than in his hours of animation; but the light
abstracted from his material presence by sleep
was more than counterbalanced by the mysterious
influence of that state, in a stranger, upon
the consciousness of a beholder so sensitive.
So far as she could criticise at all, she
became aware that she had encountered a specimen
of creation altogether unusual in that locality.
The occasions on which Grace had observed
men of this stamp were when she had been far
removed away from Hintock, and even then such
examples as had met her eye were at a distance,
and mainly of coarser fibre than the one who
now confronted her.
She nervously wondered why the woman had not
discovered her mistake and returned, and went
again towards the bell-pull.
Approaching the chimney her back was to Fitzpiers,
but she could see him in the glass.
An indescribable thrill passed through her
as she perceived that the eyes of the reflected
image were open, gazing wonderingly at her,
and under the curious unexpectedness of the
sight she became as if spellbound, almost
powerless to turn her head and regard the
original.
However, by an effort she did turn, when there
he lay asleep the same as before.
Her startled perplexity as to what he could
be meaning was sufficient to lead her to precipitately
abandon her errand.
She crossed quickly to the door, opened and
closed it noiselessly, and went out of the
house unobserved.
By the time that she had gone down the path
and through the garden door into the lane
she had recovered her equanimity.
Here, screened by the hedge, she stood and
considered a while.
Drip, drip, drip, fell the rain upon her umbrella
and around; she had come out on such a morning
because of the seriousness of the matter in
hand; yet now she had allowed her mission
to be stultified by a momentary tremulousness
concerning an incident which perhaps had meant
nothing after all.
In the mean time her departure from the room,
stealthy as it had been, had roused Fitzpiers,
and he sat up.
In the reflection from the mirror which Grace
had beheld there was no mystery; he had opened
his eyes for a few moments, but had immediately
relapsed into unconsciousness, if, indeed,
he had ever been positively awake.
That somebody had just left the room he was
certain, and that the lovely form which seemed
to have visited him in a dream was no less
than the real presentation of the person departed
he could hardly doubt.
Looking out of the window a few minutes later,
down the box-edged gravel-path which led to
the bottom, he saw the garden door gently
open, and through it enter the young girl
of his thoughts, Grace having just at this
juncture determined to return and attempt
the interview a second time.
That he saw her coming instead of going made
him ask himself if his first impression of
her were not a dream indeed.
She came hesitatingly along, carrying her
umbrella so low over her head that he could
hardly see her face.
When she reached the point where the raspberry
bushes ended and the strawberry bed began,
she made a little pause.
Fitzpiers feared that she might not be coming
to him even now, and hastily quitting the
room, he ran down the path to meet her.
The nature of her errand he could not divine,
but he was prepared to give her any amount
of encouragement.
"I beg pardon, Miss Melbury," he said.
"I saw you from the window, and fancied you
might imagine that I was not at home—if
it is I you were coming for."
"I was coming to speak one word to you, nothing
more," she replied.
"And I can say it here."
"No, no.
Please do come in.
Well, then, if you will not come into the
house, come as far as the porch."
Thus pressed she went on to the porch, and
they stood together inside it, Fitzpiers closing
her umbrella for her.
"I have merely a request or petition to make,"
she said.
"My father's servant is ill—a woman you
know—and her illness is serious."
"I am sorry to hear it.
You wish me to come and see her at once?"
"No; I particularly wish you not to come."
"Oh, indeed."
"Yes; and she wishes the same.
It would make her seriously worse if you were
to come.
It would almost kill her....My errand is of
a peculiar and awkward nature.
It is concerning a subject which weighs on
her mind—that unfortunate arrangement she
made with you, that you might have her body—after
death."
"Oh!
Grammer Oliver, the old woman with the fine
head.
Seriously ill, is she!"
"And SO disturbed by her rash compact!
I have brought the money back—will you please
return to her the agreement she signed?"
Grace held out to him a couple of five-pound
notes which she had kept ready tucked in her
glove.
Without replying or considering the notes,
Fitzpiers allowed his thoughts to follow his
eyes, and dwell upon Grace's personality,
and the sudden close relation in which he
stood to her.
The porch was narrow; the rain increased.
It ran off the porch and dripped on the creepers,
and from the creepers upon the edge of Grace's
cloak and skirts.
"The rain is wetting your dress; please do
come in," he said.
"It really makes my heart ache to let you
stay here."
Immediately inside the front door was the
door of his sitting-room; he flung it open,
and stood in a coaxing attitude.
Try how she would, Grace could not resist
the supplicatory mandate written in the face
and manner of this man, and distressful resignation
sat on her as she glided past him into the
room—brushing his coat with her elbow by
reason of the narrowness.
He followed her, shut the door—which she
somehow had hoped he would leave open—and
placing a chair for her, sat down.
The concern which Grace felt at the development
of these commonplace incidents was, of course,
mainly owing to the strange effect upon her
nerves of that view of him in the mirror gazing
at her with open eyes when she had thought
him sleeping, which made her fancy that his
slumber might have been a feint based on inexplicable
reasons.
She again proffered the notes; he awoke from
looking at her as at a piece of live statuary,
and listened deferentially as she said, "Will
you then reconsider, and cancel the bond which
poor Grammer Oliver so foolishly gave?"
"I'll cancel it without reconsideration.
Though you will allow me to have my own opinion
about her foolishness.
Grammer is a very wise woman, and she was
as wise in that as in other things.
You think there was something very fiendish
in the compact, do you not, Miss Melbury?
But remember that the most eminent of our
surgeons in past times have entered into such
agreements."
"Not fiendish—strange."
"Yes, that may be, since strangeness is not
in the nature of a thing, but in its relation
to something extrinsic—in this case an unessential
observer."
He went to his desk, and searching a while
found a paper, which be unfolded and brought
to her.
A thick cross appeared in ink at the bottom—evidently
from the hand of Grammer.
Grace put the paper in her pocket with a look
of much relief.
As Fitzpiers did not take up the money (half
of which had come from Grace's own purse),
she pushed it a little nearer to him.
"No, no.
I shall not take it from the old woman," he
said.
"It is more strange than the fact of a surgeon
arranging to obtain a subject for dissection
that our acquaintance should be formed out
of it."
"I am afraid you think me uncivil in showing
my dislike to the notion.
But I did not mean to be."
"Oh no, no."
He looked at her, as he had done before, with
puzzled interest.
"I cannot think, I cannot think," he murmured.
"Something bewilders me greatly."
He still reflected and hesitated.
"Last night I sat up very late," he at last
went on, "and on that account I fell into
a little nap on that couch about half an hour
ago.
And during my few minutes of unconsciousness
I dreamed—what do you think?—that you
stood in the room."
Should she tell?
She merely blushed.
"You may imagine," Fitzpiers continued, now
persuaded that it had, indeed, been a dream,
"that I should not have dreamed of you without
considerable thinking about you first."
He could not be acting; of that she felt assured.
"I fancied in my vision that you stood there,"
he said, pointing to where she had paused.
"I did not see you directly, but reflected
in the glass.
I thought, what a lovely creature!
The design is for once carried out.
Nature has at last recovered her lost union
with the Idea!
My thoughts ran in that direction because
I had been reading the work of a transcendental
philosopher last night; and I dare say it
was the dose of Idealism that I received from
it that made me scarcely able to distinguish
between reality and fancy.
I almost wept when I awoke, and found that
you had appeared to me in Time, but not in
Space, alas!"
At moments there was something theatrical
in the delivery of Fitzpiers's effusion; yet
it would have been inexact to say that it
was intrinsically theatrical.
It often happens that in situations of unrestraint,
where there is no thought of the eye of criticism,
real feeling glides into a mode of manifestation
not easily distinguishable from rodomontade.
A veneer of affectation overlies a bulk of
truth, with the evil consequence, if perceived,
that the substance is estimated by the superficies,
and the whole rejected.
Grace, however, was no specialist in men's
manners, and she admired the sentiment without
thinking of the form.
And she was embarrassed: "lovely creature"
made explanation awkward to her gentle modesty.
"But can it be," said he, suddenly, "that
you really were here?"
"I have to confess that I have been in the
room once before," faltered she.
"The woman showed me in, and went away to
fetch you; but as she did not return, I left."
"And you saw me asleep," he murmured, with
the faintest show of humiliation.
"Yes—IF you were asleep, and did not deceive
me."
"Why do you say if?"
"I saw your eyes open in the glass, but as
they were closed when I looked round upon
you, I thought you were perhaps deceiving
me.
"Never," said Fitzpiers, fervently—"never
could I deceive you."
Foreknowledge to the distance of a year or
so in either of them might have spoiled the
effect of that pretty speech.
Never deceive her!
But they knew nothing, and the phrase had
its day.
Grace began now to be anxious to terminate
the interview, but the compelling power of
Fitzpiers's atmosphere still held her there.
She was like an inexperienced actress who,
having at last taken up her position on the
boards, and spoken her speeches, does not
know how to move off.
The thought of Grammer occurred to her.
"I'll go at once and tell poor Grammer of
your generosity," she said.
"It will relieve her at once."
"Grammer's a nervous disease, too—how singular!"
he answered, accompanying her to the door.
"One moment; look at this—it is something
which may interest you."
He had thrown open the door on the other side
of the passage, and she saw a microscope on
the table of the confronting room.
"Look into it, please; you'll be interested,"
he repeated.
She applied her eye, and saw the usual circle
of light patterned all over with a cellular
tissue of some indescribable sort.
"What do you think that is?" said Fitzpiers.
She did not know.
"That's a fragment of old John South's brain,
which I am investigating."
She started back, not with aversion, but with
wonder as to how it should have got there.
Fitzpiers laughed.
"Here am I," he said, "endeavoring to carry
on simultaneously the study of physiology
and transcendental philosophy, the material
world and the ideal, so as to discover if
possible a point of contrast between them;
and your finer sense is quite offended!"
"Oh no, Mr. Fitzpiers," said Grace, earnestly.
"It is not so at all.
I know from seeing your light at night how
deeply you meditate and work.
Instead of condemning you for your studies,
I admire you very much!"
Her face, upturned from the microscope, was
so sweet, sincere, and self-forgetful in its
aspect that the susceptible Fitzpiers more
than wished to annihilate the lineal yard
which separated it from his own.
Whether anything of the kind showed in his
eyes or not, Grace remained no longer at the
microscope, but quickly went her way into
the rain.
CHAPTER XIX.
Instead of resuming his investigation of South's
brain, which perhaps was not so interesting
under the microscope as might have been expected
from the importance of that organ in life,
Fitzpiers reclined and ruminated on the interview.
Grace's curious susceptibility to his presence,
though it was as if the currents of her life
were disturbed rather than attracted by him,
added a special interest to her general charm.
Fitzpiers was in a distinct degree scientific,
being ready and zealous to interrogate all
physical manifestations, but primarily he
was an idealist.
He believed that behind the imperfect lay
the perfect; that rare things were to be discovered
amid a bulk of commonplace; that results in
a new and untried case might be different
from those in other cases where the conditions
had been precisely similar.
Regarding his own personality as one of unbounded
possibilities, because it was his own—notwithstanding
that the factors of his life had worked out
a sorry product for thousands—he saw nothing
but what was regular in his discovery at Hintock
of an altogether exceptional being of the
other sex, who for nobody else would have
had any existence.
One habit of Fitzpiers's—commoner in dreamers
of more advanced age than in men of his years—was
that of talking to himself.
He paced round his room with a selective tread
upon the more prominent blooms of the carpet,
and murmured, "This phenomenal girl will be
the light of my life while I am at Hintock;
and the special beauty of the situation is
that our attitude and relations to each other
will be purely spiritual.
Socially we can never be intimate.
Anything like matrimonial intentions towards
her, charming as she is, would be absurd.
They would spoil the ethereal character of
my regard.
And, indeed, I have other aims on the practical
side of my life."
Fitzpiers bestowed a regulation thought on
the advantageous marriage he was bound to
make with a woman of family as good as his
own, and of purse much longer.
But as an object of contemplation for the
present, as objective spirit rather than corporeal
presence, Grace Melbury would serve to keep
his soul alive, and to relieve the monotony
of his days.
His first notion—acquired from the mere
sight of her without converse—that of an
idle and vulgar flirtation with a timber-merchant's
pretty daughter, grated painfully upon him
now that he had found what Grace intrinsically
was.
Personal intercourse with such as she could
take no lower form than intellectual communion,
and mutual explorations of the world of thought.
Since he could not call at her father's, having
no practical views, cursory encounters in
the lane, in the wood, coming and going to
and from church, or in passing her dwelling,
were what the acquaintance would have to feed
on.
Such anticipated glimpses of her now and then
realized themselves in the event.
Rencounters of not more than a minute's duration,
frequently repeated, will build up mutual
interest, even an intimacy, in a lonely place.
Theirs grew as imperceptibly as the tree-twigs
budded.
There never was a particular moment at which
it could be said they became friends; yet
a delicate understanding now existed between
two who in the winter had been strangers.
Spring weather came on rather suddenly, the
unsealing of buds that had long been swollen
accomplishing itself in the space of one warm
night.
The rush of sap in the veins of the trees
could almost be heard.
The flowers of late April took up a position
unseen, and looked as if they had been blooming
a long while, though there had been no trace
of them the day before yesterday; birds began
not to mind getting wet.
In-door people said they had heard the nightingale,
to which out-door people replied contemptuously
that they had heard him a fortnight before.
The young doctor's practice being scarcely
so large as a London surgeon's, he frequently
walked in the wood.
Indeed such practice as he had he did not
follow up with the assiduity that would have
been necessary for developing it to exceptional
proportions.
One day, book in hand, he walked in a part
of the wood where the trees were mainly oaks.
It was a calm afternoon, and there was everywhere
around that sign of great undertakings on
the part of vegetable nature which is apt
to fill reflective human beings who are not
undertaking much themselves with a sudden
uneasiness at the contrast.
He heard in the distance a curious sound,
something like the quack of a duck, which,
though it was common enough here about this
time, was not common to him.
Looking through the trees Fitzpiers soon perceived
the origin of the noise.
The barking season had just commenced, and
what he had heard was the tear of the ripping
tool as it ploughed its way along the sticky
parting between the trunk and the rind.
Melbury did a large business in bark, and
as he was Grace's father, and possibly might
be found on the spot, Fitzpiers was attracted
to the scene even more than he might have
been by its intrinsic interest.
When he got nearer he recognized among the
workmen the two Timothys, and Robert Creedle,
who probably had been "lent" by Winterborne;
Marty South also assisted.
Each tree doomed to this flaying process was
first attacked by Creedle.
With a small billhook he carefully freed the
collar of the tree from twigs and patches
of moss which incrusted it to a height of
a foot or two above the ground, an operation
comparable to the "little toilet" of the executioner's
victim.
After this it was barked in its erect position
to a point as high as a man could reach.
If a fine product of vegetable nature could
ever be said to look ridiculous it was the
case now, when the oak stood naked-legged,
and as if ashamed, till the axe-man came and
cut a ring round it, and the two Timothys
finished the work with the crosscut-saw.
As soon as it had fallen the barkers attacked
it like locusts, and in a short time not a
particle of rind was left on the trunk and
larger limbs.
Marty South was an adept at peeling the upper
parts, and there she stood encaged amid the
mass of twigs and buds like a great bird,
running her tool into the smallest branches,
beyond the farthest points to which the skill
and patience of the men enabled them to proceed—branches
which, in their lifetime, had swayed high
above the bulk of the wood, and caught the
latest and earliest rays of the sun and moon
while the lower part of the forest was still
in darkness.
"You seem to have a better instrument than
they, Marty," said Fitzpiers.
"No, sir," she said, holding up the tool—a
horse's leg-bone fitted into a handle and
filed to an edge—"'tis only that they've
less patience with the twigs, because their
time is worth more than mine."
A little shed had been constructed on the
spot, of thatched hurdles and boughs, and
in front of it was a fire, over which a kettle
sung.
Fitzpiers sat down inside the shelter, and
went on with his reading, except when he looked
up to observe the scene and the actors.
The thought that he might settle here and
become welded in with this sylvan life by
marrying Grace Melbury crossed his mind for
a moment.
Why should he go farther into the world than
where he was?
The secret of quiet happiness lay in limiting
the ideas and aspirations; these men's thoughts
were conterminous with the margin of the Hintock
woodlands, and why should not his be likewise
limited—a small practice among the people
around him being the bound of his desires?
Presently Marty South discontinued her operations
upon the quivering boughs, came out from the
reclining oak, and prepared tea.
When it was ready the men were called; and
Fitzpiers being in a mood to join, sat down
with them.
The latent reason of his lingering here so
long revealed itself when the faint creaking
of the joints of a vehicle became audible,
and one of the men said, "Here's he."
Turning their heads they saw Melbury's gig
approaching, the wheels muffled by the yielding
moss.
The timber-merchant was on foot leading the
horse, looking back at every few steps to
caution his daughter, who kept her seat, where
and how to duck her head so as to avoid the
overhanging branches.
They stopped at the spot where the bark-ripping
had been temporarily suspended; Melbury cursorily
examined the heaps of bark, and drawing near
to where the workmen were sitting down, accepted
their shouted invitation to have a dish of
tea, for which purpose he hitched the horse
to a bough.
Grace declined to take any of their beverage,
and remained in her place in the vehicle,
looking dreamily at the sunlight that came
in thin threads through the hollies with which
the oaks were interspersed.
When Melbury stepped up close to the shelter,
he for the first time perceived that the doctor
was present, and warmly appreciated Fitzpiers's
invitation to sit down on the log beside him.
"Bless my heart, who would have thought of
finding you here," he said, obviously much
pleased at the circumstance.
"I wonder now if my daughter knows you are
so nigh at hand.
I don't expect she do."
He looked out towards the gig wherein Grace
sat, her face still turned in the opposite
direction.
"She doesn't see us.
Well, never mind: let her be."
Grace was indeed quite unconscious of Fitzpiers's
propinquity.
She was thinking of something which had little
connection with the scene before her—thinking
of her friend, lost as soon as found, Mrs.
Charmond; of her capricious conduct, and of
the contrasting scenes she was possibly enjoying
at that very moment in other climes, to which
Grace herself had hoped to be introduced by
her friend's means.
She wondered if this patronizing lady would
return to Hintock during the summer, and whether
the acquaintance which had been nipped on
the last occasion of her residence there would
develop on the next.
Melbury told ancient timber-stories as he
sat, relating them directly to Fitzpiers,
and obliquely to the men, who had heard them
often before.
Marty, who poured out tea, was just saying,
"I think I'll take out a cup to Miss Grace,"
when they heard a clashing of the gig-harness,
and turning round Melbury saw that the horse
had become restless, and was jerking about
the vehicle in a way which alarmed its occupant,
though she refrained from screaming.
Melbury jumped up immediately, but not more
quickly than Fitzpiers; and while her father
ran to the horse's head and speedily began
to control him, Fitzpiers was alongside the
gig assisting Grace to descend.
Her surprise at his appearance was so great
that, far from making a calm and independent
descent, she was very nearly lifted down in
his arms.
He relinquished her when she touched ground,
and hoped she was not frightened.
"Oh no, not much," she managed to say.
"There was no danger—unless he had run under
the trees where the boughs are low enough
to hit my head."
"Which was by no means an impossibility, and
justifies any amount of alarm."
He referred to what he thought he saw written
in her face, and she could not tell him that
this had little to do with the horse, but
much with himself.
His contiguity had, in fact, the same effect
upon her as on those former occasions when
he had come closer to her than usual—that
of producing in her an unaccountable tendency
to tearfulness.
Melbury soon put the horse to rights, and
seeing that Grace was safe, turned again to
the work-people.
His daughter's nervous distress had passed
off in a few moments, and she said quite gayly
to Fitzpiers as she walked with him towards
the group, "There's destiny in it, you see.
I was doomed to join in your picnic, although
I did not intend to do so."
Marty prepared her a comfortable place, and
she sat down in the circle, and listened to
Fitzpiers while he drew from her father and
the bark-rippers sundry narratives of their
fathers', their grandfathers', and their own
adventures in these woods; of the mysterious
sights they had seen—only to be accounted
for by supernatural agency; of white witches
and black witches; and the standard story
of the spirits of the two brothers who had
fought and fallen, and had haunted Hintock
House till they were exorcised by the priest,
and compelled to retreat to a swamp in this
very wood, whence they were returning to their
old quarters at the rate of a cock's stride
every New-year's Day, old style; hence the
local saying, "On New-year's tide, a cock's
stride."
It was a pleasant time.
The smoke from the little fire of peeled sticks
rose between the sitters and the sunlight,
and behind its blue veil stretched the naked
arms of the prostrate trees.
The smell of the uncovered sap mingled with
the smell of the burning wood, and the sticky
inner surface of the scattered bark glistened
as it revealed its pale madder hues to the
eye.
Melbury was so highly satisfied at having
Fitzpiers as a sort of guest that he would
have sat on for any length of time, but Grace,
on whom Fitzpiers's eyes only too frequently
alighted, seemed to think it incumbent upon
her to make a show of going; and her father
thereupon accompanied her to the vehicle.
As the doctor had helped her out of it he
appeared to think that he had excellent reasons
for helping her in, and performed the attention
lingeringly enough.
"What were you almost in tears about just
now?"
he asked, softly.
"I don't know," she said: and the words were
strictly true.
Melbury mounted on the other side, and they
drove on out of the grove, their wheels silently
crushing delicate-patterned mosses, hyacinths,
primroses, lords-and-ladies, and other strange
and ordinary plants, and cracking up little
sticks that lay across the track.
Their way homeward ran along the crest of
a lofty hill, whence on the right they beheld
a wide valley, differing both in feature and
atmosphere from that of the Hintock precincts.
It was the cider country, which met the woodland
district on the axis of this hill.
Over the vale the air was blue as sapphire—such
a blue as outside that apple-valley was never
seen.
Under the blue the orchards were in a blaze
of bloom, some of the richly flowered trees
running almost up to where they drove along.
Over a gate which opened down the incline
a man leaned on his arms, regarding this fair
promise so intently that he did not observe
their passing.
"That was Giles," said Melbury, when they
had gone by.
"Was it?
Poor Giles," said she.
"All that blooth means heavy autumn work for
him and his hands.
If no blight happens before the setting the
apple yield will be such as we have not had
for years."
Meanwhile, in the wood they had come from,
the men had sat on so long that they were
indisposed to begin work again that evening;
they were paid by the ton, and their time
for labor was as they chose.
They placed the last gatherings of bark in
rows for the curers, which led them farther
and farther away from the shed; and thus they
gradually withdrew as the sun went down.
Fitzpiers lingered yet.
He had opened his book again, though he could
hardly see a word in it, and sat before the
dying fire, scarcely knowing of the men's
departure.
He dreamed and mused till his consciousness
seemed to occupy the whole space of the woodland
around, so little was there of jarring sight
or sound to hinder perfect unity with the
sentiment of the place.
The idea returned upon him of sacrificing
all practical aims to live in calm contentment
here, and instead of going on elaborating
new conceptions with infinite pains, to accept
quiet domesticity according to oldest and
homeliest notions.
These reflections detained him till the wood
was embrowned with the coming night, and the
shy little bird of this dusky time had begun
to pour out all the intensity of his eloquence
from a bush not very far off.
Fitzpiers's eyes commanded as much of the
ground in front as was open.
Entering upon this he saw a figure, whose
direction of movement was towards the spot
where he sat.
The surgeon was quite shrouded from observation
by the recessed shadow of the hut, and there
was no reason why he should move till the
stranger had passed by.
The shape resolved itself into a woman's;
she was looking on the ground, and walking
slowly as if searching for something that
had been lost, her course being precisely
that of Mr. Melbury's gig.
Fitzpiers by a sort of divination jumped to
the idea that the figure was Grace's; her
nearer approach made the guess a certainty.
Yes, she was looking for something; and she
came round by the prostrate trees that would
have been invisible but for the white nakedness
which enabled her to avoid them easily.
Thus she approached the heap of ashes, and
acting upon what was suggested by a still
shining ember or two, she took a stick and
stirred the heap, which thereupon burst into
a flame.
On looking around by the light thus obtained
she for the first time saw the illumined face
of Fitzpiers, precisely in the spot where
she had left him.
Grace gave a start and a scream: the place
had been associated with him in her thoughts,
but she had not expected to find him there
still.
Fitzpiers lost not a moment in rising and
going to her side.
"I frightened you dreadfully, I know," he
said.
"I ought to have spoken; but I did not at
first expect it to be you.
I have been sitting here ever since."
He was actually supporting her with his arm,
as though under the impression that she was
quite overcome, and in danger of falling.
As soon as she could collect her ideas she
gently withdrew from his grasp, and explained
what she had returned for: in getting up or
down from the gig, or when sitting by the
hut fire, she had dropped her purse.
"Now we will find it," said Fitzpiers.
He threw an armful of last year's leaves on
to the fire, which made the flame leap higher,
and the encompassing shades to weave themselves
into a denser contrast, turning eve into night
in a moment.
By this radiance they groped about on their
hands and knees, till Fitzpiers rested on
his elbow, and looked at Grace.
"We must always meet in odd circumstances,"
he said; "and this is one of the oddest.
I wonder if it means anything?"
"Oh no, I am sure it doesn't," said Grace
in haste, quickly assuming an erect posture.
"Pray don't say it any more."
"I hope there was not much money in the purse,"
said Fitzpiers, rising to his feet more slowly,
and brushing the leaves from his trousers.
"Scarcely any.
I cared most about the purse itself, because
it was given me.
Indeed, money is of little more use at Hintock
than on Crusoe's island; there's hardly any
way of spending it."
They had given up the search when Fitzpiers
discerned something by his foot.
"Here it is," he said, "so that your father,
mother, friend, or ADMIRER will not have his
or her feelings hurt by a sense of your negligence
after all."
"Oh, he knows nothing of what I do now."
"The admirer?" said Fitzpiers, slyly.
"I don't know if you would call him that,"
said Grace, with simplicity.
"The admirer is a superficial, conditional
creature, and this person is quite different."
"He has all the cardinal virtues."
"Perhaps—though I don't know them precisely."
"You unconsciously practise them, Miss Melbury,
which is better.
According to Schleiermacher they are Self-control,
Perseverance, Wisdom, and Love; and his is
the best list that I know."
"I am afraid poor—" She was going to say
that she feared Winterborne—the giver of
the purse years before—had not much perseverance,
though he had all the other three; but she
determined to go no further in this direction,
and was silent.
These half-revelations made a perceptible
difference in Fitzpiers.
His sense of personal superiority wasted away,
and Grace assumed in his eyes the true aspect
of a mistress in her lover's regard.
"Miss Melbury," he said, suddenly, "I divine
that this virtuous man you mention has been
refused by you?"
She could do no otherwise than admit it.
"I do not inquire without good reason.
God forbid that I should kneel in another's
place at any shrine unfairly.
But, my dear Miss Melbury, now that he is
gone, may I draw near?"
"I—I can't say anything about that!" she
cried, quickly.
"Because when a man has been refused you feel
pity for him, and like him more than you did
before."
This increasing complication added still more
value to Grace in the surgeon's eyes: it rendered
her adorable.
"But cannot you say?" he pleaded, distractedly.
"I'd rather not—I think I must go home at
once."
"Oh yes," said Fitzpiers.
But as he did not move she felt it awkward
to walk straight away from him; and so they
stood silently together.
A diversion was created by the accident of
two birds, that had either been roosting above
their heads or nesting there, tumbling one
over the other into the hot ashes at their
feet, apparently engrossed in a desperate
quarrel that prevented the use of their wings.
They speedily parted, however, and flew up,
and were seen no more.
"That's the end of what is called love!" said
some one.
The speaker was neither Grace nor Fitzpiers,
but Marty South, who approached with her face
turned up to the sky in her endeavor to trace
the birds.
Suddenly perceiving Grace, she exclaimed,
"Oh, Miss Melbury!
I have been following they pigeons, and didn't
see you.
And here's Mr. Winterborne!" she continued,
shyly, as she looked towards Fitzpiers, who
stood in the background.
"Marty," Grace interrupted.
"I want you to walk home with me—will you?
Come along."
And without lingering longer she took hold
of Marty's arm and led her away.
They went between the spectral arms of the
peeled trees as they lay, and onward among
the growing trees, by a path where there were
no oaks, and no barking, and no Fitzpiers—nothing
but copse-wood, between which the primroses
could be discerned in pale bunches.
"I didn't know Mr. Winterborne was there,"
said Marty, breaking the silence when they
had nearly reached Grace's door.
"Nor was he," said Grace.
"But, Miss Melbury, I saw him."
"No," said Grace.
"It was somebody else.
Giles Winterborne is nothing to me."
CHAPTER XX.
The leaves over Hintock grew denser in their
substance, and the woodland seemed to change
from an open filigree to a solid opaque body
of infinitely larger shape and importance.
The boughs cast green shades, which hurt the
complexion of the girls who walked there;
and a fringe of them which overhung Mr. Melbury's
garden dripped on his seed-plots when it rained,
pitting their surface all over as with pock-marks,
till Melbury declared that gardens in such
a place were no good at all.
The two trees that had creaked all the winter
left off creaking, the whir of the night-jar,
however, forming a very satisfactory continuation
of uncanny music from that quarter.
Except at mid-day the sun was not seen complete
by the Hintock people, but rather in the form
of numerous little stars staring through the
leaves.
Such an appearance it had on Midsummer Eve
of this year, and as the hour grew later,
and nine o'clock drew on, the irradiation
of the daytime became broken up by weird shadows
and ghostly nooks of indistinctness.
Imagination could trace upon the trunks and
boughs strange faces and figures shaped by
the dying lights; the surfaces of the holly-leaves
would here and there shine like peeping eyes,
while such fragments of the sky as were visible
between the trunks assumed the aspect of sheeted
forms and cloven tongues.
This was before the moonrise.
Later on, when that planet was getting command
of the upper heaven, and consequently shining
with an unbroken face into such open glades
as there were in the neighborhood of the hamlet,
it became apparent that the margin of the
wood which approached the timber-merchant's
premises was not to be left to the customary
stillness of that reposeful time.
Fitzpiers having heard a voice or voices,
was looking over his garden gate—where he
now looked more frequently than into his books—fancying
that Grace might be abroad with some friends.
He was now irretrievably committed in heart
to Grace Melbury, though he was by no means
sure that she was so far committed to him.
That the Idea had for once completely fulfilled
itself in the objective substance—which
he had hitherto deemed an impossibility—he
was enchanted enough to fancy must be the
case at last.
It was not Grace who had passed, however,
but several of the ordinary village girls
in a group—some steadily walking, some in
a mood of wild gayety.
He quietly asked his landlady, who was also
in the garden, what these girls were intending,
and she informed him that it being Old Midsummer
Eve, they were about to attempt some spell
or enchantment which would afford them a glimpse
of their future partners for life.
She declared it to be an ungodly performance,
and one which she for her part would never
countenance; saying which, she entered her
house and retired to bed.
The young man lit a cigar and followed the
bevy of maidens slowly up the road.
They had turned into the wood at an opening
between Melbury's and Marty South's; but Fitzpiers
could easily track them by their voices, low
as they endeavored to keep their tones.
In the mean time other inhabitants of Little
Hintock had become aware of the nocturnal
experiment about to be tried, and were also
sauntering stealthily after the frisky maidens.
Miss Melbury had been informed by Marty South
during the day of the proposed peep into futurity,
and, being only a girl like the rest, she
was sufficiently interested to wish to see
the issue.
The moon was so bright and the night so calm
that she had no difficulty in persuading Mrs.
Melbury to accompany her; and thus, joined
by Marty, these went onward in the same direction.
Passing Winterborne's house, they heard a
noise of hammering.
Marty explained it.
This was the last night on which his paternal
roof would shelter him, the days of grace
since it fell into hand having expired; and
Giles was taking down his cupboards and bedsteads
with a view to an early exit next morning.
His encounter with Mrs. Charmond had cost
him dearly.
When they had proceeded a little farther Marty
was joined by Grammer Oliver (who was as young
as the youngest in such matters), and Grace
and Mrs. Melbury went on by themselves till
they had arrived at the spot chosen by the
village daughters, whose primary intention
of keeping their expedition a secret had been
quite defeated.
Grace and her step-mother paused by a holly-tree;
and at a little distance stood Fitzpiers under
the shade of a young oak, intently observing
Grace, who was in the full rays of the moon.
He watched her without speaking, and unperceived
by any but Marty and Grammer, who had drawn
up on the dark side of the same holly which
sheltered Mrs. and Miss Melbury on its bright
side.
The two former conversed in low tones.
"If they two come up in Wood next Midsummer
Night they'll come as one," said Grammer,
signifying Fitzpiers and Grace.
"Instead of my skellington he'll carry home
her living carcass before long.
But though she's a lady in herself, and worthy
of any such as he, it do seem to me that he
ought to marry somebody more of the sort of
Mrs. Charmond, and that Miss Grace should
make the best of Winterborne."
Marty returned no comment; and at that minute
the girls, some of whom were from Great Hintock,
were seen advancing to work the incantation,
it being now about midnight.
"Directly we see anything we'll run home as
fast as we can," said one, whose courage had
begun to fail her.
To this the rest assented, not knowing that
a dozen neighbors lurked in the bushes around.
"I wish we had not thought of trying this,"
said another, "but had contented ourselves
with the hole-digging to-morrow at twelve,
and hearing our husbands' trades.
It is too much like having dealings with the
Evil One to try to raise their forms."
However, they had gone too far to recede,
and slowly began to march forward in a skirmishing
line through the trees towards the deeper
recesses of the wood.
As far as the listeners could gather, the
particular form of black-art to be practised
on this occasion was one connected with the
sowing of hemp-seed, a handful of which was
carried by each girl.
At the moment of their advance they looked
back, and discerned the figure of Miss Melbury,
who, alone of all the observers, stood in
the full face of the moonlight, deeply engrossed
in the proceedings.
By contrast with her life of late years they
made her feel as if she had receded a couple
of centuries in the world's history.
She was rendered doubly conspicuous by her
light dress, and after a few whispered words,
one of the girls—a bouncing maiden, plighted
to young Timothy Tangs—asked her if she
would join in.
Grace, with some excitement, said that she
would, and moved on a little in the rear of
the rest.
Soon the listeners could hear nothing of their
proceedings beyond the faintest occasional
rustle of leaves.
Grammer whispered again to Marty: "Why didn't
ye go and try your luck with the rest of the
maids?"
"I don't believe in it," said Marty, shortly.
"Why, half the parish is here—the silly
hussies should have kept it quiet.
I see Mr. Winterborne through the leaves,
just come up with Robert Creedle.
Marty, we ought to act the part o' Providence
sometimes.
Do go and tell him that if he stands just
behind the bush at the bottom of the slope,
Miss Grace must pass down it when she comes
back, and she will most likely rush into his
arms; for as soon as the clock strikes, they'll
bundle back home—along like hares.
I've seen such larries before."
"Do you think I'd better?" said Marty, reluctantly.
"Oh yes, he'll bless ye for it."
"I don't want that kind of blessing."
But after a moment's thought she went and
delivered the information; and Grammer had
the satisfaction of seeing Giles walk slowly
to the bend in the leafy defile along which
Grace would have to return.
Meanwhile Mrs. Melbury, deserted by Grace,
had perceived Fitzpiers and Winterborne, and
also the move of the latter.
An improvement on Grammer's idea entered the
mind of Mrs. Melbury, for she had lately discerned
what her husband had not—that Grace was
rapidly fascinating the surgeon.
She therefore drew near to Fitzpiers.
"You should be where Mr. Winterborne is standing,"
she said to him, significantly.
"She will run down through that opening much
faster than she went up it, if she is like
the rest of the girls."
Fitzpiers did not require to be told twice.
He went across to Winterborne and stood beside
him.
Each knew the probable purpose of the other
in standing there, and neither spoke, Fitzpiers
scorning to look upon Winterborne as a rival,
and Winterborne adhering to the off-hand manner
of indifference which had grown upon him since
his dismissal.
Neither Grammer nor Marty South had seen the
surgeon's manoeuvre, and, still to help Winterborne,
as she supposed, the old woman suggested to
the wood-girl that she should walk forward
at the heels of Grace, and "tole" her down
the required way if she showed a tendency
to run in another direction.
Poor Marty, always doomed to sacrifice desire
to obligation, walked forward accordingly,
and waited as a beacon, still and silent,
for the retreat of Grace and her giddy companions,
now quite out of hearing.
The first sound to break the silence was the
distant note of Great Hintock clock striking
the significant hour.
About a minute later that quarter of the wood
to which the girls had wandered resounded
with the flapping of disturbed birds; then
two or three hares and rabbits bounded down
the glade from the same direction, and after
these the rustling and crackling of leaves
and dead twigs denoted the hurried approach
of the adventurers, whose fluttering gowns
soon became visible.
Miss Melbury, having gone forward quite in
the rear of the rest, was one of the first
to return, and the excitement being contagious,
she ran laughing towards Marty, who still
stood as a hand-post to guide her; then, passing
on, she flew round the fatal bush where the
undergrowth narrowed to a gorge.
Marty arrived at her heels just in time to
see the result.
Fitzpiers had quickly stepped forward in front
of Winterborne, who, disdaining to shift his
position, had turned on his heel, and then
the surgeon did what he would not have thought
of doing but for Mrs. Melbury's encouragement
and the sentiment of an eve which effaced
conventionality.
Stretching out his arms as the white figure
burst upon him, he captured her in a moment,
as if she had been a bird.
"Oh!"
cried Grace, in her fright.
"You are in my arms, dearest," said Fitzpiers,
"and I am going to claim you, and keep you
there all our two lives!"
She rested on him like one utterly mastered,
and it was several seconds before she recovered
from this helplessness.
Subdued screams and struggles, audible from
neighboring brakes, revealed that there had
been other lurkers thereabout for a similar
purpose.
Grace, unlike most of these companions of
hers, instead of gasping and writhing, said
in a trembling voice, "Mr. Fitzpiers, will
you let me go?"
"Certainly," he said, laughing; "as soon as
you have recovered."
She waited another few moments, then quietly
and firmly pushed him aside, and glided on
her path, the moon whitening her hot blush
away.
But it had been enough—new relations between
them had begun.
The case of the other girls was different,
as has been said.
They wrestled and tittered, only escaping
after a desperate struggle.
Fitzpiers could hear these enactments still
going on after Grace had left him, and he
remained on the spot where he had caught her,
Winterborne having gone away.
On a sudden another girl came bounding down
the same descent that had been followed by
Grace—a fine-framed young woman with naked
arms.
Seeing Fitzpiers standing there, she said,
with playful effrontery, "May'st kiss me if
'canst catch me, Tim!"
Fitzpiers recognized her as Suke Damson, a
hoydenish damsel of the hamlet, who was plainly
mistaking him for her lover.
He was impulsively disposed to profit by her
error, and as soon as she began racing away
he started in pursuit.
On she went under the boughs, now in light,
now in shade, looking over her shoulder at
him every few moments and kissing her hand;
but so cunningly dodging about among the trees
and moon-shades that she never allowed him
to get dangerously near her.
Thus they ran and doubled, Fitzpiers warming
with the chase, till the sound of their companions
had quite died away.
He began to lose hope of ever overtaking her,
when all at once, by way of encouragement,
she turned to a fence in which there was a
stile and leaped over it.
Outside the scene was a changed one—a meadow,
where the half-made hay lay about in heaps,
in the uninterrupted shine of the now high
moon.
Fitzpiers saw in a moment that, having taken
to open ground, she had placed herself at
his mercy, and he promptly vaulted over after
her.
She flitted a little way down the mead, when
all at once her light form disappeared as
if it had sunk into the earth.
She had buried herself in one of the hay-cocks.
Fitzpiers, now thoroughly excited, was not
going to let her escape him thus.
He approached, and set about turning over
the heaps one by one.
As soon as he paused, tantalized and puzzled,
he was directed anew by an imitative kiss
which came from her hiding-place, and by snatches
of a local ballad in the smallest voice she
could assume:
"O come in from the foggy, foggy dew."
In a minute or two he uncovered her.
"Oh, 'tis not Tim!" said she, burying her
face.
Fitzpiers, however, disregarded her resistance
by reason of its mildness, stooped and imprinted
the purposed kiss, then sunk down on the next
hay-cock, panting with his race.
"Whom do you mean by Tim?" he asked, presently.
"My young man, Tim Tangs," said she.
"Now, honor bright, did you really think it
was he?"
"I did at first."
"But you didn't at last?"
"I didn't at last."
"Do you much mind that it was not?"
"No," she answered, slyly.
Fitzpiers did not pursue his questioning.
In the moonlight Suke looked very beautiful,
the scratches and blemishes incidental to
her out-door occupation being invisible under
these pale rays.
While they remain silent the coarse whir of
the eternal night-jar burst sarcastically
from the top of a tree at the nearest corner
of the wood.
Besides this not a sound of any kind reached
their ears, the time of nightingales being
now past, and Hintock lying at a distance
of two miles at least.
In the opposite direction the hay-field stretched
away into remoteness till it was lost to the
eye in a soft mist.
CHAPTER XXI.
When the general stampede occurred Winterborne
had also been looking on, and encountering
one of the girls, had asked her what caused
them all to fly.
She said with solemn breathlessness that they
had seen something very different from what
they had hoped to see, and that she for one
would never attempt such unholy ceremonies
again.
"We saw Satan pursuing us with his hour-glass.
It was terrible!"
This account being a little incoherent, Giles
went forward towards the spot from which the
girls had retreated.
After listening there a few minutes he heard
slow footsteps rustling over the leaves, and
looking through a tangled screen of honeysuckle
which hung from a bough, he saw in the open
space beyond a short stout man in evening-dress,
carrying on one arm a light overcoat and also
his hat, so awkwardly arranged as possibly
to have suggested the "hour-glass" to his
timid observers—if this were the person
whom the girls had seen.
With the other hand he silently gesticulated
and the moonlight falling upon his bare brow
showed him to have dark hair and a high forehead
of the shape seen oftener in old prints and
paintings than in real life.
His curious and altogether alien aspect, his
strange gestures, like those of one who is
rehearsing a scene to himself, and the unusual
place and hour, were sufficient to account
for any trepidation among the Hintock daughters
at encountering him.
He paused, and looked round, as if he had
forgotten where he was; not observing Giles,
who was of the color of his environment.
The latter advanced into the light.
The gentleman held up his hand and came towards
Giles, the two meeting half-way.
"I have lost my way," said the stranger.
"Perhaps you can put me in the path again."
He wiped his forehead with the air of one
suffering under an agitation more than that
of simple fatigue.
"The turnpike-road is over there," said Giles
"I don't want the turnpike-road," said the
gentleman, impatiently.
"I came from that.
I want Hintock House.
Is there not a path to it across here?"
"Well, yes, a sort of path.
But it is hard to find from this point.
I'll show you the way, sir, with great pleasure."
"Thanks, my good friend.
The truth is that I decided to walk across
the country after dinner from the hotel at
Sherton, where I am staying for a day or two.
But I did not know it was so far."
"It is about a mile to the house from here."
They walked on together.
As there was no path, Giles occasionally stepped
in front and bent aside the underboughs of
the trees to give his companion a passage,
saying every now and then when the twigs,
on being released, flew back like whips, "Mind
your eyes, sir."
To which the stranger replied, "Yes, yes,"
in a preoccupied tone.
So they went on, the leaf-shadows running
in their usual quick succession over the forms
of the pedestrians, till the stranger said,
"Is it far?"
"Not much farther," said Winterborne.
"The plantation runs up into a corner here,
close behind the house."
He added with hesitation, "You know, I suppose,
sir, that Mrs. Charmond is not at home?"
"You mistake," said the other, quickly.
"Mrs. Charmond has been away for some time,
but she's at home now."
Giles did not contradict him, though he felt
sure that the gentleman was wrong.
"You are a native of this place?" the stranger
said.
"Yes."
"Well, you are happy in having a home.
It is what I don't possess."
"You come from far, seemingly?"
"I come now from the south of Europe."
"Oh, indeed, sir.
You are an Italian, or Spanish, or French
gentleman, perhaps?"
"I am not either."
Giles did not fill the pause which ensued,
and the gentleman, who seemed of an emotional
nature, unable to resist friendship, at length
answered the question.
"I am an Italianized American, a South Carolinian
by birth," he said.
"I left my native country on the failure of
the Southern cause, and have never returned
to it since."
He spoke no more about himself, and they came
to the verge of the wood.
Here, striding over the fence out upon the
upland sward, they could at once see the chimneys
of the house in the gorge immediately beneath
their position, silent, still, and pale.
"Can you tell me the time?"
the gentleman asked.
"My watch has stopped."
"It is between twelve and one," said Giles.
His companion expressed his astonishment.
"I thought it between nine and ten at latest!
Dear me—dear me!"
He now begged Giles to return, and offered
him a gold coin, which looked like a sovereign,
for the assistance rendered.
Giles declined to accept anything, to the
surprise of the stranger, who, on putting
the money back into his pocket, said, awkwardly,
"I offered it because I want you to utter
no word about this meeting with me.
Will you promise?"
Winterborne promised readily.
He thereupon stood still while the other ascended
the slope.
At the bottom he looked back dubiously.
Giles would no longer remain when he was so
evidently desired to leave, and returned through
the boughs to Hintock.
He suspected that this man, who seemed so
distressed and melancholy, might be that lover
and persistent wooer of Mrs. Charmond whom
he had heard so frequently spoken of, and
whom it was said she had treated cavalierly.
But he received no confirmation of his suspicion
beyond a report which reached him a few days
later that a gentleman had called up the servants
who were taking care of Hintock House at an
hour past midnight; and on learning that Mrs.
Charmond, though returned from abroad, was
as yet in London, he had sworn bitterly, and
gone away without leaving a card or any trace
of himself.
The girls who related the story added that
he sighed three times before he swore, but
this part of the narrative was not corroborated.
Anyhow, such a gentleman had driven away from
the hotel at Sherton next day in a carriage
hired at that inn.
CHAPTER XXII.
The sunny, leafy week which followed the tender
doings of Midsummer Eve brought a visitor
to Fitzpiers's door; a voice that he knew
sounded in the passage.
Mr. Melbury had called.
At first he had a particular objection to
enter the parlor, because his boots were dusty,
but as the surgeon insisted he waived the
point and came in.
Looking neither to the right nor to the left,
hardly at Fitzpiers himself, he put his hat
under his chair, and with a preoccupied gaze
at the floor, he said, "I've called to ask
you, doctor, quite privately, a question that
troubles me.
I've a daughter, Grace, an only daughter,
as you may have heard.
Well, she's been out in the dew—on Midsummer
Eve in particular she went out in thin slippers
to watch some vagary of the Hintock maids—and
she's got a cough, a distinct hemming and
hacking, that makes me uneasy.
Now, I have decided to send her away to some
seaside place for a change—"
"Send her away!"
Fitzpiers's countenance had fallen.
"Yes.
And the question is, where would you advise
me to send her?"
The timber-merchant had happened to call at
a moment when Fitzpiers was at the spring-tide
of a sentiment that Grace was a necessity
of his existence.
The sudden pressure of her form upon his breast
as she came headlong round the bush had never
ceased to linger with him, ever since he adopted
the manoeuvre for which the hour and the moonlight
and the occasion had been the only excuse.
Now she was to be sent away.
Ambition? it could be postponed.
Family?
culture and reciprocity of tastes had taken
the place of family nowadays.
He allowed himself to be carried forward on
the wave of his desire.
"How strange, how very strange it is," he
said, "that you should have come to me about
her just now.
I have been thinking every day of coming to
you on the very same errand."
"Ah!—you have noticed, too, that her health——"
"I have noticed nothing the matter with her
health, because there is nothing.
But, Mr. Melbury, I have seen your daughter
several times by accident.
I have admired her infinitely, and I was coming
to ask you if I may become better acquainted
with her—pay my addresses to her?"
Melbury was looking down as he listened, and
did not see the air of half-misgiving at his
own rashness that spread over Fitzpiers's
face as he made this declaration.
"You have—got to know her?" said Melbury,
a spell of dead silence having preceded his
utterance, during which his emotion rose with
almost visible effect.
"Yes," said Fitzpiers.
"And you wish to become better acquainted
with her?
You mean with a view to marriage—of course
that is what you mean?"
"Yes," said the young man.
"I mean, get acquainted with her, with a view
to being her accepted lover; and if we suited
each other, what would naturally follow."
The timber-merchant was much surprised, and
fairly agitated; his hand trembled as he laid
by his walking-stick.
"This takes me unawares," said he, his voice
wellnigh breaking down.
"I don't mean that there is anything unexpected
in a gentleman being attracted by her; but
it did not occur to me that it would be you.
I always said," continued he, with a lump
in his throat, "that my Grace would make a
mark at her own level some day.
That was why I educated her.
I said to myself, 'I'll do it, cost what it
may;' though her mother-law was pretty frightened
at my paying out so much money year after
year.
I knew it would tell in the end.
'Where you've not good material to work on,
such doings would be waste and vanity,' I
said.
'But where you have that material it is sure
to be worth while.'"
"I am glad you don't object," said Fitzpiers,
almost wishing that Grace had not been quite
so cheap for him.
"If she is willing I don't object, certainly.
Indeed," added the honest man, "it would be
deceit if I were to pretend to feel anything
else than highly honored personally; and it
is a great credit to her to have drawn to
her a man of such good professional station
and venerable old family.
That huntsman-fellow little thought how wrong
he was about her!
Take her and welcome, sir."
"I'll endeavor to ascertain her mind."
"Yes, yes.
But she will be agreeable, I should think.
She ought to be."
"I hope she may.
Well, now you'll expect to see me frequently."
"Oh yes.
But, name it all—about her cough, and her
going away.
I had quite forgot that that was what I came
about."
"I assure you," said the surgeon, "that her
cough can only be the result of a slight cold,
and it is not necessary to banish her to any
seaside place at all."
Melbury looked unconvinced, doubting whether
he ought to take Fitzpiers's professional
opinion in circumstances which naturally led
him to wish to keep her there.
The doctor saw this, and honestly dreading
to lose sight of her, he said, eagerly, "Between
ourselves, if I am successful with her I will
take her away myself for a month or two, as
soon as we are married, which I hope will
be before the chilly weather comes on.
This will be so very much better than letting
her go now."
The proposal pleased Melbury much.
There could be hardly any danger in postponing
any desirable change of air as long as the
warm weather lasted, and for such a reason.
Suddenly recollecting himself, he said, "Your
time must be precious, doctor.
I'll get home-along.
I am much obliged to ye.
As you will see her often, you'll discover
for yourself if anything serious is the matter."
"I can assure you it is nothing," said Fitzpiers,
who had seen Grace much oftener already than
her father knew of.
When he was gone Fitzpiers paused, silent,
registering his sensations, like a man who
has made a plunge for a pearl into a medium
of which he knows not the density or temperature.
But he had done it, and Grace was the sweetest
girl alive.
As for the departed visitor, his own last
words lingered in Melbury's ears as he walked
homeward; he felt that what he had said in
the emotion of the moment was very stupid,
ungenteel, and unsuited to a dialogue with
an educated gentleman, the smallness of whose
practice was more than compensated by the
former greatness of his family.
He had uttered thoughts before they were weighed,
and almost before they were shaped.
They had expressed in a certain sense his
feeling at Fitzpiers's news, but yet they
were not right.
Looking on the ground, and planting his stick
at each tread as if it were a flag-staff,
he reached his own precincts, where, as he
passed through the court, he automatically
stopped to look at the men working in the
shed and around.
One of them asked him a question about wagon-spokes.
"Hey?" said Melbury, looking hard at him.
The man repeated the words.
Melbury stood; then turning suddenly away
without answering, he went up the court and
entered the house.
As time was no object with the journeymen,
except as a thing to get past, they leisurely
surveyed the door through which he had disappeared.
"What maggot has the gaffer got in his head
now?" said Tangs the elder.
"Sommit to do with that chiel of his!
When you've got a maid of yer own, John Upjohn,
that costs ye what she costs him, that will
take the squeak out of your Sunday shoes,
John!
But you'll never be tall enough to accomplish
such as she; and 'tis a lucky thing for ye,
John, as things be.
Well, he ought to have a dozen—that would
bring him to reason.
I see 'em walking together last Sunday, and
when they came to a puddle he lifted her over
like a halfpenny doll.
He ought to have a dozen; he'd let 'em walk
through puddles for themselves then."
Meanwhile Melbury had entered the house with
the look of a man who sees a vision before
him.
His wife was in the room.
Without taking off his hat he sat down at
random.
"Luce—we've done it!" he said.
"Yes—the thing is as I expected.
The spell, that I foresaw might be worked,
has worked.
She's done it, and done it well.
Where is she—Grace, I mean?"
"Up in her room—what has happened!"
Mr. Melbury explained the circumstances as
coherently as he could.
"I told you so," he said.
"A maid like her couldn't stay hid long, even
in a place like this.
But where is Grace?
Let's have her down.
Here—Gra-a-ace!"
She appeared after a reasonable interval,
for she was sufficiently spoiled by this father
of hers not to put herself in a hurry, however
impatient his tones.
"What is it, father?" said she, with a smile.
"Why, you scamp, what's this you've been doing?
Not home here more than six months, yet, instead
of confining yourself to your father's rank,
making havoc in the educated classes."
Though accustomed to show herself instantly
appreciative of her father's meanings, Grace
was fairly unable to look anyhow but at a
loss now.
"No, no—of course you don't know what I
mean, or you pretend you don't; though, for
my part, I believe women can see these things
through a double hedge.
But I suppose I must tell ye.
Why, you've flung your grapnel over the doctor,
and he's coming courting forthwith."
"Only think of that, my dear!
Don't you feel it a triumph?" said Mrs. Melbury.
"Coming courting!
I've done nothing to make him," Grace exclaimed.
"'Twasn't necessary that you should, 'Tis
voluntary that rules in these things....Well,
he has behaved very honorably, and asked my
consent.
You'll know what to do when he gets here,
I dare say.
I needn't tell you to make it all smooth for
him."
"You mean, to lead him on to marry me?"
"I do.
Haven't I educated you for it?"
Grace looked out of the window and at the
fireplace with no animation in her face.
"Why is it settled off-hand in this way?"
said she, coquettishly.
"You'll wait till you hear what I think of
him, I suppose?"
"Oh yes, of course.
But you see what a good thing it will be."
She weighed the statement without speaking.
"You will be restored to the society you've
been taken away from," continued her father;
"for I don't suppose he'll stay here long."
She admitted the advantage; but it was plain
that though Fitzpiers exercised a certain
fascination over her when he was present,
or even more, an almost psychic influence,
and though his impulsive act in the wood had
stirred her feelings indescribably, she had
never regarded him in the light of a destined
husband.
"I don't know what to answer," she said.
"I have learned that he is very clever."
"He's all right, and he's coming here to see
you."
A premonition that she could not resist him
if he came strangely moved her.
"Of course, father, you remember that it is
only lately that Giles—"
"You know that you can't think of him.
He has given up all claim to you."
She could not explain the subtleties of her
feeling as he could state his opinion, even
though she had skill in speech, and her father
had none.
That Fitzpiers acted upon her like a dram,
exciting her, throwing her into a novel atmosphere
which biassed her doings until the influence
was over, when she felt something of the nature
of regret for the mood she had experienced—still
more if she reflected on the silent, almost
sarcastic, criticism apparent in Winterborne's
air towards her—could not be told to this
worthy couple in words.
It so happened that on this very day Fitzpiers
was called away from Hintock by an engagement
to attend some medical meetings, and his visits,
therefore, did not begin at once.
A note, however, arrived from him addressed
to Grace, deploring his enforced absence.
As a material object this note was pretty
and superfine, a note of a sort that she had
been unaccustomed to see since her return
to Hintock, except when a school friend wrote
to her—a rare instance, for the girls were
respecters of persons, and many cooled down
towards the timber-dealer's daughter when
she was out of sight.
Thus the receipt of it pleased her, and she
afterwards walked about with a reflective
air.
In the evening her father, who knew that the
note had come, said, "Why be ye not sitting
down to answer your letter?
That's what young folks did in my time."
She replied that it did not require an answer.
"Oh, you know best," he said.
Nevertheless, he went about his business doubting
if she were right in not replying; possibly
she might be so mismanaging matters as to
risk the loss of an alliance which would bring
her much happiness.
Melbury's respect for Fitzpiers was based
less on his professional position, which was
not much, than on the standing of his family
in the county in by-gone days.
That implicit faith in members of long-established
families, as such, irrespective of their personal
condition or character, which is still found
among old-fashioned people in the rural districts
reached its full intensity in Melbury.
His daughter's suitor was descended from a
family he had heard of in his grandfather's
time as being once great, a family which had
conferred its name upon a neighboring village;
how, then, could anything be amiss in this
betrothal?
"I must keep her up to this," he said to his
wife.
"She sees it is for her happiness; but still
she's young, and may want a little prompting
from an older tongue."
CHAPTER XXIII.
With this in 
view he took her out for a walk, a custom
of his when he wished to say anything specially
impressive.
Their way was over the top of that lofty ridge
dividing their woodland from the cider district,
whence they had in the spring beheld the miles
of apple-trees in bloom.
All was now deep green.
The spot recalled to Grace's mind the last
occasion of her presence there, and she said,
"The promise of an enormous apple-crop is
fulfilling itself, is it not?
I suppose Giles is getting his mills and presses
ready."
This was just what her father had not come
there to talk about.
Without replying he raised his arm, and moved
his finger till he fixed it at a point.
"There," he said, "you see that plantation
reaching over the hill like a great slug,
and just behind the hill a particularly green
sheltered bottom?
That's where Mr. Fitzpiers's family were lords
of the manor for I don't know how many hundred
years, and there stands the village of Buckbury
Fitzpiers.
A wonderful property 'twas—wonderful!"
"But they are not lords of the manor there
now."
"Why, no.
But good and great things die as well as little
and foolish.
The only ones representing the family now,
I believe, are our doctor and a maiden lady
living I don't know where.
You can't help being happy, Grace, in allying
yourself with such a romantical family.
You'll feel as if you've stepped into history."
"We've been at Hintock as long as they've
been at Buckbury; is it not so?
You say our name occurs in old deeds continually."
"Oh yes—as yeomen, copyholders, and such
like.
But think how much better this will be for
'ee.
You'll be living a high intellectual life,
such as has now become natural to you; and
though the doctor's practice is small here,
he'll no doubt go to a dashing town when he's
got his hand in, and keep a stylish carriage,
and you'll be brought to know a good many
ladies of excellent society.
If you should ever meet me then, Grace, you
can drive past me, looking the other way.
I shouldn't expect you to speak to me, or
wish such a thing, unless it happened to be
in some lonely, private place where 'twouldn't
lower ye at all.
Don't think such men as neighbor Giles your
equal.
He and I shall be good friends enough, but
he's not for the like of you.
He's lived our rough and homely life here,
and his wife's life must be rough and homely
likewise."
So much pressure could not but produce some
displacement.
As Grace was left very much to herself, she
took advantage of one fine day before Fitzpiers's
return to drive into the aforesaid vale where
stood the village of Buckbury Fitzpiers.
Leaving her father's man at the inn with the
horse and gig, she rambled onward to the ruins
of a castle, which stood in a field hard by.
She had no doubt that it represented the ancient
stronghold of the Fitzpiers family.
The remains were few, and consisted mostly
of remnants of the lower vaulting, supported
on low stout columns surmounted by the crochet
capital of the period.
The two or three arches of these vaults that
were still in position were utilized by the
adjoining farmer as shelter for his calves,
the floor being spread with straw, amid which
the young creatures rustled, cooling their
thirsty tongues by licking the quaint Norman
carving, which glistened with the moisture.
It was a degradation of even such a rude form
of art as this to be treatad so grossly, she
thought, and for the first time the family
of Fitzpiers assumed in her imagination the
hues of a melancholy romanticism.
It was soon time to drive home, and she traversed
the distance with a preoccupied mind.
The idea of so modern a man in science and
aesthetics as the young surgeon springing
out of relics so ancient was a kind of novelty
she had never before experienced.
The combination lent him a social and intellectual
interest which she dreaded, so much weight
did it add to the strange influence he exercised
upon her whenever he came near her.
In an excitement which was not love, not ambition,
rather a fearful consciousness of hazard in
the air, she awaited his return.
Meanwhile her father was awaiting him also.
In his house there was an old work on medicine,
published towards the end of the last century,
and to put himself in harmony with events
Melbury spread this work on his knees when
he had done his day's business, and read about
Galen, Hippocrates, and Herophilus—of the
dogmatic, the empiric, the hermetical, and
other sects of practitioners that have arisen
in history; and thence proceeded to the classification
of maladies and the rules for their treatment,
as laid down in this valuable book with absolute
precision.
Melbury regretted that the treatise was so
old, fearing that he might in consequence
be unable to hold as complete a conversation
as he could wish with Mr. Fitzpiers, primed,
no doubt, with more recent discoveries.
The day of Fitzpiers's return arrived, and
he sent to say that he would call immediately.
In the little time that was afforded for putting
the house in order the sweeping of Melbury's
parlor was as the sweeping of the parlor at
the Interpreter's which wellnigh choked the
Pilgrim.
At the end of it Mrs. Melbury sat down, folded
her hands and lips, and waited.
Her husband restlessly walked in and out from
the timber-yard, stared at the interior of
the room, jerked out "ay, ay," and retreated
again.
Between four and five Fitzpiers arrived, hitching
his horse to the hook outside the door.
As soon as he had walked in and perceived
that Grace was not in the room, he seemed
to have a misgiving.
Nothing less than her actual presence could
long keep him to the level of this impassioned
enterprise, and that lacking he appeared as
one who wished to retrace his steps.
He mechanically talked at what he considered
a woodland matron's level of thought till
a rustling was heard on the stairs, and Grace
came in.
Fitzpiers was for once as agitated as she.
Over and above the genuine emotion which she
raised in his heart there hung the sense that
he was casting a die by impulse which he might
not have thrown by judgment.
Mr. Melbury was not in the room.
Having to attend to matters in the yard, he
had delayed putting on his afternoon coat
and waistcoat till the doctor's appearance,
when, not wishing to be backward in receiving
him, he entered the parlor hastily buttoning
up those garments.
Grace's fastidiousness was a little distressed
that Fitzpiers should see by this action the
strain his visit was putting upon her father;
and to make matters worse for her just then,
old Grammer seemed to have a passion for incessantly
pumping in the back kitchen, leaving the doors
open so that the banging and splashing were
distinct above the parlor conversation.
Whenever the chat over the tea sank into pleasant
desultoriness Mr. Melbury broke in with speeches
of labored precision on very remote topics,
as if he feared to let Fitzpiers's mind dwell
critically on the subject nearest the hearts
of all.
In truth a constrained manner was natural
enough in Melbury just now, for the greatest
interest of his life was reaching its crisis.
Could the real have been beheld instead of
the corporeal merely, the corner of the room
in which he sat would have been filled with
a form typical of anxious suspense, large-eyed,
tight-lipped, awaiting the issue.
That paternal hopes and fears so intense should
be bound up in the person of one child so
peculiarly circumstanced, and not have dispersed
themselves over the larger field of a whole
family, involved dangerous risks to future
happiness.
Fitzpiers did not stay more than an hour,
but that time had apparently advanced his
sentiments towards Grace, once and for all,
from a vaguely liquescent to an organic shape.
She would not have accompanied him to the
door in response to his whispered "Come!"
if her mother had not said in a matter-of-fact
way, "Of course, Grace; go to the door with
Mr. Fitzpiers."
Accordingly Grace went, both her parents remaining
in the room.
When the young pair were in the great brick-floored
hall the lover took the girl's hand in his,
drew it under his arm, and thus led her on
to the door, where he stealthily kissed her.
She broke from him trembling, blushed and
turned aside, hardly knowing how things had
advanced to this.
Fitzpiers drove off, kissing his hand to her,
and waving it to Melbury who was visible through
the window.
Her father returned the surgeon's action with
a great flourish of his own hand and a satisfied
smile.
The intoxication that Fitzpiers had, as usual,
produced in Grace's brain during the visit
passed off somewhat with his withdrawal.
She felt like a woman who did not know what
she had been doing for the previous hour,
but supposed with trepidation that the afternoon's
proceedings, though vague, had amounted to
an engagement between herself and the handsome,
coercive, irresistible Fitzpiers.
This visit was a type of many which followed
it during the long summer days of that year.
Grace was borne along upon a stream of reasonings,
arguments, and persuasions, supplemented,
it must be added, by inclinations of her own
at times.
No woman is without aspirations, which may
be innocent enough within certain limits;
and Grace had been so trained socially, and
educated intellectually, as to see clearly
enough a pleasure in the position of wife
to such a man as Fitzpiers.
His material standing of itself, either present
or future, had little in it to give her ambition,
but the possibilities of a refined and cultivated
inner life, of subtle psychological intercourse,
had their charm.
It was this rather than any vulgar idea of
marrying well which caused her to float with
the current, and to yield to the immense influence
which Fitzpiers exercised over her whenever
she shared his society.
Any observer would shrewdly have prophesied
that whether or not she loved him as yet in
the ordinary sense, she was pretty sure to
do so in time.
One evening just before dusk they had taken
a rather long walk together, and for a short
cut homeward passed through the shrubberies
of Hintock House—still deserted, and still
blankly confronting with its sightless shuttered
windows the surrounding foliage and slopes.
Grace was tired, and they approached the wall,
and sat together on one of the stone sills—still
warm with the sun that had been pouring its
rays upon them all the afternoon.
"This place would just do for us, would it
not, dearest," said her betrothed, as they
sat, turning and looking idly at the old facade.
"Oh yes," said Grace, plainly showing that
no such fancy had ever crossed her mind.
"She is away from home still," Grace added
in a minute, rather sadly, for she could not
forget that she had somehow lost the valuable
friendship of the lady of this bower.
"Who is?—oh, you mean Mrs. Charmond.
Do you know, dear, that at one time I thought
you lived here."
"Indeed!" said Grace.
"How was that?"
He explained, as far as he could do so without
mentioning his disappointment at finding it
was otherwise; and then went on: "Well, never
mind that.
Now I want to ask you something.
There is one detail of our wedding which I
am sure you will leave to me.
My inclination is not to be married at the
horrid little church here, with all the yokels
staring round at us, and a droning parson
reading."
"Where, then, can it be?
At a church in town?"
"No.
Not at a church at all.
At a registry office.
It is a quieter, snugger, and more convenient
place in every way."
"Oh," said she, with real distress.
"How can I be married except at church, and
with all my dear friends round me?"
"Yeoman Winterborne among them."
"Yes—why not?
You know there was nothing serious between
him and me."
"You see, dear, a noisy bell-ringing marriage
at church has this objection in our case:
it would be a thing of report a long way round.
Now I would gently, as gently as possible,
indicate to you how inadvisable such publicity
would be if we leave Hintock, and I purchase
the practice that I contemplate purchasing
at Budmouth—hardly more than twenty miles
off.
Forgive my saying that it will be far better
if nobody there knows where you come from,
nor anything about your parents.
Your beauty and knowledge and manners will
carry you anywhere if you are not hampered
by such retrospective criticism."
"But could it not be a quiet ceremony, even
at church?" she pleaded.
"I don't see the necessity of going there!"
he said, a trifle impatiently.
"Marriage is a civil contract, and the shorter
and simpler it is made the better.
People don't go to church when they take a
house, or even when they make a will."
"Oh, Edgar—I don't like to hear you speak
like that."
"Well, well—I didn't mean to.
But I have mentioned as much to your father,
who has made no objection; and why should
you?"
She gave way, deeming the point one on which
she ought to allow sentiment to give way to
policy—if there were indeed policy in his
plan.
But she was indefinably depressed as they
walked homeward.
CHAPTER XXIV.
He left her at the door of her father's house.
As he receded, and was clasped out of sight
by the filmy shades, he impressed Grace as
a man who hardly appertained to her existence
at all.
Cleverer, greater than herself, one outside
her mental orbit, as she considered him, he
seemed to be her ruler rather than her equal,
protector, and dear familiar friend.
The disappointment she had experienced at
his wish, the shock given to her girlish sensibilities
by his irreverent views of marriage, together
with the sure and near approach of the day
fixed for committing her future to his keeping,
made her so restless that she could scarcely
sleep at all that night.
She rose when the sparrows began to walk out
of the roof-holes, sat on the floor of her
room in the dim light, and by-and-by peeped
out behind the window-curtains.
It was even now day out-of-doors, though the
tones of morning were feeble and wan, and
it was long before the sun would be perceptible
in this overshadowed vale.
Not a sound came from any of the out-houses
as yet.
The tree-trunks, the road, the out-buildings,
the garden, every object wore that aspect
of mesmeric fixity which the suspensive quietude
of daybreak lends to such scenes.
Outside her window helpless immobility seemed
to be combined with intense consciousness;
a meditative inertness possessed all things,
oppressively contrasting with her own active
emotions.
Beyond the road were some cottage roofs and
orchards; over these roofs and over the apple-trees
behind, high up the slope, and backed by the
plantation on the crest, was the house yet
occupied by her future husband, the rough-cast
front showing whitely through its creepers.
The window-shutters were closed, the bedroom
curtains closely drawn, and not the thinnest
coil of smoke rose from the rugged chimneys.
Something broke the stillness.
The front door of the house she was gazing
at opened softly, and there came out into
the porch a female figure, wrapped in a large
shawl, beneath which was visible the white
skirt of a long loose garment.
A gray arm, stretching from within the porch,
adjusted the shawl over the woman's shoulders;
it was withdrawn and disappeared, the door
closing behind her.
The woman went quickly down the box-edged
path between the raspberries and currants,
and as she walked her well-developed form
and gait betrayed her individuality.
It was Suke Damson, the affianced one of simple
young Tim Tangs.
At the bottom of the garden she entered the
shelter of the tall hedge, and only the top
of her head could be seen hastening in the
direction of her own dwelling.
Grace had recognized, or thought she recognized,
in the gray arm stretching from the porch,
the sleeve of a dressing-gown which Mr. Fitzpiers
had been wearing on her own memorable visit
to him.
Her face fired red.
She had just before thought of dressing herself
and taking a lonely walk under the trees,
so coolly green this early morning; but she
now sat down on her bed and fell into reverie.
It seemed as if hardly any time had passed
when she heard the household moving briskly
about, and breakfast preparing down-stairs;
though, on rousing herself to robe and descend,
she found that the sun was throwing his rays
completely over the tree-tops, a progress
of natural phenomena denoting that at least
three hours had elapsed since she last looked
out of the window.
When attired she searched about the house
for her father; she found him at last in the
garden, stooping to examine the potatoes for
signs of disease.
Hearing her rustle, he stood up and stretched
his back and arms, saying, "Morning t'ye,
Gracie.
I congratulate ye.
It is only a month to-day to the time!"
She did not answer, but, without lifting her
dress, waded between the dewy rows of tall
potato-green into the middle of the plot where
he was.
"I have been thinking very much about my position
this morning—ever since it was light," she
began, excitedly, and trembling so that she
could hardly stand.
"And I feel it is a false one.
I wish not to marry Mr. Fitzpiers.
I wish not to marry anybody; but I'll marry
Giles Winterborne if you say I must as an
alternative."
Her father's face settled into rigidity, he
turned pale, and came deliberately out of
the plot before he answered her.
She had never seen him look so incensed before.
"Now, hearken to me," he said.
"There's a time for a woman to alter her mind;
and there's a time when she can no longer
alter it, if she has any right eye to her
parents' honor and the seemliness of things.
That time has come.
I won't say to ye, you SHALL marry him.
But I will say that if you refuse, I shall
forever be ashamed and a-weary of ye as a
daughter, and shall look upon you as the hope
of my life no more.
What do you know about life and what it can
bring forth, and how you ought to act to lead
up to best ends?
Oh, you are an ungrateful maid, Grace; you've
seen that fellow Giles, and he has got over
ye; that's where the secret lies, I'll warrant
me!"
"No, father, no!
It is not Giles—it is something I cannot
tell you of—"
"Well, make fools of us all; make us laughing-stocks;
break it off; have your own way."
"But who knows of the engagement as yet?
how can breaking it disgrace you?"
Melbury then by degrees admitted that he had
mentioned the engagement to this acquaintance
and to that, till she perceived that in his
restlessness and pride he had published it
everywhere.
She went dismally away to a bower of laurel
at the top of the garden.
Her father followed her.
"It is that Giles Winterborne!" he said, with
an upbraiding gaze at her.
"No, it is not; though for that matter you
encouraged him once," she said, troubled to
the verge of despair.
"It is not Giles, it is Mr. Fitzpiers."
"You've had a tiff—a lovers' tiff—that's
all, I suppose!"
"It is some woman—"
"Ay, ay; you are jealous.
The old story.
Don't tell me.
Now do you bide here.
I'll send Fitzpiers to you.
I saw him smoking in front of his house but
a minute by-gone."
He went off hastily out of the garden-gate
and down the lane.
But she would not stay where she was; and
edging through a slit in the garden-fence,
walked away into the wood.
Just about here the trees were large and wide
apart, and there was no undergrowth, so that
she could be seen to some distance; a sylph-like,
greenish-white creature, as toned by the sunlight
and leafage.
She heard a foot-fall crushing dead leaves
behind her, and found herself reconnoitered
by Fitzpiers himself, approaching gay and
fresh as the morning around them.
His remote gaze at her had been one of mild
interest rather than of rapture.
But she looked so lovely in the green world
about her, her pink cheeks, her simple light
dress, and the delicate flexibility of her
movement acquired such rarity from their wild-wood
setting, that his eyes kindled as he drew
near.
"My darling, what is it?
Your father says you are in the pouts, and
jealous, and I don't know what.
Ha! ha! ha! as if there were any rival to
you, except vegetable nature, in this home
of recluses!
We know better."
"Jealous; oh no, it is not so," said she,
gravely.
"That's a mistake of his and yours, sir.
I spoke to him so closely about the question
of marriage with you that he did not apprehend
my state of mind."
"But there's something wrong—eh?" he asked,
eying her narrowly, and bending to kiss her.
She shrank away, and his purposed kiss miscarried.
"What is it?" he said, more seriously for
this little defeat.
She made no answer beyond, "Mr. Fitzpiers,
I have had no breakfast, I must go in."
"Come," he insisted, fixing his eyes upon
her.
"Tell me at once, I say."
It was the greater strength against the smaller;
but she was mastered less by his manner than
by her own sense of the unfairness of silence.
"I looked out of the window," she said, with
hesitation.
"I'll tell you by-and-by.
I must go in-doors.
I have had no breakfast."
By a sort of divination his conjecture went
straight to the fact.
"Nor I," said he, lightly.
"Indeed, I rose late to-day.
I have had a broken night, or rather morning.
A girl of the village—I don't know her name—came
and rang at my bell as soon as it was light—between
four and five, I should think it was—perfectly
maddened with an aching tooth.
As no-body heard her ring, she threw some
gravel at my window, till at last I heard
her and slipped on my dressing-gown and went
down.
The poor thing begged me with tears in her
eyes to take out her tormentor, if I dragged
her head off.
Down she sat and out it came—a lovely molar,
not a speck upon it; and off she went with
it in her handkerchief, much contented, though
it would have done good work for her for fifty
years to come."
It was all so plausible—so completely explained.
Knowing nothing of the incident in the wood
on old Midsummer-eve, Grace felt that her
suspicions were unworthy and absurd, and with
the readiness of an honest heart she jumped
at the opportunity of honoring his word.
At the moment of her mental liberation the
bushes about the garden had moved, and her
father emerged into the shady glade.
"Well, I hope it is made up?" he said, cheerily.
"Oh yes," said Fitzpiers, with his eyes fixed
on Grace, whose eyes were shyly bent downward.
"Now," said her father, "tell me, the pair
of ye, that you still mean to take one another
for good and all; and on the strength o't
you shall have another couple of hundred paid
down.
I swear it by the name."
Fitzpiers took her hand.
"We declare it, do we not, my dear Grace?"
said he.
Relieved of her doubt, somewhat overawed,
and ever anxious to please, she was disposed
to settle the matter; yet, womanlike, she
would not relinquish her opportunity of asking
a concession of some sort.
"If our wedding can be at church, I say yes,"
she answered, in a measured voice.
"If not, I say no."
Fitzpiers was generous in his turn.
"It shall be so," he rejoined, gracefully.
"To holy church we'll go, and much good may
it do us."
They returned through the bushes indoors,
Grace walking, full of thought between the
other two, somewhat comforted, both by Fitzpiers's
ingenious explanation and by the sense that
she was not to be deprived of a religious
ceremony.
"So let it be," she said to herself.
"Pray God it is for the best."
From this hour there was no serious attempt
at recalcitration on her part.
Fitzpiers kept himself continually near her,
dominating any rebellious impulse, and shaping
her will into passive concurrence with all
his desires.
Apart from his lover-like anxiety to possess
her, the few golden hundreds of the timber-dealer,
ready to hand, formed a warm background to
Grace's lovely face, and went some way to
remove his uneasiness at the prospect of endangering
his professional and social chances by an
alliance with the family of a simple countryman.
The interim closed up its perspective surely
and silently.
Whenever Grace had any doubts of her position,
the sense of contracting time was like a shortening
chamber: at other moments she was comparatively
blithe.
Day after day waxed and waned; the one or
two woodmen who sawed, shaped, spokeshaved
on her father's premises at this inactive
season of the year, regularly came and unlocked
the doors in the morning, locked them in the
evening, supped, leaned over their garden-gates
for a whiff of evening air, and to catch any
last and farthest throb of news from the outer
world, which entered and expired at Little
Hintock like the exhausted swell of a wave
in some innermost cavern of some innermost
creek of an embayed sea; yet no news interfered
with the nuptial purpose at their neighbor's
house.
The sappy green twig-tips of the season's
growth would not, she thought, be appreciably
woodier on the day she became a wife, so near
was the time; the tints of the foliage would
hardly have changed.
Everything was so much as usual that no itinerant
stranger would have supposed a woman's fate
to be hanging in the balance at that summer's
decline.
But there were preparations, imaginable readily
enough by those who had special knowledge.
In the remote and fashionable town of Sandbourne
something was growing up under the hands of
several persons who had never seen Grace Melbury,
never would see her, or care anything about
her at all, though their creation had such
interesting relation to her life that it would
enclose her very heart at a moment when that
heart would beat, if not with more emotional
ardor, at least with more emotional turbulence
than at any previous time.
Why did Mrs. Dollery's van, instead of passing
along at the end of the smaller village to
Great Hintock direct, turn one Saturday night
into Little Hintock Lane, and never pull up
till it reached Mr. Melbury's gates?
The gilding shine of evening fell upon a large,
flat box not less than a yard square, and
safely tied with cord, as it was handed out
from under the tilt with a great deal of care.
But it was not heavy for its size; Mrs. Dollery
herself carried it into the house.
Tim Tangs, the hollow-turner, Bawtree, Suke
Damson, and others, looked knowing, and made
remarks to each other as they watched its
entrance.
Melbury stood at the door of the timber-shed
in the attitude of a man to whom such an arrival
was a trifling domestic detail with which
he did not condescend to be concerned.
Yet he well divined the contents of that box,
and was in truth all the while in a pleasant
exaltation at the proof that thus far, at
any rate, no disappointment had supervened.
While Mrs. Dollery remained—which was rather
long, from her sense of the importance of
her errand—he went into the out-house; but
as soon as she had had her say, been paid,
and had rumbled away, he entered the dwelling,
to find there what he knew he should find—his
wife and daughter in a flutter of excitement
over the wedding-gown, just arrived from the
leading dress-maker of Sandbourne watering-place
aforesaid.
During these weeks Giles Winterborne was nowhere
to be seen or heard of.
At the close of his tenure in Hintock he had
sold some of his furniture, packed up the
rest—a few pieces endeared by associations,
or necessary to his occupation—in the house
of a friendly neighbor, and gone away.
People said that a certain laxity had crept
into his life; that he had never gone near
a church latterly, and had been sometimes
seen on Sundays with unblacked boots, lying
on his elbow under a tree, with a cynical
gaze at surrounding objects.
He was likely to return to Hintock when the
cider-making season came round, his apparatus
being stored there, and travel with his mill
and press from village to village.
The narrow interval that stood before the
day diminished yet.
There was in Grace's mind sometimes a certain
anticipative satisfaction, the satisfaction
of feeling that she would be the heroine of
an hour; moreover, she was proud, as a cultivated
woman, to be the wife of a cultivated man.
It was an opportunity denied very frequently
to young women in her position, nowadays not
a few; those in whom parental discovery of
the value of education has implanted tastes
which parental circles fail to gratify.
But what an attenuation was this cold pride
of the dream of her youth, in which she had
pictured herself walking in state towards
the altar, flushed by the purple light and
bloom of her own passion, without a single
misgiving as to the sealing of the bond, and
fervently receiving as her due
"The homage of a thousand hearts; the fond,
deep love of one."
Everything had been clear then, in imagination;
now something was undefined.
She had little carking anxieties; a curious
fatefulness seemed to rule her, and she experienced
a mournful want of some one to confide in.
The day loomed so big and nigh that her prophetic
ear could, in fancy, catch the noise of it,
hear the murmur of the villagers as she came
out of church, imagine the jangle of the three
thin-toned Hintock bells.
The dialogues seemed to grow louder, and the
ding-ding-dong of those three crazed bells
more persistent.
She awoke: the morning had come.
Five hours later she was the wife 
of Fitzpiers.
CHAPTER XXV.
The chief hotel at Sherton-Abbas was an old
stone-fronted inn with a yawning arch, under
which vehicles were driven by stooping coachmen
to back premises of wonderful commodiousness.
The windows to the street were mullioned into
narrow lights, and only commanded a view of
the opposite houses; hence, perhaps, it arose
that the best and most luxurious private sitting-room
that the inn could afford over-looked the
nether parts of the establishment, where beyond
the yard were to be seen gardens and orchards,
now bossed, nay incrusted, with scarlet and
gold fruit, stretching to infinite distance
under a luminous lavender mist.
The time was early autumn,
"When the fair apples, red as evening sky,
Do bend the tree unto the fruitful ground,
When juicy pears, and berries of black dye,
Do dance in air, and call the eyes around."
The landscape confronting the window might,
indeed, have been part of the identical stretch
of country which the youthful Chatterton had
in his mind.
In this room sat she who had been the maiden
Grace Melbury till the finger of fate touched
her and turned her to a wife.
It was two months after the wedding, and she
was alone.
Fitzpiers had walked out to see the abbey
by the light of sunset, but she had been too
fatigued to accompany him.
They had reached the last stage of a long
eight-weeks' tour, and were going on to Hintock
that night.
In the yard, between Grace and the orchards,
there progressed a scene natural to the locality
at this time of the year.
An apple-mill and press had been erected on
the spot, to which some men were bringing
fruit from divers points in mawn-baskets,
while others were grinding them, and others
wringing down the pomace, whose sweet juice
gushed forth into tubs and pails.
The superintendent of these proceedings, to
whom the others spoke as master, was a young
yeoman of prepossessing manner and aspect,
whose form she recognized in a moment.
He had hung his coat to a nail of the out-house
wall, and wore his shirt-sleeves rolled up
beyond his elbows, to keep them unstained
while he rammed the pomace into the bags of
horse-hair.
Fragments of apple-rind had alighted upon
the brim of his hat—probably from the bursting
of a bag—while brown pips of the same fruit
were sticking among the down upon his fine,
round arms.
She realized in a moment how he had come there.
Down in the heart of the apple country nearly
every farmer kept up a cider-making apparatus
and wring-house for his own use, building
up the pomace in great straw "cheeses," as
they were called; but here, on the margin
of Pomona's plain, was a debatable land neither
orchard nor sylvan exclusively, where the
apple produce was hardly sufficient to warrant
each proprietor in keeping a mill of his own.
This was the field of the travelling cider-maker.
His press and mill were fixed to wheels instead
of being set up in a cider-house; and with
a couple of horses, buckets, tubs, strainers,
and an assistant or two, he wandered from
place to place, deriving very satisfactory
returns for his trouble in such a prolific
season as the present.
The back parts of the town were just now abounding
with apple-gatherings.
They stood in the yards in carts, baskets,
and loose heaps; and the blue, stagnant air
of autumn which hung over everything was heavy
with a sweet cidery smell.
Cakes of pomace lay against the walls in the
yellow sun, where they were drying to be used
as fuel.
Yet it was not the great make of the year
as yet; before the standard crop came in there
accumulated, in abundant times like this,
a large superfluity of early apples, and windfalls
from the trees of later harvest, which would
not keep long.
Thus, in the baskets, and quivering in the
hopper of the mill, she saw specimens of mixed
dates, including the mellow countenances of
streaked-jacks, codlins, costards, stubbards,
ratheripes, and other well-known friends of
her ravenous youth.
Grace watched the head-man with interest.
The slightest sigh escaped her.
Perhaps she thought of the day—not so far
distant—when that friend of her childhood
had met her by her father's arrangement in
this same town, warm with hope, though diffident,
and trusting in a promise rather implied than
given.
Or she might have thought of days earlier
yet—days of childhood—when her mouth was
somewhat more ready to receive a kiss from
his than was his to bestow one.
However, all that was over.
She had felt superior to him then, and she
felt superior to him now.
She wondered why he never looked towards her
open window.
She did not know that in the slight commotion
caused by their arrival at the inn that afternoon
Winterborne had caught sight of her through
the archway, had turned red, and was continuing
his work with more concentrated attention
on the very account of his discovery.
Robert Creedle, too, who travelled with Giles,
had been incidentally informed by the hostler
that Dr. Fitzpiers and his young wife were
in the hotel, after which news Creedle kept
shaking his head and saying to himself, "Ah!"
very audibly, between his thrusts at the screw
of the cider-press.
"Why the deuce do you sigh like that, Robert?"
asked Winterborne, at last.
"Ah, maister—'tis my thoughts—'tis my
thoughts!...Yes, ye've lost a hundred load
o' timber well seasoned; ye've lost five hundred
pound in good money; ye've lost the stone-windered
house that's big enough to hold a dozen families;
ye've lost your share of half a dozen good
wagons and their horses—all lost!—through
your letting slip she that was once yer own!"
"Good God, Creedle, you'll drive me mad!"
said Giles, sternly.
"Don't speak of that any more!"
Thus the subject had ended in the yard.
Meanwhile, the passive cause of all this loss
still regarded the scene.
She was beautifully dressed; she was seated
in the most comfortable room that the inn
afforded; her long journey had been full of
variety, and almost luxuriously performed—for
Fitzpiers did not study economy where pleasure
was in question.
Hence it perhaps arose that Giles and all
his belongings seemed sorry and common to
her for the moment—moving in a plane so
far removed from her own of late that she
could scarcely believe she had ever found
congruity therein.
"No—I could never have married him!" she
said, gently shaking her head.
"Dear father was right.
It would have been too coarse a life for me."
And she looked at the rings of sapphire and
opal upon her white and slender fingers that
had been gifts from Fitzpiers.
Seeing that Giles still kept his back turned,
and with a little of the above-described pride
of life—easily to be understood, and possibly
excused, in a young, inexperienced woman who
thought she had married well—she said at
last, with a smile on her lips, "Mr. Winterborne!"
He appeared to take no heed, and she said
a second time, "Mr. Winterborne!"
Even now he seemed not to hear, though a person
close enough to him to see the expression
of his face might have doubted it; and she
said a third time, with a timid loudness,
"Mr. Winterborne!
What, have you forgotten my voice?"
She remained with her lips parted in a welcoming
smile.
He turned without surprise, and came deliberately
towards the window.
"Why do you call me?" he said, with a sternness
that took her completely unawares, his face
being now pale.
"Is it not enough that you see me here moiling
and muddling for my daily bread while you
are sitting there in your success, that you
can't refrain from opening old wounds by calling
out my name?"
She flushed, and was struck dumb for some
moments; but she forgave his unreasoning anger,
knowing so well in what it had its root.
"I am sorry I offended you by speaking," she
replied, meekly.
"Believe me, I did not intend to do that.
I could hardly sit here so near you without
a word of recognition."
Winterborne's heart had swollen big, and his
eyes grown moist by this time, so much had
the gentle answer of that familiar voice moved
him.
He assured her hurriedly, and without looking
at her, that he was not angry.
He then managed to ask her, in a clumsy, constrained
way, if she had had a pleasant journey, and
seen many interesting sights.
She spoke of a few places that she had visited,
and so the time passed till he withdrew to
take his place at one of the levers which
pulled round the screw.
Forgotten her voice!
Indeed, he had not forgotten her voice, as
his bitterness showed.
But though in the heat of the moment he had
reproached her keenly, his second mood was
a far more tender one—that which could regard
her renunciation of such as he as her glory
and her privilege, his own fidelity notwithstanding.
He could have declared with a contemporary
poet—
"If I forget,
The salt creek may forget the ocean;
If I forget
The heart whence flows my heart's bright motion,
May I sink meanlier than the worst
Abandoned, outcast, crushed, accurst,
If I forget.
"Though you forget,
No word of mine shall mar your pleasure;
Though you forget,
You filled my barren life with treasure,
You may withdraw the gift you gave;
You still are queen, I still am slave,
Though you forget."
She had tears in her eyes at the thought that
she could not remind him of what he ought
to have remembered; that not herself but the
pressure of events had dissipated the dreams
of their early youth.
Grace was thus unexpectedly worsted in her
encounter with her old friend.
She had opened the window with a faint sense
of triumph, but he had turned it into sadness;
she did not quite comprehend the reason why.
In truth it was because she was not cruel
enough in her cruelty.
If you have to use the knife, use it, say
the great surgeons; and for her own peace
Grace should have contemned Winterborne thoroughly
or not at all.
As it was, on closing the window an indescribable,
some might have said dangerous, pity quavered
in her bosom for him.
Presently her husband entered the room, and
told her what a wonderful sunset there was
to be seen.
"I have not noticed it.
But I have seen somebody out there that we
know," she replied, looking into the court.
Fitzpiers followed the direction of her eyes,
and said he did not recognize anybody.
"Why, Mr. Winterborne—there he is, cider-making.
He combines that with his other business,
you know."
"Oh—that fellow," said Fitzpiers, his curiosity
becoming extinct.
She, reproachfully: "What, call Mr. Winterborne
a fellow, Edgar?
It is true I was just saying to myself that
I never could have married him; but I have
much regard for him, and always shall."
"Well, do by all means, my dear one.
I dare say I am inhuman, and supercilious,
and contemptibly proud of my poor old ramshackle
family; but I do honestly confess to you that
I feel as if I belonged to a different species
from the people who are working in that yard."
"And from me too, then.
For my blood is no better than theirs."
He looked at her with a droll sort of awakening.
It was, indeed, a startling anomaly that this
woman of the tribe without should be standing
there beside him as his wife, if his sentiments
were as he had said.
In their travels together she had ranged so
unerringly at his level in ideas, tastes,
and habits that he had almost forgotten how
his heart had played havoc with his principles
in taking her to him.
"Ah YOU—you are refined and educated into
something quite different," he said, self-assuringly.
"I don't quite like to think that," she murmured
with soft regret.
"And I think you underestimate Giles Winterborne.
Remember, I was brought up with him till I
was sent away to school, so I cannot be radically
different.
At any rate, I don't feel so.
That is, no doubt, my fault, and a great blemish
in me.
But I hope you will put up with it, Edgar."
Fitzpiers said that he would endeavor to do
so; and as it was now getting on for dusk,
they prepared to perform the last stage of
their journey, so as to arrive at Hintock
before it grew very late.
In less than half an hour they started, the
cider-makers in the yard having ceased their
labors and gone away, so that the only sounds
audible there now were the trickling of the
juice from the tightly screwed press, and
the buzz of a single wasp, which had drunk
itself so tipsy that it was unconscious of
nightfall.
Grace was very cheerful at the thought of
being soon in her sylvan home, but Fitzpiers
sat beside her almost silent.
An indescribable oppressiveness had overtaken
him with the near approach of the journey's
end and the realities of life that lay there.
"You don't say a word, Edgar," she observed.
"Aren't you glad to get back?
I am."
"You have friends here.
I have none."
"But my friends are yours."
"Oh yes—in that sense."
The conversation languished, and they drew
near the end of Hintock Lane.
It had been decided that they should, at least
for a time, take up their abode in her father's
roomy house, one wing of which was quite at
their service, being almost disused by the
Melburys.
Workmen had been painting, papering, and whitewashing
this set of rooms in the wedded pair's absence;
and so scrupulous had been the timber-dealer
that there should occur no hitch or disappointment
on their arrival, that not the smallest detail
remained undone.
To make it all complete a ground-floor room
had been fitted up as a surgery, with an independent
outer door, to which Fitzpiers's brass plate
was screwed—for mere ornament, such a sign
being quite superfluous where everybody knew
the latitude and longitude of his neighbors
for miles round.
Melbury and his wife welcomed the twain with
affection, and all the house with deference.
They went up to explore their rooms, that
opened from a passage on the left hand of
the staircase, the entrance to which could
be shut off on the landing by a door that
Melbury had hung for the purpose.
A friendly fire was burning in the grate,
although it was not cold.
Fitzpiers said it was too soon for any sort
of meal, they only having dined shortly before
leaving Sherton-Abbas.
He would walk across to his old lodging, to
learn how his locum tenens had got on in his
absence.
In leaving Melbury's door he looked back at
the house.
There was economy in living under that roof,
and economy was desirable, but in some way
he was dissatisfied with the arrangement;
it immersed him so deeply in son-in-lawship
to Melbury.
He went on to his former residence.
His deputy was out, and Fitzpiers fell into
conversation with his former landlady.
"Well, Mrs. Cox, what's the best news?" he
asked of her, with cheery weariness.
She was a little soured at losing by his marriage
so profitable a tenant as the surgeon had
proved to be during his residence under her
roof; and the more so in there being hardly
the remotest chance of her getting such another
settler in the Hintock solitudes.
"'Tis what I don't wish to repeat, sir; least
of all to you," she mumbled.
"Never mind me, Mrs. Cox; go ahead."
"It is what people say about your hasty marrying,
Dr. Fitzpiers.
Whereas they won't believe you know such clever
doctrines in physic as they once supposed
of ye, seeing as you could marry into Mr.
Melbury's family, which is only Hintock-born,
such as me."
"They are kindly welcome to their opinion,"
said Fitzpiers, not allowing himself to recognize
that he winced.
"Anything else?"
"Yes; SHE'S come home at last."
"Who's she?"
"Mrs. Charmond."
"Oh, indeed!" said Fitzpiers, with but slight
interest.
"I've never seen her."
"She has seen you, sir, whether or no."
"Never."
"Yes; she saw you in some hotel or street
for a minute or two while you were away travelling,
and accidentally heard your name; and when
she made some remark about you, Miss Ellis—that's
her maid—told her you was on your wedding-tower
with Mr. Melbury's daughter; and she said,
'He ought to have done better than that.
I fear he has spoiled his chances,' she says."
Fitzpiers did not talk much longer to this
cheering housewife, and walked home with no
very brisk step.
He entered the door quietly, and went straight
up-stairs to the drawing-room extemporized
for their use by Melbury in his and his bride's
absence, expecting to find her there as he
had left her.
The fire was burning still, but there were
no lights.
He looked into the next apartment, fitted
up as a little dining-room, but no supper
was laid.
He went to the top of the stairs, and heard
a chorus of voices in the timber-merchant's
parlor below, Grace's being occasionally intermingled.
Descending, and looking into the room from
the door-way, he found quite a large gathering
of neighbors and other acquaintances, praising
and congratulating Mrs. Fitzpiers on her return,
among them being the dairyman, Farmer Bawtree,
and the master-blacksmith from Great Hintock;
also the cooper, the hollow-turner, the exciseman,
and some others, with their wives, who lived
hard by.
Grace, girl that she was, had quite forgotten
her new dignity and her husband's; she was
in the midst of them, blushing, and receiving
their compliments with all the pleasure of
old-comradeship.
Fitzpiers experienced a profound distaste
for the situation.
Melbury was nowhere in the room, but Melbury's
wife, perceiving the doctor, came to him.
"We thought, Grace and I," she said, "that
as they have called, hearing you were come,
we could do no less than ask them to supper;
and then Grace proposed that we should all
sup together, as it is the first night of
your return."
By this time Grace had come round to him.
"Is it not good of them to welcome me so warmly?"
she exclaimed, with tears of friendship in
her eyes.
"After so much good feeling I could not think
of our shutting ourselves up away from them
in our own dining-room."
"Certainly not—certainly not," said Fitzpiers;
and he entered the room with the heroic smile
of a martyr.
As soon as they sat down to table Melbury
came in, and seemed to see at once that Fitzpiers
would much rather have received no such demonstrative
reception.
He thereupon privately chid his wife for her
forwardness in the matter.
Mrs. Melbury declared that it was as much
Grace's doing as hers, after which there was
no more to be said by that young woman's tender
father.
By this time Fitzpiers was making the best
of his position among the wide-elbowed and
genial company who sat eating and drinking
and laughing and joking around him; and getting
warmed himself by the good cheer, was obliged
to admit that, after all, the supper was not
the least enjoyable he had ever known.
At times, however, the words about his having
spoiled his opportunities, repeated to him
as those of Mrs. Charmond, haunted him like
a handwriting on the wall.
Then his manner would become suddenly abstracted.
At one moment he would mentally put an indignant
query why Mrs. Charmond or any other woman
should make it her business to have opinions
about his opportunities; at another he thought
that he could hardly be angry with her for
taking an interest in the doctor of her own
parish.
Then he would drink a glass of grog and so
get rid of the misgiving.
These hitches and quaffings were soon perceived
by Grace as well as by her father; and hence
both of them were much relieved when the first
of the guests to discover that the hour was
growing late rose and declared that he must
think of moving homeward.
At the words Melbury rose as alertly as if
lifted by a spring, and in ten minutes they
were gone.
"Now, Grace," said her husband as soon as
he found himself alone with her in their private
apartments, "we've had a very pleasant evening,
and everybody has been very kind.
But we must come to an understanding about
our way of living here.
If we continue in these rooms there must be
no mixing in with your people below.
I can't stand it, and that's the truth."
She had been sadly surprised at the suddenness
of his distaste for those old-fashioned woodland
forms of life which in his courtship he had
professed to regard with so much interest.
But she assented in a moment.
"We must be simply your father's tenants,"
he continued, "and our goings and comings
must be as independent as if we lived elsewhere."
"Certainly, Edgar—I quite see that it must
be so."
"But you joined in with all those people in
my absence, without knowing whether I should
approve or disapprove.
When I came I couldn't help myself at all."
She, sighing: "Yes—I see I ought to have
waited; though they came unexpectedly, and
I thought I had acted for the best."
Thus the discussion ended, and the next day
Fitzpiers went on his old rounds as usual.
But it was easy for so super-subtle an eye
as his to discern, or to think he discerned,
that he was no longer regarded as an extrinsic,
unfathomed gentleman of limitless potentiality,
scientific and social; but as Mr. Melbury's
compeer, and therefore in a degree only one
of themselves.
The Hintock woodlandlers held with all the
strength of inherited conviction to the aristocratic
principle, and as soon as they had discovered
that Fitzpiers was one of the old Buckbury
Fitzpierses they had accorded to him for nothing
a touching of hat-brims, promptness of service,
and deference of approach, which Melbury had
to do without, though he paid for it over
and over.
But now, having proved a traitor to his own
cause by this marriage, Fitzpiers was believed
in no more as a superior hedged by his own
divinity; while as doctor he began to be rated
no higher than old Jones, whom they had so
long despised.
His few patients seemed in his two months'
absence to have dwindled considerably in number,
and no sooner had he returned than there came
to him from the Board of Guardians a complaint
that a pauper had been neglected by his substitute.
In a fit of pride Fitzpiers resigned his appointment
as one of the surgeons to the union, which
had been the nucleus of his practice here.
At the end of a fortnight he came in-doors
one evening to Grace more briskly than usual.
"They have written to me again about that
practice in Budmouth that I once negotiated
for," he said to her.
"The premium asked is eight hundred pounds,
and I think that between your father and myself
it ought to be raised.
Then we can get away from this place forever."
The question had been mooted between them
before, and she was not unprepared to consider
it.
They had not proceeded far with the discussion
when a knock came to the door, and in a minute
Grammer ran up to say that a message had arrived
from Hintock House requesting Dr. Fitzpiers
to attend there at once.
Mrs. Charmond had met with a slight accident
through the overturning of her carriage.
"This is something, anyhow," said Fitzpiers,
rising with an interest which he could not
have defined.
"I have had a presentiment that this mysterious
woman and I were to be better acquainted."
The latter words were murmured to himself
alone.
"Good-night," said Grace, as soon as he was
ready.
"I shall be asleep, probably, when you return."
"Good-night," he replied, inattentively, and
went down-stairs.
It was the first time since their marriage
that he had left her without a kiss.
