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b n handed down in s family for the last two hundred years a a mere the traveller in school books who in tones for the fidelity to fact of the following narrative used to add a ring of truth to it by opening with a of criticism on the heroine s people were wrong he declared when they that was a woman with scarcely emotions or character there was nothing in her to love and nothing to hate so ran the general opinion that she showed few positive qualities was true the colours and tones which changing events paint on the faces of active were looked for in vain upon hers but still waters run deep and no crisis had come ia the years of her early to what lay hidden within her like metal in a mine she was the daughter of a small farmer in st maria s one of the of who had spent a large sum as it was there understood on her education by sending her to the for two years at nineteen she was entered at the training college tor teachers and at twenty one to a school in the country near tor upon sea whither she proceeded after the christmas examination and holidays the months passed by from winter to spring and summer and applied herself to her new duties as best she could till an year had elapsed then an air of abstraction pervaded her a bearing as she walked to and fro twice a day and she showed the traits of a person who had something on her mind a widow by name mrs in whose house had been provided with a sitting room and bedroom till the school house should be noticed this change in her youthful tenant s manner and at last ventured to press her with a few questions it has nothing to do with the place nor with you said miss then it is the salary no nor the salary then it is something you have heard from home my dear was silent for a few moments it is mr she murmured him they used to call david before he got his money and who is the mr they used to call david an old bachelor at giant s town st maria s with no relations whatever who lives about a stone s throw from father s when i was a child he used to take me on his knee and say he d marry me some day now i am a woman the jest has turned earnest and he is anxious to do it and father and mother says i can t do better than have him he s well yes he s the richest man we know as a friend and neighbour how much older did you say he was than yourself i didn t say twenty years at least and an unpleasant man in the bargain perhaps no he s not unpleasant well child all i can say is that i d resist any such engagement if it s not to ee you are comfortable here in my little house i hope all the parish like ee and i ve never been so since my poor husband left me to wear his wings as i ve been with ee as my a mere the assured her landlady that she could the sentiment but here comes my perplexity she said i don t like keeping ah you are surprised you didn t suspect it that s because i ve concealed my feeling well i simply hate school i don t care for children they are unpleasant troublesome little things whom nothing would delight so much as to hear that you had fallen down dead yet i would even put up with them if it was not for the for three months before his visit i didn t sleep soundly and the committee of council are always changing the code so that you don t know what to and what to leave i think father and mother are right they say i shall never as a if i dislike the work so and that therefore i ought to get settled by marrying mr between us two i like him better than school but i don t like him quite so much as to wish to marry him these conversations once begun were continued from day to day till at length the young girl s elderly friend and landlady threw in her opinion on the side of miss s parents all things considered she declared the uncertainty of the school the labour s natural dislike for teaching it would be as well to take what fate offered and make the best of matters by wedding her father s old neighbour and prosperous friend the holidays came round and went to spend them as usual in her native isle going by train as far as she could and crossing by from pen when she returned in the middle of april her face wore a more settled aspect well said the expectant mrs i have agreed to have him as my husband said in an off hand way heaven knows if it will be for the best or not but i have agreed to do it and so the matter is settled mrs commended her but did not is a mere care to dwell on the subject so that allusion to it was very between them nevertheless among other things she repeated to the widow from time to time in remarks that the wedding was really impending that it was arranged for the summer and that she had given notice of leaving the school at the august holidays later on she announced more that her marriage was to take place immediately after her return home at the beginning of the month she now regularly with mr her letters from him were seen	45
going to enter on another life altogether i am going to be married next week to mr david the young man fortified as he was by a natural pride and at this unexpected reply notwithstanding who is mr david he asked as indifferently as lay in his power she informed him the bearer of the name was a general merchant of giant s town st maria s island her father s nearest neighbour and oldest friend then we shan t see anything more of you on the inquired the a mere o i don t know about that said miss here the career of the of the boarding school your father was foolish enough to send you to a general merchant s wife in the will you sell pounds of soap and of tin or whole bars of matter and great nails he s not in such a small way as that she almost pleaded he owns ships though they are rather little ones o well it is much the same come let us walk on it is tedious to stand still i thought you would be a failure in education he continued when she obeyed him and strolled ahead you never showed power that way you remind me much of some of those women who think they are sure to be great if they go on the stage because they have a pretty face and forget that what we require is acting but you foimd your mistake didn t you don t me charles it was noticeable that the young s tone caused her no anger or passion far otherwise there was a tear in her eye how is it you are at pen she inquired i don t you i speak the truth purely in a friendly way as i should to any one i wished well though for that matter i might have some excuse even for you such a terrible hurry as you ve been in i hate a woman who is in such a hurry how do you mean that why to be somebody s wife or other anything s wife rather than nobody s you couldn t wait for me o no well thank god i m cured of all that how merciless you are she said bitterly wait for you what does that mean you never showed anything to wait for special towards me come dear come a mere what i mean is nothing definite she i suppose you liked me a little but it seemed to me to be only a on your part and that you never meant to an honourable engagement of it there that s just it you girls expect a man to mean business at the first look no man when he first becomes interested in a woman has any definite scheme of engagement to marry her in his mind he is meaning a vulgar marriage however i did at last mean an honourable engagement as you call it come to that but you never said so and an indefinite courtship soon a woman s position and credit sooner than you think i solemnly declare that in six months i should have asked you to marry me she walked along in silence looking on the ground and appearing very uncomfortable presently he said would you have waited for me if you had known to this she whispered in a whisper yes they went still farther in silence passing along one of the beautiful walks on the outskirts of the town yet not observant of scene or situation her shoulder and his were close together and he clasped his fingers round the small of her arm quite lightly and without any attempt at yet the act seemed to say now i hold you and my will must be yours to a previous question of hers he said i have merely run down here for a day or two from school near before going o to the north for the rest of my holiday i have seen my relations at quite lately so i am not going there this time how uttle i thought of meeting you how very different the would have been if instead of parting again as we must in half an hour or so possibly for ever you had been now just going with me as my wife on our trip ha ha well so is life she stopped suddenly i must go back now this a mere is altogether too painful it is not at all a kind mood you are in to day i don t want to pain you you know i do not he said more gently only it just me this you are going to do i wish you would not what many him there now i have showed you my true sentiments i must do it now said she why he asked dropping the hand tone he had hitherto spoken in and becoming earnest still holding her arm however as if she were his to be taken up or put down at will it is never too late to break off a marriage that s distasteful to you now i ll say one thing and it is truth i wish you would marry me instead of him even now at the last moment though you have served me so badly o it is not possible to think of that she answered hastily shaking her head when i get home all will be prepared it is ready even now the things for the party the mr s new suit and everything i should require the courage of a tropical lion to go home there and say i wouldn t carry out my promise then go in heaven s name but there would be no necessity for you to go home and face them in	45
that way if we were to marry it would have to be at once instantly or not at all i should think your affection not worth the having unless you agreed to come back with me to this evening where we could be married by on monday morning and then no mr david or anybody else could get you away from me i must go home by the tuesday boat she faltered what would they think if i did not come you could go home by that boat just the same all the difference would be that i should go with you you could leave me on the where i d have a a mere smoke while you went and saw your father and mother privately you then tell them what you had done and that i was waiting not far off that i was a in a fairly good position and a man you had known when you were at the training college then i come boldly forward and they would see that it not be altered and so you wouldn t suffer a misery by being the wife of a wretched old you don t like at all now honestly you do like me best don t you yes then we will do as i say she did not pronounce a clear affirmative but that she consented to the novel proposition at some moment or other of that walk was apparent by what occurred a little later ill an enterprise of such required indeed less talking than consideration the first thing they did in carrying it out was to return to the railway station where took from her luggage a small trunk of immediate necessaries which she would in any case have required after missing the boat that same afternoon they travelled up the line to charles as his name was despite his indifference to things was very of appearances and made the journey of her though in the same train he told her where she get board and lodgings in the city and with merely a distant nod to her of a kind went off to his own quarters and to see about the on sunday she saw him in the morning across the of the pro cathedral in the afternoon they walked together in the fields where he told her that the would be ready next day and would be available the day after when the ceremony could be a mere as early after eight o clock as they should choose his courtship thus renewed after an interval of two years was as impetuous violent even as it was short the next day came and passed and the final arrangements were made their agreement was to get the ceremony over as soon as they possibly could the next morning so as to go on to pen at once and reach that place in time for the boat s departure the same day it was in obedience to s earnest request that consented thus to make the whole journey to by land and water at one heat and not it at pen she seemed to be oppressed with a dread of lingering anywhere this great first act of to her parents once accomplished with the weight on her mind that her home had to be by the e of it to face her difficulties over the water immediately she had created them was however a course more desired by than by her lover though for once he gave way the next morning was bright and warm as those which had preceded it by six o clock it seemed nearly noon as is often the case in that part of england in the season by nine they were husband and wife they packed up and departed by the earliest train after the service and on the way discussed at length what she should say on meeting her parents the turn of each phrase in her anxiety they had travelled so early that when they reached pen they f there were nearly two hours on their hands before the steamer s time of sailing was extremely reluctant to be seen the streets of the watering place with her husband till as above stated the household at giant s town should know the unexpected course of events from her own lips and it was just possible if not likely that some might be about a mere there or even have come across the sea to look for her to meet any one to whom she was known and to have to reply to awkward questions about the strange young man at her side before her well framed announcement had been delivered at proper time and place was a thing she could not contemplate with so instead of looking at the shops and harbour they went along the coast a little way the heat of the morning was by this time intense they up on some cliffs and while sitting there looking around at st michael s mount and other objects charles said to her that he thought he would run down to the beach at their feet and take just one plunge into the sea did not much like the idea of being left alone it was gloomy she said but he assured her he would not be gone more than a quarter of an hour at the outside and she assented down he went disappeared appeared again and looked back then he again proceeded and vanished tin as a small object she saw him from the nook that had him cross the white fringe of foam and walk into the mass of blue once in the water he seemed less inclined to hurry than before he remained a long time and unable either to appreciate his skill or his want of it at that distance she withdrew her eyes from the spot and gazed at the still outline of	45
st michael s now beautifully toned in grey her anxiety for the hour of departure and to cope at once with the approaching incidents that she have to as best she could sent her into a reverie it was now tuesday she would reach home in the evening a very late time they would say but as the delay was a pure accident they would deem her marriage to mr to morrow still practicable then charles would have to be produced from the background it was a terrible undertaking to think of and she almost regretted her a mere in wedding so hastily that morning the rage of her father would be so crushing the reproaches of her mother so bitter and perhaps charles would answer hotly and perhaps cause till death there had obviously been no alarm about her at st maria s or somebody would have sailed across to inquire for her she had in a letter written at the beginning of the week spoken of the hour at which she intended to leave her country and from this her friends had probably perceived that by such she would run a ride of losing the saturday boat she had missed it and as a consequence sat here on the shore as mrs c this brought her to the present and she turned from the outline of st michael s to look about for her husband s form he was as far as she could discover no longer in the sea then he was dressing by moving a few steps she could see where his clothes lay but charles was not beside them looked back again at the water in bewilderment as if her senses were the victim of some of hand not a speck or spot resembling a man s head or face showed by this time she was alarmed and her alarm when she perceived a little beyond the scene of her husband s bathing a small area of water the quality of whose surface differed from that of the surrounding expanse as the coarse vegetation of some foul patch in a from the fine green of the remainder elsewhere it looked here it looked and and her marine experiences suggested to her in a moment that two currents met and caused a turmoil at this place she descended as hastily as her trembling limbs would allow the way down was terribly long and before reaching the heap of clothes it occurred to her that after all it would be best to run first for help hastening along in a direction she proceeded inland till she met a man and soon afterwards two a mere others to them she exclaimed i think a gentleman who was bathing is in some danger i cannot see him as i could will you please nm and help him at once if you will be so kind she did not think of turning to show them the exact spot indicating it vaguely by the direction of her hand and still going on her way with the idea of gaining more assistance when she deemed in her that she had carried the alarm far enough she faced about and dragged herself back again before reaching the now dreaded spot she met one of the men we can see nothing at all miss he declared having gained the beach she found the tide in and no sign of s clothes the other men whom she had to come had disappeared it must have been in some other direction for she had not met them going away they finding nothing had probably thought her alarm a mere conjecture and given up the quest sank down upon the stones near at hand where had was now sea there could not be the least doubt that he was drowned and his body sucked under by the current while his clothes lying within high water mark had probably been carried away by the rising tide she remained in a stupor for some minutes till a strange sensation succeeded the ring her intelligence and leaving her physically almost with his personal disappearance the last three days of her life with him seemed to be swallowed up also his image in her mind s eye curiously far away grew stranger and stranger less and less real meeting and marriage had been so sudden adventurous that she could hardly believe that she had played her part in such a reckless drama of all the few hours of her life with charles the portion that most insisted on coming back to memory was their a mere encounter on the previous saturday and those bitter with which he had begun the attack as it might be called which had her to an a sort of cruelty an even in his warmth had charles as a lover he had ever been a bit of a tyrant and it might pretty truly have been said that he had stung her into marriage with him at last still more alien from her life did these reflections operate to make him and then they be chased away by an interval of passionate weeping and mad regret finally there upon the confused mind of the young wife the recollection that she was on her way homeward and that the packet would sail in three quarters of an except the in her hand all she possessed was at the station awaiting her onward she looked in that direction and entering one of those phases so common with her walked quietly on at first she made straight for the railway but suddenly turning she went to a shop and wrote an line announcing his death by drowning to the only person she had ever heard charles mention as a relative this stealthily and with a fearful look around her she seemed to acquire a terror of the late events pursuing her way to the station as if	45
followed by a when she got to the she asked for the luggage that she had left there on the saturday as well as the trunk left on the morning just all were put in the boat and she herself followed quickly as these things had been done the whole proceeding nevertheless had been almost on s part ere she had come to any definite conclusion on her course just before the bell rang she heard a conversation on the pier which removed the last shade of doubt from her mind if any had existed that she was charles a mere s widow the sentences were but but she could easily piece them out a man drowned swam out too far was a stranger to the place people in boat saw him go down couldn t get there in time the news was little more definite than this as yet though it may as well be stated once for all that the statement was true with the over confidence of his nature had ventured out too far for his strength and in the absence of assistance his lifeless body being at that moment suspended in the transparent mid depths of the bay his clothes however had merely been gently lifted by the rising tide and into a nook hard by where they lay out of sight of the by till a day or two after iv in ten minutes they were steaming out of the harbour for their voyage of four or five hours at whose ending she would have to tell her strange story as pen and all its scenes disappeared behind and st s isle s like husband impressed her yet more as a she was still in such a trance like state that she had been an hour on the little packet boat before she became aware of the fact that mr was on board with her she slipped from her left hand the of her well the truth is i wouldn t interrupt ee i reckon she don t see me of won t see me i said and what s the hurry she ll see en o me soon i hope ye be well deer he was a hale well man of about fifty of the complexion common to those whose lives are passed on the and of an ocean isle he extended the four quarters of his face in a a mere genial smile and his hand for a grasp of the same magnitude she gave her own in surprised and he continued i couldn t help coming across to meet ee what an thing you missing the boat and not coming saturday they meant to have warned ee that the time was changed but forgot it at the last moment the truth is that i should have informed ee myself but i was that busy finishing up a job last week so as to have this week free that i trusted to your father for attending to these little things however so plain and quiet as it is all to be it really do not matter so much as it might otherwise have done and i hope ye haven t been greatly put out now if you d sooner that i should not be seen talking to ee if ye feel shy at all before strangers just say i ll leave ee to yourself till we get home thank you much i am indeed a little tired mr he nodded acquiescence strolled away immediately and the surface of the till some female passengers of giant s town at what they must have thought a for the approaching wedding was known to many on st maria s island though to nobody elsewhere coloured at their satire and called him back and forced herself to with him in at least a mechanically friendly manner the opening event had been thus different from her expectation and she had no act to meet it taken she allowed circumstances to pilot her along and so the voyage was made it was near dusk when they touched the pier of giant s town where several friends and neighbours stood awaiting them her father had a lantern in his hand her mother too was there reproachfully glad that the delay had at last ended so simply mrs and her daughter went together along the giant s walk or to the house rather in a mere advance of her husband and mr who talked in loud tones which reached the women over their shoulders some would have called mrs a good mother but though well meaning she was and her intentions missed their mark this might have been partly to the slight ess from which she suffered now as usual the chief came from her lips ah yes i m so glad my child that youve got over safe it is all ready and so well arranged that nothing but could hinder you settling as with god s grace becomes ee close to your mother s door a most be a great blessing i m sure and i was very glad to find from your letters that you d held your word sacred that s right make your word bond always mrs seems to be a sensible woman i hope the lord will do for her as he s doing for you no long time hence and how did ye get over the terrible journey from tor upon sea to pen once you d done with the railway of course you seemed quite at home well conduct self and all will be well thus entered the house her father and mr immediately at her back her mother had been so that she had felt herself absolutely to the subjects in the centre of her mind the familiar room with the dark ceiling the table the old chairs had never before spoken so	45
on till he reached a tavern which though comparatively a mere stood in as attractive a spot as any in the town and this somewhat to their surprise after their previous experience they found apparently empty the considerate old man thinking was educated to artistic notions though he himself was deficient in them had decided that it was most desirable to have on such an occasion as the present an apartment with a good view the expression being one he had often heard in use among and he therefore asked for a favourite room on the first floor from which a bow window for the express purpose of affording such an outlook the landlady after some hesitation said she was sorry that particular apartment was engaged the next one however or any other in the house was the gentleman who has the best one will give it up to morrow and then you can change into it she added as mr an hesitated about taking the adjoining and less commanding one we hall be gone to morrow and shan t want it he said wishing not to lose customers the landlady earnestly continued that since he was bent on having the best room perhaps the other gentleman would not object to move at once into the one they despised since though nothing could be seen from ihe window the room was equally large well if he doesn t care for a view said mr an with the air of a highly artistic man who did o no i am sure he doesn t she said i can promise that you shall have the room you want if you would not object to go for a walk for half an hour i could have it ready and your things in it and a nice tea laid in the bow window by the time you come back this proposal was deemed satisfactory by the a mere old and they went out nervously conducted him in an opposite direction to her walk of the former day in o er company showing on her wan face had he observed it how much she was beginning to regret her step for mending matters tiiat morning she took advantage of a moment when her husband s back was turned to inquire casually in a shop if anything had been heard of the gentleman who was sucked down in the while bathing the said yes his body has been washed ashore and had just handed a newspaper on which she discerned the heading a drowned while bathing when her husband turned to join her she might have pursued the subject without raising suspicion but it was more than flesh and blood could do and a small purchase almost ran out of the shop what is your terrible hurry deer said hastening after i don t know i don t want to stay in shops she gasped and we won t he said they are this weather let s go back and have some they found the much desired apartment awaiting their entry it was a sort of combination bed and sitting room and the table was prettily spread with high tea in the bow window a bunch of flowers in the midst and a best parlour chair on each side here they shared the meal by the ruddy light of the vanishing sun but though tjie view had been engaged regardless of expense exclusively for s pleasure she did not direct any keen attention out of the window her gaze as often fell on the floor and walls of the room as elsewhere and on the table as much as on either beholding nothing at all but there was a opposite her seat was the door upon which her eyes presently became like those of a little bird upon a snake for on a as a mere at the back of the door there hung a hat such a hat surely from its peculiar make the actual hat that had been worn by charles conviction grew to certainty when she saw a railway ticket sticking up from the band charles had put the ticket she had noticed the act her teeth almost she murmured something her husband up and said you are not well what is it what shall i get ee smelling she said quickly and desperately at that s shop you were in just now he up like the anxious old man that he was caught up his own hat from a back table and without observing the other hastened out and downstairs left alone she gazed and gazed at the back of the door then rang the bell an country maid servant appeared in response a hat murmured pointing with her finger it does not belong to us o yes i ll take it away said the young woman with some hurry it belongs to the other gentleman she spoke with a certain awkwardness and took the hat out of the room had recovered her outward composure the other gentleman she said where is the other gentleman he s in the next room ma am he removed out of this to oblige ee how can you say so i should hear him if he were there said sufficiently recovered to argue down an apparent he s there said the girl then it is strange that he makes no noise said mrs the girl of by a look he makes no noise but it is not strange said the servant all at once a dread took possession of the bride s heart like a cold hand laid for it flashed upon her that there was a possibility of the girl s statement with her own knowledge of facts a mere why does he make no noise she weakly said the waiting maid was silent and looked at her if i tell you ma am you won t she promised because he	45
s a dead said the girl he s the that was day o said the bride covering her eyes then he was in this room till just now yes said the maid thinking the young lady s agitation natural enough and i told that i thought she t to have done it because i don t hold it right to keep visitors so much in ihe dark where death s concerned but she said the gentleman didn t die of anything she was a poor honest s wife she says who had to get her living by making hay while the sun and owing to the gentleman being brought here she said it kept so many people away that we were empty though all the other houses were full so when your good man set his mind upon the room and she have lost good paying folk if he d not had it it wasn t to be supposed she said that she d let anything stand in the way ye won t say that i ve told ye please m m all the linen has been changed and as the won t be till to morrow after you are gone she thought you wouldn t know a word of it being strangers here the returning footsteps of her husband broke off further waved her hand for she could not speak the waiting maid quickly withdrew and mr entered with ihe smelling and other any better he questioned i don t like the hotel she exclaimed almost simultaneously i can t bear it it doesn t suit me is that all that s the matter he returned this being the first time of his showing such a mood upon my heart and life such trifling is tr ring to any a mere man s temper sending me about from here to and then when i come back saying ye don t like the place that i have sunk so much money and words to get for ee od it all tis enough to but i won t say any more at present deer though it is just too much to expect to out of the house now we shan t get another quiet place at this time of the evening every other in the town is bustling with folk of one sort and t other while here tis as quiet as the grave the country i would say so bide still d ye hear and to morrow we shall be out of the town altogether as early as you like the obstinacy of age had in short its and the young woman said no more the simple course of him that in the adjoining room lay a corpse which had lately occupied their own might it would have seemed have been an effectual one without further disclosure but to allude to that subject however it was disguised was more than s young wife had strength for horror broke her down in the one thing only presented itself to her regard that here she was doomed to abide in a hideous to the dead husband and the living and her e did in fact bear itself out that night she lay between the two men she had married on the one hand and on the other through the against which the bed stood charles vi kindly time had withdrawn the foregoing event three days from the present of it was ten o clock in the morning she had been ill not in an ordinary or definite sense but in a state of cold from which it was difficult to arouse her so much as to say a few sentences when questioned she had replied that she was pretty well z a mere their trip as such had been something of a failure they had gone on as far as but here he had given way to her entreaties to return home this they could not very well do without through pen at which place they had now again arrived in the train she had seen a weekly local paper and read there a paragraph the on charles it was added that the funeral was to take place at his native town of on friday after reading this she had shown no reluctance to enter the fatal neighbourhood of the tragedy only that they should take their rest at a different lodging from the first and now comparatively up and calm indeed a cooler creature altogether than when last in the town she said to david that she wanted to walk out for a while as they had plenty of time on their hands to a shop as usual i suppose deer partly for she said and it will be best for you dear to stay in after trotting about so much and have a good rest while i am gone he assented and forth as she had stated her first visit was made to a shop a s without the exercise of much choice she purchased a black bonnet and veil also a black stuff gown a black mantle she already wore these articles were made up into a parcel which in spite of the s offers her customer said she would take with her bearing it on her arm she turned to the railway and at the station got a ticket for thus it appeared that on her recovery from the mood of the former day while she had resolved not to blast utterly tiie happiness of her present husband by revealing the history of the departed one she had also determined to indulge a certain odd feminine sentiment of decency to the small extent to which it could do no harm to any person at she emerged from a mere the railway carriage in the black attire purchased at the shop having during the made the change in the empty she	45
same for her understanding that he meant money she handed him some at which he thanked her and instantly went away vn k on this occasion but the awkward one and should have that sooner or later the secret was she suspected any rate she had not heard the last of the in a day or two when her husband had gone to the old town on the other side of the island there came a gentle tap at the door and the worthy witness of her fi t marriage made his appearance a second time it took me hours to get to the bottom of the m hours he said with a gaze of de which offended her pride very deeply but thanks to a good intellect i ve done it now ma am i m not a man to tell tales even when a tale would be so good as this but i m going back to the again and a little assistance would be as rain on thirsty ground i helped you two days ago b an a mere yes but what was that my good lady not enough to pay my passage to pen i came over on your account for i ht there was a mystery somewhere now i must go back on my own mind this be very aw ard for you if your old man were to know he s a queer temper though he may be she knew as well as her visitor how awkward it would be and the hush money she paid was heavy that day she had however the satisfaction of watching the man to the steamer and seeing him out of sight but perceived tiiat the system into which she had been led of silence thus was one fatal to her peace of mind particularly if it had to be continued hearing no more from the she hoped the difficulty was past but another w by when as she was pacing the g name given to the personage in the company of i bundle t this is the lady my this ma am is my wife we f town for a time if so be we can mi tliat you won t do said she here who is not privileged i am privileged said the by my trade went on but in the afternoon she received a visit from the man s wife the honest woman began to in forcible colours the necessity for keeping up the concealment i will with my husband ma am she said he s a true man if rightly managed and i ll beg him to your proposition tis a very nice house you ve got here she added glancing and well worth a uttle sacrifice to keep it the off the danger on this third occasion as e had done on the previous two but she formed a resolve that if the attack were once a mere more to be repeated she would face a revelation worse that must new be than before she had attempted to purchase silence by her never her capable of acting upon such an intention came again but she shut the door in their faces they retreated muttering something but she went to l e back of the house where david she looked at him unconscious of all the case was serious she knew that well and all the more serious in that she liked him better now than she had done at first yet as she herself b an to see the secret was one that was sure to disclose itself her name and charles s stood written in the and though a month only had passed as yet it was a his union with her discovered by his friends thus b inevitable die spoke to i have something to tell first she had discerned or two he had seemed business harassed him he replied with a sigh yes certainly deer when they had reached the sitting and shut the door she repeated faintly david i have something to tell you a sort of tragedy i have concealed you will hate me for having so far deceived you but perhaps my telling you voluntarily will make you think a little better of me than you would do otherwise tragedy he said awakening to interest much you can about deer that have been in the world so short a time she saw that he suspected nothing and it made her task the harder but on she went steadily it is about something that happened before we were married she said a mere indeed r not a very long time before a short time and it is about a lover she faltered i don t much mind that he said mildly in truth i was in hopes twas more in hopes well yes this her up to the necessary effort i met my old sweetheart he scorned me me dared me and i went and married him we were coming straight here to tell you all what we had done but he was drowned and i thought i would say nothing about him and i married you david for the sake of peace and i ve tried to keep it from you but have found i cannot there that s the substance of it and you can never never forgive me i am sure she spoke desperately but the old man instead of turning black or blue or her in his indignation up from his chair and began to around the room in quite an emotion o happy thing how well it falls he exclaimed snapping his fingers over his head ha ha the knot is cut i see a way out of my trouble ha ha she looked at him without uttering a sound till as he still continued smiling joyfully she said o what	45
do you mean is it done to torment me no no o deer your story helps me out of the most heart aching a poor man ever found himself in you see it is this got a tragedy too and unless you had had one to tell i never have seen my way to tell mine what is yours what is it she asked with altogether a new view of things well it is a mine is a said he looking on the and wiping his eyes not worse than mine well that depends upon how you look at it a mere yours had to do with the past alone and i don t mind it you see we ve been married a month and it don t jar upon me as it would if we d only been married a day or two now mine to past present and future so that past present and future she murmured it never occurred to me that you had a tragedy too but i have he said shaking his head in fact four then tell em cried the young woman i will i will but be considerate i b ee deer well i wasn t a bachelor when i married ee any more than you were a just as you was a widow woman i was a widow man ah said e with some surprise but is that all then we are nicely balanced she added relieved no it is not all there s the point i am not only a o david i am a with four that is to say four girls the eldest taller than you don t ee look so struck dumb like it fell out in this way i knew the poor woman their mother in pen for some years and to cut a long story short i privately married her at last just she died i kept the matter secret but it is getting known among the people here by degrees i ve long felt for the children that it is my duty to have them here and do something for them i have not had courage to break it to ee but i ve seen lately that it would soon come to your ears and that worried me are they educated said the ex no i am sorry to say they have been much neglected in truth they can hardly read and so i thought by marrying a young i should get some one in the house who could teach em and bring em into genteel condition all for nothing you see they are up too tall to be sent to school a mere o mercy r she almost moaned four great girls to teach the to and have always in the house with me over their books and i hate teaching it me i am bitterly i am you ll get used to em deer and the balance of secrets mine against yours will comfort your heart with a sense of justice i could send for em this week very well and i will in faith i could send this very day you have relieved me of all my difficulty thus the interview ended so far as this matter was concerned was too to say more and when she went away to her room she wept from very mortification at mr s education the one thing she the shame of it to a young wife so the meal came round as they sat not suffer her eyes to turn towards him he did not attempt to intrude upon her reserve but every now and then looked under the table and chuckled with satisfaction at the aspect of affairs how very well matched we be he said comfortably next day when the steamer came in saw her husband rush down to meet it and soon after there appeared at her door tall girls in height and size from the eldest to the youngest like a row of pan pipes at the head of them standing he smiled pleasantly through the grey fringe of his whiskers and beard and turning to the girls said now come and shake hands properly with your thus she made their and he went out leaving them together on examination the poor girls turned out to be not only plain looking which she could have forgiven but to have such a meagre intellectual as to be hopelessly inadequate as companions even the eldest almost her own age only read with difficulty words of two a mere and taste in dress was beyond their comprehension in the long vista of future years she saw nothing but dreary at her detested old trade without prospect of she went about quite despairing during the next few days an unfortunate mood for a woman who had not been married six weeks from her parents she concealed everything they had been amongst the few acquaintances of who knew nothing of his secret and were indignant enough when they saw such a ready made household upon their only child but she would not support them in their no you don t yet know all she said thus had sense enough to see the of this issue for some time whenever conversation arose between her and an which was not often she always said i am miserable and you know it yet i don t wish things to be otherwise but one day when he asked how do you like em now her answer was unexpected much better than i did she said quietly i may like them very much some day this was the beginning of a season for the spirit of an she had in truth discovered underneath the crust of and meagre which was due to their existence that her daughters had natures that were	45
unselfish almost to the harsh discipline accorded to their young lives before their mother s wrong had been had less to crush them than to lift them above all personal ambition they considered the world and its contents in a purely way and their own lot seemed only to affect them as that of certain human beings among the rest whose troubles they knew rather than suffered this was such an entirely new way of regarding life to a woman of s nature that her attention a mere from being first arrested by it became deeply interested by her heart expanded in with theirs the sentences of her her life confused till now became clearer daily that in humanity as by these girls there was nothing to dislike but infinitely to pity she learnt with the lapse of each week in their company she grew to like the girls of exterior and from liking she got to love till they formed an point of between her own and her husband s interests a sterling friendship at least between a pair in whose existence there had threatened to be neither friendship nor love october the romantic adventures of a the romantic adventures of a it was half past five o clock by the testimony of the land my authority for the particulars of this story a gentleman with the faintest curve of on his lips it was half past five o clock on a may morning in the eighteen a dense white fog hung over the of the ending against the hills on either side but though nothing in the could be seen from higher ground notes of kinds gave pretty dear indications that bustling life was going on there this audible presence and absence of an active scene had a peculiar effect above the fog level nature had laid a white hand over the creatures within the as a hand might be laid over a nest of birds the noises that ascended through the pallid were mingled with voices in and and bark of a dog these followed by the of a gate explained as well as could have done to any of the district that s under was driving the cows from the into the when a accent joined in the of man and beast it would have been realized that the himself had come out to meet the cows in hand and white on and when moreover s the romantic adventures of a some women s voices joined in the chorus that the cows were and proceedings about to commence a hush followed the atmosphere being so that the milk could be heard into the together with occasional words of the and men don t ye bide about long upon the road you can be back again by time the rough voice of was the vehicle of this remark the gate again and in two or three minutes a something became visible rising out of the fog in that quarter the shape revealed itself as that of a woman having a young and gait the colours and other details of her dress were then disclosed a bright pink cotton frock because winter was over a small shawl of shepherd s because summer was not come a white handkerchief tied over her head gear because it was so so damp and so early and a straw bonnet and ribbons peeping from imder the handkerchief because it was likely to be a sunny may day her face was of the hereditary type among families down in these parts sweet in expression perfect in hue and somewhat irregular in feature her eyes were of a liquid brown on her arm she carried a basket in which lay several butter in a nest of wet leaves she was the who had been told not to bide about long upon the road she went on her way across the fields sometimes above the fog sometimes below it not much perplexed by its presence except when the track was so indefinite that it ceased to be a guide to the next the was such that innumerable lay in couples across the path till startled even by her light tread they withdrew suddenly into their holes she kept clear of all trees why was that there was no danger of lightning on such a morning as this but though the roads were dry the fog had gathered the romantic adventures op a in the boughs causing them to set up such a dripping as would go dean through the protecting handkerchief like bullets and spoil the ribbons beneath the and ash were for they more than any it was an instance of woman s keen of nature s moods and peculiarities a man crossing those fields might hardly have perceived that the trees at all in less than an hour she had traversed a distance of four miles and arrived at a cottage in a secluded spot an elderly woman scarce answered her knocking delivered up the butter and said how is this morning i can t stay to go up to her but tell her i have returned what we owed her her grandmother was no worse than usual and receiving back the empty basket the girl proceeded to carry out some intention which had not been included in her orders instead of returning to the light labours of time she hastened on her direction being towards a little neighbouring town before however had proceeded far she met the laden to the neck with letter bags of which he had not yet deposited one are the shops open yet samuel she said o no replied that stooping not waiting to stand upright they won t be open yet this hour except the and and little machine man for the farm folk their shutters at half past six then the baker s at seven then the s at eight o the s at eight	45
he seemed affected by her wish simply as it the romantic adventures of a had been expressed she had scarcely conceived that such a tall dark man know what gentle feelings were well i am much obliged to you for caring how i am said he with a faint smile and an affected lightness of manner which even to her only rendered more apparent the gloom beneath i have not slept this past night i suffer from probably you do not laughed a little and he glanced with interest at the comely picture she presented her fresh face brown hair candid eyes manner country dress pink hands empty basket and the handkerchief over her bonnet well he said after his scrutiny i need hardly have asked such a question of one who is nature s own image ah but my good little friend he added to his bitter tone and sitting wearily down you don t know what great clouds can hang over some people s lives and what some men are in face of them to escape themselves they travel take picturesque houses and engage in country sports but here it is so dreary and the fog was horrible this morning why this is only the pride of the morning said by and by it will be a beautiful day she was going on her way forthwith but he detained detained her with words talking on every innocent little subject he could think of he had an object in keeping her there more serious than his words would imply it was as if he feared to be left alone while they still stood the misty figure of the whom had left a quarter of an hour earlier to follow his course crossed the grounds below them on his way to the house to by a wave of his hand that she was to step back out of sight in the hinder angle of the shelter the gentleman beckoned to the to bring the the romantic adventures of a bag to where he stood the man did so and again resumed his journey the stranger the bag and threw it on the seat having taken one letter from within this he read attentively and his countenance changed the change was almost as if the sun had burst through the fog upon that face it became dear bright almost radiant yet it was but a change that may take place in the commonest human being provided his countenance be not too wooden or his have not grown to second nature he turned to who was again off and seizing her hand appeared as though he were about to embrace her checking his he said my guardian child my good friend you have saved me what from she ventured to that you may never know she thought of the weapon and guessed that the letter he had just received had this change in his mood but made no observation till he went on to say what did you tell me was name dear girl she repeated her name margaret he stooped and pressed her hand sit down for a moment one moment he said pointing to the end of the seat and taking the further end for himself not to her she sat down it is to ask a question he went on and there must be confidence between us you have saved me from an act of madness what can i do for you nothing sir nothing father is very well off and we don t want anything but there must be some service i can render some kindness some offering which i could make and so on memory as long as you live that i am not an ungrateful man why you be to me sir the romantic adventures of a he k his head some things are best left now think what would you like to have best in the world made a pretence of reflecting then fell to reflecting seriously but the negative was ultimately as undisturbed as ever she could not decide on anything she would like best in the world it was too too sudden very well don t hurry yourself think it over all day i ride this afternoon you live where house i will ride that way homeward this evening do you consider by eight o clock what little article what little treat you would most like of any i will sir said now warming up to the idea where shall i meet you or will you call at the house sir ah no i not wish the known out of which our acquaintance rose it would be more proper but no too seemed rather anxious that he should not call i could come out sir she said my father is odd tempered and perhaps it was agreed that she look over a at the top of her father s garden and that he should ride along a bridle path outside to receive her answer said the gentleman in conclusion now that you have discovered me imder ghastly conditions are you going to reveal them and make me an object for the gossip of the curious no no sir she replied earnestly why should i do that you will never tell never never will i tell what has happened here this morning neither to your father nor to your friends nor to any one to no one at all she said it is he answered you mean what the romantic adventures op a you say my dear maiden now you want to leave me good bye she descended the hill walking with some awkwardness for she felt the stranger s eyes were upon her till the fog had enveloped her from his gaze she took no notice now of the dripping from the trees she was lost in thought on other things had she saved this	45
handsome melancholy sleepless foreign gentleman who had had a trouble on his mind till the letter came what had he been going to do could guess that he had meditated death at his own hand strange as the incident had been in itself to her it had seemed stranger even than it was colours each other by being it is the same with lives reaching the opposite side of the park there appeared before her for the third time that little old man the foot post as the road ran the s beat was twelve miles a day six miles out from the town and six miles back at night but what with ways to to farms courses and to the ground actually covered by him was nearer one and twenty miles hence it was that who had come straight was still abreast of him despite her long pause the sense that she was mixed up in a secret with an and handsome stranger prevented her joining very readily in chat with the for some time but a keen interest in her adventure caused her to respond at once when the bowed man of said you hit the grounds of mount lodge miss or you wouldn t ha met me here well somebody took the old place at last in acknowledging her route brought herself to ask who the new gentleman might be guide the girl s heart what don t she know and yet how should ye he s only just a come the romantic adventures of a well he s a fishing come for the summer only but more to the subject he s a foreign noble that s lived in england so long as to be without any true some of his letters call him baron some squire so that a must be bom to something that can t be earned by elbow and christian conduct he was out this morning a watching the fog a said good morning give me the bag o yes a s a civil genteel nobleman enough took the house for h ing did he that s what they say and as it can be for nothing else i suppose it s true but in final his health s not good a b he s been living too the london smoke got into his till a couldn t eat however i shouldn t mind having the run of his kitchen and what is his name ah there you have me tis a name no man s tongue can tell or even woman s except by pen and good it begins with x and who without the machinery of a clock in s inside can speak that but here tis from his letters the with his walking stick wrote upon the ground baron von ill the day as she had turned out fine for weather wisdom was with their milk by the children of the the impending meeting excited and she performed her duties in her father s house with were done her father was asleep in the settle the and maids were gone home to their cottages and the dock showed the romantic adventures op a a quarter to eight she dressed herself with care went to the top of the garden and looked over the the view was eastward and a great moon hung before her in a sky which had not a cloud nothing was moving except on the scale and she remained leaning over the night hawk sounding his from the bough of an isolated tree on the open here waited till the appointed time had passed by three quarters of an hour but no baron came she had been full of an idea and her heart sank with disappointment then at last the pacing of a horse became audible on the soft path without leading up from the water simultaneously with which she beheld the form of the stranger riding home as he had said the moonlight so her face as to make her very conspicuous in the garden gap ah my maiden what is your name he said how came you here but of course i remember we were to meet and it was to be at eight i have kept you waiting it doesn t matter sir i ve thought of something of something yes sir you said this morning that i was to think what i would like best in the world and i have made up my mind i did say so to be sure i did he replied collecting his thoughts i remember to have had good reason for gratitude to you he placed his hand to his brow and in a minute alighted and came up to her with the bridle in his hand i was to give you a treat or present and you could not think of one now you have done so let me hear what it is and i ll be as good as my word to go to the ball that s to be given this month the ball ball he the romantic adventures op a as if of all in the world this was what he had least expected where is what you call the ball at have you ever been to it before no sir or to any ball no but did i not say a gift a present or a treat ah yes or a treat he echoed with the air of one who finds himself in a slight fix but with whom would you propose to go i don t know i have not thought of that yet you have no friend who could take you even if i got you an invitation looked at the moon no one who can dance she said adding with hesitation i was thinking that perhaps but my dear he said stopping her as if	45
he half divined what her simple dream of a had been it is very odd that you can think of nothing else than going to a ball think again you are sure there is nothing else quite sure sir she answered at first nobody would have noticed in that pretty young face any sign of decision yet it was the mouth though soft was firm in line the eyebrows were distinct and extended near to each other i have thought of it all day she continued sadly still sir if you are sorry you me anything i can let you off sorry certainly not he said rather i ll show you that whatever hopes i have raised in your breast i am honourable enough to gratify if it lies in my power he added with sudden firmness you shall go to the ball in what building is it to be held in the assembly rooms the romantic adventures op a and would you be likely to be recognized there do you know many people not many sir none i may say i know nobody who goes to balls ah well you must go since you wish it and if there is no other way of getting over the difficulty of having nobody to take you i ll take you myself would you like me to do so i can dance o yes sir i know that and i thought you might offer to do it but would you bring me back again of course i ll bring you back but by the bye can you dance yes what and and country dances like the new ship and follow my lover and haste to the wedding and the college and the favourite and captain white s dance a very good list a very good but i fear they don t dance any of now but if you have the instinct we may soon cure your ignorance let me see you dance a moment she stood out into the garden path the being still between them and seizing a side of her skirt with each hand performed the movements which are even yet far from in the dances of the villagers of merry england but her motions though graceful were not precisely those which appear in the figures of a modem ball room well my good friend it is a very pretty sight he said warming up to the proceedings but you dance too well you dance all over your person and that s too thorough a way for the present day i should say it was exactly how they danced in the time of your poet but as people don t dance like it now we must consider first i must inquire more about this ball and then i must see you again if it is a great trouble to you sir i no i will think it over so far so good the romantic adventures of a the baron mentioned an evening and an hour when he would be passing that way again then mounted his horse and rode away on the next occasion which was just when the sun was changing places with the moon as an of she found him at the spot before her and by a horse the melancholy that had so weighed him down at their first interview and had been perceptible at their second had quite disappeared he pressed her right hand between both his own across the my good maiden bless you said he warmly i cannot help thinking of that morning i was too much over at first to take in the whole force of it you do not know all but your presence was a miraculous now to more cheerful matters i have a great deal to tell that is if your wish about the ball be still the same o yes sir if you don t object never think of my what i have found out is something which matters in addition to your ball at there is also to be one in the next county about the same time this ball is not to be held at the town hall of the town as usual but at lord s who is colonel of the regiment and who i suppose wishes to please the because his brother is going to stand for the now i find i could take you there very well and the great advantage of that ball over the ball in this is that there you would be absolutely and i also but do you prefer your own neighbourhood o no sir it is a ball i long to see i don t know what it is like it does not matter where good then i shall be able to make much more of you there where there is no possibility of recognition that being settled the next thing is the dancing now and such things do not do for think the romantic adventures op a of this there is a new dance at s and else over which the world has gone crazy how dreadful ah but that is a mere expression gone mad it is really an ancient dance but such is the power of fashion that having once been adopted by society this dance has made tour of the continent in one season what is its name sir the young people who always dance are about it and old people who have not danced for years have begun to dance again on its account all share the excitement it arrived in london only some few months ago it is now all over the country now this is your opportunity my good to learn this one dance will be enough they will dance scarce anything else at that ball while to crown all it is the easiest dance in the world and as i	45
know it quite well i can practise you in the step suppose we try showed some hesitation before crossing the it was a in more way than one but the curious reverence which was stealing over her for all that this stranger said and did was too for prudence she crossed the withdrawing with her to a nook where two high hedges met and where the grass was elastic and dry he lightly rested his arm on her waist and practised with her the new step of fascination instead of music he whispered numbers and she as may be supposed showed no slight in following his instructions thus they moved round the moon shadows from the twigs racing over their forms as they turned the interview lasted about half an hour then he somewhat abruptly handed her over the and stood looking at her from the other side well he what has come to pass is the romantic adventures op a strange my whole business after this will be to recover my right mind always declared that there seemed to be some power in the stranger that was more than human something and when he seized her and gently trotted her round but lingering emotions may have led her memory to play with the scene and her vivid imagination at that youthful age must be taken into account in believing her however there is no doubt that the stranger whoever he might be and whatever his powers taught her the elements of modem dancing at a certain interview by moonlight at the top of her father s garden as was proved by her possession of knowledge on the subject that could have been acquired in no other way his was of the first rank of commanding figures she was one of the most of and to casual view it would have seemed all of a piece with nature s doings that things should go on thus but there was another side to the case and whether the strange gentleman were a wild olive tree or not it was questionable if the acquaintance would lead to happiness a fleeting romance and a possible calamity thus it might have been up by the practical was in paradise and yet she was not at this date distinctly in love with the stranger what she felt was something more mysterious more of the nature of veneration as he looked at her across the she spoke timidly on a subject which had apparently occupied her long i ought to have a ball dress ought i not sir certainly and you shall have a ball dress really no doubt of it i won t do things by for my best friend i have thought of the ball dress and of other things also and is my dancing good enough the romantic adventures of a quite quite he paused into thought and looked at her he said do you trust yourself to me yes sir she replied brightly if i am not too much trouble if i am good enough to be seen in your society the baron laughed in a peculiar way really i think you may assume as much as that however to business the ball is on the twenty fifth that is next day week and the only difficulty about the dress is the size suppose you lend me this and he touched her on the shoulder to signify a tight little jacket she wore was all obedience she took it off and handed it to him the baron rolled and compressed it with all his force till it was about as large as an apple and put it into his the next thing he said is about getting the consent of your friends to going have you thought of this there is only my father i can tell him i am invited to a party and i don t think he ll mind though i rather not tell him but it strikes me that you must inform him something of what you intend i would strongly advise you to do so he spoke as if rather perplexed as to the probable custom of the english in such matters and added however it is for you to decide i know nothing of the circumstances as to getting to the ball the plan i have arranged is this the direction to lord s being the other way from my house you must meet me at three walks end in wood two miles or more from here you know the place good by meeting there we shall save five or six miles of journey a consideration as it is a long way now for the last time are you still firm in your wish for this particular treat and no other it is not too late to give it up the romantic adventures op a cannot you think of something else something better some household articles you require s countenance which before had been beaming with expectation lost its brightness her lips became close and her voice broken you have offered to take me and now no no no he said patting her cheek we will not think of anything else you shall go iv but whether the baron in such a distant spot for the was in hope she might fail him and so relieve him after all of his undertaking cannot be said though it might have been strongly suspected from his manner that he had no great zest for the responsibility of her but he little knew the firmness of the young woman he had to deal with she was one of those soft natures whose power of to an acquired idea seems to be one of the special attributes of that softness to go to a ball with this mysterious personage of romance was her ardent desire and aim and none the less in that she	45
up her old dress put it in the box and thrust the latter on a ledge as high as she could reach standing on she waved the handkerchief through the upper and bent to the to go out but what a trouble stared her in the face the dress was so airy so and so extensive that to get out in her new clothes by the which had admitted her in her old ones was an impossibility she heard the baron s steps over the dead sticks and leaves o sir she began in despair what can t you dress yourself he inquired from the back of the trunk the romantic adventures op a yes but i can t get out of this dreadful tree he came to the opening stooped and looked in it is obvious that you cannot he said taking in her compass at a glance and adding to himself charming who would have thought that clothes could do so much wait a minute my little maid i have it he said more loudly with all his might he kicked at the sides of the and by that means broke away several pieces of the rotten but being armed about the feet he abandoned that process and went for a fallen branch which lay near by using the large end as a he tore away pieces of the wooden shell which and all her loveliness till the was large enough for her to pass without tearing her dress she breathed her relief the silly girl had begun to fear that she would not get to the ball after all he carefully wrapped her a cloak he had brought with him it was and of a length whidi covered her to the heels the carriage is waiting down the other path he said and gave her his arm a short over the soft dry leaves brought them to the place indicated there stood the the horses the coachman all as still as if they were growing on the spot like the trees s eyes rose with some timidity to the coachman s figure you need not mind him said the baron he is a foreigner and nothing in the space of a short minute she was handed inside the baron up his overcoat and surprised her by mounting with the coachman the carriage moved silently over the long grass of the vista the shadows deepening to black as they proceeded darker and darker grew the night as they rolled on the neighbourhood familiar to was soon left behind and she had not the remotest idea of the direction they were taking the stars the romantic adventures op a out the coachman lit his lamps and they on again in the course of an and a half they arrived at a small town where they pulled up at the chief inn and changed horses all being done so readily that their advent had plainly been expected the journey was immediately her companion never descended to speak to her whenever she looked out there he sat upright on his perch with the mien of a person who had a difficult duty to perform and who meant to perform it properly at all costs but could not help feeling a certain dread at her situation almost indeed a wish that she had not come once or twice she thought suppose he is a wicked man who is taking me off to a foreign country and will never bring me home again but her characteristic in an original idea sustained her against these except at odd moments one incident in particular had given her confidence in her escort she had seen a tear in his eye when she expressed her sorrow for his troubles he may have divined that her thoughts would take an turn for when they stopped for a moment in ascending a hill he came to the window are you tired he asked kindly no sir are you afraid n no sir but it is a long way we are almost there he answered and now he said in a lower tone i must tell you a secret i have obtained this invitation in a peculiar way i thought it best for your sake not to come in my own name and this is how i have managed a man in this county for whom i have lately done a service one whom i can trust and who is personally as unknown here as you and i has privately transferred his card of invitation to me so that we go imder his name i explain this that you may not say by accident keep your ears the romantic adventures op a open and be cautious having said this the baron retreated again to his place then he is a wicked man after all she said to herself for he is going under a false name but she soon had the not to mind it wickedness of that sort was the one required just now to finish him oflf as a hero in her eyes they descended a hill passed a lodge then up an avenue and presently there beamed upon them the light from other carriages drawn up in a file which moved on by degrees and at last they halted before a large arched doorway round which a group of people stood we are among the latest on account of the distance said ttie baron but never mind there are three hours at least for your enjoyment the steps were promptly flung down and they alighted the steam from the of their as they seemed to her ascended to the of the porch and from their nostrils the hot breath forth like smoke out of the attention of all the bewildered was led by the baron up the steps to the interior of the house whence the sounds of music and dancing were already	45
proceeding the tones were strange at every fourth beat a deep and mighty note through the air reaching s soul with all the force of a blow what is that powerful tune sir i have never heard anything like it she said the drum answered the baron the strange dance i spoke of and that we practised introduced from my and other parts of the continent her surprise was not lessened when at the entrance the romantic adventures of a to the she heard the names of her conductor and herself announced as mr and miss brown however nobody seemed to take any notice of the the room beyond being in a perfect of gaiety and s consternation at sailing under false colours subsided at the same moment she observed awaiting them a dark haired rather lady in cream coloured satin who is she asked of the baron she is the lady of the mansion he whispered she is the wife of a peer of the realm the daughter of a has five christian names and ever speaks to except for political how divine what joy to be here as she contemplated the diamonds that flashed from the head of her who was just inside the door in of a little gilded chair upon whidi she sat in the intervals between one arrival and another she had come down from at great inconvenience to herself openly to promote this entertainment as mr and miss brown expressed absolutely no meaning to lady for there were three already present in this rather mixed assembly and as there was possibly a awkwardness in poor s manner lady touched their hands with the tips of her long gloves said how d ye do and turned round for more comers ah if she only knew we were a rich baron and his friend and not mr and miss brown at all she wouldn t receive tis like that would she whispered indeed she wouldn t dry let us drop into the dance at o here you see dance much wc almost before she was aw mysterious influence by the other upon his shoulder room to tne si s on at the first gaze the apartment had seemed to her to be with black ice the figures of the dancers appearing upon it down at last she realized that it was highly polished oak but she was none the less afraid to move i am afraid of falling down she said lean on me you will soon get used to it he you have no nails in your shoes now dear his words like all his words to her were quite true she foimd it easy in a brief space of time the floor far from her was a positive assistance to one of her al and moreover her marvellous dress of twelve inspired her as nothing else could have done a new creature she was prompted to new deeds to feel as well dressed as the other women around her is to set any woman at her ease she may have come to feel much better dressed is to add radiance to that ease her prophet s statement on the popularity of the at this was amply borne out it was among the seasons of its general in country houses the enthusiasm it excited to night was beyond description and scarcely to the youth of the present day a new motive power had been introduced into the world of the as a to the new motive power that had been introduced into the world of prose steam the romantic adventures of a powers of supper had banished the fatigue of her drive sometimes she heard people who are they brother and sister father and daughter and never dancing except with each other how odd but of this she took no notice when not dancing the watchful baron took her through the drawing rooms and picture galleries adjoining which to night were thrown open like the rest of the house and there her in some nook he drew her attention to scrap books prints and and left her to amuse herself with turning them over till the dance in which she was practised should again be called would much have preferred to about during these intervals but the words of the baron were law and as he commanded so she acted in such the evening winged away till at last came the gloomy words time is up one more only one she for the longer they stayed the more freely and gaily moved the dance this entreaty he granted but on her asking for yet another he was inexorable no he said we have a long way to go then she bade adieu to the wondrous scene looking over her shoulder as they withdrew from the hall and in a few minutes she was and in the carriage the baron to his seat on the box where e saw him light a cigar they plunged imder the trees and she back and gave herself up to contemplate the images that filled her brain the al result followed she fell asleep she did not awake till they stopped to change horses when she saw against the stars the baron sitting as erect as ever he watches like the angel when all the world is asleep she thought with the of motion she slept again and knew no more till he touched her hand and said our journey is done we are in wood the romantic adventures op a it was almost daylight scarcely knew herself to be awake till she was out of the carriage and standing beside the baron who having told the coachman to drive on to a certain point indicated turned to her now he said smiling run across to the hollow tree you know where it is i ll wait as before	45
this night s excursion he may be angry with you and part from you for ever with him already in the field i had no right to take you at all he undoubtedly ought to have taken you which really might have been arranged if you had not deceived me by you had nobody s face wore that aspect of woe which comes from the consciousness of having been guilty of an but he wasn t good enough to take me sir she said almost crying and he isn t absolutely my master until i have married him is he tliat s a subject i cannot go into however we alter instead of you as i did at first to tell of this experience to your friends i must now impress on you that it will be best to keep a silent tongue on the matter perhaps for ever and ever it may come right some day and you may be able to say all s that ends well now good morning my friend think of jim and forget me ah perhaps i can t do that she said with a tear in her eye and a full throat do best i can say no more he turned and retreated into the wood and sighing went on her way vi between six and seven o clock in the evening of the same day a young man descended the hills into the the romantic adventures of a valley of the at a point about between and the residence of s grandmother four miles to the east he was a son of the country as far removed from what is known as the provincial as the latter is from the out and out gentleman of culture his trousers and waistcoat were of almost white but he wore a jacket of old fashioned blue west of england cloth so well preserved that evidently the article was to a box whenever its owner engaged in such active occupations as he usually pursued his complexion was fair almost and he had scarcely any beard a novel attraction about this young man which a glancing stranger would know nothing of was a rare and freshness of atmosphere tiiat to him to his clothes to all his even to the room in which he had been sitting it might almost have been said that by adding him and his implements to an over crowded apartment you made it this resulted from his trade he was a lime he handled lime daily and in return the lime rendered him an of his hair was dry fair and the latter possibly by the operation of the same agent he carried as a walking stick a green whose growth had been to a pattern by a as he descended to the level ground of the he cast his glance westward with a that revealed him to be in search of some object in the distance it was rather difficult to do this the low sunlight dazzling his eyes by glancing from the river away there and from the as they were called in his path narrow artificial for conducting the water over the grass his course was something of a from the necessity of finding points in these convenient for thus peering and leaping and winding the romantic adventures of a he drew near the the central river of the a moving spot became visible to him in the direction of his scrutiny mixed up with the rays of the same river the spot got nearer and revealed itself to be a slight thing of pink cotton and shepherd s pursued a path on the brink of the stream the man so shaped his course as to on the path a little ahead of this coloured form and when he drew near her he smiled and the girl smiled back to him but her smile had not the life in it that the young man s had shown my dear here i am he said gladly in an as with a last leap he crossed the last intervening and stood at her side youve come all the way from the on purpose to meet me and you shouldn t have done it she reproachfully returned we finished there at four so it was no trouble and if it had been why i should ha come a small sigh was the response what you are not even so glad to see me as you would be to see your dog or cat he continued come mis ess this is rather hard but by how tired you dew look why if you d been up all night your eyes couldn t be more like tea you ve walked far that s what it is the weather is getting warm now and the air of these low l ring is not in i wish you lived up on higher ground with me beside the you d get as strong as a well there all that will come in time instead of sa ring yes the fair maid repressed another sigh what won t it then he said i suppose so she answered if it is to be it is well said very well said my dear and if it isn t to be it isn t the romantic adventures op a what who s been putting that into your head your i suppose however how is she i have been thinking to day in fact i was thinking it yesterday and au the week that really we might settle little business this summer this she repeated with some dismay but the remember it was not to be till after that was completed there i have you said he taking the liberty to pat her shoulder and the further liberty of advancing his hand behind it to the other the is settled tis vine and now and	45
be the forms of those giants who he supposed had heaped it up often he upon it and walked about the summit thinking out the problems connected with his business his partner his future his it was what he did this evening continuing the meditation on the young girl s manner that he had begun upon the road and still as then finding no due to the change while thus engaged he observed a man coming up the to the business messages were almost invariably left at the house and jim watched the man with the interest by a belief that he had come on a personal matter on nearer approach jim recognized him as the gardener at mount lodge some miles away if this meant business the baron of whose arrival jim had vaguely heard was a new and customer it meant nothing else apparently the man s errand was simply to inform jim that the baron required a load of lime for the garden the romantic adventures of a you might have saved yourself trouble by leaving word at mr vine s said jim i was to see you personally said the gardener and to say that the baron like to inquire of you about the different qualities of lime proper for such purposes couldn t you teu him yourself said jim he said i was to tell you that replied the gardener and it wasn t for me to interfere no motive other than the one could possibly be by jim at this time and the next morning he started with great in his best business suit of clothes by eleven o clock he and his horse and cart had arrived on the baron s premises and the lime was deposited where directed an exceptional spot just view of the windows of the south front baron von pale and melancholy was in the sun on the slope between the house and the all the year round he looked across to where jim and the gardener were standing and the identity of being established by what he brought the baron came down and the gardener withdrew the baron s first inquiries were as jim had been led to suppose they would be on the effects of lime upon and in its different conditions of and ground and in the lump he appeared to be much interested by jim s explanations and eyed the young man closely whenever he had an opportunity and i hope trade is prosperous with you this year said the baron very my noble lord replied jim who in his on the proper method of address wisely concluded that it was better to by giving too much honour than by giving too little in short trade is looking so well that i ve become a partner in the firm indeed i am glad to hear it so now you are settled in life the romantic adventures op a well my lord i am hardly settled even now for i ve got to finish it i mean to get married that s an easy matter compared with the now a man might think so my baron said jim getting more confidential but the real truth is tis the part of all for me your suit i hope it don t said jim it don t at all just at present in short i can t for the life o me think what s come over the young woman lately and he fell into deep reflection though jim did not observe it the baron s brow became with self reproach as he heard those simple words and his eyes had a look of pity indeed since when he asked since yesterday my noble lord jim spoke he was upon a bold stroke why not make a of this kind gentleman instead of the parson as he had intended the thought was no sooner conceived than acted on my lord he i have heard that you are a nobleman of great scope and talent who has seen more strange countries and characters than i have ever heard of and know the of men weu therefore i would fain put a question to your noble if i may so trouble you and having nobody else in tiie world who could inform me so any advice i can give is at your service what do you h to know it is this my baron what can i do to bring down a young woman s ambition that s got to such a towering height there s no reaching it or it how get her to be pleased with me and my station as she used to be when i first knew her truly that s a hard question my man what does she to she s got a for fine furniture how long has she had it the romantic adventures of a only just now the baron seemed still more to experience regret what furniture does she specially he asked silver work tables looking glasses gold tea things silver tea pots gold curtains pictures and i don t know what all things i shall never get if i live to be a hundred not so much that i couldn t raise the money to buy em as that i ought to put it to other uses or save it for a rainy day you think the possession of those articles would make her happy i really they might my lord good open your pocket book and write as i tell you jim in some astonishment did as commanded and his pocket book against the garden wall thoroughly his pencil and wrote at the baron s pair of silver work table and work box one large mirror two small one gilt china tea and coffee service one silver tea pot coffee pot sugar basin and dozen french clock pair of curtains six large pictures now said the	45
baron tear out that leaf and give it to me keep a dose tongue about this go home and don t be surprised at anything that may come to your door but my noble lord you don t mean that your is going to give never mind what i am going to do only keep your own i perceive that though a plain you are by no means deficient in tact and if sending these things to you gives me why should you object the fact is i occasionally take an interest in people and like to do a little for them i take an interest in you now go home and a week hence invite the young woman and her father to tea with you the rest is in own hands the romantic adventures op a a question often put to jim in after times was why it had not occurred to him at once that the baron s liberal conduct must have been dictated more personal than sudden spontaneous generosity to him a stranger to which jim always answered that admitting the existence of such generosity there had appeared nothing remarkable in the baron himself as its object the baron had told him that he took an interest in him and self esteem even with the most modest is usually sufficient to over ride any little difficulty that might occur to an in for a preference he moreover considered that foreign rich and eccentric might have habits of acting which were quite at with those of their english so he drove off homeward with a lighter heart than he had known for several s to have a foreign gentleman take a fancy to him what a triumph to a plain sort of fellow who had scarcely expected the to look in his face it would be a fine story to tell when the baron gave him liberty to speak out jim lodged at the house of his cousin and partner richard vine a of fifty odd years having failed in the development of a household of direct descendants this had been glad to let his chambers to his much younger relative when the latter entered on the business of lime manufacture and their intimacy had led to a jim lived upstairs his partner lived down and the furniture of all the rooms was so plain and old fashioned as to excite the special dislike of miss and even to prejudice her against jim for it not were the chairs and tables queer but with due regard to the principle that a man s surroundings should bear the impress of that man s life and occupation the chief ornaments of the dwelling were a curious collection of that had the romantic adventures of a been discovered from time to time in the lime of strange substance some of them like remains the head of the firm was a quiet living though friendly man of fifty and he took a serious interest in jim s love suit frequently inquiring how it and assuring jim that if he chose to marry he might have all the upper floor at a low rent he mr vine himself entirely with the ground level it had been so convenient for discussing business matters to have jim in the same house that he did not wish any change to be made in consequence of a change in jim s domestic estate knew of this wish and of jim s and did not like the idea at all about four days after the young man s interview with the baron there drew up in front of jim s house at noon a lad i with cases and large and small they were all addressed to mr and they had come from the largest in that part of england three quarters of an hour were occupied in getting the cases to jim s rooms the wary jim did not show the amazement he felt at his patron s and presently the senior partner came into the passage and wondered what was upstairs oh it s only some things of mine said jim coolly bearing upon the coming event eh said his partner exactly replied jim mr vine with some astonishment at the number of cases shortly after went away to the whereupon jim shut himself into his rooms and there he might have been heard up and opening boxes with a cautious hand afterwards appearing outside the door with them empty and carrying them off to the a triumphant look lit up his face when a little the romantic adventures op a later in the afternoon he sent into the to the and invited and her father to his to supper she was not that day and her father expressing a hard and fast acceptance of the invitation she agreed to go with him meanwhile at home jim made himself as mysteriously busy as before in those rooms of his and when his partner returned he too was asked to join in the supper at went to the door where he stood till he heard the voices of his guests from the direction of the low now covered with their frequent of fog the voices grew more distinct and then on the white surface of the fog there appeared two heads from which bodies and a horse and cart gradually extended as the approaching pair rose the house when they had entered jim pressed s hand and conducted her up to his rooms her waiting below to say a few words to the senior lime bless me said jim to her on entering the i quite f oi ot to get a light beforehand but i ll have one in a stood in the middle of the dark room while jim struck a match and then the girl s eyes were conscious of a burst of light and e rise into being	45
of a pair of handsome silver containing two candles that jim was in the act of lighting why where you have like that said her eyes flew the room as the growing candle flames showed other articles too and lovely china why i knew nothing of this i declare yes a few things that came to me by accident said jim in quiet tones and a great gold clock under a glass and a swinging for a and o what a lovely woods of every colour and a work box to the romantic adventures of a match may i look inside that work box jim whose is it o yes look at it of course it is a poor enough thing but tis mine and it will belong to the woman i marry whoever she may be as well as all the other things here d the curtains and the looking glasses why i declare i can see myself in a hundred places that tea set said jim placidly pointing to a gorgeous china service and a large silver tea pot on the side table i don t use at present being a but says i to myself whoever i marry will want some such things for giving her parties or i can sell em but i haven t took steps for t yet sell em no i should think not said with earnest reproach why i hope you wouldn t be so foolish why this is exactly the kind of thing i was thinking of when i told you of the things women could want of course not meaning myself particularly i had no idea that you had such valuable was to speak so much was she amazed at the wealth of jim s possessions at this moment her father and the lime came upstairs and to appear womanly and proper to mr vine repressed the remainder of her surprise as for the two elderly it was not till they entered the room and sat down that their slower eyes discerned anything brilliant in the then one of them stole a glance at some article and the other at another but each being tm willing to express his wonder in the presence of his s they received the objects before them with quite an accustomed air the lime inwardly trying to conjecture what au this meant and the musing that if jim s business allowed him to at this rate the sooner became his wife the better retreated to the work table work box and tea service which she examined with hushed exclamations the romantic adventures op a an entertainment thus begun could not fail to progress well whenever s old father felt the need of a civil sentence the la of jim s fancy articles inspired him to one while the lime having reasoned away his first ominous thought that all this had come out of the firm also felt proud and jim accompanied his friends part of the way home before they her father finding that jim wanted to speak to her privately and that she exhibited some turned to and said come come my lady no more of this nonsense you just step behind with that man and i and the cart will wait for you a little scared at her father s obeyed it was plain that jim had won the old man by that night s stroke if he had not won her i know what you are going to say jim she began less now for e was no longer imder the novel influence of the shining silver and glass well as you desire it and as my father desires it and as i suppose it will be the best course for me i will fix the day not this evening but as soon as i can think it over viii notwithstanding a press of business jim went and did his duty in thanking the baron the latter saw him in his fishing tackle room an apartment with every that a of the rod could require and when is the wedding day to be the baron asked after jim had told him that matters were settled it is not quite certain my noble lord said jim cheerfully but i hope not be long after the time when god a mighty the little apples and when is that so the romantic adventures of a st s the middle of july tis to be some time in that month she tells me when jim was gone the baron seemed meditative he went out ascended the and entered the weather screen where he looked at the seats as though re in his fancy the scene of that memorable morning of fog he turned his eyes to the angle of the shelter which had suddenly appeared like a vision and it was plain that he would not have minded her appearing there then the juncture had indeed been such an impressive and critical one that she must have seemed rather a heavenly messenger than a passing more especially to a man like the baron who despite the mystery of his origin and life revealed himself to be a melancholy character the of this forest and stream behind the mount the ground rose yet higher ascending to a plantation which sheltered the house the baron strolled up here and bent his gaze over the distance the valley of the lay before him with its shining river the that fed it and the springs that fed the the situation of s house was visible though not the house itself and the baron gazed that way for an infinitely long time till remembering himself he moved on instead of returning to the house he went along the ridge till he arrived at the verge of wood and in the same manner under the trees not pausing	45
till he had come to three end and the hollow elm hard by he peeped in at the in the soft dry of that the hollow s tracks were still visible as she had made them there when dressing for the ball little the baron in a moment he thought better of this mood and turned to go home but behold a form stood behind him that of the girl whose name had been on his lips she was in utter confusion i i did not know the romantic adventures op a you were here sir she began i was out for a little walk she could get no further her eyes filled with tears that of even hardness which her in jim s company disappeared in the presence of the baron never mind never mind said he a severe manner whatever he felt the meeting is awkward and ought not to have occurred especially if as i suppose you are shortly to be married to james but it cannot be helped now you had no idea i was here of course neither had i of seeing you remember you cannot be too careful continued the baron in the same grave tone and i strongly request you as a friend to do your utmost to avoid meetings like this when you saw me before i turned why did you not go away i did not see you sir i did not think of seeing you i was walking this way and i only looked in to see the tree that shows you have been thinking of things you should not think of the baron could answer nothing a brow beaten glance almost of misery was all she gave him he took a slow step away from her then turned suddenly back and stooping kissed her cheek taking her as much by surprise as ever a woman was taken in her life immediately after he went off with a flushed face and rapid strides which he did not check till he was within his own boundaries the season now set in vigorously and the were all drawn in the to drain off the water the streams ran themselves dry and there was no longer any difficulty in walking about among them the baron could very well witness from the about his house the activity which followed these the white of the in the sun the the romantic adventures op a flashed voices echoed of song floated about and there were glimpses of red wheels purple gowns and many coloured handkerchiefs the baron had been told that the was to be followed by the wedding and had he gone down the to the he would have had evidence to that effect s house was in a of bustle and among other difficulties was that of turning the cheese room into a genteel apartment for the time being and hiding the awkwardness of having to pass through the to get to the parlour door these household appeared to interest much more than the great question of dressing for the ceremony and the ceremony itself in all relating to that she showed an indescribable which later on was well remembered if it were only somebody else and i was one of the i really think i should like it better she murmured one afternoon away with thee that s only your shyness said one of the it is said that about this time the baron seemed to feel the effects of solitude strongly solitude the simple instincts of primitive man and lonely country afford rich soil for emotions moreover idleness waters those impulses which a short season of turmoil would stamp out it is difficult to speak with any of the bearing of such conditions on the mind of the baron a man of whom so little was ever truly known but there is no doubt that his mind ran much on as an individual without reference to her rank or quality or to the question whether she would marry jim that summer she was the single lovely human thing within his present horizon for he lived in absolute seclusion and her image affected him but leaving conjecture let me state what hap the romantic adventures op a one evening two or three weeks after his accidental meeting with her in the wood he wrote the note following dear you must not suppose that because i spoke somewhat severely to you at our chance encounter by the hollow tree i have any feeling against you par from it now as ever i have the most grateful sense of your considerate kindness to me on a momentous occasion which shall be nameless you solemnly promised to come and see me whenever i should send for you can you call for five minutes as soon as possible and those from which i am so unfortunate as to suffer if you refuse i will not answer for the consequences i shall be in the summer shelter of the mount to morrow morning at half past ten if you come i shall be grateful i have also for you yours x in keeping with the tenor of this the self oppressed baron ascended the mount on sunday morning and sat down there was nothing here to signify exactly the hour but before the church bells had begun he heard somebody approaching at the back the light footstep moved timidly first to one recess and then to another then to the third where he sat in the shade poor stood before him she looked worn and weary and her little shoes and the skirts of her dress were covered with dust the weather was the being already high and powerful and rain had not fallen for weeks the baron who walked little had thought nothing of the effects of this heat and in fatigue a distance which had been but a	45
e kept on and drew near the door on the threshold she stood listening the house was silent were visible in the passage and also the carefully swept and path to the gate which she was to have trodden as a bride but the over it as if it were abandoned and all appeared to have been checked at its the romantic adventures op a like a clock stopped on the strike till this moment of the suspended animation of the scene she had not realized the full shock of the which her disappearance must have caused it is quite certain apart from her own repeated assurances to that in later years that in hastening off that morning to her sudden engagement had not counted the cost of such an enterprise while a dim notion that she might get back again in time for the ceremony if the message meant nothing serious should also be mentioned in her favour but upon the whole she had obeyed the call with an obedience worthy of a in primitive times a conviction that the baron s life might depend upon her presence for she had by this time divined the event she had interrupted on the morning took from her all will to judge and consider calmly the simple affairs of her and hers seemed nothing beside the possibility of harm to him a well known step moved on the floor within and she went forward that she saw her father s face before her just within the door can hardly be said it was rather reproach and rage in a human mask what i ye have dared to come back alive to look upon the you have practised on honest people you ve us all i don t want to see ee i don t want to hear ee i don t want to know anything he walked up and down the room unable to command himself nothing but being dead could have excused ee for not meeting and marrying that man this morning and yet you have the brazen impudence to stand there as well as ever what be you here for i ve come back to marry jim if he wants me to she said faintly and if not perhaps so much the better i was sent for this morning early i thought she halted to say that she had s the romantic adventures of a thought a man s death might happen by his own hand if she did not go to him never do i was obliged to go she said i had given my word why didn t you tell us then so that the wedding could be put off without making fools o us because i was afraid you t let me go and i had made up my mind to go to go where she was silent till she said i will tell jim all and why it was and if he s any friend of mine he ll excuse me not jim he s no such fool jim had put all ready for you jim had called at your house a dressed up in his new wedding clothes and a smiling like the sun jim had told the parson had got the in tow and the clerk a waiting and then you was gone then jim turned as pale as and out if she don t marry me to day a said she don t marry me at all no let her look elsewhere for a husband for years i ve put up with her haughty tricks and her a said i ve and i ve i ve bought and i ve sold all wi an eye to her i ve suffered he says yes them was his noble words but i ll suffer it no longer she shall go jim says i you be a man if she s alive i commend ee if she s dead pity my old age she isn t dead says he for i ve just heard she was seen walking off across the fields this morning looking all of a scornful triumph he turned round and went and the rest o the neighbours went and here be i left to o t he was too hasty murmured for now he s said this i can t marry him to morrow as i might ha done and perhaps so much the better you can be so calm about it can ye be my arrangements nothing then that you should break em up and say off hand what wasn t done to day might ha been done to morrow and such the romantic adventures op a out o my sight i won t hear any more i won t speak to ee any more i ll go away and then you ll be sorry very well go not i he turned and stamped his way into the went upstairs she too was excited now and instead of herself in her bedroom till her father s rage had blown over as she had often done on lesser occasions she packed up a bundle of articles crept down again and went out of the house she had a place of in these cases of necessity and her father knew it and was less alarmed at seeing her depart than he might otherwise have been this place was s gate the house of her grandmother who always took s part when that young woman was particularly in the wrong the way she pursued to avoid the vicinity of mount lodge was tedious and she was already weary but the cottage was a place to arrive at for she was her own mistress there her grandmother never coming downstairs and the woman who lived with and attended her being a except in muscle and voice the approach was by a straight	45
open road bordered by thin trees all sloping away from the south west and the scene bore a strange resemblance to certain bits of dutch landscape which have been on the world s eye by and his school having explained to her that the wedding was put oflf and that she had come to stay one of s first acts was carefully to pack up the and case her wedding present from the baron the conditions of the gift were and she wished it to go back instantly perhaps in the of her bosom there a greater satisfaction with the reason for returning the present than she would have felt just then with a reason for keeping it the romantic adventures of a to send the article was difficult in the evening she wrapped herself up searched and found a veil that had been used by her grandmother in past years for of bees buried her face in it and forth with a heart till she drew near the of her god the baron she ventured only to the back door where she handed in the parcel addressed to him and quickly came away now it seems that during the day the baron had been unable to learn the result of his attempt to return in time for the event he had interrupted wishing for obvious reasons to avoid direct inquiry by messenger and being too to go far himself he could learn no particulars he was sitting in thought after a lonely dinner when the parcel failure was brought in the footman whose had been excited by the mode of its arrival peeped through the after closing the door to learn what the packet meant directly the baron had opened it he thrust out his feet vehemently from his chair and began cursing his conduct in bringing about such a disaster for the return of the not only no wedding that day but none to morrow or at any time i have done that innocent woman a great wrong he murmured deprived her of perhaps her opportunity of becoming mistress of a happy home x a considerable period of followed among all concerned nothing tended to the obscurity which veiled the life of the baron the position he occupied in the minds of the country folk around was one which combined the of a character with the deeds of a modem gentleman to this day whoever takes the trouble to go z the romantic adventures op a down to in lower and make inquiries will find existing there almost a superstitious feeling for the moody melancholy stranger who resided in the lodge some forty years ago whence he came whither he was going were alike unknown it was said that his mother had been an english lady of noble family who had married a foreigner not unheard of in circles where men pile up the heaps of strange achieved gold that he had bom and educated in england taken abroad and so on but the facts of a life in such cases are of little account beside the aspect of a life and hence though doubtless the years of his existence contained their share of and homely the curtain which all this was never lifted to gratify such a theatre of spectators as those at therein lay his charm his life was a of which the central strokes only were drawn with any distinctness the away to a blank he might have been said to that solitary bird the the still lonely stream was his frequent haunt on its banks he would stand for hours with his rod looking into the water beholding the inhabitants with the eye of a philosopher and seeming to say bite or don t bite it s all the same to me he was often mistaken for a ghost by children and for a willow by men when on their way home in the dusk they saw him motionless by some bank of the decline of day why did he come to fish near that was never explained as far as was he had no relatives near the fishing there was not good the society was decidedly meagre that he had committed some folly or hasty act that he had been accused of some crime thus rendering his seclusion from the world desirable for a while very well with his frequent melancholy but such as he was there he lived well sup the romantic adventures op a plied with fishing tackle and tenant of a furnished house just suited to the of such an eccentric being as he s father having privately ascertained that she was living with her grandmother and getting into no harm refrained from communicating with her in the hope of seeing her at his door it had of become known about that at the last moment refused to wed by herself from the house jim was pitied yet not pitied much for it was said that he ought not to have been so eager for a woman who had shown no anxiety for him and where was jim himself it must not be supposed that that had all this while withdrawn from mortal eye to tear his hair in silent indignation and despair he had in truth merely retired up the between the downs to his and the ancient above it and there after his first hours of natural he quietly waited for from the possibly but no arrived and then he meditated anew on the absorbing problem of her and how to set about another campaign for her conquest notwithstanding his late disastrous failure why had he failed to what was her strange conduct owing that was the thing which puzzled him he had made no advance in the riddle when one morning a stranger appeared on the down above him looking as if he had lost his way the man had a good deal of black	45
hair below his felt hat and carried under his arm a case containing a musical instrument descending to where jim stood he asked if there were not a short cut across that way to where a f te was to be held well yes there is said jim but tis an enormous distance for ee the romantic adventures op a h yes replied the i wish to the on the highway the nearest way was precisely in the direction of s gate where as jim knew was staying having some time to spare jim was strongly impelled to make a kind act to the lost a pretext for taking observations in that neighbourhood and telling his acquaintance that he was going the same way he started without further they skirted the long length of and in due time arrived at the back of s gate where the path joined the high road a hedge divided the public way from the cottage garden jim drew up at this point and said your road is straight on i turn back here but the was standing fixed as if in great perplexity thrusting his hand into his forest of black hair he murmured ly it is the same surely jim following the direction of his neighbour s eyes found them to be fixed on a figure till that moment hidden from himself who was crossing the garden to an opposite gate with a uttle cheese in her arms her head thrown back and her face quite exposed what of her said jim two months ago i formed one of the band at the ball given by lord in the next county i saw that young lady dancing the there in robes of and lace now i see her carry a cheese never said jim but i do not mistake i say it is so jim the idea the protested and was about to lose his temper when jim gave in with the good nature of a person who can afford to despise opinions and the went his way as he out of sight jim began to think more carefully over what he had said the young man s thoughts grew quite to an excitement for there the romantic adventures op a came into his mind the baron s extraordinary kindness in regard to furniture hitherto accounted for by the assumption that the nobleman had taken a fancy to him could it be among all the amazing things of life that the baron was at the bottom of this mischief and that he had amused himself by taking t a ball doubts and suspicions which some lovers to only served to bring out jim s great qualities where he trusted he was the most trusting fellow in the world where he doubted he could be guilty of the once suspicious he became one of those subtle watchful characters who without integrity make good thieves with a little good with a little more good jim was honest and he considered what to do his steps he peeped again she had gone in but she would soon for it could be seen that she was carrying little new one by one to a spring cart and horse outside the gate her grandmother though not a regular still managing a few cows by means of a man and maid with the lightness of a cat jim crept round to the gate took a piece of chalk from his pocket and wrote upon the boarding the baron then he retreated to the other side of the garden where he had just watched in due time she emerged with another little cheese came on to the garden door and glanced upon the words which confronted her she started the cheese rolled from her arms to the ground and broke into pieces like a she looked fearfully round her face burning like sunset and seeing nobody stooped to pick up the jim with a pale face departed as as he had come he had proved the s tale to be true on his way back he formed a resolution it was to beard the in his den to call on the baron the romantic adventures of a meanwhile had recovered her and gathered up the broken cheese but she could by no means account for the handwriting jim was just the sort of fellow to play her such a trick at ordinary times but she imagined him to be far too against her to do it now and she suddenly wondered if it were any sort of signal from the baron himself of him she had lately heard nothing if ever monotony pervaded a life it pervaded hers at s gate and she had begun to despair of any happy change but it is precisely when the social atmosphere seems that great events are s quiet was broken first as we have seen by a slight start only sufficient to make her drop a cheese and then by a more serious matter she was inside the same garden one day when she heard two talking without the conversation was to the effect that the strange gentleman who had taken mount lodge for the season was seriously ill how ill cried through the hedge which her from recognition bad said one of the of the lungs said the other got wet fishing the first in could gather no more an ideal admiration rather than any positive passion existed in her breast for the baron she had of late seen too little of him to allow any views of him as a lover to grow to formidable dimensions it was an extremely romantic feeling delicate as an capable of to an active principle or dying to a as the case might be this news of his illness coupled with the mysterious on the gate troubled her and revived his image much she took to walking up and	45
down the garden paths looking into the hearts of flowers and not thinking what they were his last request the romantic adventures of a had been that she was not to go to him if he should send for her and now she asked herself was the name on the gate a hint to enable her to go without the letter of her promise thus unexpectedly had jim s ten days passed all she could hear of the baron were the same words bad till one afternoon after a gallop of the physician to the lodge the tidings spread like lightning that the baron was dying distressed herself with the question whether she might be permitted to visit him and say her prayers at his bedside but she feared to venture and thus eight and forty hours slipped away and the baron still lived despite her shyness and awe of him she had almost made up her mind to call when just at dusk on that october evening somebody came to the door and asked for her she could see the messenger s head against the low new moon he was a man servant he said he had been all the way to her father s and had been sent thence to her here he simply brought a note and delivering it into her hands went away dear ran the note they say i am not likely to live so i want to see you be here at eight o clock this evening come quite alone to the side door and tap four times softly my man wiu admit you the occasion is an important one prepare yourself for a solemn ceremony which i wish to have performed while it lies in my power von xi s face flushed up and her neck and arms glowed in sympathy the quickness of youthful imagination and the of woman s reason sent her straight as an arrow this thought he wants to marry me she had heard of similar strange proceedings in which the orange flower and the sad were people sometimes wished on their the romantic adventures op a death beds from motives of esteem to form a legal tie which they had not cared to establish as a domestic one during their active life for a few minutes could hardly be called excited she was excitement itself between surprise and modesty she blushed and trembled by turns she became grave sat down in the solitary room and looked into the fire at seven o clock she rose resolved and went quite upstairs where she speedily began to dress in making this hasty toilet nine of her care were given to her hands the summer had left them slightly brown and she held them up and looked at them with some the fourth finger of her left hand more especially hot and cold certain from bee and flower known only to country girls everything she could think of were used upon those little hands till she persuaded herself that they were really as white as could be wished by a husband with a hundred titles her dressing completed she left word with that she was going for a long walk and set out in tiie direction of mount lodge she no longer like a girl but walked like a woman while crossing the park she murmured von in a of her own the sound of that title caused her such agitation that she was obliged to pause with her hand upon her heart the house was so closely by on three of its sides that it was not till she had gone nearly round it that she found the little door the resolution she had been an hour in forming failed her when she stood at the while pausing for courage to tap a carriage drove up to the front entrance a little way off and peeping round the comer she saw alight a and a gentleman in whom fancied that she recognized a well known from the neighbouring town she the romantic adventures of a had no longer any doubt of the nature of the ceremony proposed it is sudden but i must obey him murmured and tapped four times the door was opened so quickly that the servant must have been standing immediately inside she thought him the man who had driven them to the ball the silent man who could be trusted without a word he conducted her up the back staircase and through a door at the top into a wide corridor she was to wait in a little dressing room where there was a fire and an old metal framed over the in which she caught sight of herself a red spot in each of her cheeks the rest of her face was pale and her eyes were like diamonds of the water before she had been seated many minutes the man came back noiselessly and she followed him to a door covered by a red and black curtain which he lifted and ushered her into a large chamber a light stood on a table before her and on her left the of a tall dark four post her view of the centre of the room ever here seemed of such a magnificent to her eyes that she felt confused to half her height half her strength half her the man who had conducted her retired at once and some one came softly round the angle of the bed he held out his hand kindly rather it was the whom she knew by sight this gentleman led her forward as if she had been a lamb rather than a woman till the of the bed was revealed the baron s eyes were closed and her entry had been so noiseless that he did not open them the of his face nearly matched the white bed linen and his dark hair and heavy	45
black moustache were like of ink on a clean page near him sat the parson and another gentleman whom she afterwards learnt to be a london physician and on the the romantic adventures op a parson whispering a few words the baron opened his eyes as soon as he saw her he smiled faintly and held out his hand would have wept for him if she had not been too and to do anything she quite forgot what she had come for shook hands with him mechanically and could hardly return an answer to his weak dear you see how i am how are you in preparing for marriage she had not calculated on such a scene as this her affection for the baron had too much of the vague in it to afford her now she wished she had not come on a sign from the baron the lawyer brought her a chair and the oppressive silence was broken by the baron s words i am pulled down to death s door he said and i suppose i soon shall pass through my peace has been much disturbed in this illness for just before it attacked me i received that present you returned from which and in other ways i learnt that you had lost your chance of marriage now it was i who did the harm and you can imagine how the news has affected me it has worried me all the illness through and i cannot dismiss my error from my mind i want to right the wrong i have done you before i die you have always obeyed me and strange as the request may be will you obey me now she whispered yes well then said the baron these three gentlemen are here for a special purpose one helps the body he s called a physician another helps the soul he s a parson the other helps the understanding he s a lawyer they are here partly on my account and partly on the speaker then made a sign to the lawyer who went out of the door he came back almost instantly but not alone behind him dressed up in the romantic adventures of a his best clothes with a flower in his and a bridegroom s air walked jim xii could hardly repress a scream as for flushing and blushing she had turned hot and turned pale so many times already during the evening that there was really now nothing of that sort left for her to do and she remained in complexion much as before o the mockery of it that secret dream that sweet word which had sustained her all the way along instead of a baron there stood jim white every hair in place and if she not even a spark in his eye jim s surprising presence on the scene may be briefly accounted for his resolve to seek an explanation with the baron at all risks had proved unexpectedly easy the interview had at once been granted and then seeing the crisis at which matters stood the baron had generously revealed to jim the whole of his to and knowledge of the truth of the baron s statement the innocent nature as yet of the his sorrow for the he had produced was so evident that far from having any doubts of his patron jim frankly asked his advice on the next step to be at this stage the baron fell ill and desiring much to see the two young people before his death he had sent anew to and proposed the plan which they were now about to attempt a marriage at the bedside of the sick man by special the influence at of some friends of the baron s and the charitable of his late mother to several deserving church funds were generally supposed to be among the reasons why the application for the was not refused the romantic adventures op a this however is of small consequence the baron probably knew in proposing this method of the marriage that his enormous power over her would any sentimental obstacles which she might set up inward objections that without his presence and firmness might prove too much for her acquiescence doubtless he foresaw too the advantage of getting her into the house before making the individuality of her husband clear to her mind now the baron s conjectures were right as to the event but wrong as to the motives was a perfect little on some occasions and one of them was when she wished to hide any sudden mortification that might bring her into ridicule she had no sooner recovered from her first fit of discomfiture than pride bade her anything rather than reveal her absurd disappointment hence the scene as follows come here said the invalid came near the baron holding her hand in one of his own and her lover s in the other continued will you in spite of your recent vexation with her marry her now if she does not refuse i will sir said jim promptly and what do you say it is merely a setting of things right you have already promised this young man to be his wife and should of course perform your promise you don t dislike jim o no sir she said in a low dry voice i like him better than i can tell you said the baron he is an honourable man and will make you a good husband you must remember that marriage is a life contract in which general of temper and worldly position is of more importance than fleeting passion which never long now will you at my earnest request and before i go to the south of europe to die agree to make this good man happy i have expressed your views on the subject haven t i the romantic	45
adventures of a to a t sir said jim emphatically with a motion of raising his hat to his influential ally till he remembered he had no hat on and though i could hardly expect to in for my asking i feel die ought to in for yours and you accept him my little friend yes sir she murmured if he ll agree to a thing or two doubtless he will what are they that i shall not be made to live with him till i am in the mind for it and that my having him shall be kept unknown for the present well what do you think of it anything that you or she may wish i ll do my noble lord said jim well her request is not unreasonable seeing that the proceedings are on my a little hurried so we ll proceed you rather expected this from my allusion to a ceremony in my note did you not yes sir said she with an effort good i thought so you looked so little surprised we now leave the scene in the bedroom for a spot not many yards off when the carriage seen by at the door was driving up to mount lodge it arrested the attention not only of the girl but of a man who had for some time been moving slowly about the opposite lawn engaged in some operation while he smoked a short pipe a short observation of his doings would have shown that he was some delicate plants from an expected frost and that he was the gardener when the light at the door fell upon the entering forms of parson and lawyer the former a stranger the latter known to him the gardener walked thoughtfully round the house reaching the small side entrance he was further surprised to see it noiselessly open to a young woman the romantic adventures of a in whose features he discerned those of altogether there was something curious in this the man returned to the lawn front and went on putting over certain plants though his thoughts were plainly otherwise engaged on the grass his footsteps were noiseless and the night moreover being still he could presently hear a murmuring from the bedroom window over his head the gardener took from a tree a ladder that he had used in that day set it the window and ascended half way his conscience by seizing a nail or two with his hand and their supporting powers he soon heard enough to satisfy him the words of a church service in the strange parson s voice were audible in through the blind they were words he knew to be part of the of matrimony such as wedded wife richer for poorer and so on the less familiar parts being a more or less confused sound satisfied that a wedding was in progress there the gardener did not for a moment dream that one of the parties could be other than the sick baron he descended the ladder and again walked the house waiting only till he saw from the same little door when fearing that he might be discovered he withdrew in the direction of his own cottage this building stood at the lower comer of the garden and as soon as the gardener entered he was by a handsome woman in a widow s cap who called him father and said that supper had been ready for a long time they sat down but during the meal the gardener was so abstracted and silent that his daughter put her head to one side and said what is it father dear ah what is it cried the gardener something that makes very uttle difference to me but may be of great account to you if you play your cards well the romantic adventures of a there s been a wedding at the lodge to he related to her with a caution to secrecy all that he had heard and seen we are folk that have got to get their he id and such ones mustn t teu tales about their lord forgive the mockery of the word but there s something to be made of it she s a nice maid so do you take the first chance you get for her before others know what has happened since this is done so privately it will be kept private for some till after his death no question when i expect she ll take this house for herself and blaze out as a widow lady ten thousand pound strong you being a widow she may make you her company keeper and so you ll have a home by a little while this conversation at the gardener s was on her way out of the baron s house she was indeed married but as we know she was not married to the baron the ceremony over she seemed but little and expressed a wish to return alone she had come to this of course no objection could be offered the terms of the agreement and wishing jim a good bye and the baron a very quiet farewell she went out by the door which had admitted her once safe and alone in the darkness of the park she burst into tears which dropped upon the grass as she passed along in the baron s room she had seemed scared and helpless now her reason and emotions returned the further she got away from the of that room and the influence of its the more she became of that she had acted foolishly she had left her father s house to obey him here she had pleased everybody but herself however thinking was now too late how she got into her grandmother s house she hardly knew but without a supper and without either her relative or she went to bed s the romantic	45
adventures of a xiii on going out into the garden next morning with a strange sense of being another person than herself she beheld jim leaning over the gate he nodded good morning he said good said mai ery in the same tone i beg your pardon he continued but which way was you going this morning i am not going anywhere just now thank you but i shall go to my father s by and by with she went on with a sigh i have done what he had all along wished that is married you and there s no longer reason for enmity him and me well as i am going the same way i can give you a lift in the trap for the distance is long no thank you i am used to walking she said they remained in silence the gate between them till jim s convictions would apparently allow him to hold his peace no longer this is a bad job he murmured it is she said as one whose thoughts have only too readily been identified how i came to agree to it is more than i can tell and tears began rolling down her cheeks the blame is more mine than yours i suppose he returned i ought to have said no and not backed up the gentleman in carrying out this scheme twas his own notion entirely as perhaps you know i should never have thought of such a plan but he said you d be willing and that it would be all right and i was too ready to believe him the thing is how to remedy it said she bitterly i believe of course in your promise to keep this private and not to trouble me by calling certainly said jim i don t want to trouble you as for that why my dear mrs the romantic adventures of a don t mrs met said sharply i won t be mrs jim paused well you are she by law and that was all i meant he said mildly i said i would acknowledge no such thing and i won t a thing can t be legal when it s against the wishes of the persons the laws are made to protect so i beg you not to call me that any more very well miss said jim we can live on exactly as before we can t marry anybody else that s true but beyond that there s no difference and no harm done your father ought to be told i suppose even if nobody else is it will partly reconcile him to you and make your life instead of directly replying exclaimed in a low voice o it is a mistake i didn t see it all owing to not having time to reflect i agreed thinking that at least i should get reconciled to father by the step but perhaps he would as soon have me not married at all as married and parted i must ha been enchanted when i gave my consent to this i only did it to please that dear good dying nobleman though why he should have wished it so much i can t tell nor i neither said jim yes we ve been into it he said with extraordinary gravity he s had his way wi us and now we ve got to suffer for it being a gentleman of patronage and having bought several loads of lime o me and having given me all that splendid i could refuse what did he give you that ay sure to help me win ye covered her face with her hands whereupon jim stood up from the gate and looked at her tis a plot between you two men to me she exclaimed why should you have the romantic adventures op a done it why should he have done it when i ve not deserved to be treated so he bought the furniture did he o i ve been taken in i ve been wronged the grief and vexation of finding that long ago when fondly believing the baron to have lover like feelings himself for her he was still to jim s suit was more than she endure jim with distant waited a straw till her was over one word miss mrs he then gravely you ll find me man enough to respect wish and to leave you to for ever and ever if that s all but i ve just one word of advice to render ee that is that before you go to yourself you let me drive ahead and call on your father he s friends with me and he s not friends with you i can break the news a little at a time and i think i can gain his good will for you now even though the wedding be no natural wedding at all at any count i can hear what he s got to say about ee and come back here and tell ee she nodded a cool assent to this and he left her strolling about the garden in the sunlight while he went on to as agreed it must not be supposed that jim s dutiful echoes of s regret at her marriage were all gospel and there is no doubt that his private intention after telling the farmer what had happened was to ask his temporary assent to her caprice till in the course of time she should be reasoned out of her and induced to settle down with jim in a natural manner he had it is true been somewhat by her firm objection to him and her keen sorrow for what she had done to please another but he hoped for the best but alas for the jim s calculations he drove on to the	45
whose white walls now gleamed in the morning made fast the horse to a ring in the romantic adventures of a the wall and entered the before knocking he perceived the walking across from a gate in the other direction as if he had just come in jim went over to him since the unfortunate incident on the morning of the intended wedding they had merely been on nodding terms from a sense of awkwardness in their relations what is that thee said in a voice which startled jim by its abrupt a pretty fellow thou b st it was a bad beginning for the young man s life as a son in law and ill for the delicate consultation he desired what s the matter said jim matter i wish some folks bum their lime without burning other folks property along wi it you ought to be ashamed of yourself you call yourself a man jim and an honest and a respectable market keeping and yet at six o clock this morning instead o being where you ought to ha been at your work there was neither veil or mark o thee to be seen faith i don t know what you are at said jim why the sparks from thy couch heap blew over upon my hay and the ride s to ashes and au to come out o my well squeezed pocket i ll tell thee what it is young man there s no business in thee i ve known folk quick and dead for the last couple o score year and i ve never knew one so three for harm as thee my gentleman lime and i reckon it one o the days o my life when i having thee in my family that maid of mine was right i was wrong she seed thee to be a rogue and twas her wisdom to go off that morning and get rid o thee i commend her for t and i m going to fetch her home to morrow you needn t take the trouble she s coming home the romantic adventures op a along to night of her own accord i have seen her this morning and she told me so so much the better i ll welcome her warm nation i d sooner see her married to the parish fool than thee not you you don t care for my hay about where you shouldn t be in bed no doubt that s what you was a doing now don t you my doors again and the sooner you be off my bit o the better i shall be pleaded jim looked as he felt if the had been really destroyed a little blame certainly attached to him but he could not how it had happened however blame or none it was clear he could not with any self respect declare himself to be this old s son in law in the face of such an as this for months almost years the one transaction that had seemed necessary to compose these two families satisfactorily was jim s with no sooner had it been completed than it appeared on all sides as the for both stating coldly that he would discover how much of the accident was to be attributed to his and pay the damage he went out of the and returned the way he had come had been keeping a for him particularly wishing him not to enter the house lest others should see the seriousness of their interview and as soon as she heard wheels she went to the gate which was out of view surely father has been speaking roughly to you she said on seeing his face not the least doubt that he have said jim but is he still angry with me not in the least he s waiting to welcome ee ah because i ve married you because he thinks you have not married me he s me up and down he hates me and for your sake i have not explained a word the romantic adventures of a looked towards home with a sad severe gaze mr she said we have made a great mistake and we are in a strange position true but i ll tell you what mistress i won t stand he stopped suddenly well well i ve promised he quietly added we must suffer for our mistake she went on the way to suffer least is to keep our own on what happened last evening and not to meet i must now return to my father he inclined his head in indifferent assent and she went indoors leaving him there xiv returned home as she had decided and resumed her old life at and seeing her father s towards jim she told him not a word of the marriage her inner life however was not what it once had been she had suffered a mental and a shock which had set a shade of astonishment on her face as a permanent thing her indignation with the baron for with jim at first bitter lessened with the lapse of a few weeks and at length vanished in the interest of some tidings she received one day the baron was not dead but he was no longer at the lodge to the surprise of the a sufficient improvement had taken place in his condition to permit of his removal before the cold weather came his desire for removal had been such indeed that it was advisable to carry it out at almost any risk the plan adopted had been to have him borne on men s shoulders in a sort of to the shore near a distance of several miles where a lay awaiting him by this means the noise and of a carriage along irregular roads were the romantic adventures op a avoided the singular procession	45
of a you shouldn t do that it is wrong you should control your feelings but how am i to control my feelings by going to your dead husband s grave and things of that sort do you go to your dead husband s grave how can i go to ah too true well i ve tried everything to cure myself read the words against it gone to the table the first sunday of every month and all sorts but my as my poor man used to say there tis just the same in short i ve made up my mind to encourage the new one tis flattering that i a should have been found out by a young man so soon who is he said a master lime a master lime that s his profession he s a partner in co doing very well indeed but what s his name i don t like to tell you his name for though tis night that covers all my face is as hot as a iron i declare do you just feel it put her hand on mrs s face and sure enough hot it was does he come she asked quickly well only in the way of business he never comes unless lime is wanted in the hood he s in the too and will look very fine when he comes out in for in may oh in the said with a slight relief then it can t is he a young man yes partner in co the description had an odd resemblance to jim of whom had not heard a word for months he had promised silence and absence and had fulfilled his promise literally with a addition that was rather amazing if indeed it were jim whom the widow s the romantic adventures op a loved one point in the description puzzled jim was not in the unless by a surprising development of enterprise he had entered it recently at parting said with an interest quite tender i should like to see you again mrs and hear of your attachment when can you call oh any time dear i m sure if you think am i good enough indeed i do mrs come as soon as you ve seen the lime again xv seeing that jim lived several miles from the widow was rather surprised and even felt a slight of the heart when her new acquaintance appeared at her door so soon as the evening of the following monday she asked to walk out with her which the young woman readily did i am come at once said the widow as soon as they were in the lane for it is so exciting that i can t keep it i must tell it to somebody if only a bird or a cat or a garden what is it asked her companion i ve pulled grass from my husband s grave to cure it the blades into true lover s knots took oflf my shoes upon the sod but my upon the sod why to feel the damp earth he s in and make the sense of it enter my soul but no it has swelled to a head he is going to meet me at the review the master lime the widow nodded when is it to be to morrow he looks so lovely in his he s such a splendid soldier that was the last straw that kindled my soul to say yes he s home from for a night between the con the romantic adventures of a mrs he goes back to morrow morning for the review and when it s over he s going to meet me but guide my heart there he is her exclamation had rise in the sudden appearance of a brilliant red through the trees and the tramp of a horse carrying the thereof in another half minute the military gentleman would have turned the comer and faced them he d better not see me he ll think i know too much said i ll go up here the widow whose thoughts had been of the same cast seemed much relieved to see disappear in the plantation in the midst of a spring chorus of birds once among the trees turned her head and before she could see the rider s person she recognized the horse as the of three that jim and his partner owned for the purpose of out lime to their customers jim then had joined the since his from a man who had worn the queen victoria s uniform for seven days only could not be expected to look as if it were part of his person in the manner of long trained soldiers but he was a well formed fellow and of an age when few positions came amiss to one who has the capacity to himself to meeting the blushing mrs to whom in her mind sternly denied the right to blush at all jim alighted and moved on with her probably at mrs s own suggestion so that what they said how long they remained together and how they parted not she might have known some of these things by waiting but the presence of jim had bred in her heart a sudden disgust for the widow and a general sense of discomfiture she went away in an opposite direction turning her head and saying to the unconscious jim there s a fine rod in for you my gentleman if you carry out that pretty scheme the romantic adventures op a jim s military had decidedly astonished her what he might do next she could not conjecture the idea of his doing anything sufficiently brilliant to arrest her attention would have seemed ludicrous had not jim by entering the revealed a capacity for dazzling exploits which made it to any to his powers	45
was now excited the daring of the wretched jim in ting into scarlet amazed her as much as his doubtful with the mrs to go to that review to watch the pair to mrs in brilliancy to meet and pass them in withering contempt if she only could do it but alas e was a forsaken woman if the baron were alive or in england she said to herself for sometimes she thought he might possibly be alive and he were to take me to this review wouldn t i show that forward mrs what a lady is like and keep among the select company and not mix with the common people at all it might at first sight be thought that the best course for at this juncture would have been to go to jim and the in the bud without further scruple but her own declaration in after days was that whoever could say that was far from her situation it was hard to break such ice as divided their two lives now and to attempt it at that moment was a too humiliating of defeat the only plan she could think of perhaps not a wise one in the circumstances was to go to the review herself and be the there a method of doing this with some propriety soon occurred to her she dared not ask her father who scorned to waste time in sight seeing and whose towards jim knew no but she might call on her old acquaintance mr vine jim s partner who would probably be going with the rest of the holiday folk and ask if she might accompany him in his spring trap she had no sooner perceived the romantic adventures op a the of this through her being at her grandmother s than she decided to meet with the old man early the next morning in the meantime jim and mrs had walked slowly along the road together jim leading the horse and mrs informing him that her father the gardener was at jim s village further on and that she had come to meet him jim for reasons of his own was going to sleep at his partner s that night and thus their route was the same the shades of eve closed in upon them as they walked and by the time they reached the lime which it was necessary to pass to get to the village it was quite dark jim stopped at the to see if matters had rightly in his seven days absence and mrs who stuck to him like a stopped also she would wait for her father there she held the horse while he ascended to the top of the then her and not quite knowing what to do he stood beside her looking at the flames which to night burnt up brightly shining a long way into the dark air even up to the of the above them and overhead into the of the clouds it was during this proceeding that a carriage drawn by a pair of dark horses came along the road the light of the caused the horses to a little and the of the carriage looked out he saw the lightning like flames from the rising from the top of the furnace and hard by the figures of jim the widow and the horse standing out with distinctness against the mass of night behind the scene wore the aspect of some in and it was all the more impressive from the fact that both jim and the woman were quite of the striking spectacle they presented the gentleman in the carriage watched them till he was borne out of sight the romantic adventures of a having seen to the jim and the widow walked on again and soon mrs s father met them and relieved jim of the lady when they had parted jim with an not unlike a breath of relief went on to mr vine s and having put the horse into the stable entered the house his partner was seated at the table himself after the of the day by luxurious between a long clay pipe and a of well said jim eagerly what s the news how do she take it sit down sit down said vine tis working well not but that i deserve something o thee for the trouble i ve had in watching her the was a fine move but the woman is a better who invented it i myself said jim modestly well jealousy is making her rise like a and in a day or two you ll have her for the asking my what s the next step the widow is getting rather a weight upon a worse luck said jim but i must keep it up to morrow at any rate i have promised to see her at the review and now the great thing is that should see we a smiling together i in my full dress uniform and arms o war be a good strong sting and will end the business i hope couldn t you manage to put the in and drive her there she d go if you were to ask her with all my heart said mr vine the end of a new pipe in his i can call at her s for her be all in my way xvi duly followed up her intention by herself the next morning in her loveliest guise and keeping watch for mr vine s appearance upon the the romantic adventures of a high road feeling certain that his would form one in the procession of carts and carriages which set in towards that day jim had gone by at a very early hour and she did not see him pass her anticipation was by the advent of mr vine about eleven o clock dressed to his highest effort	45
but was surprised to find that instead of her having to stop him he pulled in towards the gate of his own accord the invitation planned between jim and the on the previous given and as may be supposed as promptly accepted such a strange coincidence she had never before known she was quite ready and they drove onward at once the review was held on some high ground a little way out of the city and her conductor suggested that they should put up the horse at the inn and walk to the field a plan which pleased her well for it was more easy to take preliminary observations on foot without being seen herself than when sitting elevated in a vehicle they were just in time to secure a good place near the front and in a few minutes after their arrival the came on the s eye had rapidly run over the troop in which jim was and she discerned him in one of the ranks looking remarkably new and bright both as to uniform and indeed if she had not worked herself into such a desperate state of mind she would have felt proud of him then and there his upright figure was quite in the row of on his right and left while his expressed by his bearing even more than jim that he knew nothing about lime carts whatever and everything about and glory how jim could have to such shining blackness she could not tell for the horse in his natural state was with lime dust that burnt the colour out of his coat as it did out of jim s hair now he and was a war horse every inch of him the romantic adventures of a having discovered jim her next search was for mrs and by dint of some glancing indignantly discovered the widow in the most forward place of all her head and bright face advanced and what was more shocking she had abandoned her mourning for a violet drawn bonnet and a gay together with a fringed in a had never before seen where did she get the money said under her breath and to forget that poor sailor so soon these general reflections were postponed by her discovering that jim and the widow were perfectly alive to each other s whereabouts and in the of telegraph signs of affection which on the latter s part took the form of a playful fluttering of her handkerchief or waving of her richard vine had placed in front of him to protect her from the crowd as he said he himself the scene over her bonnet would have been even more surprised than she was if she had known that jim was not only aware of mrs s presence but so of her own the treacherous mr vine having drawn out his flame coloured handkerchief and waved it to jim over the young woman s head as soon as they had taken up their position my partner makes a tidy soldier eh miss said the senior lime it is my belief as a christian that he s got a party here that he s making signs to that handsome figure o straight him perhaps so she said and it s growing warm between em if i don t mistake continued the merciless vine was silent biting her lip and the troops being now set in motion all ceased for the present between soldier and his pretended sweetheart have you a piece of paper that i could make a on mr vine asked the romantic adventures of a vine took out his pocket book and tore a leaf from it which he handed her with a pencil don t move from here i ll return in a minute she continued with the innocence of a woman who means mischief and withdrawing herself to the back where the grass was clear she down the words jim s married armed with this document she crept into the throng behind the mrs slipped the paper into her pocket on the top of her handkerchief and withdrew unobserved mr vine with a bearing of by and by the troops were in different order jim taking a left hand position almost close to mrs he bent down and said a few words to her from her manner of nodding assent it was surely some arrangement about a meeting by and by when jim s was over and was more certain of the fact when the review having ended and the people having strolled off to another part of the field where sports were to take place mrs tripped away in the direction of the city i ll just say a word to my partner afore he goes off the ground if you ll spare me a minute said the old lime please stay here till i m back again he edged along the front till he reached jim how is she said the latter in a sweat said mr vine and my counsel to ee is to carry this no further do no good she s as ready to make friends with ee as any wife can be and more showing off can only do harm but i must finish off with a said jim and this is how i am going to do it i have arranged with mrs that as soon as we soldiers have entered the town and been dismissed i ll meet her there it is really to say good bye but she don t know that the romantic adventures of a and i wanted it to look like a to s eyes when i m dear of mrs i ll come back here and make it up with on the spot but don t say i m coming or she may be inclined to throw off again just hint to her that i may be meaning to	45
be off to london with the widow the old man still insisted that this was going too far no no it isn t said jim i know how to manage her just mellow her heart nicely by the time i come back i must bring her down real tender or all fail his senior reluctantly gave in and returned to a short time afterwards the band struck up and jim with the r followed towards yes yes they are going to meet said to herself perceiving that mrs had so timed her as to be in the town at jim s now we will go and see the games said mr vine they are really worth seeing there s greasy poles and in and other trials of the intellect that nobody ought to miss who wants to be abreast of his generation felt so indignant at the apparent which seemed about to take place despite her writing that she helplessly assented to go anywhere dropping behind vine that he might not see her mood jim followed out his programme with literal no sooner was the troop dismissed in the city than he sent to stable and joined mrs who stood on the edge of the pavement expecting him but this acquaintance was to end he meant to part from her for ever and in the time though for it was important to be with as soon as possible he had nearly completed the to his satisfaction when in drawing her handkerchief from her pocket to wipe the tears the romantic adventures of a from her eyes mrs s hand grasped the paper which she read at once what is that true she said holding it out to jim jim started and admitted that it was beginning an elaborate explanation and apologies but mrs was thoroughly roused and then overcome he s married he s married die said and or feigned to so that jim was obliged to support her he s married he s married said a boy hard by who watched the scene with interest he s married he s married said a group of other boys near with smiles several inches broad and shining teeth and so the exclamation echoed down the street jim cursed his ill luck the loss of time that this grew serious for mrs was now in such a hysterical state that he could not leave her with any good grace or feeling it was necessary to take her to a refreshment room lavish upon her and altogether to waste nearly hour when she had kept him as long as she chose she forgave him and thus at last he got away his heart swelling with tenderness towards he at once hurried up the street to effect the reconciliation with her how shall i do it he said to himself why i ll step to her side fish for her hand draw it through my arm as if i wasn t aware of it then she ll look in my face i shall look in hers and we shall march off the field triumphant and the thing will be done without or tears he entered the field and went straight as an arrow to the place appointed for the meeting it was at the back of a refreshment tent outside the mass of spectators and divided from their view by the tent itself he turned the comer of the canvas and there beheld vine at the indicated spot but was not with him s the romantic adventures op a vine s hat was thrust back into his his face was pale and his manner bewildered what s the matter said jim where s my you ve carried this game too far my man exclaimed vine with the air of a friend who has rs told you so you ought to have dropped it several days ago when she would have come to ee like a dove now this is the end o t hey what my has anything happened for god s sake she s gone where to that s more than earthly man can tell i never see such a thing twas a stroke o the black art as if she were away when we got to the games i said mind you told me to i said jim thinks o going off to london with that widow woman mind you told me to she showed no though a seemed very low then she said to me i don t like standing here in this crowd i shall feel more at home among the and then she went to where the carriages were drawn up and near her there was a grand coach a blazing with lions and and hauled by two coal black horses i hardly thought much of it then and by degrees lost sight of her behind it presently the other carriages moved off and i thought still to see her standing there but no she had vanished and then i saw the grand coach rolling away and in it beside a fine dark gentleman with black and a very pale prince like face as soon as the horses got into the hard road they rattled on like hell and went out of sight in the and that s all if you d come a little sooner you d ha caught her jim had turned than his o this is too bad too bad he cried in anguish striking his brow that paper and that fainting woman kept the romantic adventures of a me so long who could have done it but tis my fault i ve stung her too much i shouldn t have carried it so far you shouldn t what i said replied his senior she thinks i ve gone off with that widow and to spite me she s gone off with the man do you know who that	45
stranger wi the lions and is why tis that foreigner who calls himself a baron and took mount lodge for six months last year to make mischief a villain o my that it should come to this she s lost die s ruined which way did they go jim turned to follow in the direction indicated when behold there stood at his back her father now look here young man said i ve just heard all that wailing and straightway will ask ee to stop it sharp tis like your brazen impudence to and wail when you be another woman s husband yes faith i see d her a fainting in yer arms when you wanted to get away from her and honest folk a standing who knew you d married her and said so i heard it though you didn t see me he s married says they some sly register office business no doubt but doings will out as for who s to be called higher titles in these parts ard i m her father and i say it s all right what she s done don t i know private news hey haven t i just learnt that secret of high people can happen at expected by special as well as low people at offices and can t husbands come back and claim their own when they choose young man and leave s wives alone and i thank god i shall be rid of a swift words of explanation rose to jim s lips but they paused there and died at that last moment he the romantic adventures of a could not as s husband announce s shame and his own and her father s to wretchedness at a blow i i must leave here he stammered going from the place in an opposite course to that of the he doubled when out of sight and in an short space had entered the town here he made inquiries for the carriage and gained from one or two persons a general idea of its route they thought it had taken the to london poor before he had half eaten his com jim galloped along the same road xvii now jim was quite mistaken in supposing that by leaving the field in a manner he had deceived as to his object that old man divined that jim was meaning to track the in ignorance as the supposed of their lawful relation he was soon assured of the fact for creeping to a remote angle of the field he saw jim hastening into the town vengeance on the young lime for his mischievous interference between a nobleman and his secretly wedded wife the farmer determined to him had ridden on to the review ground so that there was no necessity for him as there had been for poor jim to re enter the town before starting the hastily his mare from the row of other horses mounted and descended to a bridle path which would take him into the london road a mile or so ahead the old man s route being along one side of an while jim s was along two sides of the same the former was at the point of long before the romantic adventures op a arrived here the pulled up and looked around it was a spot at which the highway the left ann the more important led on through and to london the right to and the coast nothing was visible on the white track to london but on the other there appeared the back of a carriage which rapidly ascended a distant hill and vanished under the trees it was the baron s who according to the sworn information of the gardener at mount lodge had made his wife the carriage having vanished the gazed in the opposite direction towards here he beheld jim in his laboriously ing on s back soon he reached the roads and saw the by the but jim did not halt then the practised the greatest of his life right along the london road if you want to catch em he said ee thank ee cried jim his pale face lighting up with gratitude for he believed that had learnt his mistake from vine and had come to his assistance without drawing rein he diminished along the road not taken by the flying pair the rubbed his hands with delight and returned to the city as the cathedral clock struck five jim pursued his way through the dust up hill and down hill but never saw ahead of him the vehicle of his search that vehicle was passing along a way at a distance of many from where he rode still he sped till showed signs of breaking down and then jim gathered from inquiries he made that he had come the wrong way it burst upon his mind that the still ignorant of the truth had him heavier in his heart than words can describe he turned s drooping head and resolved to drag his way home the romantic adventures op a but the horse was now so that it was impossible to proceed far having gone about half a mile back he came again to a small roadside hamlet and inn where he put up for a rest and feed as for himself there was no quiet in him he tried to sit and eat in the inn kitchen but he could not stay there he went out and paced up and down the road standing in sight of the white way by which he had come he beheld advancing towards him the horses and carriage he sought now black and against the fires of the western the why and wherefore of this sudden appearance he did not pause to consider his resolve to the carriage was he ran forward and waiting barred the way to the	45
advancing the baron s coachman shouted but jim stood firm as a rock and on the former attempting to push past him jim drew his sword to cut the horses down rather than be the animals were thrown nearly back upon their and at this juncture a gentleman looked out of the window it was the baron himself who s there he inquired james replied the young man fiercely and he demands his wife the baron out and told the coachman to drive back out of sight and wait for him i was hastening to find you he said to jim your wife is where she ought to be and where you ought to be also by your own fireside where s the other woman jim without replying looked into the carriage as it turned was certainly not there the other woman is nothing to me he said bitterly i used her to warm up i have now done with her the question i ask my lord is what business had you with to day my business was to help her to regain the husband the romantic adventures op a she had seemingly lost i saw her she told me you had by the london road with another i who have mostly had her happiness at heart told her i help her to follow you if she wished she gladly agreed we drove after but could hear no tidings of you in front of us then i took her to your house and there she you i promised to send you to her if human effort could do it and was you for that then youve been a pursuing after me you and the widow and i ve been pursuing after you and my noble lord your actions seem to show that i ought to believe you in this and when you say you ve her happiness at heart i don t forget that you ve formerly proved it to be so well heaven forbid that i should think of you if you don t deserve it a mystery to me you have always been my noble lord and in this business more than in any i am glad to hear you say no worse in one hour you ll have proof of my conduct good and bad can i do anything more say the word and i ll try jim reflected baron he said i am a plain man and wish only to lead a quiet life with my wife as a man should you have great power over her power to any extent for good or otherwise if you command her anything on earth righteous or questionable that she ll do so that since you ask me if you can do more for me i ll answer this you can promise never to see her again i mean no harm my lord but your presence can do no good you will trouble us if i to her will you for ever stay away said the baron i swear to you that i will disturb you and your wife by my presence no more and he took jim s hand and pressed it within his own upon the of jim s sword in relating this incident to the present jim used to declare that to his fancy the ruddy light of the setting burned with more than earthly fire on the romantic adventures of a the baron s face as the words were spoken and that the flash of his eye in the same light was what he witnessed before nor since in the eye of mortal man after this there was nothing more to do or say in that place jim accompanied his never to acquaintance to the carriage closed the door after him waved his hat to him and from that hour he and the baron met not again on earth a few words will suffice to explain the fortunes of while the foregoing events were in action elsewhere on leaving her companion vine she had gone among the carriages the rather to escape his observation than of any set purpose standing here she thought she heard her name pronounced and turning saw her foreign friend whom she had supposed to be if not dead a thousand miles off he beckoned and she went close you are ill you are wretched he said looking keenly in her face where s husband she told him her sad suspicion that jim had run away from her the baron reflected and inquired a few other particulars of her late life then he said you and i must find him come with me at this word of command from the baron she had entered the carriage as as a child and there she sat beside him he chose to speak which was not till they were some way out of town at the ways and the baron had discovered that jim was certainly not as they had supposed making off from along that particular branch of the fork that led to london to pursue him in this way is useless i perceive he said and the proper course now is that i should take you to his house that done i will return and bring him to you if mortal persuasion can do it i didn t want to go to his house without him sir said she didn t want to he answered let me remind you that your place is in your husband s house till you are there you have no the romantic adventures op a right to his conduct however wild it may be why have you not been there before i don t know sir she murmured her tears falling silently upon her hand don t you think you ought to be there she did not answer of se you ought still she did not speak the	45
for their interest mainly on the incidents themselves they might also be as experiments and were written for the simply though despite the of their fable some of their scenes are not without fidelity to life it will not be supposed that these differences are distinctly perceptible in every page of every volume it was inevitable that and should occur in all moreover as it was not thought desirable in every instance to change the arrangement of the shorter stories to which readers have grown accustomed certain of these may be found under to which an acute judgment might deny it has sometimes been conceived of novels that their action on a scene as do many though not all of that they cannot be so in their exhibition of human nature as novels wherein the scenes cover large of country in which events e amid towns and cities even wander over the four quarters of the globe i am not concerned to argue this point further than to suggest that the conception is an one in respect of the passions but i would state that the limits of the stage here trodden were not absolutely forced upon the writer by circumstances he forced them upon himself from judgment i considered that our magnificent from the in dramatic literature found sufficient room for a large proportion of its action in an extent of their not much larger than the half dozen here under the old name of that the domestic emotions have in with as much intensity as in the palaces of europe and that anyhow there was quite enough human nature in for one man s literary purpose so far was i possessed by this idea that i kept within the when it would have been easier to them and give more features to the narrative vm general preface thus though the people in most of the novels and in much of the i verse are in a province bounded on the north by the thames on the south by the english channel on the east by a line running from island to forest and on the west by the coast they were meant to be and essentially those of any and every place where thought s the slave of life and life time s fool beings in whose hearts and minds that which is apparently local should be really but whatever the success of this intention and the value of these novels as of humanity they have at least a humble of which i may be justified in reminding the reader though it is one that was and at the dates represented in the various things were like that in the inhabitants lived in certain ways engaged in certain occupations kept alive certain customs just as they are own doing in these pages and in such i have often been reminded of s remarks on the trouble to which he was put and the he was to make to some detail though the labour was one which would bring him no praise unlike his achievement however on which an error would as he says have brought t if these country customs and and had been detailed nobody would have discovered such errors to the end of time yet i have inquiries to correct tricks of memory and against temptations to in order to preserve for my own satisfaction a fairly true record of a vanishing life it is advisable also to state here in response to inquiries from readers interested in landscape and especially old english architecture that the description of these general preface has been done from the real that is to say has something real for its basis however treated many features of the first two kinds have been given under their existing names for instance the of or hill hill high down hill the devil s kitchen cross in hand long ash lane lane giant s hill lane and the rivers or and are of course well known as such and the further idea was that large towns and points tending to mark the outline of such as bath the start bill etc should be named clearly the scheme was not greatly but whatever its value the names still in respect of places described under or ancient names in the novels f or reasons that seemed good at the time of writing them and kept up in the poems people have affirmed in print that they clearly recognize the such as in in in plain in the great plain chase in the chase in in hill in wool bridge in or lane in lane in in port maiden in chalk a farm near in ash in milton abbey in abbey in s in in in in oxford in reading in in in in and so on subject to the above given that no detail is phase the first the maiden phase the first the maiden on an evening in the latter part of may a man was walking homeward from to the v age of in the adjoining of or tlie pair of legs that carried him were and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line he occasionally gave a smart nod as if in confirmation of some opinion though he was not thinking of anything in particular an empty egg basket was upon his arm the nap of his hat was ruffled a patch being quite worn away at its brim where his thumb came in taking it oflf presently he was met by an elderly parson on a gray mare who as he rode a wandering tune good night fee said the man with the basket good night sir john said the parson the after another pace or two halted and turned round now sir begging your pardon we met last market day on this	45
take the message i m going to ee wi well i don t mind you that the secret is that i m one of a noble race it has been just found out by me this present p m and as he made the declining from his sitting position stretched himself out upon the bank among the the lad stood before and contemplated his length from crown to toe sir john d that s who i am continued the prostrate man that is if knights were whidi they be tis recorded in history all about me dost know of such a place lad as i ve been there to pair well the church of that city there lie t a city the place i mean when i was there twas a little one eyed sort o place never you mind the place boy that s not the question before us under the church of that there parish lie my ancestors hundreds of em in coats of mail and jewels in t lead weighing tons and tons there s not a man in the county o south that s got and nobler in his family than i oh now take up that basket and on to and when you ve come to the pure drop inn tell em to send a horse and carriage to me to carry me and in the bottom o the carriage they be to put a o rum in a small bottle and chalk it up to my account and when you ve done of the d that on to my house with the basket and tell my wife to put away that washing because she needn t finish it and wait till i come as i ve news to tell her as the lad stood in a attitude put his hand in his pocket and produced a shilling one of the few that he possessed here s for your labour lad this made a difference in the man s estimate of the position yes sir john thank ee else i can do for ee sir john tell em at that i should like for supper well lamb s if they can get it and if they can t black pot and if they can t get that well will do yes sir john the boy took up the basket and as he set out the notes of a brass band were heard from the direction of the village what s that said not on account o i tis the women s sir john why your da ter is one o the members to be e i d quite forgot it in my thoughts of greater things well on to will ye and order that carriage and maybe i ll drive and inspect the club the lad departed and lay waiting on the grass and in the evening sun not a soul passed that way for a long while and the faint notes of the band were the only human sounds audible within the rim of blue ii the village of lay amid the north eastern of the beautiful of or an and secluded r on for the most part as yet by or landscape painter though within a four hours journey from london it is a whose acquaintance is best made by it from the of the hills that surround it except perhaps during the of an into its recesses in bad weather is apt to dissatisfaction with its narrow and ways this fertile and sheltered tract of country in which the fields are never brown and the springs never dry is on the south by the bold chalk ridge that embraces the of hill high and down the traveller from the coast who after northward for a score of miles over downs and corn lands suddenly reaches the verge of one of these is surprised and delighted to behold extended like a map beneath him a absolutely from that which he has passed through behind him the hills are open the sun down upon fields so large as to give an character to the landscape the lanes are white the hedges low and the atmosphere here in the valley the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more delicate scale the fields are mere so reduced that from this height their appear a of dark green threads of the d the paler of the grass the atmosphere beneath is and is so tinged with that what artists call the middle distance also of that hue while the horizon beyond is of the deepest lands are few and limited with but slight exceptions the prospect is a broad rich mass of grass and trees minor hills and within the major such is the of the district is of historic no less than of interest the was known in former times as the forest of white from a curious legend of king henry iii s reign in which the killing by a certain thomas de la of a beautiful white which the king had run down and spared was made the occasion of a heavy fine in those days and till recent times the country was wooded even now traces of its earlier condition are to be foimd in the old oak and irregular of timber that yet survive upon its slopes and the hollow trees that shade so many of its pastures the forests have departed but some old customs of their shades remain many however linger only in a or disguised form the may day dance for instance was to be discerned on the afternoon notice in the guise of the or club walking as it was there called it was an interesting event to the younger inhabitants of though its real interest was not observed by the in the ceremony its lay less in the of a custom of walking in	45
procession and dancing on each than in the members being solely women in men s clubs such were though less uncommon but either the natural of the softer sex or a sarcastic attitude on the part of male relatives had such women s clubs as remained if any other did of this their glory and the maiden the club of alone lived to the local it had walked for hundreds of years if not as benefit club as of some sort and it walked still the ones were all dressed in white gowns sl gay from old style days when cheerfulness and may time were days before the habit of taking long views had reduced emotions to a monotonous average their first exhibition of themselves was in a march of two and two round the parish ideal and real slightly as the sun lit up their figures against the green hedges and house fronts for though the whole troop wore white garments no two were alike among them some approached pure some had a some worn by the older characters which had possibly lain by folded for many a year inclined to a tint and to a style in addition to the distinction of a white frock every woman and girl carried in her right hand a willow and in her left a bunch of white flowers the of the former and the selection of the latter had been an operation of personal care there were a few middle aged and even elderly women in the train their silver hair and wrinkled faces by time and trouble having almost a grotesque certainly a pathetic appearance in such a situation in a true view perhaps there was more to be gathered and told of each anxious and experienced one to whom the years were drawing nigh when she should say i have no pleasure in them than of her comrades but let the elder be passed over here for those under whose the life quick and warm the young girls formed indeed the majority of the band and their heads of luxuriant hair reflected in the sunshine every tone of gold and black and brown some had beautiful eyes others a beautiful ii op the d nose others a beautiful mouth and figure few if any had all a of arranging their lips in this crude exposure to public scrutiny an inability to balance their heads and to self consciousness from their features was apparent in them and showed that they were genuine country girls to many eyes and as each and all of them were warmed without by the sim so each had a private little for her soul to in some dream some affection some at least some remote and distant hope which though perhaps starving to nothing still lived on as hopes will thus they were all cheerful and many of them merry they came round by the pure drop inn and were turning out of the high road to pass through a gate into the meadows when one of the women said the lord a lord why if there isn t thy father riding in a carriage a young member of the band turned her head at the exclamation she was a fine and handsome girl not than some others possibly but her mouth and large innocent eyes added eloquence to colour and shape she wore a red ribbon in her hair and was the only one of the white company who could boast of such a pronounced as she looked round was seen moving along the road in a chaise belonging to the pure drop driven by a headed with her gown sleeves rolled above her elbows this was the servant of that establishment who in her part of turned groom and at times leaning back and with his eyes closed was waving his hand above his head and singing in a slow i ve got a t family vault at and f in lead there tlie except the girl called the maiden in whom a slow heat seemed to rise at the sense that her father was making himself foolish in their eyes he s tired that s all she said hastily and he has got a lift home because our own horse has to rest to day bless thy simplicity said her companions he s got his market look here i won t walk another inch with you if you say any jokes about him cried and the colour upon her cheeks spread over her face and neck in a moment her eyes grew moist and her glance drooped to the ground perceiving that they had really pained her they said no more and order again prevailed s pride would not allow her to turn her head again to learn what her father s meaning was if he had any and thus she moved on with the whole body to the where there was to be dancing on the green by the time the spot was reached she had recovered her and tapped her neighbour with her and talked as usual at this time of her life was a mere vessel of emotion by experience the dialect was on her tongue to some extent despite the village school the characteristic of that dialect for this district being the rendered by the syllable ur probably as rich an utterance as any to be found in speech the up deep red mouth to which this syllable was native had hardly as yet settled into its definite shape and her lower lip had a way of thrusting the middle of her top one upward when they closed together after a word phases of her childhood in her aspect still as she walked along to day for all her handsome you could sometimes see her twelfth year in her cheeks or her ninth sparkling from her eyes and even her	45
fifth would over the curves of her mouth now and then op the d yet few knew and still fewer considered this a small mainly strangers would look long at her in casually passing by and grow fascinated by her freshness and wonder if they would ever see her again but to almost everybody she was a fine and country girl and no more nothing was seen or heard further of in his chariot under the conduct of the and the having entered the allotted space dancing began as there were no men in the company the girls danced at first with each other but when the hour for the dose of labour drew on the masculine inhabitants of the village together with other and gathered round the spot and appeared inclined to for a partner among these on were three young men of a superior carrying small to their shoulders and stout sticks in their hands their general likeness to each other and their ages would almost have suggested that they might be what in fact they were brothers the wore the white tie high waistcoat and thin hat of the the second was the normal the appearance of the third and youngest would hardly have been to him there was an aspect in his eyes and attire that he had hardly as yet found the entrance to his professional that he was a student of something and everything might only have been predicted of him these three brethren told casual acquaintance that they were spending their in a walking tour through the of their course being south from the town of on the north east they over the gate by the highway and inquired as to the meaning of the dance and the maids the two elder of the brothers were plainly not intending to more than a moment the maiden but the spectacle of a of girls dancing without male partners seemed to amuse the third and make him in no hurry to move on he his put it with his stick on the hedge bank and opened the gate what are you going to do angel asked the eldest i am inclined to go and have a fling with them why not all of us just for a minute or two it will not detain us long no no nonsense said the first dancing in with a troop of country suppose we should be seen come along or it will be dark before we get to and there s no place we can sleep at nearer than that besides we must get through another chapter of a to before we turn in now i have taken the trouble to bring the book all right i ll overtake you and in five minutes don t stop i give my word that i will the two elder reluctantly left him and walked on taking their brother s to relieve him in following and the entered the field this is a thousand he said gallantly to two or three of the girls nearest him as soon as there was a pause in the dance where are your partners my they ve not left off work yet answered one of the they ll be here by and by till then will you be one sir certainly but what s one among so many better than none tis melancholy work facing and footing it to one of your own sort and no and at all now pick and choose don t be so for ard said a girl the man thus invited glanced them over and attempted some but as the group were all so new to him he could not very well exercise is of the d it he took almost the first that came to hand which was not the speaker as she had expected nor did it happen to be record the d did not help in her life s battle as yet even to the extent of to her a over the heads of the commonest so much for blood by the name of the girl whatever it was has not been handed down but she was envied by all as the first who enjoyed the luxury of a masculine partner that evening yet such was the force of example that the village yoimg men who had not hastened to enter the gate while no intruder was in the way now dropped in quickly and soon the couples became with rustic youth to a marked extent till at length the woman in the club was no longer to foot it on the masculine side of the the church clock struck when suddenly the student said that he must leave he had been forgetting himself he had to join his companions as he fell out of the dance his eyes lighted on whose own large wore to tell the truth the faintest aspect of reproach that he had not chosen her he too was sorry then that owing to her he had not observed her and with that in his mind he left the pasture on account of his long delay he started in a down the lane westward and had soon passed the hollow and the next rise he had not yet overtaken his brothers but he paused to get breath and looked back he could see the white figures of the girls in the green whirling about as they had whirled when he was among them they seemed to have quite forgotten him already all of them except perhaps one this white shape stood apart by the hedge alone her position he knew it to be the pretty maiden with whom x the maiden he had not danced trifling as the matter was he yet instinctively felt that she was hurt by his he wished that he had asked her he wished that he had inquired her name	45
ordinary english abroad and to persons of quality since i ve been away asked ay had it anything to do with father s making such a of himself in carriage this afternoon why did er i felt inclined to sink into the ground with shame that all a part of the we ve been found to be the greatest in the whole county reaching au back long before s time to the days of the pagan with monuments and and and and the lord knows what all in saint charles s days we was made knights o the royal oak our real name being d don t that your bosom twas on this account that your father rode home in the not because he d been drinking as people supposed i m glad of that will it do us any good mother o yes tis that great things may come o t no doubt a of of our own rank will be down here in their carriages as soon as tis known your father learnt it on his way from and he has been telling me the whole of the matter where is father now asked suddenly her mother gave information by way of answer he called to see the doctor to day in it is not consumption at all it seems it is fat round his heart a says there it is like this of the d as she spoke curved a thumb and forefinger to the of the letter c and used the other forefinger as a at the present moment he says to your father your heart is enclosed au round there and au round there this space is still open a says as soon as it do meet so mrs closed her fingers into a circle complete off you will go like a mr a says you mid last ten years you mid go off in ten months or ten days looked alarmed her father possibly to go behind the eternal so soon notwithstanding this sudden greatness but where is father she asked again her mother put on a look now don t you be bursting out angry the poor man he felt so after his by the pa son s news that he went up to s half an hour ago he do want to get up his strength for his journey tomorrow with that load of which must be delivered family or no he ll have to start shortly after twelve to night as the distance is so long get up his strength said the tears to her eyes o my god go to a public house to get up his strength and you as well agreed as he mother her rebuke and her mood seemed to fill the whole room and to impart a look to the furniture and candle and children playing about and to her mother s face no said the latter i be not agreed i have been waiting for ee to bide and keep house while i go to fetch him i ll go o no you see it would be no use did not she knew what her mother s objection meant mrs s jacket and bonnet were already hanging upon a chair by her side in readiness for this contemplated the the maiden reason for which the matron more than its necessity and take the fortune to the continued rapidly wiping her hands and the garments the fortune was an old thick volume which lay on a table at her elbow so worn by that the had reached the edge of tiie type took it up and her mother started this going to hunt up her husband at the was one of mrs s still in the and of children to discover him at s to sit there for an hour or two by his side and dismiss all thought and care of the children during the interval made her happy a sort of an glow came over life then troubles and other realities took on themselves a sinking to mere mental phenomena for serene contemplation and no longer stood as pressing which body and soul the not immediately within sight seemed rather bright and desirable than otherwise the incidents of daily life were not without and in their aspect there she felt a little as she had used to feel when she sat by her now wedded husband in the same spot during his shutting her eyes to his defects of character and regarding him only in his ideal as lover being left alone with the younger children went first to the with the fortune telling book and stuffed it into the a curious fear of this volume on the part of her mother prevented her ever allowing it to stay in the house all night and hither it was brought back whenever it had been consulted between the mother with her fast lumber of folk lore dialect and and the daughter with her trained national and standard op the d edge under an infinitely code there was a gap of two years as ordinarily understood when they were together the and ttie ages were returning along the garden path mused on what her mother could have wished to ascertain from the book on this particular day she guessed the recent discovery to bear upon it but did not divine that it solely concerned herself this however she busied herself with the linen dried during the in company with her nine year old brother and her sister of twelve and a half called lu the youngest ones being put to bed there was an interval of four years and more between and the next of the family the two who had filled the gap having died in their infancy and this lent her a attitude when she was alone with her next in to came two more girls	45
hope and modesty then a boy of three and then the baby who had just completed his first year au these yoimg souls were passengers in the ship entirely dependent on the judgment of the two for their their necessities their health even their existence if the heads of the household chose to sail into difficulty disaster starvation disease degradation death thither were these half dozen little under compelled to sail with them six helpless creatures who had never been asked if they wished for life on any terms much less if they wished for it on such hard conditions as were involved in being of the house of some people would like to know whence the poet whose philosophy is in these days deemed as and as his song is and pure gets his authority for speaking of nature s holy plan it grew later and neither father nor mother reappeared looked out of the door and took the maiden a mental journey through the village was shutting its eyes candles and lamps were being put out she could inwardly behold the and the extended hand her mother s simply meant one more to fetch began to perceive that a man in indifferent health who proposed to start on a journey before one in the morning ought not to be at an inn at this late hour ancient blood she said to her little brother do you put on your hat you t afraid and go up to s and see what has gone wi father and mother the boy jumped promptly from his seat and opened the door and the night swallowed him up half an hour passed yet again neither man woman nor child returned like his parents seemed to have been and caught by the inn i must go myself she said lu then went to bed and them au in started on her way up the dark and crooked lane or street not made for hasty progress a street laid out before inches of land had value and when one handed sufficiently the day iv s inn the single at this end of the long and broken village could only boast of an off hence as nobody could drink on the premises the amount of accommodation for was strictly limited to a little board about six inches wide and two yards long fixed to the garden by pieces of wire so as to form a ledge on this thirsty strangers deposited their cups as they stood in the road and drank and threw the on the dusty ground to the pattern of and wished they could have a seat inside thus the strangers but there were also local customers who felt the same wish and where there s a will there s a way in a large bedroom upstairs the window of which was thickly with a great shawl lately discarded by the landlady mrs were gathered on this evening nearly a dozen persons all seeking all old inhabitants of the nearer end of and of this retreat not only did the distance to the pure drop the fully tavern at the further part of the dispersed village render its accommodation practically for at this end but the far more serious question the quality of the liquor confirmed the opinion that it was better to drink with in a comer of the than with the other landlord in a wide house a gaunt four post which stood in the room afforded sitting space for several persons gathered round three of its sides a more men had the maiden themselves on a chest of drawers another rested on the oak carved two on the another on the stool and thus all were somehow seated at their ease the stage of mental comfort to which they had arrived at this hour was one wherein their expanded beyond their skins and spread their warmly through the room in this process the chamber and its furniture grew more and more dignified and luxurious the shawl hanging at the window took upon itself the richness of the brass handles of the chest of drawers were as golden and the carved bed posts seemed to have some with the magnificent pillars of solomon s temple mrs having walked after parting from opened the front door crossed the downstairs room which was in deep gloom and then the stair door like one whose fingers knew the tricks of the well her ascent of the crooked staircase was a slower process and her face as it rose into the light above the last stair encountered the gaze of au the party assembled in the bedroom being a few private friends ive asked in to keep up club walking at my own expense the landlady exclaimed at the sound of footsteps as as a child repeating the while she peered over the stairs oh tis you mrs how you frightened me i thought it might be some sent by ment mrs was welcomed with glances and by the remainder of the and turned to where her husband sat he was humming to himself in a low tone i be as good as some folks here and there i ve got a great family vault at sub and finer than any man in i ve something to tell ee that s come into my head about that a grand whispered his cheerful op the d wife here john don t ee see me she him while he looking through her as through a window pane went on with his hush don t ee sing so loud my good man said the landlady in case any member of the ment should be passing and take away my he s told ee what s happened to us i suppose asked mrs yes in a way d ye think there s any money hanging by it ah that s	45
the secret said however tis well to be kin to a coach even if you don t ride in en she dropped her public voice and continued in a low tone to her husband i ve been thinking since you brought the news that there s a great rich lady out by on the edge o the chase of the name of d hey what s that said sir john she repeated the information that lady must be our relation she said and my is to send to claim kin there is a lady of the name now you mention it said pa son didn t think of that but she s nothing beside we a branch of us no doubt long since s day while this question was being discussed neither of the pair noticed in their that little had crept into the room and was awaiting an opportunity of asking them to return she is rich and she d be to take notice o the maid continued mrs and be a very good thing i don t see why two branches o one family should not be on visiting terms yes and we ll all claim kin said brightly from under the and we ll au go and see her when has gone to live with her and we ll ride in her coach and wear black clothes how do you come here child what nonsense be as the maiden ye talking go away and play on the stairs till father and mother be ready well ought to go to this other member of our family she d be sure to win the lady would and likely enough lead to some noble gentleman marrying her in short i know it how i tried her fate in the fortune and it brought out that very thing you should ha seen how pretty she looked to day her skin is as as a s what says the maid herself to going i ve not asked her she don t know there is any such lady relation yet but it would certainly put her in the way of a grand marriage and she won t say nay to is queer but she s at bottom leave her to me though this conversation had been private sufficient of its import reached the of those around to suggest to them that the had concerns to talk of now than common folks had and that their pretty eldest daughter had fine prospects in store is a fine figure o fun as i said to myself to day when i her round parish with the rest observed one of the elderly in an but must mind that she don t get green in floor it was a local phrase which had a peculiar meaning and there was no reply the conversation became and presently other footsteps were heard crossing the room below being a few private friends asked in to night to keep up walking at my own expense the landlady had rapidly re used the she kept on hand for before she recognized that the was even to her mother s gaze the girl s features op the d looked sadly out of place amid the which floated here as no medium for wrinkled middle age and hardly was a flash from s dark eyes needed to make her father and mother rise from their seats hastily finish their ale and descend the stairs behind her mrs s caution following their footsteps no noise please if ye ll be so good my or i mid lose my and be and i don t know what all night t ye they went home together holding one arm of her father and mrs the other he had in truth drunk very uttle not a fourth of the quantity which a could carry to on a sunday afternoon without a in his or but the weakness of sir john s constitution made mountains of his petty sins in this kind on reaching the fresh air he was sufficiently to incline the row of three at one moment as if they were marching to london and at another as if they were marching to bath which produced a effect frequent enough in families on and like most effects not quite so comic after all the two women disguised these forced and as well as they could from their cause and from and from themselves and so they approached by degrees their own door the head of the family bursting suddenly into his former refrain as he drew near as if to his soul at sight of the of his present residence i ve got a vault at don t be so silly said his wife yours is not the only family that was of count in days look at the and and the themselves gone to seed a most as much as you though you was bigger folks than they that s true thank god i was never of no and have nothing to be ashamed of in that way the maiden don t you be so sure o that from your tis my you ve disgraced yourselves more than any o us and was kings and queens outright at one time turned the subject by what was far more prominent in her own mind at the moment than thoughts of her i am afraid father won t be able to take the journey with the to morrow so early i i shall be all right in an hour or two said it was eleven o clock before the family were all in bed and two o clock next morning was the latest hour for starting with the if they were to be delivered to the in before the saturday market began the way thither by bad roads over a distance of between twenty and thirty miles	45
and the horse and being of the at half past one mrs came into the e bedroom where and all her little brothers and sisters slept the poor man can t go she said to her eldest daughter whose great eyes had opened the moment her mother s hand touched the door sat up in bed lost in a vague between a dream and this information but somebody must go she replied it is late for the already will soon be over for the year and if we put off taking em till next week s market the call for em will be past and they ll be thrown on our hands mrs looked to the emergency some young perhaps would go one of them who were so much after dancing with ee yesterday she presently suggested o no i wouldn t have it for the world declared proudly and letting everybody know the reason such a thing to be ashamed of i think could go if could go with me to me company op the d her mother at length agreed to this arrangement little was from his deep sleep in a comer of the same apartment and made to put on his clothes while still mentally in the other world meanwhile had hastily dressed herself and the twain lighting a lantern went out to the stable the little was already laden and the girl led out the horse prince only a degree less than the vehicle the poor creature looked at the night at the lantern at their two figures as if he could not believe that at that hour when every living thing was intended to be in shelter and at rest he was called upon to go out and labour they put a stock of candle ends into the lantern the latter to the off side of the load and directed the horse onward walking at his shoulder at first during the parts of the way in order not to an animal of so little vigour to cheer themselves as well as they could they made an artificial morning with the lantern some bread and butter and their own conversation the real morning being far from come as he more fully awoke for he had moved in a sort of trance so far began to talk of the strange shapes assumed by the various dark objects against the sky of this tree that looked like a raging tiger springing from a of that which resembled a giant s head when they had passed the little town of imder its thick brown they reached higher ground still higher on their left the elevation called or well nigh the highest in south swelled into the sky by its the long road was fairly level for some distance onward they in front of the and grew he said in a preparatory tone after a silence the maiden yes t you glad that become not particular glad but you be glad that you m going to many a gentleman what said lifting her face that our great relation will help ee to marry a gentleman i our great relation we have no such relation what has put that into your head i heard em talking about it up at s when i went to find father there s a rich lady of our family out at and mother said that if you claimed kin with the lady she d put ee in the way of marrying a gentleman his sister became abruptly still and into a pondering silence talked on rather for the pleasure of utterance than for so that his sister s abstraction was of no account he back against the and with face made observations on the stars whose cold were beating amid the black hollows above in serene from these two of human life he asked how far away those were and whether god was on the other side of them but ever and anon his childish to what impressed his imagination even more deeply than the wonders of creation if were made rich by marrying a gentleman would she have money enough to buy a spy glass so large that it would draw the stars as near to her as the renewed subject which seemed to have the whole family filled with impatience never mind that now she exclaimed did you say the stars were worlds yes all like ours i don t know but i think so they sometimes of the d seem to be like the apples on our tree most of them splendid and a few which do we live on a splendid one or a one a one tis very unlucky that we didn t pitch on a sound one when there were so many more of em yes is it like that really said turning to her much impressed on of this rare information how would it have been if we had pitched on a sound one well father wouldn t have and about as he does and wouldn t have got too to go this journey and mother wouldn t have been always washing and never getting finished and you would have been a lady ready made and not have had to be made rich by marrying a gentleman o don t don t talk of that any more left to his reflections soon grew drowsy was not skilful in the management of a horse but she thought that she could take upon herself the entire conduct of the load for the present and allow to go to sleep if he wished to do so she made him a sort of nest in front of the in such a that he could not fall and taking the reins into her own hands on as before prince required but attention lacking energy for superfluous movements of any sort with no longer a companion to her fell	45
more deeply into reverie than ever her back leaning against the the mute procession past her shoulders of trees and hedges became attached to fantastic scenes outside reality and the occasional heave of the wind became the sigh of some immense sad soul with the universe in space and with history in time then examining the of events in her own the maiden life she seemed to see the vanity of her father s pride the gentlemanly awaiting herself in her mother s fancy to see him as a personage laughing at her poverty and her everything grew more and more extravagant and she no longer knew how time passed a sudden jerk shook her in her seat and awoke from the sleep into which she too had fallen they were a long way further on than when she had lost consciousness and the had stopped a hollow groan unlike anything she had ever heard in her life came from the front followed by a shout of there the lantern hanging at her had gone out but another was shining in her face much brighter than her own had been something terrible had happened the harness was entangled with an object which blocked the way in consternation jumped down and discovered the dreadful truth the groan had proceeded from her father s poor horse the morning with its two noiseless wheels along these lanes like an arrow as it always did had driven into her slow and the pointed shaft of the cart had entered the breast of the unhappy prince like a sword and from the wound his life s blood was in a stream and falling with a hiss into the road in her despair sprang forward and put her hand upon the hole with the only result that she became from face to skirt with the crimson drops then she stood helplessly looking on prince also stood firm and motionless as long as he could tin he suddenly sank down in a heap by this time the mail cart man had joined her and b an dragging and the hot form of but he was already dead and seeing that nothing more could be done immediately the mail cart man returned to his own animal which was of the d you was on the wrong side he said i am bound to go on with the mail bags so that the best thing for you to do is to bide here with your load i ll send somebody to help you as soon as i can it is getting daylight and you have nothing to fear he mounted and sped on his way while stood and waited the atmosphere turned pale the birds shook themselves in the hedges arose and the lane showed all its white features and showed hers still the huge pool of blood in front of her was already assuming the of and when the sun rose a hundred hues were reflected from it prince lay alongside still and his eyes half open the hole in his chest looking scarcely large enough to have let out all that had animated him tis all my doing au mine the girl cried gazing at the spectacle no excuse for me none what will mother and father live on now she shook the child who had slept soundly through the whole disaster we can t go on with our load prince is killed when realized all the of fifty years were on his young face why i danced and laughed only yesterday she went on to herself to that i was such a fool tis because we be on a star and not a one isn t it murmured through his tears in silence they waited through an interval which seemed endless at length a and an approaching object proved to them that the driver of the had been as good as his word a farmer s man from near came up leading a strong he was to the of in the place of prince and the load taken on towards the evening of the same day saw the empty reach again the spot of the accident prince had lain the maiden there in the ditch since the morning but the place of the blood pool was still visible in the middle of the road though scratched and scraped over by passing all that was left of prince was now hoisted into the he had formerly hauled and with his hoofs in the air and his shoes shining in the setting sunlight he the eight or nine miles to had gone back earlier how to break the news was more than she could think it was a relief to her tongue to find from the faces of her parents that they already knew of their loss though this did not lessen the self reproach which she continued to heap upon herself for her but the very of the household rendered the a less one to them than it would have been to a striving family though in the present case it meant ruin and in the other it would only have meant inconvenience in the countenances there was nothing of the red wrath that would have burnt upon the girl from parents more ambitious for her welfare nobody blamed as she blamed herself when it was discovered that the and would give only a very few shillings for prince s because of his rose to the occasion no said he i won t sell his old body when we d was knights in the land we didn t sell our for cat s meat let em keep their shillings he ve served me well in his lifetime and i won t part from him now he worked harder the next day in digging a grave for prince in the garden than he had work for months to grow a crop for his family	45
when the hole was ready and his wife tied a rope the horse and dragged him up the path towards it the children following in funeral train and lu sobbed hope and modesty ed their in loud which echoed from the walls and of the d when prince was tumbled in they gathered round the grave the bread had been taken away from them what would they do is he gone to heaven asked between the sobs then began to in the earth and the children cried anew all except her face was dry and pale as th she regarded herself in the of a the which had mainly depended on the horse became distress if not loomed in the distance was what was called a slack twisted fellow he had good strength to work at times but the times could not be relied on to with the hours of and having been to the regular toil of the day he was not particularly persistent when they did so meanwhile as the one who had dragged her parents into this was silently wondering what she could do to help them out of it and then her mother her scheme we must take the wi the downs said she and never could your high blood have been found out at a more called for moment you must try your friends do ye know that there is a very rich mrs d on the outskirts o the chase who must be our relation you must go to her and claim kin and ask for some help in our trouble i shouldn t care to do that says if there is such a lady be enough for us if she were friendly not to expect her to give us help you could win her round to do anything my dear besides perhaps there s more in it than you know of i ve what i ve heard good now the oppressive sense of the harm she had done led to be more than she might otherwise have been to the maternal wish but she could not understand why her mother should find such satisfy of the d in contemplating an enterprise of to her such doubtful profit her mother might have made inquiries and have discovered that this mrs d was a lady of virtues and charity but s pride made the part of poor relation one of to her i d rather try to get work she murmured you can settle it said his wife turning to where he sat in the if you say she ought to go she will go r don t like my children going and making themselves to strange murmured he i m the head of the noblest branch o the family and i ought to live up to it his reasons for away were worse to than her own objection to going well as i killed the horse mother she said mournfully i suppose i ought to do something i don t mind going and seeing her but you must leave it to me about asking for help and don t go thinking about her making a match for me it is silly very well said observed her father who said i had such a thought asked i fancy it is in your mind mother but i ll go rising early next day she walked to the hill town called and there took advantage of a van which twice in the week ran from eastward to passing near the parish in which the vague and mysterious mrs d had her residence s route on this memorable morning lay amid the north eastern of the in which she had been bom and in which her life had unfolded the of was to her the world and its inhabitants the races thereof the gates and of she had looked down its length in the wondering days of infancy and what had been mystery to her then was not much less than the maiden mystery to her now she had seen daily from her chamber window towers villages faint white above all the town of standing on its height its windows shining like lamps in the evening sun she had hardly ever visited the place only a small tract even of the and its being known to her by close inspection much less had she been far outside the valley every of the hills was as personal to her as that of her relatives faces but for what lay beyond her judgment was dependent on the teaching of the village s where she had held a leading place at the time of her leaving a year or two before this date in those early days she had been much loved by others of her own sex and age and had used to be seen about the village as one of three all nearly of the same year walking home from school side by side the middle one in a pink print of a finely pattern worn over a stuff frock that had lost its original for a marching on upon long legs in tight stockings which had little ladder like holes at the knees torn by kneeling in the roads and banks in search of vegetable and treasures her then earth colour hair hanging like pot hooks the arms of the two outside girls resting round the waist of her arms on the shoulders of the two as grew older and began to see how matters stood she felt quite a towards her mother for giving her so many little sisters and brothers when it was such a trouble to nurse and provide for them her mother s intelligence was that of a happy child was simply an additions one and that not the eldest to her own loi family of on providence however became beneficent towards the small ones and to	45
help them as much as possible she used as soon as she left school to lend a of the d hand at or on neighbouring farms or by preference at or butter making processes which she had learnt when her father had owned cows and being it was a kind of work in which she every day seemed to throw upon her young shoulders more of the family burdens and that should be the representative of the at the d mansion came as a thing of course in this instance it must be admitted that the were putting their fairest side outward she from the van at cross and ascended on foot a hill in the direction of the district known as the chase on the borders of which as she had been informed mrs d s seat the slopes would be found it was not a home in the ordinary sense with fields and pastures and a grumbling farmer out of whom the owner had to squeeze an income for himself and his family by hook or by it was more far more a house built for enjoyment e and simple with not an acre of troublesome land attached to it beyond what was required for purposes and for a little fancy farm kept in hand by the owner and tended by a the crimson brick lodge came first in sight up to its in dense thought this was the mansion itself till passing through the side with some and onward to a point at which the drive took a turn the house proper stood in full view it was of recent indeed almost new and of the same rich red that formed such a contrast with the of the lodge par behind the comer of the house which rose like a bloom against the subdued colours around stretched the soft e landscape of the chase a truly venerable tract of forest land one of the few remaining in england of date wherein was still found on the maiden aged oaks and where enormous trees not planted by the hand of man grew as they had grown when they were for bows all this antiquity however though visible from the slopes was outside the immediate boundaries of the estate everything on this snug property was bright and well kept acres of glass houses stretched down the to the at their feet everything looked like money like the last coin issued from the the stables partly by pines and oaks and fitted with every late were as dignified as of ease on the extensive lawn stood an ornamental tent its door being towards her simple stood at gaze in a attitude on the edge of the gravel sweep her feet had brought her onward to this point before she had quite realized where she was and now all was contrary to her expectation i thought we were an old family but this is all new she said in her she wished that she had not fallen in so readily with her mother s plans for claiming kin and had endeavoured to gain assistance nearer home the d or d as they at first called themselves who owned all this were a somewhat family to find in such an part of the parson had spoken truly when he said that our john was the only really representative of the old d family existing in the or near it he might have added what he knew very well that the d were no more d of the true tree than he was himself yet it must be admitted that this family formed a very good stock whereon to a name which sadly wanted such when old mr deceased had op the d made his fortune as an honest merchant some said money in the north he decided to settle as a county man in the south of england out of hail of his business district and in doing this he felt the necessity of with a name that would not too readily identify him with the smart of the past and that would be less commonplace than the original bald words for an hour in the british the pages of works devoted to extinct half extinct obscured and ruined families to the quarter of england in which he proposed to settle he considered that d looked and sounded as well as any of them and d accordingly was to his own name for himself and his yet he was not an extravagant minded man in this and in his family tree on the new basis was duly reasonable in his and aristocratic links never a single title above a rank of strict moderation of this work of imagination poor and her parents were in ignorance much to their discomfiture indeed the very possibility of such was unknown to them who supposed that though to be well favoured might be the gift of a family name came by nature still stood hesitating like a about to make his hardly knowing whether to retreat or to when a figure came forth from the dark door of the tent it was that of a tall young man smoking he had an almost complexion with full lips badly though red and smooth above which was a well black moustache with curled points though his age could not be more than three or and twenty despite the touches of in his s there was a singular force in the gentleman s face and in his bold rolling eye well my beauty what can i do for you said the maiden he forward and perceiving that she stood confounded never mind me i am mr d have you come to see me or my mother this of a d and a differed even more from what had expected than the house and grounds had differed she had dreamed of	45
an aged and dignified face the of all the d with memories representing in the centuries of her family s and england s history but she herself up to the work in hand since she could not get out of it and answered i came to see your mother sir i am afraid you cannot see her she is an invalid replied the present representative of the house for this was mr the only son of the lately deceased gentleman cannot i answer your purpose what is the business you wish to see her about it isn t business it is i can hardly say what pleasure oh no why sir if i tell you it will seem s sense of a certain in her errand was now so strong that notwithstanding her awe of him and her general discomfort at being here her rosy lips curved towards a smile much to the attraction of the alexander it is so very foolish she stammered i fear i can t tell you never mind i like foolish things try again my dear said he kindly mother asked me to come continued and indeed i was in the mind to do so myself likewise but i did not think it would be like this i came sir to tell you that we are of the same family as you ho poor relations yes no d of the d ay ay i mean d our names are worn away to but we have several proofs that we are d hold we are and and we have an old seal marked with a lion on a shield and a castle over him and we have a very old silver spoon round in the bowl like a little and marked with the same castle but it is so worn that mother uses it to stir the soup a castle is certainly my crest said he and my arms a lion and so mother said we ought to make ourselves to you as we ve lost our horse by a bad accident and are the oldest branch o the family very kind of your mother i m and i for one don t regret her step looked at as he spoke in a way that made her blush a little and so my pretty girl you ve come on a friendly visit to us as relations i suppose i have faltered looking uncomfortable again well there s no harm in it where do you live what are you she gave him brief particulars and to further inquiries told that she was intending to go back by the same who had brought her it is a long while before he returns past cross supposing we walk round the grounds to pass the time my pretty wished to her visit as much as possible but the young man was pressing and she consented to accompany hun he conducted her about the and flower beds and and thence to the fruit garden and green houses where he asked her if she liked yes said when they come they are already here d began gathering specimens of the fruit for her handing them back to her as he stooped and presently selecting a the maiden specially fine product of the british queen variety he stood up and held it by the stem to her mouth no no she said putting her fingers between his hand and her lips i would rather take it in my own hand nonsense he insisted and in a slight distress she parted her lips and took it in they had spent some time wandering thus eating in a half pleased half reluctant state whatever d her when she could no more of the he filled her little basket with them and then the two passed round to the rose trees whence he gathered blossoms and gave her to put in her bosom she obeyed like one in a dream and when she could no more he himself tucked a bud or two into her hat and heaped her basket with others in the of his at last looking at his watch he said now by the time you have had something to eat it will be time for you to leave if you want to catch the to come here and see what i can find d took her back to the lawn and into the tent where he left her soon with a basket of light luncheon which he put before her himself it was evidently the gentleman s wish not to be disturbed in this pleasant by the do you mind my smoking he asked oh not at all sir he watched her pretty and unconscious through the of smoke that pervaded the tent and did not divine as she innocently looked down at the roses in her bosom that there behind the blue haze was the tragic mischief of her drama one who stood fair to be the blood red ray in the of her young life she had an attribute whidi amounted to a disadvantage just now and it was this that caused of the d d s eyes to themselves upon her it was a of aspect a of growth which made her appear more of a woman than she really was she had inherited the from her mother without the quality it it had troubled her mind occasionally till her companions had said that it was a fault which time would cure she soon had finished her lunch now i am going home sir she said rising and what do they call you he asked as he accompanied her along the drive till they were out of sight of the house down at and you say your people have lost their horse i skilled him she answered her eyes filling with tears as she gave particulars of	45
prince s death and i don t know what to do for father on account of it i must think if i cannot do something my mother must find a berth for you but no nonsense about d only you know quite another name i wish for no better sir said she with something of dignity for a moment only for a moment when they were in the turning of the drive between the tall and before the lodge became visible he inclined his face towards her as if but no he thought better of it and let her go thus the thing began had she perceived this meeting s import she might have asked why she was doomed to be seen and that day by the wrong man and not by some other man the right and desired one in all respects as nearly as humanity can supply the right and desired yet to him who amongst her acquaintance might have to this kind she was but a transient impression half forgotten in the ill judged execution of the well judged plan of things the call seldom produces the comer the man the maiden to love rarely with the for loving nature does not often say see to her poor creature at a time when seeing can lead to happy doing or reply here to a body s cry of tiu the hide and seek has become an irksome game we may wonder whether at the and of the human progress these will be corrected by a finer a closer of the social machinery than that which now us round and along but such completeness is not to be or even conceived as possible enough that in the present case as in millions it was not the two of a perfect whole that confronted each other at the perfect moment a missing wandered about the earth waiting in till the late time came out of which delay sprang anxieties disappointments and passing strange when d got back to the tent he sat down on a chair reflecting with a pleased gleam in his face then he broke into a loud laugh well i m damned what a thing ha and what a girl vi went down the hill to cross and waited to take her seat in the van returning from to she did not know what the other occupants said to her as she entered though she answered them and when they had started anew she rode along with an inward and not an outward eye one among her fellow travellers addressed her more than any had spoken before why you be a and such roses in early june then she became aware of the spectacle she presented to their surprised vision roses at her breast roses in her hat roses and in her basket to the brim she blushed and said that the flowers had been given to her when the passengers were not she stealthily removed the more prominent from her hat and placed them in the basket where she covered them with her handkerchief then she fell to reflecting again and in looking downwards a thorn of the rose remaining in her breast accidentally pricked her chin like all the in was in fancies and she thought this an ill omen the first she had noticed that day the van travelled only so far as and there were several miles of descent from that mountain town into the to her mother had advised her to stay here for the night at the house of a cottage woman they knew if she should feel too so the maiden tired to come on and this did not descending to her home till the following afternoon when she entered the house she perceived in a moment from her mother s manner that something had occurred in the o yes i know all about it i told ee it would be all right and now tis proved since i ve been away what has said rather wearily her mother surveyed the girl up and down with arch approval and went on so you ve brought em how do you know mother i ve had a letter then remembered that there would have been time for this they say mrs d says that she wants you to look after a little fowl farm which is her but this is only her artful way of getting ee there without raising your hopes she s going to own ee as kin that s the meaning o t but i didn t see her you somebody i suppose i saw her son and did he own ee well he called me an i knew it he called her cried to her husband well he spoke to his mother of course and she do want ee there but i don t know that i am apt at tending fowls said the then i don t know who is apt you ve be n bom in the business and brought up in it they that be bom in a business always know more about it than any besides that s only just a show of something for you to do that you t feel i don t altogether think i ought to go said thoughtfully who wrote the letter will you let me look at it of the d mrs d wrote it here it is the letter was in the third person and briefly informed mrs that her daughter s services be useful to that lady in the management of her poultry farm that a comfortable room would be provided for her if she could come and that the wages would be on a liberal scale if they liked her that s all said you couldn t expect her to throw her arms round ee an to kiss and to ee all	45
at once looked out of the window i would rather stay here with father and you she said but why i d rather not tell you why mother indeed i don t quite know why a week afterwards she came in one evening from an search for some light occupation in the immediate neighbourhood her idea had been to get together sufficient money during the to purchase another horse hardly had she crossed the threshold before one of the children danced across the room saying the gentleman s been here her mother hastened to explain smiles breaking from every inch of her person mrs d s son had called on horseback having been riding by chance in the direction of he had wished to know finally in the name of his mother if could really come to manage the old lady s fowl farm or not the lad who had hitherto the birds having proved mr d says you must be a good girl if you are at all as you appear he knows you must be worth your weight in gold he is very much interested in ee truth to tell seemed for the moment really pleased to hear that she had won such high opinion from a stranger when in her own esteem she had sunk so low it is very good of him to think that she the maiden and if i was quite sure how it would be living there i would go any when he is a mighty handsome man i don t think so said coldly well there s chance whether or no and i m sure he wears a beautiful diamond ring yes said little brightly from the window bench and i seed it and it did twinkle when he put his hand up to his mother why did our grand relation keep on putting his hand up to his hark at that child cried mrs with admiration perhaps to show his diamond ring murmured sir john from his chair i ll think it over said leaving the room well she s made a conquest o the younger branch of us straight oflf continued the matron to her husband and she s a fool if she don t follow it up i don t quite like my children going away from home said the as the head of the family the rest ought to come to me but do let her go his poor wife he s struck wi her you can see that he called her he ll marry her most likely and make a lady of her and then she ll be what her forefathers was john had more conceit than energy or health and this supposition was pleasant to him perhaps that s what young mr d means he admitted and sure enough he mid have serious thoughts about improving his blood by on to the old line the little rogue and have she really paid em a visit to such an end as this meanwhile was walking thoughtfully among the bushes in the garden and over prince s grave when she came in her mother pursued her advantage of the d well what be you going to do she asked i wish i had seen mrs d said i think you mid as well settle it then you ll see her soon enough her father in his chair i don t know what to say answered the girl it is for you to decide i killed the old horse and i suppose i ought to do something to get ye a new one but but i don t quite like mr d being there the children who had made u e of this idea of being taken up by their wealthy which they imagined the other family to be as a species of after the death of the horse began to cry at s reluctance and and reproached her for hesitating won t go o o and be made a la a of no she says she wo o on tl they with square mouths and we shan t have a nice new horse and lots o golden money to buy f and won t look pretty in her best no mo o ore her mother in to the same tune a certain way she had of making her labours in the house seem heavier than they were by them also weighed in the argument her father alone preserved an attitude of i will go said at last her mother could not repress her consciousness of the vision up by the girl s consent that s right for such a pretty maid as tis this is a fine chance smiled i hope it is a chance for earning money it is no other land of chance you had better say nothing of that silly sort about parish mrs did not promise she was not quite sure that she did not fed proud enough after the visitor s remarks to say a good deal the maiden thus it was arranged and the young girl wrote agreeing to be ready to set out on any day on which she might be required she was duly informed that mrs d was glad of her decision and that a spring cart should be sent to meet her and her luggage at the top of the on the day after the morrow when she must hold herself prepared to start mrs d s handwriting seemed rather masculine a cart murmured it might have been a carriage for her own kin having at last taken her was less restless and abstracted going about her business with some self assurance in the thought of acquiring another horse for her father by an occupation which would not be she had hoped to be a teacher at the school but the seemed to decide otherwise	45
being mentally older than her mother she did not regard mrs s matrimonial hopes for her in a serious aspect for a moment the woman had been discovering good for her daughter from the year of her birth vii on the morning appointed for her departure was awake before dawn at the minute of the dark when the grove is still mute save for one prophetic bird who sings with a clear conviction that he at least knows the correct time of day the rest preserving silence as if equally convinced that he is mistaken she remained upstairs packing till breakfast time and then came down in her ordinary week day clothes her sunday apparel being carefully folded in her box her mother you will never set out to see your folks without dressing up more the than that but i am going to work said well yes said mrs and in a private tone at first there mid be a little pretence o t but i think it will be wiser of ee to put your best side outward she added very well i suppose you know best replied with calm and to please her parent the girl put herself in s hands saying serenely do what you like with me mother mrs was only too delighted at this first she fetched a great basin and washed s hair with such that when dried and brushed it looked twice as much as at other times she tied it with a broader pink ribbon than usual then she put upon her the white frock that had worn at the club walking the airy fulness of which her enlarged imparted the maiden to her developing an which her age and might cause her to be estimated as a woman when she was not much more than a child i declare there s a hole in my heel said never mind holes in your stockings they don t speak when i was a maid so long as i had a pretty bonnet the devil might ha found me in heels her mother s pride in the girl s appearance led her to step back like a painter from his and survey her work as a whole you must yourself she cried it is much better than you was t other day as the looking glass was only large enough to reflect a very small portion of s person at one time mrs hung a black cloak outside the and so made a large of the panes as it is the wont of to do after this she went downstairs to her husband who was sitting in the lower room i ll tell ee what tis said she he ll never have the heart not to love her but whatever you do don t too much to of his fancy for her and this chance she has got she is such an odd maid that it mid her against him or against going there even now if all goes well i shall certainly be for making some return to that pa son at lane for telling us dear good man however as the moment for the girl s setting out drew nigh when the first excitement of the dressing had passed off a slight found place in s mind it prompted the matron to say that she would walk a little way as far as to the point where the from the valley began its first steep ascent to the outer world at the top was going to be met with the spring cart sent by the and her box had already been wheeled ahead towards this summit by a lad with to be in readiness of the d seeing their mother put on her bonnet the younger children to go with her i do want to walk a little ways wi now she s going to marry our gentleman cousin and wear fine now said flushing and turning quickly i ll hear no more o that mother how could you ever put such stuff into their heads going to work my for our rich relation and help get enough money for a new horse said mrs good bye father said with a throat good bye my maid said sir john raising his head from his breast as he suspended his nap induced by a slight excess thi morning in honour of the occasion well i hope my young friend will like such a comely of his own blood and tell n that being sunk from our former grandeur i ll sell him the title yes sell it and at no figure not for less than a thousand pound cried lady tell n i ll take a thousand pound well i ll take less when i come to think o t he ll adorn it better than a poor like myself can tell n he shall it for a but i won t stand upon trifles tell n he shall it for fifty for twenty yes twenty pound that s the lowest family is family honour and i won t take a penny less s eyes were too fuu and her voice too choked to utter the sentiments that were in her she turned quickly and went out so the girls and their mother all walked together a child on each side of holding her hand and looking at her from time to time as at one who was about to do great things her mother just behind with the smallest the group forming a picture of honest beauty by innocence and the maiden backed by simple vanity they followed the way till they reached the beginning of the ascent on the crest of which the vehicle from was to receive her this limit having been fixed to save the horse the labour of the last slope far away behind the first hills	45
the uke dwellings of broke the line of the ridge nobody was visible in the elevated road which skirted the ascent save the lad whom they had sent on before them sitting on the handle of the that contained all s worldly possessions bide here a bit and the cart will soon come no doubt said mrs yes i see it yonder it had come appearing suddenly from behind the forehead of the nearest and stopping beside the boy with the her mother and the children thereupon decided to go no farther and bidding them a hasty good bye bent her steps up the hill they saw her white shape draw near to the on which her box was already placed but before she had quite reached it another vehicle shot out from a of trees on the summit came round the bend of the road there passed the luggage cart and halted beside who looked up as if in great her mother perceived for the first time that the second vehicle was not a humble conveyance like the first but a and span or dog cart highly and equipped the driver was a young man of three or f our and twenty with a between his teeth wearing a cap jacket breeches of the same hue white up collar and brown driving gloves in short he was the handsome young buck who had visited a week or two before to get her answer about mrs clapped her hands hke a child then she looked down then stared again could she be deceived as to the meaning of this is the gentleman who ll make a lady asked the youngest child op the d meanwhile the form of could be seen standing still beside this turn out whose owner was talking to her her seeming was in fact more than it was she would have preferred the cart the young man and appeared to urge her to ascend she turned her face down the hill to her relatives and regarded the little group something seemed to her to a determination possibly the thought that she had killed prince she suddenly stepped up he mounted beside her and immediately whipped on the horse in a moment they had passed the slow cart with the box and disappeared behind the shoulder of the directly was out of sight and the interest of the matter as a drama was at an end the little ones eyes filled with tears the youngest child said i wish poor poor wasn t gone away to be a lady and lowering the comers of lips burst out crying the new point of view was and the next child did likewise and then the next till the whole three of them loud there were tears also in s eyes as she turned to go home but by the time she had got back to the village she was trusting to the favour of accident however in bed that night she sighed and her husband asked her what was the matter h i don t know exactly she said i was thinking that perhaps it would ha been better if had not gone t ye to have thought of that before tis a chance for the maid still if the doing again i wouldn t let her go till i had found out whether the gentleman is a young man and choice over her as his yes you ought perhaps to ha done that sir john the maiden always managed to find consolation somewhere well as one of the genuine stock she ought to make her way with en if she plays her card aright and if he don t marry her afore he wi ll after for that he s all wi love for her any eye can see what s her card her d blood you mean no stupid her face as twas mine viii having mounted beside her d drove rapidly along the crest of the first hill compliments to as they went the cart with her box being left far behind rising still an immense landscape stretched around them on every side behind the een of her birth before a gray country of whidi she knew nothing except from her first brief visit to thus they reached the verge of an incline down which the road stretched in a long straight descent of nearly a mile ever since the accident with her father s horse courageous as she was had been exceedingly timid on wheels the least of motion startled her she began to get uneasy at a certain in her conductor s driving you will go down slow sir i suppose she said with attempted d looked round upon her his cigar with the tips of his large white centre teeth and allowed his lips to smile slowly of themselves why he answered after another or two t isn t a brave girl like you who asks that why i always go down at full gallop there s nothing like it for raising your spirits but perhaps you ne not now ah he said shaking his head there are two to be reckoned with it is not me alone has to be considered and she has a very queer temper who why this mare i fancy she looked round at me in a very grim way just then didn t you notice it the maiden don t try to frighten me sir said stiffly well i don t if any living man can manage this horse i can i won t say any living man can do it but if such has the power i am he why do you have such a horse ah well may you ask it it was my fate i suppose has killed one chap and just after i bought her she nearly killed me and take my word for it i nearly killed	45
her but she s still very and one s life is hardly safe behind her sometimes they were just beginning to descend and it was evident that the horse whether of her own will or of his the latter being the more likely knew so well the reckless performance expected of her that she hardly required a hint from behind down down they sped the wheels like a top the dog cart rocking right and left its acquiring a slightly set in relation to the line of progress the figure of the horse rising and falling in before them sometimes a wheel was the ground it seemed for many yards sometimes a stone was sent spinning over the hedge and sparks from the horse s hoofs the the aspect of the straight road enlarged with their advance the two banks dividing like a stick one rushing past at each shoulder the wind blew through s white muslin to her very skin and her washed hair flew out behind she was to show no open fear but she clutched d s rein arm don t touch my arm we shall be thrown out if you do hold on my waist she grasped his waist and so they reached the bottom safe thank god in spite of your said she her face on fire that s temper said d tis truth op the d well you need not let go your hold of me so the moment you feel yourself out of danger she had not considered what she had been doing whether he were man or woman stick or stone in her involuntary hold on him recovering her reserve she sat without replying and thus they reached the of another now then again said d no no said show more sense do please but when people find themselves on one of the highest points in the county they must get down again he retorted he loosened rein and away they went a second time d turned his face to her as they rocked and said in playful now then put your arms round my waist again as you did before my beauty never said holding on as well as she could without touching him let me put one little kiss on those lips or even on that warmed cheek and stop on my honour i will surprised beyond measure slid farther back still on her seat at which he urged the horse anew and rocked her the more will nothing else do she cried at length in desperation her large eyes staring at him like those of a wild animal this dressing her up so prettily by her mother had apparently been to lamentable purpose nothing dear he replied oh i don t know very well i don t mind she panted miserably he drew rein and as they he was on the point of the desired salute when as if hardly yet aware of her own modesty she aside his arms being occupied with the reins there was left him no power to prevent her the maiden now damn it break both our necks swore her passionate companion so can go from your word uke that you young witch can you very well said i ll not move since you be so determined but i thought you would be kind to me and protect me as my be hanged now but i don t want anybody to kiss me sir she implored a big tear beginning to roll down her face and the comers of her trembling in her attempts not to cry and i wouldn t ha come if i had known he was inexorable and she sat still and d gave her the kiss of mastery no sooner had he done so than she flushed with shame took out her handkerchief and wiped the spot on her cheek that had been touched by his lips his was at the sight for the act on her part had been unconsciously done you are mighty sensitive for a cottage girl said the young man made no reply to this remark of which indeed she did not quite comprehend the drift the she had administered by her instinctive rub upon her cheek she had in fact undone the kiss as far as such a thing was possible with a dim sense that he was vexed she looked steadily ahead as they trotted on near down and till she saw to her consternation that there was yet another descent to be undergone you shall be made sorry for that he resumed his injured tone still remaining as he flourished the whip anew unless that is you agree willingly to let me do it again and no handkerchief she sighed very well sir she said oh let me get my hat at the moment of speaking her hat had blown off into the road their present speed on the being s op the d by no means slow d pulled up and said he would get it for her but was down on the other side she turned back and picked up the article you look prettier with it off upon my soul if that s possible he said contemplating her over the back of the now then up again what s the matter the hat was in place and tied but had not stepped forward no sir she said revealing the red and ivory of her mouth as her eye lit in defiant not again if i know it what you won t get up beside me no i shall walk tis five or six miles yet to i don t care if tis besides the cart is behind you artful now tell me didn t you make that hat blow off on purpose i ll swear you did her silence confirmed his suspicion then d cursed and swore at her and called her	45
everything he could think of for the trick turning the horse suddenly he tried to drive back upon her and so hem her in between the and the hedge but he could not do this short of her you ought to be ashamed of yourself for using such wicked words cried with spirit from the top of the hedge into which she had scrambled i don t like ee at all i hate and you i ll go back to mother i will d s bad temper cleared up at sight of hers and he laughed heartily well i like you all the better he said come let there be peace i ll never do it any more against your will my life upon it now still could not be induced to she did not however object to his keeping his along the maiden side her and in this manner at a slow pace they advanced towards the village of time to time d exhibited a sort of fierce distress at the sight of the he had driven her to undertake by his she might in truth have safely trusted him now but he had her confidence for the time and she kept on the ground thoughtfully as if wondering it would be wiser to return home her resolve however had been taken and it seemed even to to abandon it now unless for graver reasons how could she face her parents get back her box and the whole scheme for the of her family on such sentimental grounds a few minutes later the chimneys of the slopes appeared in view and in a snug nook to the right the poultry farm and cottage of s destination ix the community of fowls to which had been appointed as nurse and friend made its in an old cottage standing in an e that had once been a garden but was now a trampled and square the house was with ivy its chimney being enlarged by the boughs of the to the aspect of a ruined tower the lower rooms were entirely given over to the birds who walked about them with a air as though the place had been built by themselves and not by certain dusty who now lay east and west in the the descendants of these owners felt it almost as a slight to their family when the house which had so much of their affection had cost so much of their forefathers money and had been in their possession for several generations before the d came and built here was indifferently into a by mrs d as soon as the property fell into hand according to law twas good enough for christians in grandfather s time they said the rooms wherein of had at their nursing now with the tapping of distracted in occupied spots where formerly stood chairs supporting the chimney comer and once blazing hearth was now filled with in which the laid their eggs while out of doors the plots that each succeeding had carefully shaped with his were torn by the in wildest fashion the maiden the garden in which the cottage stood was surrounded by a wall and could only be entered through a door when had occupied herself about an hour the next in and improving the arrangements according to her skilled ideas as the daughter of a professed the door in the wall opened and a servant in white cap and apron entered she had come from the house mrs d wants the fowls as usual she said but perceiving that did not quite understand she explained mis ess is a old lady and blind said almost before her at the news could find time to shape itself she took under her companion s direction two of the most beautiful of the in her arms and followed the maid servant who had likewise taken two to the adjacent mansion which though and imposing showed traces everywhere on this side that some of its chambers could bend to the love of dumb creatures feathers floating within view of the front and hen standing on the grass in a sitting room on the floor in an with her back to the light was the owner and mistress of the estate a white haired woman of not more than sixty or even less wearing a large cap she had the face frequent in those whose sight has decayed by stages has been laboriously after and reluctantly let go rather than the mien apparent in persons long or bom blind walked up to this lady with her charges one sitting on each arm ah you are the young woman come to look after my said mrs d a new footstep i hope you will be kind to them my tells me you are quite the proper person well where are they ah this is but he is hardly so lively to day is he he is alarmed at being op the d handled by a stranger i suppose and yes they are a little frightened aren t you but they will soon get used to you while the old lady had been speaking and the other maid in obedience to her gestures had placed the fowls in her lap and she had felt them over from head to tail examining their their the of the their wings and their her touch enabled her to recognize them in a moment and to discover if a single feather were crippled or she handled their crops and knew what they had eaten and if too little or too much her face a vivid of the passing in her mind the birds that the two girls had brought in were duly returned to the yard and the process was repeated till all the pet and had been submitted to the old woman and such other sorts as were in fashion just then her	45
perception of each visitor being seldom at fault as she received the bird upon her knees it reminded of a confirmation in which mrs d was the bishop the fowls the people presented and herself and the maid servant the parson and of the parish bringing them up at the end of the ceremony mrs d abruptly asked and her face into can you whistle whistle ma am yes whistle tunes could whistle like most other country girls though the accomplishment was one which she did not care to profess in genteel company however she admitted that such was the fact then you will have to practise it every day i had a lad who did it very well but he has left i want you to whistle to my as i cannot see them i like to hear them and we teach em airs the maiden that way tell her where the are elizabeth you must b in tomorrow or they will go back in their they have been n these several days mr d whistled to em this morning ma am said elizabeth he the old lady s face into of and she made no reply thus the reception of by her fancied and the birds were taken back to their quarters the girl s surprise at mrs d s manner was not great for since seeing the size of the house she had expected no more but she was far from being aware that the old lady had never heard a word of the so called she gathered that no great affection flowed between the blind woman and her son but in that too she was mistaken mrs d was not the first mother compelled to love her offspring and to be bitterly fond in spite of the unpleasant of the day before inclined to the freedom and novelty of her new position in the morning when the sim shone now that she was once there and she was curious to test her powers in the direction asked of her so as to ascertain her chance of retaining her post as soon as she was alone within the walled garden she sat herself down on a and seriously up her mouth for the long neglected practice she found her former ability to have to the production of a hollow rush of wind through the lips and no dear note at all she remained blowing and blowing wondering how she could have so grown out of the art which had come by nature till she became aware of a movement among the ivy boughs which the garden wall no less than the cottage looking that way she beheld a form springing from the to op the d the plot it was d whom she had not set eyes on since he had conducted her the day before to the door of the gardener s cottage where she had lodgings upon my honour cried he there was never before such a beautiful thing in nature or art as you look cousin cousin had a faint ring of mockery i have been watching you from over the wall sitting uke m patience on a monument and up that pretty red mouth to whistling shape and and and privately swearing and never being able to produce a note why you are quite cross because you can t do it i may be cross but i didn t swear ah why you are those my mother wants you to carry on their musical education how selfish of her as if attending to these and here were not enough work for any girl i would refuse if i were you but she wants me particularly to do it and to be ready by to morrow morning does she well then i ll give you a lesson or two oh no you won t said withdrawing towards the door nonsense i don t want to touch you see i u stand on this side of the wire and you can keep on the other so you may feel quite safe now look here you screw up lips too harshly there tis so he suited the action to the word and whistled a line of take o take those lips away but the allusion was lost upon now try said d she attempted to look reserved her face put on a severity but he persisted in his demand and at last to get rid of him she did put up her lips as directed for producing a clear note laughing however and then blushing with vexation that she had laughed a the maiden he encouraged her with try again t was quite serious painfully serious by this time and she tried ultimately and a real round the momentary pleasure of success got the better of her her eyes enlarged and she smiled in his face that s it now i have started you you ll go on beautifully there i said i would not come near you and in spite of such temptation as never before fell to mortal man i ll keep my word do you think my mother a queer old soul i don t know much of her yet sir you ll find her so she must be to make you learn to whistle to her i am rather out of her books just now but you will be quite in favour if you treat her live stock well good morning if you meet with any difficulties and want help here don t go to the come to me it was in the economy of this that had undertaken to fill a place her first day s experiences were fairly typical of those which followed through many succeeding days a familiarity with d s presence which that young man carefully cultivated in her by ul dialogue and by calling her his cousin when	45
they were alone removed much of her original shyness of him without however any feeling which sh mess of a new and kind but she was more under his hands than a mere companionship would have made her owing to her dependence upon his mother and through that lady s comparative helplessness upon him she soon found that whistling to the in mrs d s room was no such business when she had regained the art for she had caught from her musical mother airs that suited those admirably a far more satisfactory time op the d than when she practised in the garden was this whistling by the each morning by the young man s presence she threw up her mouth put her lips near the bars and away in grace to the attentive listeners mrs d slept in a large four post with heavy curtains and the occupied the same apartment where they flitted about freely at certain hours and made little white spots on the and once while was at the window where the were ranged giving her lesson as she thought she heard a rustling behind the bed the old lady was not present and turning round the girl had an impression that the toes of a pair of boots were visible below the fringe of the curtains thereupon her whistling became so that the listener if such there were must have discovered her suspicion of his presence she searched the curtains every morning after that but never found anybody within them d had evidently thought better of his to her by an of kind x every village has its its constitution often its own code of morality the levity of some of the younger women in and about was marked and was perhaps of the choice spirit who ruled the slopes in that vicinity the place had also a more abiding defect it drank hard the conversation on t e farms around was on the of saving money and rocked leaning on their or would enter into calculations of great to prove that parish relief was a fuller provision for a man in his old age than any which could result from out of their wages during a whole lifetime the chief pleasure of these philosophers lay in going every saturday night when work was done to a decay market town two or three miles distant and returning in the small hours of the next morning to spend sunday in sleeping off the effects of the curious sold to them as beer by the of the once independent for a long time did not join in the weekly but under pressure from not much older than herself for a field man s wages being as high at twenty one as at forty marriage was early here at length consented to go her first experience of the journey afforded her more enjoyment than she had expected the of the others being quite after her monotonous attention to the poultry farm all the week she went again and again being graceful and interesting standing more of the d over on the momentary threshold of womanhood her appearance drew down upon her some sly r from in the streets of hence though sometimes her to the town was made she always searched for her fellows at nightfall to have the protection of their companionship homeward this had gone on for a month or two when there came a saturday in september on which a fair and a market and the from sought double delights at the on that account s occupations made her late in setting out so that her comrades reached the town long her it was a fine september evening just before sunset when yellow lights struggle with blue shades in lines and the atmosphere itself forms a prospect without aid from more solid objects except the winged insects that dance in it through this low lit walked leisurely along she did not discover the coincidence of the market with the fair till she had reached the place by which time it was close upon dusk her limited was soon completed and then as usual she b an to look about for some of the at first she could not find them and she was informed that most of them had gone to what they called a private little at the house of a hay and dealer who had transactions with their farm he lived in an out of the way nook of the and in trying to find her e thither her eyes fell upon mr d standing at a street comer what my beauty you here so late he said she told him that she was simply waiting for company homeward i ll see you again said he over her shoulder as she went on down the back lane approaching the hay s she could hear the notes of a proceeding from some building in the rear but no sound of dancing was the maiden exceptional state of things for these parts where as a rule the stamping drowned the music the front door being open she see straight through the house into the garden at the back as far as the shades of night would allow and nobody appearing to her knock she traversed the dwelling and went up the path to the whence the sound had attracted her it was a used for and from the open door there floated into the obscurity a mist of yellow radiance which at first thought to be illuminated smoke but on drawing nearer she perceived that it was a cloud of dust lit by candles within the whose beams upon the haze carried forward the outline of the doorway into the wide night of the garden when she came close and looked in she beheld indistinct forms racing up and down to the figure of the dance the silence of their	45
arising from their being in that is to say the from the of and other the stirring of which by their turbulent feet created the that involved the scene through this floating d of and hay mixed with the and warmth of the dancers and forming together a sort of the feebly pushed their notes in marked contrast to the spirit with which the measure was trodden out they as they danced and laughed as they of the rushing couples there could barely be discerned more than the high lights the them to clasping a of whirling a of attempting to and always failing at intervals a couple would approach the doorway for air and the haze no longer their features the resolved themselves into the homely of her own next door neighbours could of the d in two or three short hours have itself thus madly some of the throng sat on benches and by the wall and one of them recognized her the maids don t think it respectable to dance at the de he explained they don t like to let everybody see whidi be their fancy men besides the house sometimes up just when their begin to get so we come here and send out for liquor but when be any of you going home asked with some anxiety now a most directly this is all but the last she waited the drew to a dose and some of the party were in the mind for starting but others would not and another dance was formed this would surely end it thought but it in yet another she became restless and uneasy yet having waited so long it was necessary to wait longer on account of the fair the roads were dotted with characters of possibly ill intent and though not fearful of dangers she feared the unknown had she been near she would have had less dread don t ye be nervous my dear good soul between his a young man with a wet face and his straw hat so far back upon his head that the brim encircled it like the of a saint what s yer hurry to morrow is thank god and we can sleep it off in church time now have a turn with me she did not dancing but she was not going to dance here the movement grew more passionate the behind the luminous pillar of cloud now and then varied the air by playing on the wrong side of the bridge or with the of the bow but it did not matter the panting shapes spun they did not vary their partners if their inclination the maiden were to stick to previous ones changing partners simply meant that a satisfactory choice had not as yet been arrived at by one or other of the pair and by this time every couple had been matched it was then that the ecstasy and the dream began in which emotion was the matter of the universe and matter but an intrusion likely to hinder you from spinning where you wanted to spin suddenly there was a dull on the ground a couple had fallen and lay in a mixed heap the next couple unable to its progress came over the obstacle an inner cloud of dust rose around the prostrate figures amid the general one of the room in which a of arms and legs was you shall catch it for this my gentleman when you get home burst in female accents from the human heap those of the partner of the man whose had the she happened also to be his recently married wife in which there was nothing at as long as any affection remained between wedded couples and indeed it was not in their later lives to avoid making odd lots of the single people between whom there might be a warm understanding a loud laugh from behind s back in the shade of the garden united with the within the room she looked round and saw the red coal of a cigar d was standing there alone he beckoned to her and she reluctantly retreated towards him well my beauty what are you doing here she was so tired after her long day and her walk that she confided her trouble to him that she had been waiting ever since he saw her to have their company home because the road at night was strange to her but it seems they will never leave off and i really think i will wait no longer of the d certainly do not i have only a saddle horse here to day but come to the de and i ll hire a trap and drive you home with me though flattered had never quite got over her original of him and despite their she preferred to walk home with the work folk so she answered that she was much obliged to him but would not trouble him i have said that i will wait for em and they will expect me to now very well miss independence please yourself then i shall not hurry my good lord what a kick up they are having there he had not put himself forward into the light but some of them had perceived him and his presence led to a slight pause and a consideration of how the time was flying as soon as he had re lit a cigar and walked away the people b an to collect themselves from amid those who had come in from other farms and prepared to leave in a body their bundles and baskets were gathered up and half an hour later when the clock sounded a quarter past eleven they were straggling along the lane which led up the hill towards their homes it was a three mile walk along a dry white road made to night by the	45
avoid contact with the boughs and discovered that to hit the exact spot from he had started was at first entirely beyond him up and down round and round he at length heard a slight movement of the horse dose at hand and the sleeve of his overcoat unexpectedly caught his foot said d there was no answer the obscurity was now so great that he could see absolutely nothing but a pale at his feet which represents the white muslin figure he had left upon the dead leaves everything else was blackness alike d stooped and heard a gentle regular breathing he knelt and bent lower her breath warmed his face and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers she was sleeping soundly and upon her there lingered tears darkness and silence ruled everywhere around above them rose the and oaks of the chase in which were poised gentle birds in their last nap and about them stole the and but might some say where was s guardian angel where was the providence of her simple faith perhaps like that other god of the maiden whom the spoke he was talking or he was pursuing or he was in a journey or he was sleeping and not to be why it was that upon this beautiful feminine sensitive as and practically blank as snow as yet there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive why so often the coarse the finer thus the wrong man the woman the wrong woman the man many thousand years of philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order one may indeed admit the possibility of a lurking in the present catastrophe doubtless some of d s ancestors home from a had dealt the same measure even more towards peasant girls of their time but though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for it is scorned by average human nature and it therefore does not mend the matter as s own people down in those are never tired of saying among each other in their way it was to be there lay the pity of it an social chasm was to divide our heroine s personality thereafter from that self of hers who stepped from her mother s door to try her fortune at poultry farm end op phase the phase the second maiden no more phase the second maiden no more xii the basket was heavy and the bundle was large but she them along like a person who did not find her especial burden in material things occasionally she stopped to rest in a mechanical way by some gate or post and then giving the baggage another upon her full round arm went steadily on again it was a sunday morning in late october about four months after s arrival at and some few weeks subsequent to the night ride in the chase the time was not long past daybreak and the yellow upon the horizon behind her back lighted the ridge towards which her face was set the barrier of the wherein she had of late been a stranger which she would have to over to reach her the ascent was gradual on this side and the soil and scenery differed much from those within even the character and accent of the two had shades of difference despite the effects of a railway so that though less than twenty miles from the place of her at her native village had seemed a far away spot the shut in there northward and westward travelled and married northward and westward thought northward and westward those on this side mainly directed their energies and attention to the east and south of the d the incline was the same down which d had driven with her so wildly on that day in june went up the remainder of its length without stopping and on reaching the edge of the over the familiar green world beyond now in mist it was always beautiful from here it was terribly beautiful to to day for since her eyes last f upon it she had learnt that the serpent where the sweet birds sing and her views of life had been totally changed for her by the lesson verily another girl than the simple one she had been at home was she who bowed by thought stood still here and turned to look behind her she could not bear to look forward into the ascending by the long white road that herself had just up she saw a two wheeled vehicle beside which walked a man who held up his hand to attract her attention she obeyed the signal to wait for him with repose and in a few minutes man and horse stopped beside her why did you slip away by like this said d with on a sunday morning too when people were all in bed i only discovered it by accident and i have been driving like the deuce to overtake you just look at the mare why go off like this you know that nobody wished to hinder your going and how it has been for you to along on foot and yourself with this heavy load i have followed like a madman simply to drive you the rest of the distance if you won t come back i shan t come back said she i thought you wouldn t i said so well then put up your baskets and let me help you on she placed her basket and within the dog cart and stepped up and they sat side by side she had no fear of him now and in the cause o her confidence her sorrow lay maiden no more d mechanically lit a cigar and the journey was continued with broken conversation on the commonplace	45
objects by the he had quite forgotten his struggle to kiss her when in the early summer they had in the opposite direction along the same road but she had not and she sat now like a replying to his remarks in after some miles they came in view of the of trees beyond which the village of stood it was only then that her still face showed the least emotion a tear or two beginning to down what are you crying for he coldly asked i was only thinking that i was bom over there murmured well we must all be bom somewhere i wish i had never been bom there or anywhere else well if you didn t wish to come to why did you come she did not reply you didn t come for love of me that i ll swear tis quite true if i had gone for love o you if i had ever sincerely loved you if i loved you still i should not so and hate myself for my weakness as i do now my eyes were dazed by you for a little and that was all he shrugged his shoulders she resumed i didn t understand your meaning till it was too late that s what every woman says how can you dare to use such words she cried turning upon him her eyes h ing as the latent spirit of which he was to see more some day awoke in her my god i could knock you out of the did it never strike your mind that what every woman says some women may feel very well he said laughing i am sorry to wound you i did wrong i admit it he dropped op the d into some little bitterness as he continued only you needn t be so flinging it in my face i am ready to pay to the you know you need not work in the fields or the again you know you may clothe yourself with the best instead of in the bald plain way you have lately affected as if you couldn t get a ribbon more than you earn her lip lifted slightly though there was little scorn as a rule in her large and impulsive nature i have said i will not take anything more from you and i will not i cannot i should be your creature to go on doing that and i won t one would think you were a princess from your manner in addition to a true and original d ha ha well dear i can say no more i suppose i am a bad fellow a damn bad fellow i was bom bad and i have lived bad and i shall die bad in all probability but upon my lost soul i won t be bad towards you again and if certain circumstances should arise you understand in which you are in the least need the least difficulty send me one line and you shall have by return whatever you require i may not be at i am going to london for a time i can t stand the old woman but all letters will be forwarded she said that she did not wish him to drive her further and they stopped just under the of trees d and lifted her down bodily in his arms afterwards placing her articles on the ground beside her she bowed to him slightly her eye just lingering in his and then she to take the for departure d removed his cigar bent towards her and said you are not going to turn away like that dear come if you wish she answered indifferently see how you ve mastered me maiden no more she thereupon turned round and lifted her face to his and remained like a marble term while he a kiss upon her cheek half half as if zest had not yet quite died out her eyes vaguely rested upon the remotest trees in the lane while the kiss was given as though she were nearly unconscious of what he did now the other side for old acquaintance sake she turned her head in the same passive way as one might turn at the request of a or and he kissed the other side his lips touching cheeks that were damp and smoothly chill as the skin of the in the fields you don t give me your mouth and kiss me back you never willingly do that you ll never love me i fear i have said so often it is true i have never really and truly loved you and i think i never can she added perhaps of all things a lie on this thing would do the most good to me now but i have honour enough left little as tis not to tell that lie if i did love you i may have the best o causes for letting you know it but i don t he a breath as if the scene were getting rather oppressive to his heart or to his conscience or to his well you are melancholy i have no reason for flattering you now and i can say plainly that you need not be so sad you can hold your own for beauty against any woman of these parts gentle or simple i say it to you as a practical man and if you are wise you will show it to the world more than you do before it and yet will you come back to me upon my soul i don t like to let you go like this never never i made up my mind as soon as i saw what i ought to have seen sooner and i won t come then good morning my four months cousin good bye	45
of the d he up lightly arranged the reins and was gone between the tall red hedges did not look after him but slowly wound along the crooked lane it was still early and though the sun s lower limb was just free of the hill his rays and peering addressed the eye rather than the touch as yet there was not a soul near sad october and her self seemed the only two haunting that lane as she walked however some footsteps approached behind her the footsteps of a man and owing to the of his advance he was close at her heels and had said good morning before she had been long aware of his he appeared to be an of some sort and carried a tin pot of red paint in his hand he in a business like manner if he should take her basket which she permitted him to do walking beside him it is early to be this sabbath mom he said cheerfully yes said when most people are at rest from their week s work she also assented to this though i do more real work to day than all the week besides do you all the week i work for the glory of man and on for the glory of god that s more real than the hey i have a little to do here at this the man as he spoke to an opening at the roadside leading into a pasture if you ll wait a moment he added i shall not be long as he had her basket she could not well do otherwise and she waited observing him he set down her basket and the tin pot and stirring the paint with the brush that was in it began painting large square letters on the middle board of the three the placing a after each word as if to give loo maiden no more pause while that word was driven well home to the reader s heart thy not pet ii against the peaceful landscape the pale tints of the the blue air of the horizon and the boards these staring words shone forth they seemed to shout themselves out and make the atmosphere ring some people might have cried alas poor at hideous the last grotesque phase of a creed which had served mankind well in its time but the words entered with horror it was as if this man had known her recent history yet he was a total stranger having finished his text he picked up her basket and she mechanically resumed her walk beside him do you believe what you paint she asked in low tones that do i believe in my own existence but said she suppose your sin was not of your own seeking he shook his head i cannot split hairs on that burning he said i have walked hundreds of miles this past summer painting these on every wall gate and in the length and breadth of this district i leave their to the hearts of the people who read em i think they are horrible said crushing killing that s what they are meant to be he in a trade voice but you should read my ones them i for and they d make ye not but what this is a very good for rural districts ah there s a nice bit of blank wall up by that bam standing to waste i must loi op the d put one there one that it will be good for dangerous young females like to heed will ye wait no said she and taking her basket on a little way forward e turned her head the old gray wall began to a similar fiery to the first with a strange and unwonted mien as if distressed at duties it had never before been called upon to perform it was with a sudden flush that she read and realized what was to be the inscription he was now half way through thou shalt not commit her cheerful friend saw her looking stopped his brush and shouted if you want to ask for on these things of moment there s a very earnest good man going to preach a charity sermon to day in the parish you are going to mr of i m not of his persuasion now but he s a good man and he ll as well as any parson i know twas he began the work in me but did not answer she resumed her walk her eyes fixed on the ground i don t believe god said such things she contemptuously when her flush had died away a of smoke up suddenly from her father s the sight of which made her heart ache the aspect of the interior when she reached it made her heart ache more her mother who had just come downstairs turned to greet her from the fireplace where she was oak twigs under the breakfast kettle the young children were still above as was also her father it being sunday morning when he felt justified in lying an addition half hour well my dear exclaimed her surprised mother jumping up and kissing the girl how be i maiden no more ye i didn t see you till you was in upon me have you come home to be married no i have not come home for that mother then for a holiday yes for a holiday for a long holiday said what isn t your cousin going to do the handsome thing he s not my cousin and he s not going to marry me her mother eyed her narrowly come you have not told me all she said then went up to her mother put her face upon s neck and told and yet th st not got him to marry ee	45
her mother any woman would have done it but you after that perhaps any woman would except me it would have been something like a story to come back with if you had continued mrs ready to burst into tears of vexation after all the talk about you and him which has reached us here who have expected it to end like this why didn t ye think of doing some good for your family instead o thinking only of yourself see how i ve got to and slave and your poor weak father with his heart like a dripping pan i did hope for something to come out o this to see what a pretty pair you and he made that day when you drove away together four months ago see what he has given all as we thought because we were his kin but if he s not it must have been done because of his love for ee and yet you ve not got him to marry get d in the mind to marry her he marry on matrimony he had never once said a and what if he had how a at social might have impelled her to answer him she could not say but her poor fool op the d mother little knew her present feeling towards this man perhaps it was unusual in the circumstances unlucky unaccountable but there it was and this as she had said was what made her herself she had never wholly cared for him she did not at all care for him now she had dreaded him before him to advantages he took of her helplessness then temporarily blinded by his ardent manners had been stirred to confused surrender awhile had suddenly despised and disliked him and had run away that was all hate she did not quite but he was dust and ashes to her and even for her name s sake she scarcely wished to marry him you ought to have been more careful if you didn t mean to get him to make you his wife o mother my mother cried the girl turning passionately upon her parent as if her poor heart would break how could i be expected to know i was a child when i left this house four months ago why didn t you tell me there was danger in men folk why didn t you warn me ladies know what to hands against because they read novels that tell them of these tricks but i never had the chance o learning in that way and you did not help me her mother was subdued i thought if i spoke of his fond feelings and what they might lead to you would be wi him and lose your chance she murmured wiping her eyes with her apron well we must the best of it i suppose tis after all and what do please god xiii the event of s return from the of her was abroad if rumour be not too large a word for a space of a square mile in the afternoon several young girls of former and acquaintances of called to see her arriving dressed in their best and as became visitors to a person who had made a conquest as they supposed and sat the room at her with great curiosity for the fact that it was this said thirty first cousin mr d who had fallen in love with her a gentleman not altogether local whose reputation as a reckless gallant and heart was beginning to spread beyond the immediate boundaries of lent s supposed position by its a far higher fascination than it would have exercised if their interest was so deep that the younger ones whispered when her back was turned how pretty she is and how that best frock do set her off i believe it cost an immense deal and that it was a gift from him who was reaching up to get the tea things from the comer cupboard did not hear these if she had heard them she might soon have set her friends right on the matter but her mother heard and s simple vanity having been denied the hope of a dashing marriage fed itself as well as it could upon the sensation of a dashing upon the whole she felt gratified even though such a limited and triumph j ould involve op the d her daughter s reputation it might end in marriage yet and in the warmth of her to their admiration she invited her visitors to stay to tea their chatter their laughter their good humoured above all their flashes and of envy revived s spirits also and as the evening wore on she caught the of their excitement and grew almost gay the marble hardness left her face she moved something of her old bounding step and flushed in all her beauty at moments in spite of thought she would reply to their inquiries with a of superiority as if that her experiences in the field of had indeed been slightly but so far was she from being in the words of robert south in love with her own ruin that the illusion was transient as lightning cold reason came back to mock her weakness the of her momentary pride would her and recall her to reserved again and the despondency of the next morning s dawn when it was no longer but monday and no best clothes and the laughing visitors were gone and she awoke alone in her old b the innocent children breathing softly around her in place of excitement of her return and the interest it had inspired she saw before her a long and stony highway which she had to tread without aid and with little sympathy her depression was then terrible and she could have hidden herself in a tomb in the course of a few weeks revived	45
to show herself so far as was necessary to get to church one morning she liked to hear the such as it was and the old and to join in tiie morning hymn that innate love of melody which she had inherited from her mother gave the simplest music a power over her which could well nigh drag her heart out of her bosom at times maiden no more to be as much out of observation as possible for reasons of her own and to escape the of the young men she set out before the began and took a back seat under the gallery close to the lumber where only old men and women came and where the stood on end among the churchyard tools dropped in by and deposited themselves in rows before her rested of a minute on their as if they were praying though they were not then sat up and looked around when the came on one of her happened to be chosen among the rest the old double chant but she did not know what it was called though she would much have liked to know she thought without exactly the thought how strange and was a s power who from the grave could lead through of emotion which he alone had felt at first a girl like her who had never heard of his name and never would have a due to his personality the people who had turned their heads turned them again as the service proceeded and at last observing her they whispered to other she knew their whispers were about grew sick at heart and felt that she could come to church no more the bedroom which she had shared with some of the children formed her retreat more continually than ever here her few square yards of she watched winds and and rains gorgeous and successive at their full so close kept she that at length almost everybody thought she had gone away the only exercise that took at this time was after dark and it was then when out in the woods that she seemed least solitary she knew how to hit to a hair s breadth that moment of evening when the light and the darkness are so balanced that the of day and the suspense of night each other leaving absolute mental liberty it is then op the d that the plight of being alive becomes to its least possible dimensions she had no fear of the shadows her sole idea seemed to be to mankind or rather that cold called the world which so terrible in the mass is so even pitiable in its on these lonely hills and her glide was of a piece with the element she moved in her and stealthy figure became an part of the scene at times her fancy would processes her till they seemed a part of her own story rather they became a art of it for the world is only a phenomenon and what they seemed they were the midnight airs and moaning amongst the and bark of the winter twigs were of bitter reproach a wet day was the expression of grief at her weakness in the mind of some vague being whom she could not class definitely as the god of her childhood and could not comprehend as any other but this of her own based on of peopled by and voices to her was a sorry and mistaken creation of s fancy a cloud of moral by which she was terrified without reason it was they that were out of harmony with the actual world not she walking among the sleeping birds in the hedges watching the on a or standing under a laden bough she looked upon herself as a figure of guilt into the of but all the while she was making a distinction where there was no difference feeling herself in she was quite in accord she had been made to break an accepted social law but no law known to the in which she fancied herself such an io xiv it was a sunrise in august the attacked by the warm beams were dividing and shrinking into isolated within hollows and where they waited till they should be dried away to nothing the sun on of the mist had a curious personal look demanding the masculine for its adequate expression his present aspect coupled with the lack of all human forms in the scene explained the old time in a moment one could feel that a religion had never prevailed under the sky the was a golden haired beaming mild eyed god hke creature gazing down in the vigour and of youth upon an earth that was with interest for him his light a little later broke through of cottage shutters throwing like r hot upon of drawers and other furniture within and awakening who were not already but of all ruddy things that morning the brightest were two broad arms of painted wood which rose from the margin of a yellow hard by village they with two others below formed the revolving cross of the machine which had been brought to the field on the previous evening to be ready for operations this day the paint with which they were in hue by the imparted to them a look of having been dipped in liquid fire the field had already been opened that is to op the d say a lane a few feet wide had been hand cut through the wheat along the whole of the field for the first passage of the horses and machine two groups one of men and lads the other of women had come down the lane just at the hour when the shadows of the eastern hedge top struck the west hedge so that the of the groups were enjoying while their feet were still	45
in the dawn they disappeared from the lane between the two stone posts which the nearest field gate presently there arose from within a like the love making of the the machine had begun and a moving of three horses and the long machine was visible over the gate a driver sitting upon one of the horses and an attendant on the seat of the along one side of the field the whole went the arms of the mechanical revolving slowly till it passed down the hill quite out of sight in a minute it came up on the other side of the field at the same pace the glistening brass star in the forehead of the fore horse catching the eye as it rose into view over the then the bright arms and then the whole machine the narrow lane of the field grew wider with each circuit and the standing com was reduced to smaller area as the morning wore on rats retreated as into a unaware of the nature of their refuge and of the that awaited them later in the day when their covert shrinking to a more and more horrible they were huddled together friends and foes till the last few yards of upright wheat fell also the teeth of the and they were every one put to death by the and stones of the the machine left the fallen com behind it in little heaps each heap being of the quantity for a and upon these the active in the rear no maiden no more laid their hands mainly women but some of them men in print shirts and trousers supported round their by leather rendering useless the two buttons behind which and with at every movement of each as if they were a pair of eyes in the small of his back but those of the other sex were the most interesting of this company of by reason of the charm which is acquired by woman when she becomes part and parcel of nature and is not merely an object set down therein as at ordinary times a is a personality a field woman is a portion of the she has somehow lost her own margin the essence of her and herself with it the women or rather girls for they were mostly young wore drawn cotton with great flapping curtains to keep off the sun and gloves to prevent their hands being by the there was one wearing a pale pink jacket another in a cream coloured tight gown another in a as red as tiie arms of the machine and others older in the brown rough or over all the old established and most appropriate dress of the field woman which the ones were this morning the eye returns involuntarily to the girl in the pink cotton jacket she being the most and finely drawn figure of them all but her bonnet is pulled so far over her brow that none of her face is disclosed while she though her complexion may be guessed from a stray or two of dark brown hair which extends below the curtain of her perhaps one reason why she casual attention is that she never courts it though the other women often gaze them her binding proceeds with clock like monotony the last finished she draws a handful of ears patting their tips with her left palm to bring even then stooping low she moves forward iii op the d gathering the com with both hands against her knees and pulling her left hand the bundle to meet the right on the other side holding the com in an embrace like that of a lover she brings the ends of the bond together and on the while she ties it beating back her skirts now and then when lifted by the breeze a bit of her naked arm is visible between the leather of the and the sleeve of her gown and as the day wears on its feminine becomes by the and at intervals she stands up to rest and to her apron or to pull her bonnet straight then one can see the oval face of a handsome young woman with deep dark eyes and long heavy which seem to in a way anything they fall against the cheeks are paler the teeth more the red lips than is usual in a country bred girl it is otherwise d somewhat changed the same but not the same at the present stage of her existence living as a stranger and an alien here though it was no strange land that she was in after a long seclusion she had come to a resolve to undertake work in her native village the season of the year in the agricultural world having arrived and nothing that she could do within the house being so for the time as in the fields the movements of the other women were more or less similar to s the whole of them drawing together like dancers in a at the completion of a by each every one placing her on end against those of the rest till a or as it was here called of ten or a dozen was formed they went to breakfast and came again and the work proceeded as before as the hour of eleven drew near a person watching her might have noticed that every now and then s glance flitted wistfully maiden no more to the brow of the hill though she did not pause in her on the verge of the hour the heads of a group of children of ages from six to fourteen rose above the of the hill the face of flushed slightly but still she did not pause the eldest of the comers a girl who wore a shawl its comer on the carried in her arms what at first sight seemed to be	45
a doll but proved to be an infant in long clothes another brought some lunch the ceased working took their provisions and sat down against one of the here they fell to the men a stone jar freely and passing round a cup had been one of the last to her labours she sat down at the end of the shock her face turned somewhat away from her companions when she had deposited herself a man in a rabbit skin cap and with a red handkerchief tucked into his belt held the cup of ale over the top of the shock for her to drink but she did not accept his offer as soon as her was spread she called up the big girl her sister and took the baby of her who glad to be relieved of the burden went away to the next shock and joined the other children playing there with a curiously stealthy yet courageous movement and with a still rising colour her frock and began the child the men who sat nearest turned their faces towards the other end of the field some of them beginning to smoke one with absent minded fondness the jar that would no longer yield a stream all the women but fell into animated talk and adjusted the knots of their hair when the infant had taken its fill the mother sat it upright in her lap and looking into the far distance it with a gloomy indifference that was almost dislike then all of a sudden she fell to op the d violently kissing it some of times as if she could never leave the child crying at the vehemence of an which strangely combined with contempt she s fond of that there child though she mid pretend to hate en and say she wishes the baby and her too were in the churchyard observed the woman in the red she ll soon leave oflf saying that replied the one in lord tis wonderful what a body can get used to o that sort in time a little more than persuading had to do wi the coming o t i reckon there were they that heard a sobbing one night last year in the chase and it mid ha gone hard wi a certain party if had come along well a little more or a little less twas a thousand that it should have happened to she of all others but tis always the the plain ones be as safe as churches hey the speaker turned to one of the group who certainly was not ill defined as plain it was a thousand indeed it was impossible for even an enemy to feel otherwise on looking at as she sat there with her flower like mouth and large tender eyes neither black nor blue nor gray nor violet rather all those shades together and a hundred others which could be seen if one looked into their shade behind shade tint beyond tint around pupils that had no bottom an almost standard woman but for the slight of character inherited from her race a resolution which had surprised herself had brought her into the fields this week for the first time during months after wearing and wasting her heart with every engine of r that lonely could devise common sense had her she felt that she would do well to be useful again to taste anew sweet independence at maiden no more any price the past was past whatever it had been it was no more at hand whatever its consequences time dose over them they would all in a few years be as if they had never been and she herself down and forgotten meanwhile the trees were just as green as before the birds sang and the sun one as clearly now as ever the familiar surroundings had not darkened because of her grief nor because of her pain she might have seen that what had bowed her head so the thought of the world s concern at her situation was on an illusion she was not an existence an experience a passion a of sensations to anybody but herself to all besides was only a passing thought even to friends she was no more than a frequently passing thought if she made herself miserable the night and day it was only this much to them ah she makes herself unhappy if she tried to be cheerful to dismiss all care to take pleasure in the daylight the flowers the baby she could only be this idea to them ah very well moreover alone in a desert island would she have been wretched at what had happened to her not greatly if she could have been but just created to discover herself as a mother with no experience of life except as the parent of a nameless child would the position have caused her to despair no she would have taken it calmly and pleasures therein most of the misery had been by her conventional aspect and not by her innate sensations whatever s reasoning some spirit had induced her to dress herself up neatly as she had formerly done and come out into the fields harvest hands being greatly in demand just then this was why she had borne herself with dignity and had looked people calmly in the face at times even when holding the baby in her arms the harvest men rose from the shock of com and op the d stretched their limbs and extinguished their pipes the which had been and fed were again attached to the scarlet machine having quickly eaten her own meal beckoned to her eldest sister to come and take away the baby fastened her dress put on the gloves again and stooped anew to draw a bond from the last completed for the of the next in the afternoon	45
and evening the proceedings of the morning were continued staying on till dusk with the body of then they all rode home in one of the largest in the company of a broad moon that had risen from the ground to the its face resembling the gold leaf of some worm eaten saint s female companions sang songs and showed very sympathetic and glad at her out of doors though they could not refrain from throwing in a few verses of the ballad about the maid who went to the merry green wood and came back a changed state there are and in life and the event which had made of her a social warning had also for the moment made her the most interesting personage in the village to many their friendliness won her still further away from herself their lively spirits were and she became almost gay but now that her moral sorrows were passing away a fresh one arose on the natural side of her which knew no social law when she reached home it was to learn to her grief that the baby had been suddenly taken ill since the afternoon some such had been probable so tender and was its frame but the event came as a shock nevertheless the baby s offence against society in coming into the world was forgotten by the girl mother her soul s desire was to continue that offence by preserving the life of the child however it soon grew clear that the hour of for that little prisoner of the ii maiden no more flesh was to arrive earlier than her worst had and when she had discovered this she was plunged into a misery which that of the child s simple loss her baby had not been had drifted into a frame of mind which accepted the consideration that if she should have to bum for what she had done bum she must and there was an end of it like all village girls she was well in the holy and had studied the histories of and and knew the to be drawn but when the same question arose with regard to the baby it had a very different colour her darling was about to die and no salvation it was nearly but she rushed downstairs and asked if she might send for the parson the moment happened to be one at which her father s sense of the antique nobility of his family was highest and his to the which had set upon that nobility most for he had just returned from his weekly at s inn no parson should come inside his door he declared into his affairs just then when by her shame it had become more necessary than ever to hide them he locked the door and put the key in his pocket the household went to bed and distressed beyond measure retired also she was continually waking as she lay and in the middle of the night found that the baby was still worse it was obviously dying quietly and but none the less surely in her misery she rocked herself upon the bed the dock struck the solemn hour of one that hour when fancy outside reason and malignant possibilities stand rock firm as facts she thought of the child consigned to the comer of hell as its double doom for lack of and lack of saw the arch tossing it with his three fork like the one they used for op the d the oven on days to which picture she added many other quaint and details of torment sometimes the young in this christian country the lurid so powerfully affected her imagination in the silence of the sleeping house that her became damp with perspiration and the shook with each throb of her heart the infant s breathing grew more difficult and the mother s mental increased it was useless to the little thing with kisses she could stay in bed no longer and walked about the room o merciful god have pity have pity upon my poor baby she cried heap as much anger as you want to upon me and welcome but pity the child she against the chest of drawers and murmured for a long while till she suddenly started up ah perhaps baby can be saved perhaps it will be just the same she spoke so brightly that it seemed as though her face might have shone in the gloom her she lit a candle and went to a second and a third bed the wall where she awoke her sisters and brothers all of whom occupied the same room pulling out the washing stand so that she could get behind it she poured some water from a and made them kneel putting their hands together with fingers exactly while the children scarcely awake awe stricken at her manner their eyes growing larger and larger remained in this position she took the baby from her bed a child s child so as scarce to seem a sufficient personality to its with the maternal title then stood erect with the infant on her arm beside the basin the next sister held the prayer book open before her as the clerk at church held it ii maiden no more before the parson and thus the girl set about her child her figure looked singularly tall and imposing as she stood in her long white a thick cable of twisted dark hair hanging straight down her back to her waist the kindly of the weak candle abstracted from her form and features the little which might have revealed the upon her wrists and the weariness of her eyes her high enthusiasm having a effect upon the face which had been her showing it as a thing of beauty with a touch of dignity which was almost the little ones kneeling round their sleepy	45
eyes and red awaited her preparations full of a suspended wonder which their physical at that hour would not allow to become active the most impressed of them said be you really going to him the girl mother replied in a grave affirmative what s his name going to be she had not thought of that but a name suggested by a phrase in the book of came into her head as she proceeded with the service and now she it sorrow i thee in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy ghost she sprinkled the water and there was silence say amen children the tiny voices in obedient response amen went on we receive this child and so forth and do sign him with the sign of the cross here she dipped her hand into the basin and fervently drew an immense cross upon the baby with her forefinger continuing with the customary sentences as to his fighting against sin the world and the devil and being a faithful soldier and servant unto his life s end she duly went on with op the d the lord s prayer the children it after her in a thin like wail till at the conclusion raising their voices to clerk s pitch they again into the silence amen then their sister with much confidence in the of this poured forth from the bottom of her heart the that follows uttering it boldly and triumphantly in the note which her voice acquired when her heart was in her speech and whidi will never be forgotten by those who knew her the ecstasy of faith almost her it set upon her face a glowing and brought a red spot into the middle of each cheek while the miniature in her eye pupils shone like a diamond the children gazed up at her with more and more reverence and no longer had a will for questioning she did not look like to them now but as a being large towering and awful a divine personage with whom they had nothing in common poor sorrow s campaign against sin the world and the devil was doomed to be of limited brilliancy luckily perhaps for himself considering his in the blue of the morning that fragile soldier and servant breathed his last and when the other children awoke they cried bitterly and begged to have another pretty baby the calmness which had possessed since the remained with her in the infant s loss in the daylight indeed she felt her terrors about his soul to have been somewhat exaggerated whether well founded or not she had no uneasiness now reasoning that if providence would not such an act of she for one did not value the kind of heaven lost by the either for herself or for her child so passed away sorrow the that creature that gift of nature who respects not the social law a to whom no eternal time had been a matter of days merely who knew not that such things as years and centuries ever were to whom the cottage interior was the universe the week s weather climate new bom human existence and the instinct to human knowledge who mused on the a good deal wondered if it were sufficient to secure a christian burial for the child nobody could tell this but the parson of the parish and he was a and did not know her she went to his house after dusk and stood by the gate but could not courage to go in the enterprise would have been abandoned if she had not by accident met him coming homeward as she turned away in the gloom she did not mind speaking freely i should like to ask you something sir he expressed his to listen and she told the story of the baby s illness and the and now sir she added earnestly can you tell me this will it be just the same for him as if you had him having the natural feelings of a at finding that a job he should have been called in for had b n by his customers among themselves he was disposed to say no yet the dignity of the girl the strange tenderness in her voice combined to affect his nobler impulses or rather those that he had left in him after ten years of endeavour to on actual the man and the fought within him and the victory fell to the man my dear girl he said it will be just the same then will you give him a christian burial she asked quickly the felt himself hearing of the baby s illness he had gone to the house op the d after nightfall to perform the and unaware that the to admit him had me from s father and not from he could not allow the plea of necessity for its irregular administration ah that s another matter he said another matter why asked rather warmly well i would willingly do so only we two were concerned but i must not for certain reasons just for once sir really i must not o sir she seized his hand as she spoke he withdrew it shaking his head i don t like you she burst out and i ll never come to your church no more don t talk so perhaps it will be just the same to him if you don t will it be just the same don t for god s sake speak as saint to sinner but as you yourself to me myself poor me how the reconciled his answer with the strict notions he supposed himself to hold on the subject it is beyond a s power to tell though not to excuse somewhat moved he said in case also it	45
will be just the same so the baby was carried in a small deal box under an ancient woman s shawl to the that night and by lantern light at the cost of a shilling and a pint of beer to the in that shabby comer of god s where he let the grow and where all notorious and others of the damned were laid in spite of the however bravely made a little cross of two and a piece of string and having bound it with flowers she stuck it up at the head of the grave one evening when she could enter the churchyard without being seen putting at the foot also a bunch of the a maiden no more same flowers in a little jar of water to keep them alive what matter was it that on the outside of the jar the eye of mere observation noted the words s the eye of maternal affection did not see them in its vision of higher things xv by experience says we find out a short way by a long wandering not seldom that long wandering us for further travel and of what use is experience to us then s experience was of this kind at last she had learned what to do but who would now accept her doing if before going to the d she had vigorously moved under the guidance of sundry and phrases known to her and to the world in general no doubt she would never have been imposed on but it had not been in s power nor is it in anybody s power to feel the whole truth of golden opinions while it is possible to profit by them she and how many more might have said to god with saint thou hast a better e than thou hast permitted she remained in her father s house during the winter months fowls or and or making clothes for her sisters and brothers out of some finery which d had given her and she had put by with contempt apply to him she would not but she would often her hands behind her head and muse when she was supposed to be working hard she noted dates as they came past in the revolution of the year the disastrous night of her at with its dark of the chase also the dates of the baby s birth and death also her own birthday and every other day by incidents in which she had taken maiden no more some share she suddenly thought one afternoon when looking in the glass at her that there was yet another date of greater importance to her than those that of her own death when all these charms would have disappeared a day which lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year giving no sign or when she passed over it but not the less surely there when was it why did she not feel the chill of each yearly encounter with such a cold relation she had s thought that some time in the future those who had known her would say it is the th the day that poor died and there would be nothing singular to their minds in the statement of that day doomed to be her in time through all the ages she did not know the place in mon week season or year almost at a leap thus changed from simple girl to complex woman of passed into her face and a note of tragedy at times into her voice her eyes grew larger and more eloquent she became what would have been called a fine creature her aspect was fair and her soul that of a woman whom the turbulent experiences of the last year or two had quite failed to but for the world s opinion those experiences would have been simply a liberal education she had held so aloof of late that her trouble never generally known was nearly forgotten in but it became evident to her that she could never be really again in a place which had seen the of her family s attempt to claim kin and through her even closer union with the rich d at least she could not be comfortable there till long years ould have her keen consciousness of it yet even now felt the pulse of life still warm within her she might be happy in some nook which had no memories to escape the past and all that was op the d to it and to do that she would have to get away was once lost always lost really true of she would ask herself she might prove it false if she could veil the power which pervaded nature was surely not denied to alone she waited a long time without finding opportunity for a new departure a particularly fine spring came round and the stir of was almost audible in the it moved her as it moved the wild animals and made her passionate to go at last one day in early may a letter reached her from a former friend of her mother s to whom she had addressed inquiries long before a person whom she had never seen that a skilful was at a many miles to the and that the would be glad to have her for the summer months it was not quite so far off as could have been wished but it was probably far enough her of movement and having been so small to persons of limited are as degrees as as provinces and on one point she was resolved there should be no more d air castles in the dreams and deeds of her new life she would be the and nothing more her mother knew s feeling on this point so well though no words had	45
passed between them on the subject that she never alluded to the now yet such is human that one of the interests of the new place to her was the accidental virtue of its lying near her forefathers country for they were not men though her mother was to the bone the called for which she was bound stood not from some of the former estates of the d ia maiden no more near the great family of her and their powerful husbands she would be able to look at them and think not only that d like had fallen but that the individual innocence of a humble could lapse as silently all the while she wondered if any strange good thing might come of her being in her land and some spirit within her rose as the sap in the twigs it was youth up anew after its temporary check and bringing with it hope and the invincible instinct towards of phase the second phase tee third the rally phase the third the rally xvi on a scented bird morning in may between two and three years after the return from silent years for she left her home for the second time having packed up her luggage so that it could be sent to her later she started in a hired trap for the little town of through which it was necessary to pass on her journey now in a direction almost opposite to that of her first on tiie curve of the nearest hill she looked back at and her father s house although she had been so anxious to get away her kindred dwelling there would probably continue their daily lives as heretofore with no great of pleasure in their consciousness although she would be far off and they deprived of her smile in a few days the children would engage in their games as merrily as ever without the sense of any gap left by her departure this leaving of the younger children she had decided to be for the best were die to remain they would probably gain less good by her than harm by her example she went through without pausing and onward to a of where she could await a s van that ran to south west for the which this interior tract of of the d country had never yet struck across it while waiting however there came along a farmer in his driving in the direction that she wished to ue though he was a stranger to her she accepted his offer of a seat beside him that its motive was a mere tribute to her countenance he was going to and by accompanying him thither she could walk the remainder of the distance instead of travelling in the van by way of did not stop at after this long drive further than to make a slight meal at noon at a cottage to which the farmer recommended her thence she started on foot basket in hand to reach the wide of heath dividing this district from the low l ring of a further valley in which the stood that was the aim and end of her day s pilgrimage had never before visited this part of the country and yet she felt akin to the landscape not so very far to the left of her she could discern a dark patch in the scenery which inquiry confirmed her in supposing to be trees marking the of in the church of which parish the bones of her ancestors her useless ancestors lay she had no admiration for them now she almost hated them for the dance they had led her not a thing of all that had been theirs did she retain but the old seal and spoon i have as much of mother as father in me she said all my comes from her and she was only a the journey over the intervening and of when she reached them was a more troublesome walk than she had anticipated the distance being actually but a few miles it was two hours owing to wrong ere she found herself on a summit commanding the long sought f or the valley of the great the in which milk and butter grew to and were the rally produced more if less delicately than at her home the plain so well watered by the river or it was from the of little which save her disastrous at she had exclusively known till now the world was drawn to a larger pattern here the numbered fifty acres instead of ten the were more extended the groups of cattle formed tribes there only these of cows stretching under her eyes from the far east to the far west any she had ever seen at one glance before the green was as thickly with them as a canvas by van or with the ripe hue of the red and absorbed the evening sunlight which the white animals returned to the eye in rays almost dazzling even at the distant elevation on which she stood the bird s eye perspective before her was not so beautiful perhaps as that other one which she knew so well yet it was more cheering it lacked the intensely blue atmosphere of the rival and its heavy and the new air was clear ethereal the river itself which nourished the grass and cows of these renowned flowed not like the streams in those were slow silent often flowing over beds of mud into which the might sink and vanish unawares the waters were clear as the pure river of life shown to the rapid as the shadow of a with that to the sky all day long there the water flower was the lily the crow foot here either the change in the quality of the air from heavy to light or the sense of being	45
said the person behind the cow s attention was thus attracted to the s of whom she could see but the op the d merest patch owing to his burying his head so persistently in the flank of the she could not understand why he should be addressed as sir even by the himself but no explanation was he remained under the cow long enough to have three uttering a private now and then as if he could not get on take it gentle sir take it gentle said the tis not strength that does it so i find said the other standing up at last and stretching his arms i think i have finished her however though she made my fingers ache could see him at full length he wore the ordinary white and leather of a farmer when and his boots were with the of the yard but this was all his local livery beneath it was something educated reserved subtle sad but the details of his aspect were temporarily thrust aside by the discovery that he was one whom she had seen before such had passed through since that time that for a moment she could not remember where she had met him and then it flashed upon her that he was the who had joined in the club dance at the passing stranger who had come she knew not whence had danced with others but not with her had left her and gone on his way with his friends tlie flood of memories brought back by this revival of an incident to her troubles produced a momentary dismay lest her also he should by some means discover her story but it passed away when she found no sign of remembrance in him she saw by degrees that since their first and only encounter his face had grown more thoughtful and had acquired a man s moustache and beard the latter of the straw colour where it began upon his cheeks and deepening to a warm brown further from its root under his the rally linen he wore a dark jacket cord breeches and and a white shirt without the gear nobody could have guessed what he was he might with equal probability have been an eccentric or a gentlemanly that he was but a at work she had realized in a moment from the time he had spent upon the of one cow meanwhile many of the had said to one another of the how pretty she is with something of real generosity and admiration though with a half hope that the would the assertion which strictly speaking they might have done being an definition of what struck the eye in when the was finished for the evening they indoors where mrs the s wife who was too respectable to go out herself and wore a hot stuff gown in warm weather because the wore prints was giving an eye to the leads and things only two or three of the maids learnt slept in the house besides herself most of the going to their homes she saw nothing at of the superior who had commented on the story and asked no questions about him the remainder of the evening being occupied in arranging her place in the bed chamber it was a large room over the milk house some thirty feet long the sleeping of the other three being in the same apartment they were blooming women and except one rather older than by was thoroughly tired and fell asleep immediately but one of the girls who occupied an adjoining bed was more than and would insist upon relating to the latter various particulars of the into which she had just entered the girl s whispered words mingled with the shades and ms op the d to s drowsy mind they seemed to be by the darkness in which they floated mr angel he that is learning and that plays the harp never says much to us he is a pa son s son and is too much taken up wi his own thoughts to notice girls he is the s pupil gleaming farming in all its branches he has learnt sheep farming at another place and he s now work yes he is quite the gentleman bom his father is the mr at a good many miles from here oh i have heard of him said her companion now awake a very earnest is he not yes that he is the man in all they say the last of the old low church sort they tell me for all about here be what they call high all his sons except our mr be made pa sons too had not at this hour the curiosity to ask why the present mr was not made a parson like his brethren and gradually fell asleep again the words of her coming to her along with the smell of the in the adjoining cheese and the measured dripping of the from the downstairs xviii angel rises out of the past not altogether as a distinct figure but as an voice a long regard of abstracted eyes and a of mouth somewhat too small and delicately lined for a man s though with an unexpectedly firm close of the lower up now and then enough to do away with any of nevertheless something vague in his bearing and regard marked him as one who probably had no very definite aim or concern about his material future yet as a lad people had said of him that he was one who might do anything if he tried he was the youngest son of his father a poor parson at the other end of the county and had arrived at as a six months pupil after going the round of some other farms his object being to	45
acquire a practical skill in the various processes of farming with a view either to the colonies or the of a home farm as circumstances might decide his entry into the ranks of the and was a step in the young man s career which had been anticipated neither by himself nor by others mr the elder whose first wife had died and left him a daughter married a second late in life this lady had somewhat unexpectedly brought him three sons so that between angel the youngest and his father the there seemed to be almost a missing generation of these boys the angel the child of his old age was the only son who had not taken a university degree though he was the single one of them whose early promise might have done full justice to an training of the d some two or three years before angel s appearance at the dance on a day when he had left school and was his studies at home a parcel came to the from the local s directed to the reverend james the having opened it and found it to contain a book read a few pages whereupon he jumped up from his seat and went straight to the shop with the book under his arm why has this been sent to my house he asked holding up the volume it was ordered sir not by me or any one belonging to me i am happy to say ttie looked into his order book oh it has been sir he said it was ordered by mr angel and should have been sent to him mr as if he had been struck he went home pale and dejected and called angel into his study look into this book my boy he said do you know about it i ordered it said angel simply what for to read how can you think of reading it how can i why it is a system of philosophy there is no more moral or even religious work published yes enough i don t deny that but religious and for who intend to be a minister of the gospel since you have alluded to the matter father said the son with anxious thought upon his face i ould like to say once for all that i should prefer not to take orders i fear i could not do so i love the church as one loves a parent i shall always have the warmest affection for her there is the rally no institution for whose history i have a deeper admiration but i cannot honestly be ordained her minister as my brothers are while she refuses to her mind from an it had never occurred to the straightforward and simple minded that one of his own flesh and blood could come to this he was shocked and if angel were not going to enter the church what was the use of sending him to cambridge the university as a step to anything but seemed to this man of fixed ideas a preface without a volume he was a man not merely religious but devout a firm not as the phrase is now by in the church and out of it but in the old and sense of the school one who could indeed that the eternal and divine did eighteen centuries ago in very truth i angel s father tried argument persuasion entreaty no father i cannot article four leave alone the rest taking it in the literal and sense as required by the declaration and therefore i can t be a parson in the present state of affairs said angel my whole instinct in matters of is towards to quote your favourite to the the removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made that those things which cannot be shaken may remain his father grieved so deeply that it made angel quite ill to see him what is the good of your mother and me and ourselves to give you a university education if it is not to be used for the honour and glory of god his father repeated op the d why that it may be used for the honour and glory of man father perhaps if angel had he might have gone to cambridge like his brothers but the s view of that seat of learning as a stepping stone to orders alone was quite a family tradition and so rooted was the idea in his mind that perseverance began to appear to the sensitive son akin to an intent to a trust and wrong the pious heads of the household who had been and were as his father had hinted compelled to exercise much to carry out this uniform plan of education for the three young men i will do without cambridge said angel at last i feel that i have no right to go there in the circumstances the effects of this decisive debate were not long in showing themselves he spent years and years in studies and meditations he began to considerable indifference to social forms and the material distinctions of rank and wealth he despised even the good old family to use a favourite phrase of a late local worthy had no for him unless there were good new resolutions in its representatives as a balance to these when he went to live in london to see what the world was like and with a view to a profession or business there he was carried off his head and nearly by a woman much older than himself though luckily he escaped not greatly the worse for the experience early association with had bred in him an and almost unreasonable aversion to modem town life and shut him out from such success as he might have to by following a calling in the of the spiritual one but	45
something had to be done he had wasted many valuable years and having an acquaintance who was starting on a life as a iso the rally it occurred to angel that this might be a lead in the right direction either in the colonies america or at home farming at any rate after becoming well qualified for the business by a careful that was a which would probably afford an independence without the sacrifice of what he valued even more than a intellectual liberty so we find angel at six and twenty here at as a student of and as there were no houses near at hand in which he get a comfortable lodging a at the s his room was an immense which ran the whole length of the house it could only be reached by a ladder from the cheese and had been closed up for a long time till he arrived and it as his retreat here had plenty of space and could often be heard by the folk pacing up and down when the household had gone to rest a portion was divided off at one end by a curtain behind which was his bed the outer part being furnished as a homely sitting room at first he lived up above entirely reading a good deal and upon an old harp which he had bought at a sale saying when in a bitter humour that he might have to get his by it in the streets some day but he soon preferred to read human nature by taking his meals downstairs in the general dining kitchen with the and his wife and the maids and men who all together formed a lively assembly for though but few hands slept in the house several joined the family at meals the longer resided here the less objection had he to his company and the more did he like to share quarters with them in common much to his surprise he took indeed a real delight in their companionship the conventional of his imagination by the pitiable known as were after a of the d few days residence at dose quarters no was to be seen at first it is true when s intelligence was fresh from a society these friends with whom he now seemed a little strange sitting down as a level member of the s household seemed at the outset an proceeding the ideas the modes the appeared and but with living on there day after day the acute became conscious of a new aspect in the spectacle without any change whatever variety had taken the place of his host and his host s household his men and his maids as they became intimately known to began to themselves as in a process the thought of s was brought home to him a on a d on il y a d les du ne pas de difference les the typical and ceased to exist he had been into a of varied beings of many minds beings infinite in difference some happy many serene a few depressed one here and there bright even to genius some stupid others wanton others austere some some into men who had private views of each other as he had of his friends who could or condemn other amuse or themselves by the contemplation of each other s or vices men every one of whom walked in his own individual way the road to dusty death unexpectedly he began to like the life for its own sake and for what it brought apart from its bearing on his own proposed career considering his position he became wonderfully free from the melancholy which is taking hold of the civilized races with the decline of belief in a beneficent power for the first time of late years he could read as his the rally inclined him without any eye to for a profession since the few farming which he deemed it desirable to master occupied him but little time he grew away from old associations and saw new in life and humanity he made close acquaintance with phenomena which he had before known but darkly the seasons in their moods morning and evening night and noon winds in their different trees waters and mists shades and silence and the voices of things the early mornings were still sufficiently cool to render a fire acceptable in the large room wherein they and by mrs s orders who held that he was too genteel to mess at their table it was angel s custom to sit in the yawning chimney corner during the meal his cup and and plate being placed on a at his elbow the light from the long wide window opposite shone in upon his nook and assisted by a secondary light of cold blue quality which shone down the chimney enabled him to read there easily whenever disposed to do so between and the window was the table at which his companions sat their rising sharp against the panes while to the side was the milk house door through which were visible the leads in rows full to the brim with the morning s milk at the further end the great could be seen revolving and its slip heard the moving power being through the window in the form of a horse walking in a circle and driven by a boy for several days after s arrival sitting reading from some book or piece of music just come by post hardly noticed that she was present at table she talked so little and the is of the d other maids talked so much that the did not strike him as possessing a new note and he was ever in the habit of the particulars of an outward scene for the general impression one day however when he had been one of his and by	45
force of imagination was hearing the tune in his head he into and the music sheet rolled to the hearth he looked at the fire of logs with its one flame on the top in a dying dance after the breakfast cooking and boiling and it seemed to to his inward tune also at the two chimney dangling down from the or cross bar with which quivered to the same melody also at the half empty kettle an accompaniment the conversation at the table mixed in with his till he thought what a voice one of those has i suppose it is the new one looked upon her seated with the others she was not looking towards him indeed owing to his long silence his presence in the room was almost forgotten i don t know about ghosts she was saying but i do know that our souls can be made to go outside our bodies when we are alive the turned to her with his mouth full his eyes charged with serious inquiry and his great knife and fork were here planted erect on the table like the beginning of a gallows what really now and is it so he said a very easy way to feel em go continued is to lie on the grass at night and look straight up at some big bright star and by fixing your mind upon it you will soon find that you are and hundreds o miles away from your body which you don t seem to want at all is the rally the removed his hard gaze from and fixed it on his wife now that s a rum thing hey to think o the miles i ve o nights these last thirty year or trading or for doctor or for and yet never had the least notion o that till now or my rise so much as an inch above my shirt collar the general attention being drawn to her including that of the s pupil flushed and remarking tiiat it was only a fancy resumed her breakfast continued to observe her she soon finished her eating and having a consciousness that was regarding her began to trace imaginary patterns on the with her forefinger with the of a domestic animal that itself to be watched what a fresh and daughter of nature that is he said to himself and then he seemed to discern in her something that was familiar something which carried him back into a joyous and past before the necessity of taking thought had made the heavens gray he concluded that he had beheld her before where he could not tell a casual encounter during some country it certainly had been and he was not greatly curious about it but the circumstance was sufficient to lead him to select in preference to the other pretty when he wished to contemplate xix in general the cows were as they presented themselves without fancy or choice but certain cows will show a fondness for a particular pair of hands sometimes carrying this so far as to to stand at all except to their favourite the of a stranger being kicked over it was s rule to insist on breaking down these and by constant since otherwise in the event of a or maid going away from the he was placed in a difficulty the maids private aims however were the reverse of the s rule the daily selection by each of the eight or ten cows to which she had grown accustomed rendering the operation on their willing easy and hke her soon discovered which of the cows had a preference for her style of and her fingers having become delicate from the long to which she had subjected herself at intervals during the last two or three years she would have been glad to meet the views in this respect out of the whole there were eight in particular fancy lofty mist old pretty yoimg pretty tidy and loud who though the of one or two were as hard as gave down to her with a readiness that made her work on them a mere touch of the fingers however the s wish she endeavoured to take the animals just as they came excepting the very hard which she could not yet manage the rally but she soon found a curious correspondence between the chance position of the cows and her wishes in this matter till she felt that their order could not be the result of accident the s pupil had lent a hand in getting the cows together of late and at the fifth or sixth time she turned her eyes as she rested against the cow full of sly inquiry upon him mr you have ranged the cows she said blushing and in making the accusation symptoms of a smile gently lifted her upper lip in spite of her so as to show the tips of her teeth the lower lip remaining severely still it makes no difference said he you will always be here to milk them do you think so i hope i shall but i don t know she was angry with herself afterwards thinking that he of her grave reasons for liking this seclusion might have mistaken her meaning she had spoken so earnestly to him as if his presence were somehow a in her wish her was such that at dusk when the was over she walked in the garden alone to continue her regrets that she had to him her discovery of his it was a typical summer evening in june the atmosphere being in such delicate and so that objects seemed endowed with two or three senses if not five there was no distinction between the near and the far and an felt close to everything within the horizon the impressed her as a positive rather than as the mere of noise	45
it was broken by the of strings had heard those notes in the above her head dim constrained by their confinement they had never appealed to her as now when they wandered in the still air with a quality like of the d that of to speak absolutely both instrument and execution were poor but the relative is all and as she listened like a fascinated bird could not leave the spot far from leaving she drew up towards the keeping behind the hedge that he might not guess her presence the of the garden in which found herself had been left for some years and was now damp and rank with grass which sent up mists of at a touch and with tall blooming weeds offensive smells weeds whose red and yellow and purple hues formed a as dazzling as that of cultivated flowers she went as a cat through this profusion of growth gathering on her skirts that were her hands with and and rubbing off upon her naked arms which though snow white on the apple tree trunks made on her skin thus she drew quite near to still unobserved of him was conscious of neither time nor space the exaltation which she had described as being at will by gazing at a star came now without any determination of hers she upon the thin notes of the second hand harp and their passed like breezes through her bringing tears into her eyes the floating seemed to be his notes made visible and the of the garden the weeping of the garden s sensibility though near nightfall the rank smelling weed flowers glowed as if they would not close for and the waves of colour mixed with the waves of the light which still shone was derived mainly from a large hole in the western bank of it was like a piece of day left behind by accident dusk having closed in elsewhere he concluded his plaintive melody a very simple performance demanding no great skill and she waited thinking another might be is the rally but tired of playing he had come round the fence and was rambling up behind her her cheeks on fire moved away as if hardly moving at all angel however saw her light summer gown and he spoke his low tones her though he was some distance off what makes you draw off in that way said he are you afraid no sir not of things especially just now when the apple is falling and everything so green but you have your fears eh well yes sir what of i couldn t quite say the milk turning sour no life in general yes sir ah so have i very often this of being alive is rather serious don t you think so it is now you put it that way all the same i shouldn t have expected a young girl like you to see it so just yet how is it you do she maintained a hesitating silence come tell me in confidence she thought that he meant what were the aspects of things to her and replied the trees have inquisitive eyes haven t they that is seem as if they had and the river says why do ye trouble me with your looks and you seem to see numbers of to just all in a line the first of them the biggest and the others getting smaller and smaller as they stand further away but they all seem very fierce and cruel and as if they said i m coming beware of me beware of me but you sir can raise up dreams with your music and drive all such horrid fancies away is op the d he was surprised to find this woman who though but a had just that touch of about her which might make her the envied of her such sad she was expressing in her own native phrases assisted a little by her sixth standard training feelings which might almost have been called those of the age the ache of the perception arrested him less when he reflected that what are called advanced ideas are really in great part but the latest fashion in definition a more accurate expression by words in and of sensations whidi men and women have vaguely grasped for centuries still it was strange that they should have come to her while yet so more than strange it was impressive interesting pathetic not the cause there was nothing to remind him that experience is as to intensity and not as to duration s passing had been her mental harvest on her part could not understand why a man of and good education and above physical want should look upon it as a to be alive for the pilgrim herself there was very good reason but how could this admirable and poetic man ever have descended into the valley of humiliation have felt with the man of as she herself had felt two or three years ago my and death rather than my life i it i would not live it was true that he was at present out of his class but she knew that was only because like peter the great in a s yard he was studying what he wanted to know he did not milk cows because he was obliged to milk cows but because he was learning how to be a rich and prosperous and of cattle he would become an american or commanding like a monarch his flocks and his herds his spotted and ring his men servants and his maids at i o the rally times nevertheless it did seem to her that a decidedly musical thinking young man should have chosen deliberately to be a farmer and not a clergyman like his father and brothers	45
thus neither having the due to the other s secret they were at what each revealed and awaited new knowledge of each other s character and moods without attempting to into each other s history every day every hour brought to him one more little stroke of her nature and to her one more of his was trying to lead a repressed life but she little divined the strength of her own vitality at first seemed to r ard angel as an intelligence rather than as a man as such she compared him with herself and at every discovery of the abundance of his of the distance between her own modest mental and the of his she became quite dejected from all further effort on her own part whatever he observed her one day when he had casually mentioned something to her about pastoral life in ancient greece she was gathering the called lords and ladies from tiie bank while he spoke why do you look so one all of a sudden he asked oh tis only about my own self she said with a frail laugh of sadness beginning to a lady meanwhile just a sense of what might have with me my life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances when i see what you know what you have read and seen and thought i feel what a nothing i am i m like the poor queen of who lived in the bible there is no more spirit in me bless my soul don t go troubling about that i x of the d why he said with some enthusiasm i should be only too glad my dear to help you to anything in the way of history or any line of reading you would like to take up it is a lady again interrupted she holding out the bud she had what i mean that there are always more ladies than lords when you come to them never mind about the lords and ladies would you like to take up any course of study history for example sometimes i feel i don t want to know anything more about it than i know already why not because what s the use of learning that i am one of a long row only finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody just like me and to know that i shall only act her part making me sad that s all the best is not to remember that your nature and your past doings have been just like thousands and thousands and that your coming life and doings u be like thousands and what really then you don t want to learn anything i shouldn t mind learning why why the sun do shine on the just and the unjust alike she answered with a slight in her voice but that s what books will not tell me for such bitterness of se he spoke with a conventional sense of duty only for that sort of wondering had not been to himself in days and as he looked at the mouth and lips he thought that such a daughter of the soil could only have caught up the sentiment by she went on the lords and ladies till regarding for a moment the wave like curl of her lashes as they drooped with her bent gaze on her soft cheek went away when he was i a the rally gone she stood awhile thoughtfully the last bud and then awakening from her reverie flung it and all the crowd of nobility impatiently on the ground in an of displeasure with herself for her and with a warmth in her heart of hearts how stupid he must think her in an access of hunger for his good opinion she herself of what she had endeavoured to forget so unpleasant had been its issues the identity of her family with that of the d barren attribute as it was disastrous as its discovery had been in many ways to her perhaps mr as a gentleman and a student of history would respect her sufficiently to forget her childish conduct with the lords and ladies if he knew that those marble and people in church really represented her own forefathers that she was no d of money and ambition like those at but true d to the bone but before venturing to make the revelation indirectly sounded the as to its possible effect upon mr by asking the former if mr had any great respect for old families when they had lost all their money and land mr said the emphatically is one of the most you ever not a bit like the rest of his family and if there s one thing that he do hate more than another tis the notion of what s called a old family he says that it stands to reason that old families have done their of work in past days and can t have anything l t in em now there s the and the and the and the st and the and the who used to own the lands for down this valley you could buy em all up now for an old song a most why our little of the d here you know is one of the the old family that used to own lots o the lands out by king s now owned by the earl o afore even he or his was heard of well mr found this out and spoke scornful to the poor girl for ah he says to her you ll never make a good all your skill was used up ages ago in and you must lie for a thousand years to strength for more deeds a boy came here t other day asking for a job and said his	45
name was and when we asked him his he said he d never heard that a had any and when we asked why he said he supposed his folks hadn t been long enough ah you re the very boy i want says mr jumping up and shaking hands wi en i ve great hopes of you and gave him half a crown o no he can t stomach old families after hearing this of s opinions poor was glad that she had not said a word in a weak moment about her family even though it was so unusually old as almost to have gone the circle and become a new one another girl was as good as she it seemed in that respect she held her tongue about the d vault and the knight of the conqueror whose name she bore the insight afforded into s character suggested to her that it was largely owing to her supposed that die had won interest in his eyes the season developed and another year s of flowers leaves and such creatures took up their positions where only a year ago others had stood in their place when these were nothing more than and rays from the sunrise drew forth the and stretched them into long lifted up sap in noiseless streams opened and sucked out in invisible and s household of maids and men lived on comfortably placidly even merrily their position was perhaps the happiest of all positions in the social scale being above the line at which ends and below the line at which the begin to natural feeling and the stress of makes too little of enough thus passed the leafy time when seems to be the one thing aimed at out of doors and studied each other ever balanced on the edge of a passion yet apparently keeping out of it ml the while they were under an irresistible law as surely as two streams in one had never in her recent life been so happy as she was now possibly never would be so happy again she was for one thing physically and mentally suited among these new the which had rooted down to a poisonous on the spot of its had been to a deeper soil moreover she and also stood as yet on the land between and love where of the d no have been reached no reflections have set in awkwardly inquiring whither does this new current tend to carry me what does it mean to my future how does it stand towards my past was the merest stray phenomenon to angel as yet a rosy warming apparition which had only just acquired tiie attribute of in his consciousness so he allowed his mind to be occupied with her his to be no more than a philosopher s regard of an exceedingly novel fresh and interesting specimen of they met continually they could not help it they met daily in that strange and solemn interval the twilight of the morning in the violet or pink dawn for it was necessary to rise early so very early here was done and before the came the which began at a uttle past three it usually fell to the lot of some one or other of them to wake the rest the first being aroused by an and as was the latest arrival and they soon discovered that she be depended upon not to sleep through the alarm as the others did this task was thrust most frequently upon her no sooner had the hour of three struck and than she left her room and ran to the s door then up the ladder to angel s calling him in a loud whisper then woke her fellow by the time that was dressed was downstairs and out in the air the remaining maids and the usually gave themselves another turn on the pillow and did not appear till a quarter of an hour later the gray half tones of daybreak are not the grey half tones of the day s dose though the d of their shade may be same in the twilight of the morning light seems active darkness passive in the twilight of evening it is the darkness which is active and and the light which is the drowsy reverse being so often possibly not always by chance the rally the first two persons to get up at the house they seemed to themselves e first persons up of all the world in these early days of her residence here did not but went out doors at once after rising where he was generally awaiting her the half light which pervaded the open impressed them with a feeling of as if they were adam and eve at this dim stage of the day seemed to to a dignified both of disposition and an almost power possibly because he knew that at that time hardly any woman so well endowed in person as she was likely to be walking in the open air within the boundaries of his horizon very few in all england fair women are usually asleep at she was dose at hand and the rest were nowhere the mixed singular luminous gloom in which they walked along together to the spot where the cows lay often made him think of the hour he little thought that the might be at his side whilst all the landscape was in shade his companion s face which was the of his eyes rising above the mist seemed to have a sort of upon it she looked ghostly as if e were merely a soul at large in reality her face without appearing to do so had caught the cold gleam of day from the north east his own face though he did not think of it wore the same aspect to her it was then as has been said that	45
she impressed him most deeply she was no longer the but a visionary essence of woman a whole sex into one t form he called her and other names half which she did not like because she did not understand them call me she say and he did then it would grow lighter and her features would x of the d l f iii simply feminine they had changed from those of a divinity who confer bliss to those of a being who it at these non human hours they could get quite dose to the came with a great bold noise as of opening doors and shutters out of the boughs of a plantation which they frequented at the side of the or if already on the spot maintained their standing in the water as the pair walked by watching them by moving their heads round in a slow wheel like the turn of by they could then see the faint summer in level and apparently no thicker than spread about the meadows in detached of small extent on the grey moisture of the grass were marks where the cows had lain through the night dark green islands of dry the size of their in the general sea of dew from each island proceeded a trail by which the cow had away to feed after getting up at the end of which trail they foimd her tiie puff from her nostrils when she them making an little fog of her own amid the prevailing one then they drove the animals back to the or sat down to milk them on the spot as the case might require or perhaps the summer fog was more general and the meadows lay like a white sea out of which the scattered trees rose like dangerous rocks birds through it into the upper radiance and hang on the wing themselves or alight on the wet rails the which now shone like glass rods minute diamonds of moisture from the mist hung too upon s and drops upon her hair like seed pearls when the day grew quite strong and commonplace these dried off her moreover then lost her strange and ethereal beauty her teeth lips and eyes in the and she was i the rally again the fair only who had to hold her own against the other women of the world about this time they hear s voice the non resident for arriving late and speaking sharply to old for not her hands for heaven s sake pop thy hands imder the pump upon my if the london folk only of thee and thy ways they d their milk and butter more than they do already and that s saying a good deal the till towards the end and in common with the rest could hear the heavy br table dragged out from the wall in the kitchen by mrs this being the invariable preliminary to each meal the same horrible scrape accompanying its return journey when the table had been there was a great stir in the milk house just after breakfast the as usual but the butter not come whenever this happened the was echoed the milk in the great but never arose the sound they waited for and his wife the and the married ones from the cottages also mr old and the rest stood gazing hopelessly at the and the boy who kept the horse going outside put on moon like eyes to show his sense of the situation even the melancholy horse himself seemed to look in at the window in inquiring despair at each walk tis years since i went to s son in years said the bitterly and he was nothing to what his father had been i have said fifty times if i have said once that i don t believe in en and i don t believe in en but i shall have to go to n if he s alive o yes i shall have to go to n if this sort of thing even mr began to fed at the s desperation pall t other side of that they used to call wide was a very good man when i was a boy said but he s rotten as by now my grandfather used to go to out at and a clever man a were so i ve heard er say continued mr but there s no such genuine folk about nowadays the rally mrs s mind kept nearer to the matter in hand perhaps somebody in the house is in love she said i ve heard tell in my younger days that that will cause it why maid we had years ago do ye mind and how the butter didn t come then ah yes yes but that isn t the rights o t it had nothing to do with the love making i can mind all about it twas the damage to the he turned to jack a s bird of a fellow we had here as at one time sir a young woman over at and deceived her as he had deceived many afore but he had another sort o woman to reckon wi this time and it was not the girl herself one holy thursday of all days in the we was here as we mid be now only there was no in hand when we the girl s mother coming up to the door wi a great brass mounted umbrella in her hand that would ha an ox and saying do jack work here because i want him i have a big bone to pick with he i can assure n and some way behind her mother walked jack s young woman crying bitterly into her o here s a time said jack looking out o at em she ll murder me where shall i get	45
ve owned it so have you so have we all said with the rally the dry frankness of complete indifference to opinion it is silly to pretend otherwise amongst ourselves though we need not own it to other folks i just marry n to morrow so would i and more murmured and i too whispered more timid the listener grew warm we can t all marry him said we shan t either of us which is worse still said the eldest there he is again they all three blew him a silent kiss why asked quickly because he likes best said lowering her voice i have watched him every day and have foimd it out there was a silence but she don t care anything for n at length breathed well i sometimes think that too but how silly all this is said impatiently of course he won t marry any one of us or either a gentleman s son who s going to be a great and farmer abroad more likely to ask us to come wi en as farm hands at so much a year one sighed and another sighed and s plump figure sighed biggest of all somebody in bed hard by sighed too tears came into the eyes of the pretty red haired the last bud of the so important in the county annals they watched silently a little longer their three faces still close together as before and the triple hues of their hair mingling but the mr had gone indoors and they saw him no more and the shades beginning to they crept into their beds in a few minutes they heard him ascend the ladder to his own room was soon but did not drop into forgetfulness for a long time cried herself to sleep op the d the deeper was very far from sleeping even then this conversation was another of the bitter she had been obliged to swallow that day scarce the least feeling of jealousy arose in her breast for that matter she knew herself to have the preference being more finely formed better educated and though the youngest except more woman than either she perceived that only the slightest ordinary care was necessary for holding her own in angel s heart against these her candid friends but the grave question was ought she to do this there was to be sure hardly a ghost of a chance for either of them in a serious sense but there was or had been a chance of one or the other inspiring him with a passing fancy for her and enjoying the pleasure of his attentions while he stayed here such had led to marriage and she had heard from mrs that mr had one day asked in a laughing way what be the use of his marrying a fine lady and all the while ten thousand acres of pasture to feed and cattle to rear and com to reap a farm woman be the only sensible kind of wife for him but whether mr had spoken seriously or not why should she who could never allow any man to marry her now and who had determined that she never be tempted to do so draw off mr s attention from other women for the brief happiness of herself in his eyes while he remained at xxii they came downstairs yawning next morning but and were proceeded with as usual and they went indoors to breakfast was discovered stamping about the house he had received a letter in whidi a customer had complained that the butter had a and b ad so t have said the who held in his left hand a wooden on which a lump of butter was stuck yes taste for yourself several of them gathered him and mr tasted tasted also the other one or two of the men and last of all mrs who came out from the waiting breakfast table there certainly was a the who had thrown himself into abstraction to better realize the taste and so divine the particular species of weed to which it suddenly exclaimed tis and i thought there wasn t a blade left in that then all the old hands remembered that a certain dry into which a few of the cows had been admitted of late had in years gone by spoilt the butter in the same way the had not recognized the taste at that time and thought the butter we must that he resumed this mustn t all having armed themselves with old pointed knives they went out together as the plant could only be present in very dimensions op the d to have escaped ordinary observation to find it seemed rather a hopeless attempt in the stretch of rich grass before them however they formed themselves into line all assisting owing to the importance of the search the at the upper end with mr who had to help then and then bill and the married with her black hair and rolling eyes and from the winter of the water who lived in their respective cottages with eyes fixed upon the ground they crept slowly across a strip of the field returning a little down in such a manner that when they should have finished not a single inch of the but would have fallen under the eye of some one of them it was a most tedious business not more than half a dozen shoots of being in the whole field yet such was the s that probably one bite of it by one cow had been to season the whole s produce for the day one from another in natures and moods so greatly as they did they yet formed bending a curiously noiseless and an alien observer passing down the neighbouring lane might well have been excused for them as as they crept along	45
stooping low to discern the plant a soft yellow gleam was reflected from the into shaded faces giving them an aspect though the sun was pouring upon their backs in all the strength of noon angel who stuck to his rule of part with the rest in everything glanced up now and then it was not of by accident that he walked next to well how are you he murmured very well thank you sir she replied as they had been discussing a score of personal only half an hour before the the rally style seemed a little superfluous but they got no further in speech then they crept and crept the hem of her just touching his and his elbow sometimes brushing hers at last the who came next could stand it no longer upon my soul and body this here stooping do fairly make my back open and shut he exclaimed himself slowly with an look till quite upright and you you wasn t well a day or two ago this will make your head ache finely don t do any more if you feel leave the rest to finish it withdrew and dropped behind mr also stepped out of line and began about for the weed when she foimd him near her her very at what she had heard the night before made her the first to speak don t they look pretty she said who and had decided that either of these maidens would make a good farmer s wife and that she ought to recommend them and obscure her own wretched charms pretty well yes they are pretty girls afresh looking i have often thought so though poor won t last long o no unfortunately they are excellent yes though not better than you they better than i do they remained observing them not without their observing him she is colouring up continued who oh why is that because you are looking at her op the d self sacrificing as her mood might be could not well go further and cry many one of them if you really do want a and not a lady and don t think of marrying me she followed and had the mournful satisfaction of seeing that remained behind from this day she forced herself to take pains to avoid him never allowing herself as formerly to remain long in his company even if their were purely accidental she gave the other three every chance was woman enough to realize from their to herself that angel had the honour of all the in his keeping and her perception of his care to avoid the happiness of either in the least d bred a tender respect in for what she rightly or the sense of duty shown by him a quality which she had never expected to find in one of the opposite sex and in the absence of which more than one of the simple hearts who were his have gone weeping on her pilgrimage the hot weather of had crept upon them unawares and the atmosphere of t e flat hung heavy as an over the folk the cows and the trees hot steaming rains fell frequently making the grass where the cows fed yet more rank and the late in the other it was sunday morning the was done the had gone home and the other three were dressing themselves rapidly the whole having agreed to go together to church which lay some three or four miles distant from the house she had now been two months at and this was her first excursion all the preceding afternoon and night heavy had down upon the and washed some of the hay into the river but this morning the sun shone out all the more brilliantly for the and the air was and dear the crooked lane leading from their own parish to ran along the lowest in a portion of its length and when the girls reached the most depressed spot they found that the result of the rain had been to flood the lane over shoe to a distance of some fifty yards this would have been no serious on a week day they would have through it in their high and boots quite but on this day of vanity this sun s day when flesh went forth to with flesh while affecting business with things on this occasion for wearing their white stockings and thin shoes and their pink white and gowns on i i of the d which every mud spot would be visible the pool was an awkward they could hear the church bell calling as yet nearly a mile off who would have expected such a rise in the river in time said from the top of the roadside bank on which they had climbed and were maintaining a precarious footing in the hope of creeping along its slope till they were past the pool we can t get there anyhow without walking right through it or else going round the way and that would make us so very late said pausing hopelessly and i do colour up so hot walking into church late and all the people staring round said that i hardly cool down again till we get into the that it may please while they stood clinging to the bank they heard a round the bend of the road and presently appeared angel advancing along the lane towards them through the water four hearts gave a big throb simultaneously his aspect was probably as un a one as a parson s son often presented his attire being his clothes long boots a inside his hat to keep his head cool with a to finish him off he s not going to church said no i he was murmured angel in fact rightly or to adopt the safe phrase of preferred sermons in stones	45
to sermons in churches and on fine summer days this morning moreover he had gone out to see if the damage to the hay by the flood was considerable or not on his walk he observed the girls from a long distance though they had been so occupied with their difficulties of passage as not to notice him he knew that the water had risen at that spot and that it would quite check their progress so he had hastened on with a dim the rally idea of how he could help them one of them in the rosy bright eyed looked so charming in their light attire clinging to the roadside bank like on a roof slope that he stopped a moment to r ard them before coming dose their skirts had brushed up from the grass flies and which unable to escape remained in the transparent as in an angel s eye at last fell upon the of the four die being full of suppressed laughter at their could not help meeting his glance he came beneath them in the water which did not rise over his long boots and stood looking at the flies and are you trying to get to church he said to who was in front including the next two in his remark but avoiding yes sir and tis getting late and my colour do come up so i ll carry you through the pool every of you the whole four flushed as if one heart beat through them i think you can t sir said it is the only way for you to get past stand still nonsense you are not too heavy i d carry you all four together now attend he continued and put your arms round my shoulders so now hold on that s well done had lowered herself upon his arm and shoulder as directed and angel strode off with her his slim figure as viewed from behind looking like the mere stem to the great suggested by hers they disappeared round the curve of the road and only his footsteps and the top ribbon of s bonnet told where they were in a few minutes he reappeared was the next in order upon the bank op the d here he comes she murmured and they could hear that her lips were dry with emotion and i have to put my arms round his neck and look into his face as did there s nothing in that said quickly there s a time for everything continued a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing the first is now going to be mine it is scripture yes said i ve rs a ear at church for pretty verses angel to whom three quarters of this performance was a commonplace act of kindness now approached she quietly and lowered herself into his arms and angel marched off with her when he was heard returning for the third time s throbbing heart could be almost seen to shake her he went up to the red haired girl and while he was seizing her he glanced at his lips could not have pronounced more plainly it will soon be you and i her comprehension appeared in her face she could not help it there was an understanding between them poor little though by far the weight was the most troublesome of s burdens had been like a sack of meal a dead weight of which he had literally staggered had ridden sensibly and calmly was a bunch of however he got through with the creature deposited her and returned could see over the hedge the distant three in a group standing as he had placed them on the next rising it was now her she was l to discover that excitement at the of mr s breath and eyes which she had in her companions was in herself and as if fearful of her secret she with him at the last moment i may be able to dim along the bank perhaps i the rally can dim better than they you must be so tired mr no no said he quickly and almost before she was aware she was seated in his arms and resting against his shoulder three to get one he whispered they are better women than i she replied sticking to her resolve not to me said angel he saw her grow warm at this and they went some steps in silence i hope i am not too heavy she said timidly o no you should lift such a you are like an warmed by the sun and all this of muslin about you is the it is very pretty if i seem like that to you do you know that i have undergone three quarters of this labour entirely for the sake of the quarter no i did not expect such an event to day nor i the water came up so sudden that the rise in the water was what she understood him to refer to the state of her breathing stood still and inclined his face towards hers o he exclaimed the girl s cheeks burned to the breeze and she could not look into his eyes for her emotion it reminded angel that he was somewhat taking advantage of an accidental position and he went no with it no definite words of love had crossed their lips as yet and at this point was desirable now however he walked slowly to make the remainder of the distance as long as possible but at last they came to the bend and the rest of their progress was in full view of the other three the dry land was reached and he set her down her friends were looking with round thoughtful eyes at her and him and she could see that they had of the d been talking	45
of her he hastily bade them farewell and splash back along the stretch of road the four moved on together as before till broke the silence by saying no in all truth we have no chance against her she looked at what do you mean asked the latter he likes ee best the very best we could see it as he brought ee he would have kissed ee if you had encouraged him to do it ever so little no no said she the gaiety with which they had set out had somehow vanished and yet there was no enmity or malice between them they were generous young souls they had been reared in the lonely where is a strong sentiment and they did not blame her such was to be s heart ached there was no concealing from herself the fact that she loved angel perhaps all the more passionately from knowing that the others had also lost their hearts to him there is in this sentiment especially among women and yet that same hungry heart of hers her friends s honest nature had fought against this but too feebly and the natural result had followed i will never stand in your way nor in the way of either of you she declared to that night in the bedroom her tears running down i can t help this my dear i don t think is in his mind at all but if he were even to ask me i should refuse him as i should refuse any man oh would you why said wondering it cannot be but i will be plain putting myself quite on one side i don t think he will either of you i have never expected it thought of it moaned but i wish i was dead the rally the poor child torn by a feeling which she hardly understood turned to the other two girls who came upstairs just then we be friends with her again she said to them she thinks no more of his choosing her than we do so the reserve went off and they were confiding and warm i don t seem to care what i do now said whose mood was to its lowest bass i was going to marry a at who s asked me twice but my soul i would put an end to myself rather n be his wife now why don t ye speak to confess then murmured i made sure to day that he was going to kiss me as he held me and i lay still against his breast hoping and hoping and never moved at all but he did not i don t like here at any longer i shall go the air of the sleeping chamber seemed to with the hopeless passion of the girls they under the of an emotion thrust on them by cruel nature s law an emotion which they had neither expected nor desired the incident of the day had the flame that was burning the inside of their hearts out and the torture was almost more than they could endure the differences which distinguished them as individuals were abstracted by this passion and each was but portion of one called sex there was so much frankness and so little jealousy because there was no hope each one was a girl of fair common sense and she did not herself with any or deny her love or give herself airs in the idea of the others the fuu recognition of the of their from a social point of view its its self bounded outlook its lack of everything to justify its existence in the eye of civilization while lacking nothing in the eye of of the d nature the one fact that it did exist them to a killing joy all this imparted to them a resignation a dignity which a practical and sordid expectation of winning him as a husband would have destroyed they tossed and turned on their little beds and the cheese downstairs b you whispered one half later it was s voice replied in the whereupon also and suddenly flung the them and sighed so be we i wonder what she is like the lady they say his family have looked out for him i wonder said some lady looked out for him gasped starting i have never heard o that o yes tis whispered a young lady of his own rank chosen by his family a doctor of divinity s daughter near his father s parish of he don t much care for her they say but he is sure to marry her they had heard so very little of this yet it was enough to build up dreams upon there in the shade of the night they pictured all the details of his being won round to consent of the wedding preparations of the bride s happiness of her dress and veil of her home with him when oblivion would have fallen upon themselves as far as he and their love were concerned thus they talked and ached and wept till sleep charmed their sorrow away after this disclosure no further foolish thought that there any grave and deliberate import in s attentions to her it was a passing love of her face for love s own temporary sake nothing more and the the rally crown of this sad conception was that she whom he really did prefer in a way to the rest she who knew herself to be more impassioned in nature more beautiful than they was in the eyes of propriety far less worthy of him than the ones whom he ignored amid the and warm of the at a season when the rush of could almost be heard below the hiss of it was impossible that the most fanciful love should not grow passionate the	45
ready existing there were by their surroundings july passed over their heads and the weather which came in its seemed an effort on the part of nature to match the state of hearts at the air of the place so fresh in the spring and early summer was and now its heavy weighed upon them and at mid day the landscape seemed lying in a the upper slopes of the pastures but there was still bright green here where the and as was oppressed by the outward so was he inwardly by of passion for the soft and silent the rains having passed the were dry the wheels of the s spring cart as he sped home from market licked up the surface of the highway and were followed by white of dust as if they had set a thin powder train on fire the cows jumped wildly over the five barred by the fly kept his shirt sleeves permanently rolled up from monday to saturday open windows had no effect in without open doors and in the garden the and crept about under the bushes rather in the manner of than the rally of winged creatures the flies in the kitchen were lazy and familiar crawling about in unwonted places on tiie floor into drawers and over the backs of the hands conversations were concerning while butter making and still more butter keeping was a despair they entirely in the for coolness and convenience without driving in the cows during the day the animals followed the shadow of the smallest tree as it moved round the stem with the roll and when the came they could hardly stand still for the flies on one of these four or five cows chanced to stand apart from the general herd behind the comer of a hedge among them being and old pretty who loved s hands above those of any other maid when she rose from her stool under a finished cow angel who had been observing her for some time asked her if she would take the creatures next she silently assented and with her stool at arm s length and the against her knee went round to where they stood soon the sound of old pretty s milk into the came through the hedge and then angel felt inclined to go round the comer also to finish off a hard yielding who had strayed there he being now as capable of this as the himself all the men and some of the women when dug their into the cows and gazed into the but a few mainly the younger ones their heads sideways this was s habit her temple pressing the s flank her eyes fixed on the far end of the meadow with the quiet of one lost in meditation she was old pretty thus and the sun to be on the side it shone flat upon her pink form and her white and upon her rendering it keen as a cut from the background of tiie cow op the d she did not know that had followed her round and that he sat his cow watching her the stillness of her head and features was remarkable she might have been in a trance her eyes open yet nothing in the picture moved but old pretty s t and s pink hands the latter so gently as to be a only as if they were obeying a like a beating heart how very her face was to him yet there was nothing ethereal about it all was real vitality real warmth real and it was in her mouth that this eyes almost as deep and speaking he had seen before and cheeks perhaps as fair brows as arched a chin and throat almost as her mouth he had seen nothing to equal on the face of the earth to a young man with the least fire in him that little upward lift in the middle of her red top lip was he had never before seen a woman s and teeth which forced upon his mind with such persistent the old of roses filled with snow perfect he as a lover might have called them off hand but no they were not perfect and it was the touch of the imperfect upon the would be perfect that gave the sweetness because it was that which gave the had studied the curves of those lips so many times that he could them mentally with ease and now as they again confronted him clothed with colour and life they sent an over his flesh a breeze through his nerves which nigh produced a and actually produced by some process a she then became conscious that he was observing her but she would not show it by any change of position though the curious dream like disappeared and a close eye might easily have discerned the of her face deepened and then faded till only a tinge of it was left a the rally the influence that had passed into like an from the sky did not die down resolutions fears fell back like a defeated he jumped up from his seat and leaving his to be kicked over if the had such a mind went quickly towards the desire of his eyes and kneeling down beside her clasped her in his arms was taken completely by surprise and she yielded to his embrace with having seen that it was really her lover who had advanced and no one else her lips parted and she sank upon him in her momentary joy with something very like an cry he had been on the point of kissing that too tempting mouth but he checked himself for tender conscience sake forgive me dear he whispered i ought to have asked i did not know what i was doing i do not mean it as a liberty i am devoted	45
living in such dose relations to meet meant to fall into flesh and blood could not resist it and having arrived at no conclusion as to the issue of such a tendency he decided to hold aloof for the present from occupations in which they would be engaged as yet the harm done was small but it was not easy to carry out the resolution never to approach her he was driven towards her by every heave of his pulse he thought he would go and see his friends it might be possible to sound them upon this in less five months his term here would have ended and after a few additional months spent upon other farms he would be fully equipped in agricultural knowledge and in a position to start on his own account would not a farmer want a wife and should a farmer s wife be a drawing room wax figure or a woman who farming notwithstanding the pleasing answer returned to him by the silence he resolved to go his journey op the d one morning when they sat down to breakfast at some maid observed that she had not seen anything of mr that day o no said mr has gone to to spend a few days wi his for impassioned ones around that table the sunshine of the morning went out at a stroke and the birds muffled their song but neither girl by word or revealed her he s getting on towards the end of his tune wi me the with a which was brutal and so i suppose he is beginning to see about his plans elsewhere how much longer is he to bide here asked the only one of the gloom stricken who could trust her voice with the question the others waited for the s answer as if their lives hung upon it with parted lips gazing on the table cloth with heat added to her throbbing and looking out at the well i can t mind the exact day without looking at my book replied with the same intolerable and even that may be altered a bit he ll bide to get a little practice in the out at the straw yard for certain he ll hang on till the end of the year i should say four months or so of ecstasy in his society of pleasure about with pain after that the of night at this moment of the morning angel was riding along a narrow lane ten miles distant from the in the direction of his father s at as well as he could a little basket which contained some black and a bottle of sent by mrs with her respects to his parents white lane stretched before him and the consequence his eyes were upon it but were staring into year and not at the lane he loved her ought he to marry her dared he to marry her what would his mother and his brothers say what would he himself say a couple of years after the event that would depend upon whether the of the temporary emotion or whether it were a joy in her form only with no of his father s hill little town the ch tower of red stone the of trees near the came at last into view beneath him and he rode down towards the well known gate casting a glance in the direction of the ch before entering his home he beheld standing by the door a group of girls of ages between twelve and sixteen apparently awaiting the arrival of some other one who in a moment became visible a figure somewhat older than the school girls wearing a d hat and highly gown with a couple of books in her hand knew her well he could not be sure that she observed mm he hoped she did not so as to render it that he should go and speak to her e that she was an overpowering reluctance to greet her made him decide that she had not seen him the young lady was miss mercy chant the only daughter of his father s neighbour and friend whom it was his parents quiet hope that he might wed some day she was great at and bible classes and was going to hold a class now s mind flew to the impassioned in the their rosy faces court patched with cow and to one the most impassioned of them all it was on the impulse of the moment that he had resolved to trot over to and hence had not written to his mother and father however to arrive about the breakfast hour before op the d they should have gone out to their parish duties he was a little late and they had already sat down to the morning meal the group at table up to me him as soon as he entered they were his father and mother his brother the reverend at a town in the adjoining county home for the inside of a fortnight and his other brother the reverend the classical scholar and fellow and dean of his college down from cambridge for the long his mother appeared in a cap and silver spectacles and his father looked what in fact he was an earnest god fearing man somewhat gaunt in years about sixty five his pale face lined with thought and purpose over their heads the picture of angel s sister the eldest of the family sixteen years his senior who had married a missionary and gone out to africa old mr was a clergyman of a type which within the last twenty years has well nigh dropped out of contemporary life a spiritual in the direct line from an of the a a man of simplicity in life and thought he had in his raw youth made up his mind once for all on	45
means it but high thinking may go with plain living of course it may said angel was it not proved nineteen years ago if i may upon your domain a little why should you think that i am likely to drop my high thinking and my moral s op the d well i fancied from the tone of your letters and our conversation it may be fancy only that you were somehow losing intellectual grasp hasn t it struck you now said angel we are very good friends you know each of us treading our dotted circles but if it comes to intellectual grasp i think you as a contented had better leave mine alone and inquire what has become of yours they down the hill to dinner which was fixed at any time at which their father s and mother s morning work in the parish usually concluded convenience as regarded afternoon was the last thing to enter into the consideration of unselfish mr and mrs though the three sons were in on this matter to wish that their parents would a little to modem notions the walk had made them angel in particular who was now an man accustomed to the of the s somewhat laden table but neither of the old people had arrived and it was not till the sons were almost tired of waiting that their parents entered the self denying pair had been occupied in the of some of their sick whom they somewhat to keep imprisoned in the flesh their own being quite forgotten the family sat down to table and a meal of cold was deposited before them angel looked round for mrs s black which he had directed to be nicely as they did them at the and of which he wished his father and mother to appreciate the marvellous as highly as he did himself ah you are looking for the black my dear boy observed s mother but i am sure you will not mind doing without them as i am sure your father and i shall not when you know the reason the consequence i suggested to him that we should take mrs s kind present to the children of the man who can earn nothing just now because of his attacks of delirium and he agreed that it would be a great pleasure to them so we did of course said angel cheerfully looking round for the i found the so continued his mother that it was quite unfit for use as a but as valuable as rum or brandy in an emergency so i have put it in my medicine chest we never drink spirits at this table on principle added his father but what shall i tell the s wife said angel the truth of course said his father i rather wanted to say we enjoyed the and the black very much she is a kind jolly sort of body and is sure to ask me directly i return you cannot if we did not mr answered ah no though that was a drop of pretty a what said and both oh tis an expression they use down at replied angel blushing he felt that his parents were right in their practice if wrong in their want of sentiment and said no more xxvi it was not till the evening after family prayers that angel found opportunity of to his father one or two subjects near his heart he had strung himself up to the purpose while kneeling behind his brothers on the carpet studying the little nails in the heels of their boots when the service was over they went out of the room with their and mr and himself were left alone the young man first discussed with the elder his plans for the of his position as a farmer on an extensive scale either in england or in the colonies his father then told him that as he had not been put to the expense of sending angel up to cambridge he had felt it his duty to set by a of money every year towards the purchase or lease of land for him some day that he might not feel himself as far as worldly wealth goes continued his father you wiu no doubt stand far superior to your brothers in a few years this on old mr s part led angel onward to the other and dearer subject he observed to his father that he was then six and twenty and that when he should start in the farming business he would require eyes in the back of his head to see to all matters some one would be necessary to the domestic labours of his establishment whilst he was it not be well therefore for him to marry his father seemed to think this idea not and then angel put the r the consequence what kind of wife do you think would be me as a hard working farmer a truly christian woman who will be a help and a comfort to you in your out and your beyond that it matters uttle such an one can be found indeed my earnest minded friend and dr chant but ought she not to be able to milk cows good butter make immense know how to sit and and rear chickens to direct a field of ers in an emergency and estimate the value of sheep and yes a farmer s wife yes certainly it would be desirable mr the had plainly never thought of these points before i was going to add he said that for a and woman you will not find one more to true advantage and certainly not more to your mother s mind and my own than your friend mercy whom you used to show a certain interest in it is true that my neighbour chant s daughter	45
has lately caught up the fashion of the younger clergy about us for the communion table altar as i was shocked to hear her call it one day with flowers and other stuff on festival occasions but her father who is quite as opposed to such as i says that can be cured it is a mere girlish outbreak which i am sure will not be permanent yes yes mercy is good and devout i know but father don t you think that a young woman equally pure and virtuous as miss chant but one who in place of that lady s accomplishments the duties of farm life as well as a farmer himself suit me infinitely better his father persisted in his conviction that a knowledge of a farmer s wife s duties came second to a view of humanity and the impulsive angel wishing to honour his father s and to advance the cause of his heart at the same time grew of the d he said that fate or providence had thrown in his way a woman who possessed every to be the of an and was decidedly of a serious turn of mind he would not say whether or not she had attached herself to the sound low church school of his father but she would probably be open to conviction on that point she was a regular church of simple faith honest hearted intelligent graceful to a degree as a and in personal appearance beautiful is she of a family such as you care to marry into a lady in short asked his startled mother who had come softly into the study during the conversation she is not what in common is called a lady said angel for she is a s daughter as i am proud to say but she is a lady nevertheless in feeling and nature mercy chant is of a very good family what s the advantage of that mother said angel quickly how is family to avail the wife of a man who has to rough it as i have and shall have to do mercy is accomplished and accomplishments have their charm returned his mother looking at him through her silver spectacles as to external accomplishments what will be the use of them in the life i am going to lead while as to her reading i can take that in hand she ll be apt pupil enough as you would say if you knew her she s brim full of poetry poetry if i may use the expression she lives what paper poets only write and she is an christian i am sure perhaps of the very tribe and species you desire to o angel you are mocking mother i beg pardon but as she really does attend church almost every sunday morning and is a good christian girl i am sure you will any the consequence social for the sake of that quality and feel that i may do worse than choose her angel quite earnest on that rather in his beloved which never dreaming that it might stand him in such good stead he had been prone to slight when observing it practised by her and the other because of its obvious amid essentially in their sad doubts as to whether their son had himself any right whatever to the title he claimed for the unknown young woman mr and mrs began to feel it as an advantage not to be overlooked that she at least was in her views especially as the of the pair must have arisen by an act of providence for angel never would have made a condition of his choice they said finally that it was better not to act in a hurry but that they would not object to see her angel therefore refrained from declaring more particulars now he felt that single minded and as his parents were there yet existed certain latent prejudices of theirs as middle class people which it would require some tact to overcome for though at liberty to do as he chose and though their daughter in law s could make no practical difference to their lives in the probability of her living far away from them he wished for affection s sake not to wound their sentiment in the most important decision of his life he observed his own in dwelling upon accidents in s life as if they were vital features it was for herself that he loved her soul her heart her substance not for her skill in the her as his scholar and certainly not for her simple formal faith professions her open air existence required no of to make it to him he held that education had as yet but little affected the beats of emotion and impulse on which domestic happiness an op the d depends it was probable that in the lapse of ages improved systems of moral and intellectual training would perhaps considerably the involuntary and even the instincts of human nature but up to the present day culture as far as he could see might be said to have affected only the mental of those lives which had been brought under its influence this belief was confirmed by his experience of women which having been extended from the cultivated into the rural community had taught him how much less was the difference between the good and wise woman of one social and the good and wise woman of another social than between the good and bad the wise and the foolish of the same or class it was the morning of his departure his brothers had already left the to proceed on a walking tour in the north whence one was to return to his college and the other to his angel might have accompanied them but preferred to his sweetheart at he would have been an	45
awkward member of the party for though the most the most ideal even the best of the three there was in the standing consciousness that his would not fit the round hole that had been prepared for him to neither nor had he ventured to mention his mother made him and his father accompanied him on his own mare a little way along the road having fairly well advanced his own affairs angel listened in a willing silence as they on together through the shady lanes to his father s account of his parish difficulties and the coldness of brother whom he loved because of his strict of the new testament by the of what they deemed a doctrine the consequence said mr with genial scorn and he proceeded to experiences which would show the absurdity of that idea he told of wondrous of evil of which he had been the instrument not only amongst the poor but amongst the rich and well to do and he also candidly admitted many failures as an instance of the latter he mentioned the case of a young squire named d living some forty off in the neighbourhood of not one of the ancient d of and other places asked his son that curiously historic worn out family with its ghostly legend of the coach and four o no the original d decayed and disappeared sixty or eighty years ago at least i believe so this seems to be a new f which has taken the name for the credit of the former line i hope they are i m sure but it is odd to hear you express interest in old families i thought you set less store by them even than i you me father you often do said angel with a little impatience i am as to the virtue of their being old some of the wise even among themselves exclaim against their own succession as hamlet puts it but and even i am tenderly attached to them this distinction though by no means a subtle one was yet too subtle for mr the elder and he went on with the story he had been about to relate which was that after the death of the senior so called d the young man developed the most passions though he had a blind mother whose condition should have made him know better a knowledge of his career having come to the ears of mr when he was in that part of the country preaching missionary sermons he boldly took occasion of the d to speak to the on his spiritual state though he was a stranger occupying another s pulpit he had felt this to be his duty and took for his text the words from st thou fool this night thy soul shall be required of thee the young man much resented this of attack and in the war of words which followed when they met he did not scruple publicly to insult mr without respect for his grey hairs angel flushed with distress dear father he said sadly i wish you would not expose yourself to such pain from pain said his father his rugged face shining in the of self only pain to me was pain on his account poor foolish young man do you suppose his words could give me any pain or even his blows being we bless being persecuted we it being we entreat we are made as the of the world and as the off of all things this day those ancient and noble words to the are strictly true at this present hour not blows father he did not proceed to blows no he did not though i have borne blows from men in a mad state of no a dozen times my boy what then i have saved them from the guilt of their own flesh and blood thereby and they have lived to thank me and praise god may this young man do the same said angel fervently but i fear otherwise from what you say we ll hope nevertheless said mr and i continue to pray for him though on this side of the grave we shall probably never meet again but after all one of those poor words of mine may spring up in his heart as a good seed some day the consequence now as always s father was sanguine as a child and though the younger could not accept his parent s narrow he his practice and recognized the hero under the perhaps he his father s practice even more now than ever seeing that in the question of making his wife his father had not once thought of inquiring whether she were well provided or the same was what had angel s getting a living as a farmer and would probably keep his brothers in the position of poor for the term of their yet angel admired it none the less indeed despite his own angel often felt that he was nearer to his father on the side than was either of his brethren an up hill and down ride of twenty odd miles through a mid day atmosphere brought him in the afternoon to a detached a mile or two west of whence he again looked into that green of and the valley of the or immediately he began to descend from the to the fat soil below the atmosphere grew heavier the languid perfume of the summer fruits the mists the hay the flowers formed therein a vast pool of which at this hour seemed to make the animals the very bees and drowsy was now so familiar with the spot that he knew the individual cows by their names when a long distance off he saw them dotted about the it was with a sense of luxury that he recognized his power of life here from its inner side in a way	45
that had been quite foreign to him in his and much as he loved his parents he could not help being aware that to come here as now after an experience of home life affected him like throwing off and even the one customary on the of english rural societies being absent in this place having no resident landlord not a being was out of doors at the the were enjoying the usual afternoon nap of an hour or so which the exceedingly early hours kept in summer time rendered a necessity at the door the wood and by infinite hung like hats on a stand upon the and of an oak fixed there for that purpose all of them ready and dry for the the consequence evening angel entered and went through the silent passages of the to the back where he listened for a moment sustained came from the cart house where some of the men were lying down the and of pigs arose from the still further distance the and plants slept too their broad limp hanging in the like half he and fed his horse and as he re entered the house the clock struck three three was the afternoon hour and with the stroke heard the creaking of the floor boards above and then the touch of a descending foot on the stairs it was s who in another moment came down before his eyes she had not heard him enter and hardly realized his presence there she was yawning and he saw the red interior of her mouth as if it had been a snake s she had stretched one arm so high above her up cable of hair that he could see its satin delicacy above the her face was flushed with sleep and her eyelids hung heavy over their pupils the brim fulness of her nature breathed from her it was a moment when a woman s soul is more than at any other time when the most spiritual beauty itself flesh and sex takes the outside place in the then those eyes flashed brightly through their before the remainder of her face was well awake with an oddly look of gladness shyness and surprise she exclaimed o mr how you frightened me i there had not at first been time for her to think of the changed relations which his declaration had introduced but the full sense of the matter rose up in her face when she encountered s tender look as he stepped forward to the bottom stair dear darling he whispered putting his of the d arm round her and his face to her flushed cheek don t for heaven s sake me any more i have hastened back so soon because of you s heart beat against his by way of reply and there they stood upon the red brick floor of the entry the sun in by the window upon his back as he held her tightly to his breast upon her face upon the blue veins of her temple upon her naked arm and her neck and into the depths of her hair having been lying down in her clothes she was warm as a cat at first she not look straight up at him but her eyes soon lifted and his the of the ever pupils with their of blue and black and gray and violet while she regarded him as eve at her second waking might have regarded adam i ve got to go a she pleaded and i have on y old to help me to day mrs is gone to market with mr and is not well and the others are gone out somewhere and won t be home till as they retreated to the milk house appeared on the stairs i have come back said mr upwards so i can help with the and as you are very tired i am sure you needn t come down till time possibly the milk was not very thoroughly that afternoon was in a dream wherein familiar objects appeared as having light and shade and position but no particular outline every time she held the under the pump to cool it for the work her hand trembled the of his affection being so palpable that e seemed to under it like a plant in too a sun then he pressed her again to his side and when she had done running her forefinger round the leads to cut off the cream edge he cleaned it in nature s l the consequence way for the manners of came convenient now i may as well say it now as later dearest he resumed gently i wish to ask you something of a very practical nature which i have been thinking of ever since that day last week in the i all soon want to marry and being a you see i shall require for my wife a woman who knows all about the management of farms will you be that woman he put it in that way that she might not think he had yielded to an impulse of which his head would she turned quite she had bowed to the inevitable result of the necessity of loving him but she had not calculated upon this sudden which indeed had put before her without quite meaning himself to do it so soon with that was like the bitterness of dissolution she murmured the words of her indispensable and sworn answer as an woman o mr i cannot be your wife i cannot be the sound of her own decision seemed to break s very heart and she bowed her face in her grief but he said amazed at her reply and holding her still more dose do you say no surely you love me o yes yes and i would rather be yours than anybody s in the world the sweet and	45
honest voice of the distressed girl but i cannot marry you he said holding her at arm s length you are engaged to marry some one else no no then why do you refuse me i don t want to marry i have not thought of doing it i cannot i only want to love you op the d but why driven to she stammered your father is a parson and your mother wouldn t like you to marry such as me she will want you to marry a lady nonsense i have spoken to them both that was partly why i went home i feel i never never she echoed is it too sudden to be asked thus my pretty yes i did not expect it if you will let it pass please i will give you time he said it was very abrupt to come home and speak to you all at once i ll not allude to it again for a while she again took up the shining held it beneath the and began anew but she could not as at other times hit the exact surface of the cream with the delicate dexterity required try as she might sometimes she was cutting down into the milk sometimes in the air she could hardly see her eyes having filled with two tears drawn forth by a grief which to this her best friend and dear advocate she could never explain i can t i can t she said turning away from him not to and hinder her longer the considerate began talking in a more general way you quite my parents they are the most simple people alive and quite they are two of the few remaining school are you an i don t know you go to church very regularly and our parson here is not very high they tell me s ideas on the views of the parish clergyman whom she heard every week seemed to be rather more vague than s who had never heard him at all i wish i could fix my mind on what i hear there the consequence more firmly than i do she remarked as a safe it is often a great sorrow to me she spoke so that angel was sure in his heart that his father could not object to her on religious grounds even though she did not know whether her principles were high low or broad he himself knew that in reality the confused which she held apparently in childhood were if anything as to and as to essence confused or otherwise to disturb them was his last desire leave thou thy sister when she her early heaven her happy views nor thou with shadow d a life that leads melodious days he had occasionally thought the less honest than but he gladly to it now he spoke further of the incidents of his visit of his father s mode of life of his zeal for his principles she grew and the disappeared from her as she finished one lead another he followed her and drew the for letting down the milk i fancied you looked a little downcast when you came in she ventured to observe anxious to keep away from the subject of herself yes well my father has been talking a good deal to me of his troubles and difficulties and the subject always to me he is so zealous that he gets many and from people of a way of thinking from himself and i don t like to hear of such to a man of his age the more as i don t think earnestness does any good when carried so far he has been telling me of a very unpleasant scene in which he took part quite recently he went as the of some missionary society to preach in the neighbourhood of op the d a place forty miles from here and made it his business to with a he met with somewhere about there son of some up that way and who has a mother afflicted with blindness my father addressed to the gentleman point blank and there was quite a disturbance it was very foolish of my father i must say to intrude his conversation upon a stranger when the were so obvious that it would be useless but whatever he thinks to be his duty that he ll do in season or out of season and of course he makes many enemies not only among the absolutely vicious but among the easy going who hate being he says he glories in what happened and that good may be done indirectly but i wish he would not so wear himself out now he is getting old and would leave such pigs to their s look had grown hard and worn and her ripe mouth but she no longer showed any s revived thoughts of his father prevented his noticing her particularly and so they went on down the white row of liquid till they had finished and drained them off when the other maids returned and took their and came to out the leads for the new milk as withdrew to go to the cows he said to her softly and my question o no no replied she with grave as one who had heard anew the turmoil of her own past in the allusion to d it can t be she went out towards the joining the other with a bound as if trying to make the open air drive away her sad all the girls drew onward to the spot where the cows were in the further the advancing with the bold grace of wild animals the reckless motion of women accustomed to unlimited space in the consequence which they abandoned themselves to the air as a to the wave it seemed natural	45
longer necessary truth is truth between man and woman as between man and man she lifted her eyes and they beamed into his as her lip rose in a tender half smile do you know why i did that he said because you love me very much yes and as a preliminary to a new entreaty not again she looked a sudden fear that her resistance might break down under her own desire o he went on i cannot think why you are so why do you disappoint me so you seem almost like a upon my life you do a of the first water they blow hot and blow cold just as you do and it is the very last sort of thing to expect to find in a retreat like and yet dearest he quickly added observing how the remark had cut her i know you to be the most honest creature that ever lived so how can i suppose you a why don t you like the idea of being my wife if you love me as you seem to do i have never said i don t like the idea and i never could say it because it isn t true the stress now getting beyond endurance her lip quivered and she was to go away was so pained and perplexed that he ran after and caught her in the passage tell me tell me he said passionately clasping her in forgetfulness of his hands do tell me that you won t belong to anybody but me i will i will tell you she exclaimed and i of the d will give you a complete answer if you will let me go now i tell you my experiences all about myself all your experiences dear yes certainly any number he expressed assent in loving satire looking into her face my has no doubt almost as many experiences as that wild out there on the garden hedge that opened itself this morning for the first time tell me an but don t use that wretched expression any more about not being worthy of me i will try not and i ll give you my reasons to morrow next week say on sunday yes on sunday at last she got away and did not stop in her retreat till she was in the thicket of at the lower side of the where she could be quite unseen here flung herself down upon the rustling of spear grass as upon a bed and remained crouching in misery broken by momentary shoots of joy which her fears about the ending could not altogether suppress in reality she was drifting into acquiescence every see saw of her breath every wave of her blood every pulse singing in her ears was a voice that joined with nature in revolt against her reckless acceptance of him to close with him at the altar revealing nothing and discovery to snatch ripe pleasure before the iron teeth of pain could have time to shut upon her that was what love and in almost a terror of ecstasy divined that despite her many months of lonely self schemes to lead a future of austere love s would prevail the afternoon advanced and still she remained among the she heard the rattle of taking down the from the stands the the consequence which accompanied the getting together of the cows but she did not go to the they would see her agitation and the thinking the cause to be love alone would good her and that could not be borne her lover have guessed her state and invented some excuse for her non appearance for no inquiries were made or calls given at half past six the sun settled down upon the with the aspect of a great in the heavens and presently a monstrous like moon arose on the other hand the tortured out of their natural shape by incessant became monsters as they stood up against it she went in and upstairs without a light it was now wednesday thursday came and angel looked thoughtfully at her from a distance but in no way upon her the and the rest seemed to guess that something definite was for they did not force any remarks upon her in the friday passed saturday to morrow was the day i shall give way i shall say yes i shall let myself marry him i cannot help it she panted with her hot face to the pillow that night on hearing one of the other girls sigh his name in her sleep i can t bear to let anybody have him but me yet it is a wrong to him and may kill him when he knows my o or now who mid ye think i ve heard news o this morning said as he sat down to breakfast next day with a gaze round upon the men and maids now just who mid ye think one guessed and another guessed mrs did not guess because she knew already well said the tis that slack twisted s bird of a jack he s lately got married to a widow woman not jack a villain to think o that said a the name entered quickly into s consciousness for it was the name of the lover who had wronged his sweetheart and had afterwards been so roughly used by the young woman s mother in the butter and has he married the matron s daughter as he promised asked angel as he turned over the newspaper he was reading at the little table to which he was always banished by mrs in her sense of his not he sir never meant to replied the as i say tis a widow woman and she had money it seems fifty a year or so and that was all he was after they	45
were married in a great hurry and then she told him that by marrying she had lost her fifty a year just fancy the state o my gentleman s mind at that news never such a cat and dog life as they ve been leading ever since serves him well but the poor gets the worst o t the consequence well the silly body should have told en sooner that the ghost of her first man would trouble him said mrs ay ay responded the still you can see exactly how twas she wanted a home and didn t like to run the risk of losing him don t ye think that was something like it maidens he glanced towards the row of girls she ought to ha told him just before they went to church when he could hardly have backed out exclaimed yes she ought agreed she must have seen what he was after and should ha refused him cried and what do you say my dear asked the of i think she ought to have told him the true state of things or else refused him i don t know replied bread and butter choking her be if i d have done either o t said a married from one of the cottages all s fair in love and war i d ha married en just as she did and if he d said two words to me about not telling him beforehand anything about my first chap that i hadn t chose to tell i d ha knocked him down wi the rolling pin a little like he any woman could do it the laughter which followed this sally was by a sorry smile for form s sake from what was comedy to them was tragedy to her and she could hardly bear their mirth she soon rose from table and with an impression that would follow her went along a little path now stepping to one side of the channels and now to the other till she stood by the main stream of the men had been cutting the water weeds higher up the river and masses of them were floating past her islands of green crow foot whereon she might almost have ridden long locks of which op the d weed had lodged against the piles driven to keep the cows from crossing yes there was the pain of it this question of a woman telling her story the heaviest of crosses to herself seemed but amusement to others it was as if people should laugh at came from behind her and sprang across the beside her feet my wife soon no no i cannot for your sake o mr for your sake i say no still i say no she repeated not expecting this he had put his arm lightly round her waist the moment after speaking beneath her hanging tail of hair the younger with their hair loose on sunday mornings before building it up extra high for attending a style they could not adopt when with their heads against the cows if she had said yes instead of no he would have kissed her it had evidently been his intention but her determined negative his scrupulous heart their condition of put her as the woman to such disadvantage by its enforced intercourse that he felt it unfair to her to exercise any pressure of which he might have honestly employed had she been better able to avoid him he released her imprisoned waist and withheld the kiss it all turned on that release what had given her strength to refuse him this time was solely the tale of the widow told by the and that would have been overcome in another moment but angel said no more his face was perplexed he went away day after day they met somewhat less constantly than before and thus two or three weeks went by the end of september drew near and she could see in his eye that he might ask her again the consequence his plan of was different now as though he had made up his mind that her were after all only and youth startled by the novelty of the proposal the fitful of her manner when the subject was under discussion the idea so he played a more game and while never going beyond words or attempting the renewal of caresses he did his utmost in this way persistently her in like that of the ling at the cow s side at at butter at cheese among poultry and among pigs as no was ever before by such a man knew that she must break down neither a sense of a certain moral in the previous nor a conscientious wish for could hold out against it much longer she loved him so passionately and he was so in her eyes and being though instinctively refined her nature cried for his guidance and thus though kept repeating to herself i can never be his wife the words were vain a proof of her weakness lay in the very utterance of what calm strength would not have taken the trouble to every sound of his voice beginning on the old subject stirred her with a bliss and she the she feared his manner was what man s is not so much that of one who would love and cherish and defend her under any conditions changes charges or revelations that her gloom lessened as she in it the season meanwhile was drawing onward to the and though it was still fine the days were much shorter the had again worked by morning candle light for a long time and a fresh renewal of s pleading occurred one morning between three and four she had run up in her to his door to call op the d him	45
not affect her her countenance a al slightly by the season had deepened its tinge with the beating of the rain drops and her hair which the pressure of the cows had as usual caused to tumble down from its and stray beyond the curtain of her bonnet of the d was made by the moisture till it hardly was better than i ought not to have come i suppose she murmured looking at the sky i am sorry for the rain said he but how glad i am to have you here remote disappeared by degrees behind the liquid the evening grew darker and the roads being crossed by gates it was not safe to drive faster than at a walking pace the air was rather chill i am so afraid you will get cold with nothing upon your arms and shoulders he said creep close to me and perhaps the won t hurt you much i should be still if i did not think that the rain might be helping me she crept closer and he wrapped round them both a large piece of sail cloth which was sometimes used to keep the sun off the milk held it from slipping off him as well as herself s hands being occupied now we are all right again ah no we are not it runs down into my neck a little and it must still more into yours that s better your arms are like wet marble wipe them in the cloth now if you stay quiet you will not get another drop well dear about that question of mine that long standing question the only reply that he could hear for a little while was the of the horse s hoofs on the road and the of the milk in the behind them do you remember what you said i do she replied before we get home mind i ll he said no more then as they drove on the fragment of an old house of date rose against the sky and was in due course passed and left behind the consequence that he observed to entertain her s an interesting old place one of the several seats which belonged to an ancient family formerly of great influence in this country the d i never pass one of their without thinking of them there is something very sad in the of a family of renown even if it was fierce renown yes said they crept along towards a point in the expanse of shade just at hand at which a feeble light was beginning to assert its presence a spot where by day a fitful white streak of steam at intervals upon the dark green background moments of contact between their secluded world and modem life modem life stretched out its steam to this point three or f times a day touched the native and quickly withdrew its again as if what it touched had been they reached the feeble light which came from the smoky lamp of a little railway station a poor enough star yet in one sense of more importance to and mankind than the celestial ones to whidi it stood in such humiliating contrast the of new milk were in the rain getting a little shelter from a neighbouring tree there was the hissing of a train which drew up almost silently upon the wet rails and the milk was rapidly swung can by can into the the light of the engine flashed for a second upon s figure motionless under the great no object could have looked more foreign to the gleaming and wheels than this girl with the round bare arms the rainy face and hair the suspended attitude of a friendly at pause the print gown of no date or fashion and the cotton bonnet drooping on her brow she mounted again beside her lover with a mute op the d obedience characteristic of impassioned natures at times and when they had wrapped themselves up over head and ears in the sail cloth again they plunged back into the now thick night was so that the few minutes of contact with the of material progress lingered in her thought will drink it at their tomorrow won t they she asked strange people that we have never seen yes i suppose they will though not as we send it when its strength has been lowered so that it may not get up into their heads noble men and noble women and ladies and and babies who have never seen a cow well yes perhaps particularly who don t know an of us and where it comes from or think how we two drove miles across the to night in the rain that it might em in time we did not drive entirely on account of these precious we drove a little on our own on account of that anxious matter which you will i am sure set at rest dear now permit me to put it in this way you belong to me already you know your heart i mean does it not you know as well as i o yes yes then if your heart does why not your hand my only reason was on account of you on account of a question i have something to tell you but suppose it to be entirely for my happiness and my worldly convenience also o yes if it is for happiness and worldly convenience but my life before i came here i want well it is for my convenience as well as my happiness if i have a very large farm either or you will be invaluable as a wife to me the consequence better than a woman out of the largest mansion in the so please please dear your mind of the feeling that you will stand in my way	45
but my history i want you to know it you must let me tell you you will not like me so well tell it if you to dearest this precious history then yes i was bom at so and so i was bom at she said catching at his words as a help as they were spoken and i grew up there and i was in the sixth standard when i left school and they said i had great and should make a good teacher so it was settled that i should be one but there was trouble in my family father was not very industrious and he drank a little yes yes poor child nothing new he pressed her more closely to his side and then there is something very about it about me i i was s breath quickened yes dearest never mind i i am not a but a d a of the same family as those that owned the old house we passed and we are all gone to nothing a d indeed and is that all the trouble dear yes she answered faintly well why should i love you less after knowing this i was told by the that you hated old families he laughed well it is true in one sense i do hate the aristocratic principle of blood before everything and do think that as the only we ought to respect are those spiritual ones of the wise and virtuous without regard to but op the d i am extremely interested in this news you can have no idea how interested i am are not you interested yourself in being one of that well known line no i have thought it sad especially since coming here and knowing that many of the hills and fields i see once belonged to my father s people but other hills and fields belonged to s people and perhaps others to s so that i don t value it particularly yes it is how many of the present of the soil were once owners of it and i sometimes wonder that a certain school of don t make capital of the circumstance but they don t seem to know it i wonder that i did not see the resemblance of your name to d and trace the manifest corruption and this was the secret she had not told at the last moment her courage had failed her she feared his blame for not telling him sooner and her instinct of self preservation was stronger than her of course continued the i should have been glad to know you to be descended exclusively from the long suffering dumb rank and file of the english nation and not from the seeking few who made themselves powerful at the expense of the rest but i am away from that by my affection for you he laughed as he spoke and made selfish likewise for your own sake i rejoice in descent society is hopelessly and this fact of your may make an difference to its acceptance of you as my wife after i have made you the well read woman that i mean to make you my mother too poor soul will think so much better of you on of it you must spell you name correctly d from this very day i like the other way rather best but you must dearest good heavens why a the consequence of at such a possession by the bye there s one of that who has taken the name where have i heard of up in the of the chase i think y he is the very man who had that with my father i told you of what an odd coincidence angel i think i would rather not take the name it is unlucky perhaps she was agitated now then mistress d i have you take my name and so you will escape yours the secret is out so why should you any longer refuse me if it is sure to make you happy to have me as your wife and you feel that you do wish to marry me very very much i do dearest of course i mean that it is only wanting me very much and being hardly able to keep alive without me whatever my that would make me feel i ought to say i will you will you do say it i know you will be mine for ever and ever he clasped her close and kissed her yes she had no sooner said it than she burst into a dry hard sobbing so violent that it seemed to her was not a hysterical girl by any means and he was surprised why do you cry dearest i can t tell quite i am so glad to think of being yours and making you happy but this does not seem very much like gladness my i mean i cry because i have broken down in my vow i said i would die but if you love me you would like me to be your husband of the d yes yes yes but o i sometimes wish i had never been bom now my dear if i did not know that you are very much excited and very inexperienced i should say that remark was not very complimentary how came you to wish that if you care for me do you care for me i wish you would prove it in some way how can i prove it more than i have done she cried in a distraction of tenderness will this prove it more she clasped his neck and for the first time learnt what an impassioned woman s kisses were like upon the lips of one whom she loved with all her	45
heart and soul as loved him there now do you believe she asked flushed and wiping her eyes yes i never really doubted never never so they drove on through the gloom forming one bundle inside the sail cloth the horse going as he would and the rain driving against them she had consented she might as well have agreed at first the appetite for joy which all creation that tremendous force which to its purpose as the tide the helpless weed was not to be controlled by vague over the social i must write to my mother she said you don t mind my doing that of course not dear child you are a child to me not to know how very proper it is to write to your mother at such a time and how wrong it would be in me to object where does she live at the same place on the further side of ah then i have seen you before this summer yes at that dance on the green but j ou would not dance with me o i hope that is of no ill omen for us now wrote a most touching and urgent letter to her mother the very next day and by the end of the week a response to her communication arrived in s wandering last century hand dear j write these few lines hoping they will find you as they leave me at present thank god for it dear we are all glad to hear that you are going really to be married soon but with respect to your question j say between ourselves quite private but very strong that on no account do you say a word of your trouble to him j not tell everything to your father he being so proud on account of his respectability which perhaps your intended is the same many a woman some of the highest in the have had a trouble in their time and why should you trumpet yours when others don t trumpet theirs no girl would be such a pool specially as it is so long ago and not your pat t at all j shall answer the same if you ask me fifty times besides you must bear in mind that knowing it to be your childish nature to teu all that s in your heart so simple j made you promise me never to let it out by word or deed having your welfare in my mind and you most solemnly did promise it going from this door j have not named either that question or your coming marriage to your as he would it everywhere poor simple man dear keep up your spirits and we mean to send you a of for your wedding knowing there is not much in your parts and thin sour stuff what there is so no more at present and with kind love to your young man your mother j o mother mother murmured she was how light was the touch of events the most oppressive upon mrs s elastic spirit her mother did not see life as saw it that episode of days was to her mother but a passing accident but perhaps her mother was right as to the course to be followed op the d whatever she might be in her reasons silence seemed on the face of it best for her adored one s happiness silence it should be thus by a command from the only person in the world who had any shadow of right to control her action grew the was shifted and her heart was lighter than it had been for weeks the days of declining which followed her assent beginning with the month of october formed a season through which she lived in spiritual more nearly approaching ecstasy than any other period of her life there was hardly a touch of earth in her love for to her sublime he was all that goodness could be knew all that a guide philosopher and friend should know she thought every line in the of his person the perfection of masculine beauty his soul the soul of a saint his intellect that of a the wisdom of her love for him as love sustained her dignity she seemed to be wearing a crown the compassion of his love for her as she saw it made her lift up her heart to him in devotion he would sometimes catch her large eyes that had no bottom to them at him from their depths as if she saw something immortal before her she dismissed the past trod upon it and put it out as one on a coal that is and dangerous she had not known that men could be so disinterested in their love for women as he angel was far from all that she thought him in this respect far indeed but he was in truth more spiritual than animal he had himself well in hand and was singularly free from though not cold natured he was rather bright than hot less than could love desperately but with a love more especially inclined to the imaginative and ethereal it was a fastidious emotion which could guard the loved the consequence one against his very self this amazed and whose experiences had been so till now and in her reaction from indignation against the male sex she to excess of honour for sought each other s company in her honest faith she did not disguise her desire to be with him the sum of her instincts on this matter if clearly stated would have been that the quality in her sex which men in general might be distasteful to so perfect a man after an of love since it must in its very nature carry with it a suspicion of art the custom of	45
out of doors during was the only custom she knew and to her it had no strangeness though it seemed oddly to till he saw how normal a thing she in common with all the other folk regarded it thus during this october month of wonderful they along the by creeping paths which followed the of across by little wooden bridges to the other side and back again they were never out of the sound of some whose accompanied their own murmuring while the beams of the sun almost as as the itself formed a of radiance over the landscape they saw tiny blue in the shadows of trees and hedges all the time that there was bright elsewhere the sun was so near the ground and the so flat that the shadows of and would stretch a quarter of a mile ahead of them like two long fingers pointing afar to where the green against the sloping sides of the men were at work here and there for it was the season for taking up the meadows or digging the little dear for the winter and mending their banks where trodden down by the op the d cows the of black as jet brought there by the river when it was as wide as the whole valley were an essence of of the past refined and to extraordinary richness out of which came all the of the and of the cattle there kept his arm round her waist in sight of these with the air of a man who was accustomed to public though actually as shy as she who with lips parted and eyes on the wore the look of a wary animal the while you are not ashamed of me as yours before them she said gladly o nor but if it should reach the cars of your friends at that you are walking about like this with me a the most ever seen they might feel it a hurt to their dignity my dear girl s d hurt the dignity of a it is a grand card to play that of your belonging to such a family and i am it for a grand when we are married and have the proofs of your descent from parson apart from that my future is to be totally foreign to my family it will not affect even the of their lives we shall leave this part of england perhaps england itself and what does it matter how people regard us here you will like going will you not she could answer no more than a bare affirmative so great was the emotion aroused in her at the thought of going through the world with him as his own familiar friend her feelings almost filled her ears like a of waves and up to her eyes she put her hand in his and thus they went on to a place where the reflected sun glared up from the river a bridge with a glow that the consequence dazzled their eyes though the itself was hidden by the bridge they stood still whereupon little and heads up from the smooth surface of the water but finding that the disturbing had paused and not passed by they disappeared again upon this river brink they lingered till the fog began to close round which was very early in the evening at this time of the year settling on the lashes of her eyes where it rested like and on his brows and hair they walked later on when it was quite dark some of the people who were also doors on the first sunday evening after their engagement heard her impulsive speeches to fragments though they were too far off to hear the words noted the catch in her remarks broken into by the of her heart as she walked leaning on his arm her contented pauses the occasional little laugh upon which her seemed to ride the laugh of a woman in company with the man she loves and has won from all other women unlike anything else in nature they marked the of her tread like the of a bird which has not quite alighted her affection for him was now the breath and life of s being it enveloped her as a her into forgetfulness of her past sorrows keeping back the gloomy that would persist in their attempts to touch her doubt fear care shame she knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the light but she had long of power to keep them in hungry there a spiritual forgetfulness co existed with an intellectual remembrance she walked in brightness but she knew that in the background those shapes of darkness were always spread they might be receding or they might be approaching one or the other a little every day of the d one evening and were obliged to sit indoors keeping house all the other occupants of the being away as they talked she looked thoughtfully up at him and met his two eyes i am not worthy of you no i am not she burst out up from her low stool as though appalled at his homage and the fulness of her own joy the whole basis of her excitement to be that which was only the smaller part of it said i won t have you speak like it dear distinction does not consist in the use of a contemptible set of but in being among those who are true and honest and just and pure and lovely and of good report as you are my she struggled with the sob in her throat how often had that string of made her young heart ache in church of late years and how strange that he should have them now why didn t you stay and love me when i	45
looking into her face how it do seem almost more than i can think of said kissed yes she murmured as she withdrew her lips was that because of love for her or because other lips have touched there by now continued to i wasn t thinking o that said simply i was on y feeling all the strangeness o t that she is to op the d be his wife and nobody else i don t say nay to it nor either of us because we did not think of it only loved him still nobody else is to many n in the world no fine lady nobody in and but she who do live like we are you sure you don t dislike me for it said in a low voice they hung about her in their white before ring as if they considered their answer might lie in her look i don t know i don t know murmured i want to hate ee but i cannot that s how i feel echoed and i can t hate her somehow she me he ought to marry one of you murmured why you are all better than i we better than you said the girls in a low slow whisper no no dear you are she contradicted and suddenly tearing away from their clinging arms she burst into a hysterical fit of tears bowing herself on the chest of drawers and repeating incessantly o yes yes yes having once given way he ought to have had one of you she cried i think i ought to make him even now you would be better for him than i don t know what i m saying o o they went up to her and clasped her round but still her sobs tore her get some water said she s upset by us poor thing poor thing gently led her back to the side of her bed where they kissed her warmly you are best for n said more and a better scholar than we especially since he has taught ee so but even you ought to be proud you be proud i m sure s the consequence yes i am she said and i am ashamed at so breaking down when they were all in bed and the light was out whispered across to her you will think of us when you be his wife and of how we told ee that we loved him and how we tried not to hate you and did not hate you and could not hate you because you were his and we never hoped to be chose by him they were not aware that at these words salt tears down upon s pillow anew and how she resolved with a bursting heart to tell all her history to angel despite her mother s command to let him for whom e lived and breathed despise her if he would and her mother regard her as a fool rather than preserve a silence which might be deemed a treachery to him and which somehow seemed a wrong to these this mood kept her from the wedding day the beginning of november foimd its date stiu in he asked her at the most tempting times but s desire seemed to be for a perpetual in which everything should as it was then the were now but it was still warm enough in early before to idle there awhile and the state of work at this time of year allowed a spare for looking over the damp sod in the direction of the sun a glistening ripple of was visible to their eyes the like the track of moonlight on the sea knowing nothing of their brief wandered across the of this pathway as if they bore fire within them then passed out of its line and were quite extinct in the presence of these things he would remind her that the date was still the question or he would ask her at night when he accompanied her on some mission invented by mrs to give him the opportunity this was mostly a journey to the on the slopes above the to inquire how the advanced cows were getting on in the to which they were for it was a time of the year that brought great changes to the world of of the animals were sent away daily to this lying in hospital where they lived on straw till their were bom after which event and as soon as the calf could walk mother and offspring were driven back to the in the interval s the consequence which elapsed before the were sold there was of course little to be done but as soon as the calf had been taken away the would have to set to work as usual returning from one of these dark walks they reached a great gravel cliff immediately over the where they stood still and listened the water was now high in the streams through the and the smallest were all full there was no taking short cuts anywhere and foot passengers were compelled to follow the permanent ways from the whole extent of the invisible came a it forced upon their fancy that a great city lay below them and that the murmur was the of its it seems like of thousands of them said holding public meetings in their market places arguing quarrelling sobbing groaning praying and cursing was not particularly did speak to you to day dear about his not wanting much assistance during the winter months no the cows are going dry rapidly yes six or seven went to the straw yesterday and three the day before making nearly twenty in the straw already ah is it that the farmer don t want my help for the o i am not wanted here any more and i	45
have tried so hard to didn t exactly say that he would no longer require you but knowing what relations were he said in the most good and respectful manner possible that he supposed on my leaving at christmas i should take you with me and on my asking what he would do without you he merely observed that as a matter of fact it was a time of year when he could do with a very little female help i am afraid i of the d was sinner enough to feel rather glad that he was in this way forcing hand i don t think you ought to have felt glad angel because tis always mournful not to be wanted even if at the same time tis convenient well it is convenient you have admitted that he put his finger upon her cheek ah he said what i feel the red rising up at her having been caught but why should i trifle so we will not trifle e is too serious it is perhaps i saw that before you did she was seeing it then to decline to many him after all in obedience to her emotion of last night and leave the meant to go to some strange place not a for were not in request now time was coming on to go to some farm where no divine being like angel was she hated the thought and she hated more the thought of going home so that seriously dearest he continued since you will probably have to leave at christmas it is in every way desirable and convenient that i should carry you off then as my property besides if you were not the most girl in the world you would know that we could not go on like this for ever i wish we could that it would be summer and autumn and you always me and always thinking as much of me as you have done through the past time i always shall o i know you will she cried with a sudden of faith in him angel i will fix the day when i will become yours for always thus at last it was arranged between them during that dark walk home amid the of liquid voices on the right and left when they reached the mr and mrs as the consequence were promptly told with to secrecy for each of the lovers was desirous that the marriage should be kept as private as possible the though he had thought of her soon now made a great concern about losing her what he do about his m ing who would make the ornamental butter for the and ladies mrs congratulated on the shall having at last come to an end and said that directly she set eyes on she divined that she was to be the chosen one of somebody who was no common man had looked so superior as she walked across the on that afternoon of her arrival that she was of a good family she could have sworn in point of fact mrs did remember thinking that was graceful and good looking as she approached but the superiority might have been a growth of the imagination aided by subsequent knowledge was now carried along upon the wings of the hours without the sense of a will the word had been given the number of the day written down her naturally bright intelligence had begun to admit the convictions common to field folk and those who associate more with natural phenomena than with their fellow creatures and she accordingly drifted into that passive to all things her lover suggested characteristic of the frame of mind but she wrote anew to her mother to the wedding day really to again her advice it was a gentleman who had chosen her which perhaps her mother had not sufficiently considered a post explanation which might be accepted with a light heart by a man might not be received with the same feeling by him but this communication brought no reply from mrs despite angel s plausible representations to of the d himself and to of the practical need for their immediate marriage there was in truth an element of in the step as became apparent at a later date he loved her dearly though perhaps rather and than with the impassioned of her feeling for him he had entertained no notion when doomed as he had thought to an life that such charms as he beheld in this creature would be behind the scenes was a thing to talk of but he had not known how it really struck one he came here yet he was very far from seeing his future track clearly and it might be a year or two before he would be able to consider himself fairly started in life the secret lay in the tinge of imparted to his career and character by the sense that he had been made to miss his true destiny through the prejudices of his family don t you think have been better for us to wait till you were quite settled in your farm she once asked timidly a farm was the idea just then to tell the truth my i don t like you to be left anywhere away from my protection and sympathy the reason was a good one so far as it went his influence over her had been so marked that she had caught his manner and habits his speech and phrases his and his and to leave her in would be to let her slip back again out of accord with him he wished to have her his charge for another reason his parents had naturally desired to see her once at least before he carried her off to a distant settlement english or and as no opinion of theirs was to be	45
they started together s life at the had been that of a in respect to the world of his own class for months he had never gone near a town and requiring no vehicle had never kept one the s or if he rode or drove they went in the that day and then for the first time in their lives they as partners in one concern it was christmas eve with its load of and and the town was very full of strangers who had come in from all parts of the country on of the day paid the penalty of walking about with happiness to beauty on her by being much stared at as she moved amid them on his arm in the evening they returned to the at which they had put up and waited in the entry while angel went to see the horse and brought to the door the general sitting room was full of guests who were continually going in and out as the door opened and shut each time for the passage of these the light within the parlour fell full upon s face two men came out and passed by her among the the consequence rest one of them had stared her up and down in surprise and she fancied he was a man though that village lay so many miles off that folk were here a comely maid that said the other true comely enough but i make a great mistake and he n the remainder of the definition forthwith had just returned from the stable yard and the man on the threshold heard the words and saw the shrinking of the insult to her him to the quick and before he had considered anything at all he struck the man on the chin with the full force of his fist sending him staggering backwards into the passage the man recovered himself and seemed inclined to come on and stepping outside the door put himself in a of d ence but his opponent began to think better of the matter he looked anew at as he passed her and said to i beg pardon sir twas a complete mistake i thought e was another woman forty miles from here feeling then that he had been too hasty and that he was moreover to blame for leaving her standing in an inn passage did what he usually did in such cases gave the man five shillings to plaster the blow and thus they parted bidding other a pacific good night as soon as had taken the reins from the and the couple had driven off the two men went in the other direction and was it a mistake said the second one not a bit of it but i didn t want to hurt the gentleman s feelings not i in the meantime the lovers were driving onward could we put off our wedding till a little later asked in a dry dull voice i mean if we wished no my love calm yourself do you mean that op the d the fellow may have time to summon me for assault he asked good no i only meant if it should have to be put off what she meant was not very dear and he directed her to dismiss such fancies from her mind which she did as well as she could but she was grave very grave all the way home till she thought we shall go away a very long distance hundreds of miles from these parts and such as this can never happen again and no ghost of the past reach there parted tenderly that night on the landing and ascended to his sat up getting on with some little lest the few remaining days should not time while she sat she heard a noise in angel s room overhead a sound of and struggling everybody else in the house was asleep and in her anxiety lest should be ill she ran up and knocked at his door and asked him what was the matter oh nothing dear he said from within i am so sorry i disturbed you but the reason is rather an amusing one i fell asleep and that i was fighting that fellow again who insulted you and the noise you heard was my away with my fists at my which i pulled out to day for packing i am occasionally liable to these in my sleep go to bed and think of it no more this was the last required to turn the scale of her declare the past to him by word of mouth she could not but there was another way she sat down and wrote on the four pages of a note sheet a narrative of those events of three or four years ago put it into an envelope and directed it to then lest the flesh should again be weak she crept upstairs without any shoes and slipped tiie note under his door her night was a broken one as it well might be and she listened for the first faint noise overhead the consequence it came as usual he descended as usual she descended he met her at the bottom of the stairs and kissed her surely it was as warmly as ever he looked a little disturbed and worn she thought but he said not a word to her about her revelation even when they were alone could he have had it unless he began the subject she felt that she could say nothing so the day passed and it was evident that whatever he thought he meant to keep to himself yet he was frank and affectionate as before could it be that her doubts were childish that he forgave her that he loved her for what she was just as she was and smiled at her as at a foolish nightmare had	45
he really received her note she glanced into his room and could see nothing of it it might be that he forgave her but even if he had not received it she had a sudden enthusiastic trust that he surely would forgive her every morning and night he was the same and thus new year s eve broke the wedding day the lovers did not rise at mil king time having through the whole of this last week of their at the been accorded something of the position of guests being honoured with a room of her own when they arrived downstairs at breakfast time they were surprised to see what effects had been produced in the large kitchen for their glory since they had last beheld it at some unnatural of the morning the had caused the yawning chimney comer to be and the brick hearth and a blazing yellow to be across the arch in place of the old blue cotton one with a black pattern which had formerly done duty here this aspect of what was the indeed of the room on a dull winter morning threw a smiling over the whole apartment i was determined to do in honour o t said the and as you wouldn t hear of my op the d a rattling good wi and bass complete as we should ha done in old times this was all i think o as a noiseless thing s friends lived so far off that none conveniently have been present at the ceremony even had any been asked but as a fact nobody was invited from as for angel s family he had written and duly informed them of the time and assured them that he would be glad to see one at least of them there for the day i he would like to come his brothers had not replied at all seeming to be indignant with him while his father and mother had written a rather sad letter his in rushing into marriage but making the best of the matter by saying that though a was the last daughter they could have expected their son had arrived at an age at which he might be supposed to be the best judge this coolness in his relations distressed less than it would have done had he been without the grand card with which he meant to surprise them ere long to produce fresh from the as a d and a lady he had felt to be and hence he had concealed her till such time as with worldly ways by a few months travel and reading with him he could take her on a visit to his parents and impart the knowledge while triumphantly producing her as worthy of such an ancient line it was a pretty lover s dream if no more perhaps s had more value for himself than for anybody in the world besides her perception that angel s bearing towards her still remained in no whit altered by her own communication rendered doubtful if he have received it she rose from breakfast before he had finished and hastened upstairs it had occurred to her to look once more into the queer gaunt room which had been s den or rather for so long and climbing the ladder die stood at the open door of the the consequence apartment regarding and pondering she stooped to the threshold of the doorway where she had pushed in the note two or three days earlier in such excitement the carpet reached close to the sill and under the edge of the carpet she discerned the faint white margin of the envelope containing her letter to him whidi he obviously had never seen owing to her having in her haste thrust it beneath the carpet as well as beneath the door with a feeling of f she withdrew the letter there it was sealed up just as it had left her hands the had not yet been removed she could not let him read it now the house being in full bustle of preparation and descending to her own room she destroyed the letter there she was so pale when he saw her again that he felt quite anxious the incident of the letter she had jumped at as if it prevented a confession but she knew in her conscience that it need not there was still time yet everything was in a stir there was coming and going all had to dress the and mrs having been asked to accompany them as witnesses and reflection or deliberate talk was well nigh impossible the only minute could get to be alone with was when they met upon the landing i am so anxious to talk to you i want to confess all my faults and she said with attempted lightness no no we can t have faults talked of you must be deemed perfect to day at least my sweet he cried we shall have plenty of time hereafter i hope to talk over our i will confess mine at the same time but it would be better for me to do it now i think so that you could not say well my one you shall tell me anything say as soon as we are settled in our lodging not now i too will tell you my faults then but do not op the d let tis spoil the day with them they will be excellent matter for a time then you don t wish me to dearest i do not really the hurry of dressing and starting left no time for more than this those words of his seemed to her on further reflection she was whirled onward through the next couple of critical hours by the tide of her devotion to him which closed up further meditation her one desire so long resisted to make herself	45
his to call him her lord her own then if necessary to die had at last lifted her up from her pathway in dressing she moved about in a mental cloud of many coloured which all sinister by its brightness the church was a long way off and they were obliged to drive particularly as it was winter a dose carriage was ordered from a roadside inn a vehicle which had been kept there ever since the old days of post chaise travelling it had stout wheel and heavy a great curved bed and springs and a pole like a ram the was a venerable boy of sixty sl martyr to the result of excessive exposure in youth by strong who had stood at inn doors doing nothing for the whole five and twenty years that had elapsed since he had no longer been required to ride as if expecting the old times to come back again he had a permanent running wound on the outside of his right leg originated by the constant of aristocratic carriage poles during the many years that he had been in regular employ at the king s arms inside this and creaking structure and behind this decayed conductor the took their seats the bride and bridegroom and mr and mrs angel would have liked one at least of his brothers to be present as but their the consequence silence after his gentle hint to that effect by letter had signified that they did not care to come they of the marriage and could not be expected to countenance it perhaps it was as well that they could not be present they were not worldly young fellows but with folk have struck upon their apart from their views of the match by the of the time knew nothing of this did not see anything did not know the road they were taking to the church she knew that angel was close to her all the rest was a mist she was a sort of celestial person who owed her being to poetry one of those classical was accustomed to talk to her about when they took their walks together the marriage being by there were only a dozen or so of people in the church had there been a thousand they would have produced no more effect upon her tliey were at distances from her present world in the solemnity with which she swore her faith to him the ordinary of sex seemed a at a pause in the service while they were kneeling together she unconsciously inclined herself towards him so that her touched his arm she had been frightened by a passing thought and the movement had been to assure herself that he was really there and to her belief that his fidelity be proof against all things knew that she loved him every curve of her form showed that but he did not know at that time the full depth of her devotion its single its what long suffering it what honesty what endurance what good faith as they came out of church the the bells off their rests and a modest peal of three notes broke forth that limited amount of expression having be i deemed sufficient by the church for the op the d joys of such a small parish passing by the tower with her husband on the path to the gate she could feel the air humming them from the in a circle of sound and it matched the highly charged mental atmosphere in which she was living this condition of mind wherein she felt by an not her own like the angel whom st john saw in the sun lasted till the sound of the church bells had died away and the emotions of the wedding service had down her eyes could dwell upon details more clearly now and mr and mrs having directed their own to be sent for them to leave the carriage to the young couple she observed the build and character of that conveyance for the first time sitting in silence she regarded it long i fancy you seem oppressed said yes she answered putting her hand to her brow i tremble at many things it is all so serious angel among other things i seem to have seen this carriage before to be very well acquainted with it it is very odd i must have seen it in a dream h you have heard the legend of the d coach that well known superstition of this county about your family when they were very popular here and this old thing reminds you of it i have never heard of it to my said she what is the legend may i know it well i rather not teu it in detail just now a certain d of the sixteenth or century committed a dreadful crime in his family coach and since that time members of the family see or hear the old coach whenever but i ll tell you another day it is rather gloomy evidently some dim knowledge of it has been brought back to mind by the sight of this venerable i don t remember hearing it before she is it when we are going to die angel that members the consequence of my family see it or is it when we have committed a crime now he silenced her by a kiss by the time they reached home she was and she was mrs angel indeed but had she any moral right to the name was she not more truly mrs alexander d could intensity of love justify what might be considered in upright souls as she knew not what was expected of women in such cases and she had no however when she found herself alone in her room for a few minutes	45
the last day this on which she was ever to enter it she knelt down and prayed she tried to pray to god but it was her husband who really had her her of this man was such that she herself almost feared it to be ill she was conscious of the notion expressed by these violent delights have violent ends it might be too desperate for conditions too rank too wild too deadly o my love my love why do i love you so she whispered there alone for she you love is not my real self but one in my image the one i might have been afternoon came and with it the hour for departure they had decided to fulfil the plan of going for a few days to the lodgings in the old near mill at which he meant to reside during his investigation of flour processes at two o clock there was nothing left to do but to start all the of the were standing in the red brick entry to see them go out the and his wife following to the door saw her three chamber mates in a row against the wall their heads she had much questioned if they would appear at the parting moment but there they were and to the last she knew why the delicate looked so fragile and so sorrowful and op the d so blank and she forgot her own shadow for a moment in contemplating theirs she whispered to him will you kiss em all once poor s for the first and last time had not the least objection to such a farewell formality which was all that it was to him and as he passed them he kissed them in succession where they stood saying good bye to each as he did so when they reach i the door glanced back to discern the effect of that kiss of charity there was no triumph in her glance as there might have been if there had it would have disappeared when she saw how moved the girls all were the kiss had obviously done harm by awakening feelings they were to subdue of all this was passing on to the gate he shook hands with the and his wife and expressed his last thanks to them for their attentions after which there was a moment of silence before they had moved off it was interrupted by the of a cock the white one with the rose comb had come and settled on the in front of the house within a few yards of them and his notes thrilled their ears through away like echoes down a valley of rocks oh said mrs an afternoon crow two men were standing by the yard gate holding it open that s bad one murmured to the other not thinking that the words could be heard by the group at the door the cock crew again straight towards well said the i don t like to hear him said to her husband tell the man to drive on good bye the cock crew again just you be off sir or i ll twist your the consequence neck said the with some irritation to the bird and driving him away and to his wife as they went indoors now to think o that just to day i ve not heard his crow of an afternoon all the year afore it only means a change in the weather said she not what you think tis impossible they drove by the level road along the valley to a distance of a few miles and turned away from the village to the left and over tiie great bridge which gives the place half its name immediately behind it stood the house wherein they had engaged lodgings whose exterior features are so well to all travellers through the valley once portion of a fine residence and the property and seat of a d but since its partial a welcome to one of your said as he handed her down but he regretted the it was too near a satire on entering they that though they had only engaged a couple of rooms the farmer had taken advantage of their proposed presence during the coming days to pay a new year s visit to some friends leaving a woman from a neighbouring cottage to minister to their few wants the of possession pleased them and they realized it as the first moment of their experience imder their own exclusive roof tree but he found that the old habitation somewhat depressed his bride when the carriage was gone they ascended the stairs to wash their hands the showing the way on the landing stopped and started what s the matter said he those horrid women she answered with a smile how they frightened me he looked up and perceived two life size portraits the consequence on built into the as all visitors to the mansion are aware these paintings represent women of middle age of a date some two hundred years ago whose once seen can never be forgotten the long pointed features narrow eye and of the one so suggestive of merciless treachery the bill hook nose large teeth and bold eye of the other suggesting to the point of ferocity the afterwards in his dreams whose portraits are those asked of the i have been told by old folk that they were ladies of the d family the ancient lords of this she said owing to their being into the wall they can t be moved away the of the matter was that in addition to their effect upon her fine features were in these exaggerated forms he said nothing of this however and that he had gone out of his way to choose the house for their time went on into the adjoining room the place having been	45
rather hastily prepared for them they washed their hands in one basin touched hers under the water which are my fingers and are yours he said looking up they are very much mixed they are all yours said she very prettily and endeavoured to be than she was he had not been displeased with her on such an occasion it was what every sensible woman would show but knew that she had been thoughtful to excess and struggled against it the sun was so low on that short last afternoon of the year that it shone in through a small opening and formed a golden staff which stretched across to her skirt where it made a spot like a paint mark set upon her they went into the ancient parlour to tea and here they shared their first common meal alone such op the d was their or rather his that he found it interesting to use the same bread and butter plate as herself and to brush from her lips with his own he wondered a little that she did not enter into these with his own zest looking at her silently for a long time she is a dear dear he thought to as one deciding on the true construction of a difficult passage do i realize solemnly enough how utterly and this little womanly thing is the creature of my good or bad faith and fortune i think not i think i could not i were a woman myself what i am in worldly estate she is what i become she must become what i be she cannot be and shall i ever neglect her or hurt her or even forget to consider her god forbid such a crime t they sat on over the tea table waiting for their which the had promised to send before it grew dark but evening began to dose in and the luggage did not arrive and they had brought nothing more than they stood in with the departure of the sun the calm mood of the winter day changed out of doors there began noises as of silk rubbed the dead leaves of the preceding were stirred to irritated and whirled about and tapped against the shutters it soon began to rain that cock knew the weather was going to change said the woman who had attended upon them had gone home for the night but she had placed candles upon the table and now they lit them each drew towards the fireplace these old houses are so continued angel looking at the flames and at the down the sides i wonder where that luggage is we haven t even a brush and comb i don t know she answered absent minded you are not a bit cheerful this evening the consequence not at all as you used to be those on the upstairs have unsettled you i am sorry i brought you here i wonder if you really love me after all he knew that she did and the words had no serious intent but she was with emotion and like a wounded animal though she tried not to shed tears she could not help showing one or two i did not mean it said he sorry you are worried at not having your things i know i cannot think why old has not come with them why it is seven o clock ah there he is a knock had come to the door and there being nobody else to answer it went out he returned to the room with a small in his hand it is not after all he said how said the packet had been brought by a special messenger who had arrived at from immediately after the departure of the married couple and had followed them hither being under to deliver it into nobody s hands but theirs brought it to the light it was less than a foot long up in canvas sealed in red wax with his father s seal and directed in his father s hand to mrs angel it is a little wedding present for you said he handing it to her how thoughtful they are looked a little as she took it i think i would rather have you open it dearest said she turning over the parcel i don t like to break those great they l x k so serious please open it for me he the parcel inside was a case of leather on the top of which lay a note and a key the note was for in the following words my dear son possibly you have forgotten that on the death of your mrs when you were a lad she vain kind op the d woman that she was left to me a portion of the contents of her in trust for your wife if you should ever have as a mark of her affection for you and you should choose this trust i have fulfilled and the diamonds have been locked up at my banker s ever since though i feel it to be a somewhat act in the circumstances i am as you will see bound to hand over the articles to the woman to whom the use of them for her lifetime will now rightly belong and they are therefore promptly sent they become i believe strictly speaking to the terms of your s wiu the precise words of the that to this matter are enclosed i do remember said but i had quite forgotten the case they found it to contain a with and and also some other small ornaments seemed afraid to touch them at first but her eyes sparkled for a moment as much as the stones when spread out the set are they mine she asked they are certainly said he he looked into the fire he remembered how when he was a lad	45
of fifteen his the squire s wife the only rich person with whom he had ever come in contact had pinned her faith to his success had a wondrous career for him there had seemed nothing at all out of keeping with such a career in the up of these ornaments for his wife and the wives of her descendants they gleamed somewhat now yet why he asked himself it was but a question of vanity throughout and if that were admitted into one side of the it be admitted into the other his wife was a d whom could they become better than her suddenly he said with enthusiasm put them on put them on and he turned from the fire to help her but as if by magic she had already them and all but the gown isn t right said it the consequence ought to be a low one for a set of like that ought it said yes said he he suggested to her how to in the upper edge of her so as to make it roughly to the cut for evening wear and when die had done this and the to the isolated amid the whiteness of her throat as it was designed to do he stepped back to survey her my heavens said how beautiful you are as everybody knows fine feathers make fine birds a peasant girl but very to the casual observer in her simple condition and attire will bloom as an amazing beauty if clothed as a woman of fashion with the that art can render while the beauty of the midnight crush would often cut but a sorry figure if placed inside the field woman s upon a monotonous of on a dull day he had never till now estimated the artistic excellence of s limbs and features if you were only to appear in a ball room he said but no no dearest i think i love you best in the wing bonnet and cotton yes better than in this well as you support these s sense of her striking appearance had given her a flush of excitement which was yet not happiness i ll take them off she said in case should see me they are not fit for me are they they must be sold i suppose let them stay a few minutes longer sell them never it be a breach of faith influenced by a second thought she readily obeyed she had something to tell and there might be help in these she sat down with the jewels upon her and they again in conjectures as to where could possibly be with their baggage the ale they had poured out for his when he came had gone flat with long standing op the d shortly after this they began supper which was ah laid on a side table ere they had finished there was a jerk in the fire smoke the rising of which out into the room as if some giant had laid his hand on the chimney top for a moment it had been caused by the opening of the outer door a heavy step was now heard in the passage and angel went out i couldn make nobody hear at all by knocking for it was he at last and as t was out i opened the door i ve brought the things sir i am very glad to see them but you are very late well yes sir there was something subdued in s tone which had not been there in the day and lines of concern were upon his forehead in addition to the lines of years he continued we ve all been at the at what might ha been a most terrible since you and your mis ess so to name her now left us this a perhaps you ha nt forgot the cock s afternoon crow dear me what well some says it do mane one thing and some another but what s happened is that poor little tried to drown herself no really why she bade us good bye with the rest yes well sir when you and your mis ess so to name what die lawful is when you two drove away as i say and put on their and went out and as there is not much doing now being new year s eve and folks and from what s inside em nobody took much notice they went on to where they had to drink and then on they to armed cross and there they seemed to have parted striking across the water as if for home and the consequence going on to the next village where there s another public house nothing more was or heard o till the on his way home noticed something by the great pool twas her bonnet and shawl packed up in the water he foimd her he and another man brought her home thinking a was dead but she fetched by degrees angel suddenly that was this gloomy tale went to shut the door between the passage and the room to the inner parlour where she was but his wife flinging a shawl her had come to the outer room and was listening to the man s narrative her eyes resting on the luggage and the drops of rain glistening upon it and more than this there s she s been found dead drunk by the bed a girl who never been known to touch anything before except shilling ale though to be sure a was always a good woman as her face showed it seems as if the maids had all gone out o their minds and asked is about house as usual but a do say a can guess how it happened and she seems to be very low in mind about it	45

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