sun looked on the world with glorious eye. A ray, warm, but yet not fiercely so, fell aslant between the leaves of the great oak boughs above, and lit up one delicate ear—small, white, with pink within, as in the shell the cameo-cutter graves with his tool; or rather, pink like the apple-bloom, that loveliest of flowers—for as a blossom it peeped forth beneath her brown wavy hair. Her lips were slightly parted: “Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing.” For their backs are level and white, and glisten with the water. The highly-arched eyebrows did not meet above the straight nose, but left a space there. In some old magic-book he had read that this space was the peculiar precinct of the Queen of Love. A briar had jealously snatched at the loose sleeve of the right arm, which hung down, baring the wrist—a round, soft, white arm, veined with blue, an exquisite polish on the skin. The fingers were long and slightly rosy; from them a few flowers had dropped on the open page of the book.
So still was he that a weasel came along the green path, his neck erect like a snake in the grass, stopped, looked him straight in the eyes, and went by without fear. He gazed, rapt in the devotion of the artist, till a sense came over him like that feeling which the Greeks embodied in the punishment that fell on those who looked unbidden upon the Immortals. It was the strength and the perfect purity of the passion that held him there that also impelled him to withdraw. Slowly he worked his way backwards noiselessly, till, sufficiently far away, he rose to his feet, and hesitated.
Then he made a détour, and stepped into the green footpath thirty or forty yards distant from her throne, and began to make a noise as he approached her. He rustled the fern with his foot; he seized a branch and forcibly snapped it, causing a sharp crack. A woodpecker, startled, flew off with a discordant “Yuckle!” the dove ceased to coo; the brown nightingale was silent, and sought a distant hazel-thicket. He lifted his voice and sang—he had a naturally fine voice—a verse of the dear old ballad, his favourite:
“If she be dead, then take my horse,
My saddle and bridle also;
For I will unto some far country,
Where no man shall me know.”
Off came his hat—she had risen and faced him, blushing faintly. Her deep grey eyes looked down, and the long eyelashes drooped over them, as she held out her hand.
“I was coming to Greene Ferne,” said he, “and lost my way in the copse.”
“You must have gone a long way round.”
“Never mind—my instinct guided me right;” then, seeing that the meaning he expressed behind the words still further confused her, he added, “It was quite accidental.”
Now Margaret had roamed out into the fields under the influence of a dawning feeling, which as yet she hardly admitted to herself, but which seemed to desire solitude. And he had surprised her dreaming of him. So she walked silently before him—the path was narrow—glad that, he could not see her face, leading the way to the farm. Outside the copse he came to her side, ruthlessly trampling down the mowing-grass again. There was a slight movement among the cattle in the next field, and they saw several persons approaching. They were May Fisher, Valentine Browne, the Rev. Felix St. Bees, and a tall, ill-dressed, shambling fellow hanging in the rear, whom they called Augustus. Instantly the thought occurred to Margaret that they would at once conclude her meeting with Geoffrey was prearranged.
“We were coming to find you,” said May. “We have lost you all the morning.”
Valentine looked sharply from one to the other, jealously suspicious, and barely acknowledged Geof’s greeting. So Felix and he fell into the rear, Margaret went on with May, and Valentine accompanied them.
St. Bees, a little quick-mannered man, was one of that noble band who may be said to give their lives for others. With ample private means, he accepted and remained in the curacy of Kingsbury, the stipend paid for which was nominal. Many of the workmen in the town walked in daily from the villages, and Felix visited them at their homes; frequently preaching, too, for Basil Thorpe at Millbourne, the village of which Greene Ferne was a tithing or small hamlet. He and Newton were old friends—his own love for May no secret. Augustus Basset was a specimen of humanity not uncommonly seen on large farms—the last stray relic of a good family, half bailiff, half hanger-on, half keeper, half poacher, and never wholly anything except intoxicated. An old soldier (he had served as a trooper in the Guards), his appetite for tobacco was insatiable, and as he walked he mumbled to himself, louder and louder, till by-and-by gaining courage he asked Geoffrey for a cigar. Newton at once handed him his case, when Mrs. Estcourt, coming out from the house, and detecting this piece of begging, told him to go and see about engaging some mowers, who would soon be required.
“There ain’t no mowers to be got,” grumbled Augustus, as he shambled off. “If you don’t look out, you won’t have a man on the farm; there’ll be a strike. Just as if a man couldn’t be trusted in the cellar, her keeps the key in her pocket!” Intense disgust.
They had some lunch at the farm; then Geoffrey and Valentine, feeling that they had no excuse for remaining longer, left together. But three fields distant, Valentine remarked that he must go down and see to his cottage, simply an excuse to part company. So each pursued his way alone.
Passing into the highway road that ran through the hamlet, Valentine, as he went by the Spotted Cow, a small wayside inn, saw Ruck and Hedges sitting with others outside, enjoying a pipe and gossip under the elm from which the sign was hung. On the rude table before them stood some mugs. Valentine beckoned to Ruck, who came.
“Have you sent up the clover?”
“Eez, eez.”
“And the oats?”
“Thaay be goin’ up this arternoon, sir.”
“My trainer said your last hay was not so good.”
“Did a’? Then he doan’t knaw good clauver when a’ sees it. This be vine tackle, I can tell ee.”
“Well, I hope it is. Good day.”
“A’ be terrable sharp about his osses,” said the old man, when he got back to his seat; “but I thenks zumtimes as thur be volk that be sharper than he.”
“Who do ee mean?” asked his crony, Farmer Hedges.
“Aw, we shall zee. I’ve got half a mind to tell un; but he won’t take no notiss of such as we.”
“Not a mossel of use,” said Hedges sententiously. “These yer quality be such a akkerd lot;” and he knocked the ashes out of his pipe on the iron-bound edge of the trestle-table. The object of this armour was to prevent the labourers sticking their billhooks into it when they called for a quart, for hedge-cutters are apt to strike their tools into the nearest piece of wood when they want their hands free. Having filled the pipe again, and finding he had no match, he stepped into the inn-kitchen to light it at the fire, and instantly noticed a large red-hot nail in a log of burning wood.
“Missis, missis!” The landlady came running. “Look ee thur—thur’s a crooked nail in thuck log. Draw un out—doan’t ee waste un. Nails be amazin’ useful thengs.”
“Zo um be,” said Farmer Ruck. “Volk used to save um. I knowed them as had a gallon measure full of hoss-stubs: thaay be the toughest iron, and makes the vinest gun-barrels.”
“Them cut nails be as rotten as matchwood,” said Bill the “wunt-catcher,” i.e. mole-catcher, throwing down his wooden traps. “Time o’ day to ee, missus;” nodding to her over the mug, and meaning good health. “The vinest gun as ever you seed wur thuck long un up to Warren. Mebbe you minds Kippur Mathew?”
“I minds un,” said Farmer Ruck.
“Thuck gun would kill your chain. Thur wur a hole in the barrel as yer med put yer vinger in. Mathew, he squints along at the geame, and I holds a dock-leaf auver this yer hole, and he lets vly, and kills half a score o’ quests,” (wood-pigeons).
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