answering, 'Rich is not quite the word for me, dame. I do work, and I
must work. And even if I only get to Casterbridge by midnight I must
begin work there at eight to-morrow morning. Yes, het or wet, blow or
snow, famine or sword, my day's work to-morrow must be done.'
'Poor man! Then, in spite o' seeming, you be worse off than we?' replied
the shepherd's wife.
''Tis the nature of my trade, men and maidens. 'Tis the nature of my
trade more than my poverty . . . But really and truly I must up and off,
or I shan't get a lodging in the town.' However, the speaker did not
move, and directly added, 'There's time for one more draught of
friendship before I go; and I'd perform it at once if the mug were not
dry.'
'Here's a mug o' small,' said Mrs. Fennel. 'Small, we call it, though to
be sure 'tis only the first wash o' the combs.'
'No,' said the stranger disdainfully. 'I won't spoil your first kindness
by partaking o' your second.'
'Certainly not,' broke in Fennel. 'We don't increase and multiply every
day, and I'll fill the mug again.' He went away to the dark place under
the stairs where the barrel stood. The shepherdess followed him.
'Why should you do this?' she said reproachfully, as soon as they were
alone. 'He's emptied it once, though it held enough for ten people; and
now he's not contented wi' the small, but must needs call for more o' the
strong! And a stranger unbeknown to any of us. For my part, I don't
like the look o' the man at all.'
'But he's in the house, my honey; and 'tis a wet night, and a
christening. Daze it, what's a cup of mead more or less? There'll be
plenty more next bee-burning.'
'Very well - this time, then,' she answered, looking wistfully at the
barrel. 'But what is the man's calling, and where is he one of; that he
should come in and join us like this?'
'I don't know. I'll ask him again.'
The catastrophe of having the mug drained dry at one pull by the stranger
in cinder-gray was effectually guarded against this time by Mrs. Fennel.
She poured out his allowance in a small cup, keeping the large one at a
discreet distance from him. When he had tossed off his portion the
shepherd renewed his inquiry about the stranger's occupation.
The latter did not immediately reply, and the man in the chimney-corner,
with sudden demonstrativeness, said, 'Anybody may know my trade - I'm a
wheelwright.'
'A very good trade for these parts,' said the shepherd.
'And anybody may know mine - if they've the sense to find it out,' said
the stranger in cinder-gray.
'You may generally tell what a man is by his claws,' observed the hedge-
carpenter, looking at his own hands. 'My fingers be as full of thorns as
an old pin-cushion is of pins.'
The hands of the man in the chimney-corner instinctively sought the
shade, and he gazed into the fire as he resumed his pipe. The man at the
table took up the hedge-carpenter's remark, and added smartly, 'True; but
the oddity of my trade is that, instead of setting a mark upon me, it
sets a mark upon my customers.'
No observation being offered by anybody in elucidation of this enigma,
the shepherd's wife once more called for a song. The same obstacles
presented themselves as at the former time - one had no voice, another had
forgotten the first verse. The stranger at the table, whose soul had now
risen to a good working temperature, relieved the difficulty by
exclaiming that, to start the company, he would sing himself. Thrusting
one thumb into the arm-hole of his waistcoat, he waved the other hand in
the air, and, with an extemporizing gaze at the shining sheep-crooks
above the mantelpiece, began:-
'O my trade it is the rarest one,
Simple shepherds all -
My trade is a sight to see;
For my customers I tie, and take them up on high,
And waft 'em to a far countree!'
The room was silent when he had finished the verse - with one exception,
that of the man in the chimney-corner, who, at the singer's word,
'Chorus! 'joined him in a deep bass voice of musical relish -
'And waft 'em to a far countree!'
Oliver Giles, John Pitcher the dairyman, the parish-clerk, the engaged
man of fifty, the row of young women against the wall, seemed lost in
thought not of the gayest kind. The shepherd looked meditatively on the
ground, the shepherdess gazed keenly at the singer, and with some
suspicion; she was doubting whether this stranger were merely singing an
old song from recollection, or was composing one there and then for the
occasion. All were as perplexed at the obscure revelation as the guests
at Belshazzar's Feast, except the man in the chimney-corner, who quietly
said, 'Second verse, stranger,' and smoked on.
The singer thoroughly moistened himself from his lips inwards, and went
on with the next stanza as requested:-
'My tools are but common ones,
Simple shepherds all -
My tools are no sight to see:
A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing,
Are implements enough for me!'
Shepherd Fennel glanced round. There was no longer any doubt that the
stranger was answering his question rhythmically. The guests one and all
started back with suppressed exclamations. The young woman engaged to
the man of fifty fainted half-way, and would have proceeded, but finding
him wanting in alacrity for catching her she sat down trembling.
'O, he's the - !' whispered the people in the background, mentioning the
name of an ominous public officer. 'He's come to do it! 'Tis to be at
Casterbridge jail to-morrow - the man for sheep-stealing - the poor clock-
maker we heard of; who used to live away at Shottsford and had no work to
do - Timothy Summers, whose family were a-starving, and so he went out of
Shottsford by the high-road, and took a sheep in open daylight, defying
the farmer and the farmer's wife and the farmer's lad, and every man jack
among 'em. He' (and they nodded towards the stranger of the deadly
trade) 'is come from up the country to do it because there's not enough
to do in his own county-town, and he's got the place here now our own
county man's dead; he's going to live in the same cottage under the
prison wall.'
The stranger in cinder-gray took no notice of this whispered string of
observations, but again wetted his lips. Seeing that his friend in the
chimney-corner was the only one who reciprocated his joviality in any
way, he held out his cup towards that appreciative comrade, who also held
out his own. They clinked together, the eyes of the rest of the room
hanging upon the singer's actions. He parted his lips for the third
verse; but at that moment another knock was audible upon the door. This
time the knock was faint and hesitating.
The company seemed scared; the shepherd looked with consternation towards
the entrance, and it was with some effort that he resisted his alarmed
wife's deprecatory glance, and uttered for the third time the welcoming
words, 'Walk in!'
The door was gently opened, and another man stood upon the mat. He, like
those who had preceded him, was a stranger. This time it was a short,
small personage, of fair complexion, and dressed in a decent suit of dark
clothes.
'Can you tell me the way to - ?' he began: when, gazing round the room to
observe the nature of the company amongst whom he had fallen, his eyes
lighted on the stranger in cinder-gray. It was just at the instant when
the latter, who had thrown his mind into his song with such a will that
he scarcely heeded the interruption, silenced all whispers and inquiries
by bursting into his third verse:-
'To-morrow is my working day,
Simple shepherds all -
To-morrow is a working day for me:
For the farmer's sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta'en,
And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!'
The stranger in the chimney-corner, waving cups with the singer so
heartily that his mead splashed over on the hearth, repeated in his bass
voice as before:-
'And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!'
All this time the third stranger had been standing in the doorway.
Finding now that he did not come forward or go on speaking, the guests
particularly regarded him. They noticed to their surprise that he stood
before them the picture of abject terror - his knees trembling, his hand
shaking so violently that the door-latch by which he supported himself
rattled audibly: his white lips were parted, and his eyes fixed on the
merry officer of justice in the middle of the room. A moment more and he
had turned, closed the door, and fled.
'What a man can it be?' said the shepherd.
The rest, between the awfulness of their late discovery and the odd
conduct of this third visitor, looked as if they knew not what to think,
and said nothing. Instinctively they withdrew further and further from
the grim gentleman in their midst, whom some of them seemed to take for
the Prince of Darkness himself; till they formed a remote circle, an
empty space of floor being left between them and him -
' . . . circulus, cujus centrum diabolus.'
The room was so silent - though there were more than twenty people in
it - that nothing could be heard but the patter of the rain against the
window-shutters, accompanied by the occasional hiss of a stray drop that
fell down the chimney into the fire, and the steady puffing of the man in
the corner, who had now resumed his pipe of long clay.
The stillness was unexpectedly broken. The distant sound of a gun
reverberated through the air - apparently from the direction of the county-
town.
'Be jiggered!' cried the stranger who had sung the song, jumping up.
'What does that mean?' asked several.
'A prisoner escaped from the jail - that's what it means.'
All listened. The sound was repeated, and none of them spoke but the man
in the chimney-corner, who said quietly, 'I've often been told that in
this county they fire a gun at such times; but I never heard it till
now.'
'I wonder if it is my man?' murmured the personage in cinder-gray.
'Surely it is!' said the shepherd involuntarily. 'And surely we've zeed
him! That little man who looked in at the door by now, and quivered like
a leaf when he zeed ye and heard your song!'
'His teeth chattered, and the breath went out of his body,' said the
dairyman.
'And his heart seemed to sink within him like a stone,' said Oliver
Giles.
'And he bolted as if he'd been shot at,' said the hedge-carpenter.
'True - his teeth chattered, and his heart seemed to sink; and he bolted
as if he'd been shot at,' slowly summed up the man in the chimney-corner.
'I didn't notice it,' remarked the hangman.
'We were all a-wondering what made him run off in such a fright,'
faltered one of the women against the wall, 'and now 'tis explained!'
The firing of the alarm-gun went on at intervals, low and sullenly, and
their suspicions became a certainty. The sinister gentleman in cinder-
gray roused himself. 'Is there a constable here?' he asked, in thick
tones. 'If so, let him step forward.'
The engaged man of fifty stepped quavering out from the wall, his
betrothed beginning to sob on the back of the chair.
'You are a sworn constable?'
'I be, sir.'
'Then pursue the criminal at once, with assistance, and bring him back
here. He can't have gone far.'
'I will, sir, I will - when I've got my staff. I'll go home and get it,
and come sharp here, and start in a body.'
'Staff! - never mind your staff; the man'll be gone!'
'But I can't do nothing without my staff - can I, William, and John, and
Charles Jake? No; for there's the king's royal crown a painted on en in
yaller and gold, and the lion and the unicorn, so as when I raise en up
and hit my prisoner, 'tis made a lawful blow thereby. I wouldn't 'tempt
to take up a man without my staff - no, not I. If I hadn't the law to gie
me courage, why, instead o' my taking up him he might take up me!'
'Now, I'm a king's man myself; and can give you authority enough for
this,' said the formidable officer in gray. 'Now then, all of ye, be
ready. Have ye any lanterns?'
'Yes - have ye any lanterns? - I demand it!' said the constable.
'And the rest of you able-bodied - '
'Able-bodied men - yes - the rest of ye!' said the constable.
'Have you some good stout staves and pitch-forks - '
'Staves and pitchforks - in the name o' the law! And take 'em in yer
hands and go in quest, and do as we in authority tell ye!'
Thus aroused, the men prepared to give chase. The evidence was, indeed,
though circumstantial, so convincing, that but little argument was needed
to show the shepherd's guests that after what they had seen it would look
very much like connivance if they did not instantly pursue the unhappy
third stranger, who could not as yet have gone more than a few hundred
yards over such uneven country.
A shepherd is always well provided with lanterns; and, lighting these
hastily, and with hurdle-staves in their hands, they poured out of the
door, taking a direction along the crest of the hill, away from the town,
the rain having fortunately a little abated.
Disturbed by the noise, or possibly by unpleasant dreams of her baptism,
the child who had been christened began to cry heart-brokenly in the room
overhead. These notes of grief came down through the chinks of the floor
to the ears of the women below, who jumped up one by one, and seemed glad
of the excuse to ascend and comfort the baby, for the incidents of the
last half-hour greatly oppressed them. Thus in the space of two or three
minutes the room on the ground-floor was deserted quite.
But it was not for long. Hardly had the sound of footsteps died away
when a man returned round the corner of the house from the direction the
pursuers had taken. Peeping in at the door, and seeing nobody there, he
entered leisurely. It was the stranger of the chimney-corner, who had
gone out with the rest. The motive of his return was shown by his
helping himself to a cut piece of skimmer-cake that lay on a ledge beside
where he had sat, and which he had apparently forgotten to take with him.
He also poured out half a cup more mead from the quantity that remained,
ravenously eating and drinking these as he stood. He had not finished
when another figure came in just as quietly - his friend in cinder-gray.
'O - you here?' said the latter, smiling. 'I thought you had gone to help
in the capture.' And this speaker also revealed the object of his return
by looking solicitously round for the fascinating mug of old mead.
'And I thought you had gone,' said the other, continuing his skimmer-cake
with some effort.
'Well, on second thoughts, I felt there were enough without me,' said the
first confidentially, 'and such a night as it is, too. Besides, 'tis the
business o' the Government to take care of its criminals - not mine.'
'True; so it is. And I felt as you did, that there were enough without
me.'
'I don't want to break my limbs running over the humps and hollows of
this wild country.'
'Nor I neither, between you and me.'
'These shepherd-people are used to it - simple-minded souls, you know,
stirred up to anything in a moment. They'll have him ready for me before
the morning, and no trouble to me at all.'
'They'll have him, and we shall have saved ourselves all labour in the
matter.'
'True, true. Well, my way is to Casterbridge; and 'tis as much as my
legs will do to take me that far. Going the same way?'
'No, I am sorry to say! I have to get home over there' (he nodded
indefinitely to the right), 'and I feel as you do, that it is quite
enough for my legs to do before bedtime.'
The other had by this time finished the mead in the mug, after which,
shaking hands heartily at the door, and wishing each other well, they
went their several ways.
In the meantime the company of pursuers had reached the end of the hog's-
back elevation which dominated this part of the down. They had decided
on no particular plan of action; and, finding that the man of the baleful
trade was no longer in their company, they seemed quite unable to form
any such plan now. They descended in all directions down the hill, and
straightway several of the party fell into the snare set by Nature for
all misguided midnight ramblers over this part of the cretaceous
formation. The 'lanchets,' or flint slopes, which belted the escarpment
at intervals of a dozen yards, took the less cautious ones unawares, and
losing their footing on the rubbly steep they slid sharply downwards, the
lanterns rolling from their hands to the bottom, and there lying on their
sides till the horn was scorched through.
When they had again gathered themselves together, the shepherd, as the
man who knew the country best, took the lead, and guided them round these
treacherous inclines. The lanterns, which seemed rather to dazzle their
eyes and warn the fugitive than to assist them in the exploration, were
extinguished, due silence was observed; and in this more rational order
they plunged into the vale. It was a grassy, briery, moist defile,
affording some shelter to any person who had sought it; but the party
perambulated it in vain, and ascended on the other side. Here they
wandered apart, and after an interval closed together again to report
progress.
At the second time of closing in they found themselves near a lonely ash,
the single tree on this part of the coomb, probably sown there by a
passing bird some fifty years before. And here, standing a little to one
side of the trunk, as motionless as the trunk itself; appeared the man
they were in quest of; his outline being well defined against the sky
beyond. The band noiselessly drew up and faced him.
'Your money or your life!' said the constable sternly to the still
figure.
'No, no,' whispered John Pitcher. ''Tisn't our side ought to say that.
That's the doctrine of vagabonds like him, and we be on the side of the
law.'
'Well, well,' replied the constable impatiently; 'I must say something,
mustn't I? and if you had all the weight o' this undertaking upon your
mind, perhaps you'd say the wrong thing too! - Prisoner at the bar,
surrender, in the name of the Father - the Crown, I mane!'
The man under the tree seemed now to notice them for the first time, and,
giving them no opportunity whatever for exhibiting their courage, he
strolled slowly towards them. He was, indeed, the little man, the third
stranger; but his trepidation had in a great measure gone.
'Well, travellers,' he said, 'did I hear ye speak to me?'
'You did: you've got to come and be our prisoner at once!' said the
constable. 'We arrest 'ee on the charge of not biding in Casterbridge
jail in a decent proper manner to be hung to-morrow morning. Neighbours,
do your duty, and seize the culpet!'
On hearing the charge, the man seemed enlightened, and, saying not
another word, resigned himself with preternatural civility to the search-
party, who, with their staves in their hands, surrounded him on all
sides, and marched him back towards the shepherd's cottage.
It was eleven o'clock by the time they arrived. The light shining from
the open door, a sound of men's voices within, proclaimed to them as they
approached the house that some new events had arisen in their absence. On
entering they discovered the shepherd's living room to be invaded by two
officers from Casterbridge jail, and a well-known magistrate who lived at
the nearest country-seat, intelligence of the escape having become
generally circulated.
'Gentlemen,' said the constable, 'I have brought back your man - not
without risk and danger; but every one must do his duty! He is inside
this circle of able-bodied persons, who have lent me useful aid,
considering their ignorance of Crown work. Men, bring forward your
prisoner!' And the third stranger was led to the light.
'Who is this?' said one of the officials.
'The man,' said the constable.
'Certainly not,' said the turnkey; and the first corroborated his
statement.
'But how can it be otherwise?' asked the constable. 'Or why was he so
terrified at sight o' the singing instrument of the law who sat there?'
Here he related the strange behaviour of the third stranger on entering
the house during the hangman's song.
'Can't understand it,' said the officer coolly. 'All I know is that it
is not the condemned man. He's quite a different character from this
one; a gauntish fellow, with dark hair and eyes, rather good-looking, and
with a musical bass voice that if you heard it once you'd never mistake
as long as you lived.'
'Why, souls - 'twas the man in the chimney-corner!'
'Hey - what?' said the magistrate, coming forward after inquiring
particulars from the shepherd in the background. 'Haven't you got the
man after all?'
'Well, sir,' said the constable, 'he's the man we were in search of,
that's true; and yet he's not the man we were in search of. For the man
we were in search of was not the man we wanted, sir, if you understand my
everyday way; for 'twas the man in the chimney-corner!'
'A pretty kettle of fish altogether!' said the magistrate. 'You had
better start for the other man at once.'
The prisoner now spoke for the first time. The mention of the man in the
chimney-corner seemed to have moved him as nothing else could do. 'Sir,'
he said, stepping forward to the magistrate, 'take no more trouble about
me. The time is come when I may as well speak. I have done nothing; my
crime is that the condemned man is my brother. Early this afternoon I
left home at Shottsford to tramp it all the way to Casterbridge jail to
bid him farewell. I was benighted, and called here to rest and ask the
way. When I opened the door I saw before me the very man, my brother,
that I thought to see in the condemned cell at Casterbridge. He was in
this chimney-corner; and jammed close to him, so that he could not have
got out if he had tried, was the executioner who'd come to take his life,
singing a song about it and not knowing that it was his victim who was
close by, joining in to save appearances. My brother looked a glance of
agony at me, and I knew he meant, "Don't reveal what you see; my life
depends on it." I was so terror-struck that I could hardly stand, and,
not knowing what I did, I turned and hurried away.'
The narrator's manner and tone had the stamp of truth, and his story made
a great impression on all around. 'And do you know where your brother is
at the present time?' asked the magistrate.
'I do not. I have never seen him since I closed this door.'
'I can testify to that, for we've been between ye ever since,' said the
constable.
'Where does he think to fly to? - what is his occupation?'
'He's a watch-and-clock-maker, sir.'
''A said 'a was a wheelwright - a wicked rogue,' said the constable.
'The wheels of clocks and watches he meant, no doubt,' said Shepherd
Fennel. 'I thought his hands were palish for's trade.'
'Well, it appears to me that nothing can be gained by retaining this poor
man in custody,' said the magistrate; 'your business lies with the other,
unquestionably.'
And so the little man was released off-hand; but he looked nothing the
less sad on that account, it being beyond the power of magistrate or
constable to raze out the written troubles in his brain, for they
concerned another whom he regarded with more solicitude than himself.
When this was done, and the man had gone his way, the night was found to
be so far advanced that it was deemed useless to renew the search before
the next morning.
Next day, accordingly, the quest for the clever sheep-stealer became
general and keen, to all appearance at least. But the intended
punishment was cruelly disproportioned to the transgression, and the
sympathy of a great many country-folk in that district was strongly on
the side of the fugitive. Moreover, his marvellous coolness and daring
in hob-and-nobbing with the hangman, under the unprecedented
circumstances of the shepherd's party, won their admiration. So that it
may be questioned if all those who ostensibly made themselves so busy in
exploring woods and fields and lanes were quite so thorough when it came
to the private examination of their own lofts and outhouses. Stories
were afloat of a mysterious figure being occasionally seen in some old
overgrown trackway or other, remote from turnpike roads; but when a
search was instituted in any of these suspected quarters nobody was
found. Thus the days and weeks passed without tidings.
In brief; the bass-voiced man of the chimney-corner was never recaptured.
Some said that he went across the sea, others that he did not, but buried
himself in the depths of a populous city. At any rate, the gentleman in
cinder-gray never did his morning's work at Casterbridge, nor met
anywhere at all, for business purposes, the genial comrade with whom he
had passed an hour of relaxation in the lonely house on the coomb.
The grass has long been green on the graves of Shepherd Fennel and his
frugal wife; the guests who made up the christening party have mainly
followed their entertainers to the tomb; the baby in whose honour they
all had met is a matron in the sere and yellow leaf. But the arrival of
the three strangers at the shepherd's that night, and the details
connected therewith, is a story as well known as ever in the country
about Higher Crowstairs.
March 1883.
THE WITHERED ARM
CHAPTER I - A LORN MILKMAID
It was an eighty-cow dairy, and the troop of milkers, regular and
supernumerary, were all at work; for, though the time of year was as yet
but early April, the feed lay entirely in water-meadows, and the cows
were 'in full pail.' The hour was about six in the evening, and three-
fourths of the large, red, rectangular animals having been finished off,
there was opportunity for a little conversation.
'He do bring home his bride to-morrow, I hear. They've come as far as
Anglebury to-day.'
The voice seemed to proceed from the belly of the cow called Cherry, but
the speaker was a milking-woman, whose face was buried in the flank of
that motionless beast.
'Hav' anybody seen her?' said another.
There was a negative response from the first. 'Though they say she's a
rosy-cheeked, tisty-tosty little body enough,' she added; and as the
milkmaid spoke she turned her face so that she could glance past her
cow's tail to the other side of the barton, where a thin, fading woman of
thirty milked somewhat apart from the rest.
'Years younger than he, they say,' continued the second, with also a
glance of reflectiveness in the same direction.
'How old do you call him, then?'
'Thirty or so.'
'More like forty,' broke in an old milkman near, in a long white pinafore
or 'wropper,' and with the brim of his hat tied down, so that he looked
like a woman. ''A was born before our Great Weir was builded, and I
hadn't man's wages when I laved water there.'
The discussion waxed so warm that the purr of the milk-streams became
jerky, till a voice from another cow's belly cried with authority, 'Now
then, what the Turk do it matter to us about Farmer Lodge's age, or
Farmer Lodge's new mis'ess? I shall have to pay him nine pound a year
for the rent of every one of these milchers, whatever his age or hers.
Get on with your work, or 'twill be dark afore we have done. The evening
is pinking in a'ready.' This speaker was the dairyman himself; by whom
the milkmaids and men were employed.
Nothing more was said publicly about Farmer Lodge's wedding, but the
first woman murmured under her cow to her next neighbour, ''Tis hard for
she,' signifying the thin worn milkmaid aforesaid.
'O no,' said the second. 'He ha'n't spoke to Rhoda Brook for years.'
When the milking was done they washed their pails and hung them on a many-
forked stand made of the peeled limb of an oak-tree, set upright in the
earth, and resembling a colossal antlered horn. The majority then
dispersed in various directions homeward. The thin woman who had not
spoken was joined by a boy of twelve or thereabout, and the twain went
away up the field also.
Their course lay apart from that of the others, to a lonely spot high
above the water-meads, and not far from the border of Egdon Heath, whose
dark countenance was visible in the distance as they drew nigh to their
home.
'They've just been saying down in barton that your father brings his
young wife home from Anglebury to-morrow,' the woman observed. 'I shall
want to send you for a few things to market, and you'll be pretty sure to
meet 'em.'
'Yes, mother,' said the boy. 'Is father married then?'
'Yes . . . You can give her a look, and tell me what's she's like, if you
do see her.'
'Yes, mother.'
'If she's dark or fair, and if she's tall - as tall as I. And if she
seems like a woman who has ever worked for a living, or one that has been
always well off, and has never done anything, and shows marks of the lady
on her, as I expect she do.'
'Yes.'
They crept up the hill in the twilight, and entered the cottage. It was
built of mud-walls, the surface of which had been washed by many rains
into channels and depressions that left none of the original flat face
visible; while here and there in the thatch above a rafter showed like a
bone protruding through the skin.
She was kneeling down in the chimney-corner, before two pieces of turf
laid together with the heather inwards, blowing at the red-hot ashes with
her breath till the turves flamed. The radiance lit her pale cheek, and
made her dark eyes, that had once been handsome, seem handsome anew.
'Yes,' she resumed, 'see if she is dark or fair, and if you can, notice
if her hands be white; if not, see if they look as though she had ever
done housework, or are milker's hands like mine.'
The boy again promised, inattentively this time, his mother not observing
that he was cutting a notch with his pocket-knife in the beech-backed
chair.
CHAPTER II - THE YOUNG WIFE
The road from Anglebury to Holmstoke is in general level; but there is
one place where a sharp ascent breaks its monotony. Farmers homeward-
bound from the former market-town, who trot all the rest of the way, walk
their horses up this short incline.
The next evening, while the sun was yet bright, a handsome new gig, with
a lemon-coloured body and red wheels, was spinning westward along the
level highway at the heels of a powerful mare. The driver was a yeoman
in the prime of life, cleanly shaven like an actor, his face being toned
to that bluish-vermilion hue which so often graces a thriving farmer's
features when returning home after successful dealings in the town.
Beside him sat a woman, many years his junior - almost, indeed, a girl.
Her face too was fresh in colour, but it was of a totally different
quality - soft and evanescent, like the light under a heap of rose-petals.
Few people travelled this way, for it was not a main road; and the long
white riband of gravel that stretched before them was empty, save of one
small scarce-moving speck, which presently resolved itself into the
figure of boy, who was creeping on at a snail's pace, and continually
looking behind him - the heavy bundle he carried being some excuse for, if
not the reason of, his dilatoriness. When the bouncing gig-party slowed
at the bottom of the incline above mentioned, the pedestrian was only a
few yards in front. Supporting the large bundle by putting one hand on
his hip, he turned and looked straight at the farmer's wife as though he
would read her through and through, pacing along abreast of the horse.
The low sun was full in her face, rendering every feature, shade, and
contour distinct, from the curve of her little nostril to the colour of
her eyes. The farmer, though he seemed annoyed at the boy's persistent
presence, did not order him to get out of the way; and thus the lad
preceded them, his hard gaze never leaving her, till they reached the top
of the ascent, when the farmer trotted on with relief in his
lineaments - having taken no outward notice of the boy whatever.
'How that poor lad stared at me!' said the young wife.
'Yes, dear; I saw that he did.'
'He is one of the village, I suppose?'
'One of the neighbourhood. I think he lives with his mother a mile or
two off.'
'He knows who we are, no doubt?'
'O yes. You must expect to be stared at just at first, my pretty
Gertrude.'
'I do, - though I think the poor boy may have looked at us in the hope we
might relieve him of his heavy load, rather than from curiosity.'
'O no,' said her husband off-handedly. 'These country lads will carry a
hundredweight once they get it on their backs; besides his pack had more
size than weight in it. Now, then, another mile and I shall be able to
show you our house in the distance - if it is not too dark before we get
there.' The wheels spun round, and particles flew from their periphery
as before, till a white house of ample dimensions revealed itself, with
farm-buildings and ricks at the back.
Meanwhile the boy had quickened his pace, and turning up a by-lane some
mile and half short of the white farmstead, ascended towards the leaner
pastures, and so on to the cottage of his mother.
She had reached home after her day's milking at the outlying dairy, and
was washing cabbage at the doorway in the declining light. 'Hold up the
net a moment,' she said, without preface, as the boy came up.
He flung down his bundle, held the edge of the cabbage-net, and as she
filled its meshes with the dripping leaves she went on, 'Well, did you
see her?'
'Yes; quite plain.'
'Is she ladylike?'
'Yes; and more. A lady complete.'
'Is she young?'
'Well, she's growed up, and her ways be quite a woman's.'
'Of course. What colour is her hair and face?'
'Her hair is lightish, and her face as comely as a live doll's.'
'Her eyes, then, are not dark like mine?'
'No - of a bluish turn, and her mouth is very nice and red; and when she
smiles, her teeth show white.'
'Is she tall?' said the woman sharply.
'I couldn't see. She was sitting down.'
'Then do you go to Holmstoke church to-morrow morning: she's sure to be
there. Go early and notice her walking in, and come home and tell me if
she's taller than I.'
'Very well, mother. But why don't you go and see for yourself?'
'I go to see her! I wouldn't look up at her if she were to pass my
window this instant. She was with Mr. Lodge, of course. What did he say
or do?'
'Just the same as usual.'
'Took no notice of you?'
'None.'
Next day the mother put a clean shirt on the boy, and started him off for
Holmstoke church. He reached the ancient little pile when the door was
just being opened, and he was the first to enter. Taking his seat by the
font, he watched all the parishioners file in. The well-to-do Farmer
Lodge came nearly last; and his young wife, who accompanied him, walked
up the aisle with the shyness natural to a modest woman who had appeared
thus for the first time. As all other eyes were fixed upon her, the
youth's stare was not noticed now.
When he reached home his mother said, 'Well?' before he had entered the
room.
'She is not tall. She is rather short,' he replied.
'Ah!' said his mother, with satisfaction.
'But she's very pretty - very. In fact, she's lovely.'
The youthful freshness of the yeoman's wife had evidently made an
impression even on the somewhat hard nature of the boy.
'That's all I want to hear,' said his mother quickly. 'Now, spread the
table-cloth. The hare you caught is very tender; but mind that nobody
catches you. - You've never told me what sort of hands she had.'
'I have never seen 'em. She never took off her gloves.'
'What did she wear this morning?'
'A white bonnet and a silver-coloured gownd. It whewed and whistled so
loud when it rubbed against the pews that the lady coloured up more than
ever for very shame at the noise, and pulled it in to keep it from
touching; but when she pushed into her seat, it whewed more than ever.
Mr. Lodge, he seemed pleased, and his waistcoat stuck out, and his great
golden seals hung like a lord's; but she seemed to wish her noisy gownd
anywhere but on her.'
'Not she! However, that will do now.'
These descriptions of the newly-married couple were continued from time
to time by the boy at his mother's request, after any chance encounter he
had had with them. But Rhoda Brook, though she might easily have seen
young Mrs. Lodge for herself by walking a couple of miles, would never
attempt an excursion towards the quarter where the farmhouse lay. Neither
did she, at the daily milking in the dairyman's yard on Lodge's outlying
second farm, ever speak on the subject of the recent marriage. The
dairyman, who rented the cows of Lodge, and knew perfectly the tall
milkmaid's history, with manly kindliness always kept the gossip in the
cow-barton from annoying Rhoda. But the atmosphere thereabout was full
of the subject during the first days of Mrs. Lodge's arrival; and from
her boy's description and the casual words of the other milkers, Rhoda
Brook could raise a mental image of the unconscious Mrs Lodge that was
realistic as a photograph.
CHAPTER III - A VISION
One night, two or three weeks after the bridal return, when the boy was
gone to bed, Rhoda sat a long time over the turf ashes that she had raked
out in front of her to extinguish them. She contemplated so intently the
new wife, as presented to her in her mind's eye over the embers, that she
forgot the lapse of time. At last, wearied with her day's work, she too
retired.
But the figure which had occupied her so much during this and the
previous days was not to be banished at night. For the first time
Gertrude Lodge visited the supplanted woman in her dreams. Rhoda Brook
dreamed - since her assertion that she really saw, before falling asleep,
was not to be believed - that the young wife, in the pale silk dress and
white bonnet, but with features shockingly distorted, and wrinkled as by
age, was sitting upon her chest as she lay. The pressure of Mrs. Lodge's
person grew heavier; the blue eyes peered cruelly into her face; and then
the figure thrust forward its left hand mockingly, so as to make the
wedding-ring it wore glitter in Rhoda's eyes. Maddened mentally, and
nearly suffocated by pressure, the sleeper struggled; the incubus, still
regarding her, withdrew to the foot of the bed, only, however, to come
forward by degrees, resume her seat, and flash her left hand as before.
Gasping for breath, Rhoda, in a last desperate effort, swung out her
right hand, seized the confronting spectre by its obtrusive left arm, and
whirled it backward to the floor, starting up herself as she did so with
a low cry.
'O, merciful heaven!' she cried, sitting on the edge of the bed in a cold
sweat; 'that was not a dream - she was here!'
She could feel her antagonist's arm within her grasp even now - the very
flesh and bone of it, as it seemed. She looked on the floor whither she
had whirled the spectre, but there was nothing to be seen.
Rhoda Brook slept no more that night, and when she went milking at the
next dawn they noticed how pale and haggard she looked. The milk that
she drew quivered into the pail; her hand had not calmed even yet, and
still retained the feel of the arm. She came home to breakfast as