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+Project Gutenberg’s Bulldog And Butterfly, by David Christie Murray
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Bulldog And Butterfly
+       From “Schwartz” by David Christie Murray
+
+Author: David Christie Murray
+
+Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22273]
+Last Updated: September 16, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BULLDOG AND BUTTERFLY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BULLDOG AND BUTTERFLY
+
+By David Christie Murray
+
+Author Of ‘Aunt Rachel,’ ‘The Weaker Vessel,’ Etc.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+Castle Barfield, Heydon Hey, and Beacon Hargate form the three points
+of a triangle. Barfield is a parish of some pretensions; Heydon Hey is a
+village; Beacon Hargate is no more than a hamlet. There is not much that
+is picturesque in Beacon Hargate, or its neighbourhood. The Beacon Hill
+itself is as little like a hill as it well can be, and acquires what
+prominence it has by virtue of the extreme flatness of the surrounding
+country. A tuft of Scotch firs upon its crest is visible from a distance
+of twenty miles in some directions. A clear but sluggish stream winds
+among its sedges and water-lilies round the western side of the Beacon
+Hill, and washes the edge of a garden which belongs to the one survival
+of the picturesque old times Beacon Hargate has to show.
+
+The Oak House was built for a mansion in the days of Queen Elizabeth,
+but who built it nobody knows at this time of day, or, excepting perhaps
+a hungry-minded antiquary or two, greatly cares to know. The place
+had been partly pulled down, and a good deal altered here and there.
+Stables, barns, cow-sheds, and such other outhouses as are needful to
+a farm had been tacked on to it, or built near it; and all these
+appurtenances, under the mellowing hand of time and weather, had grown
+congruous, insomuch that the Oak House if stripped of them would have
+looked as bare even to the unaccustomed eye as a bird plucked of its
+feathers.
+
+The house faced the stream, and turned its back upon the Beacon with
+its clump of fir-trees. It had chimneys enough for a village--an
+extraordinary wealth of chimneys--‘twisted, fluted, castellated, stacked
+together in conclave or poised singly about the gables. The front of
+the house was crossed laterally and diagonally by great beams of
+black-painted oak. The windows, which are full of diamonded panes, were
+lowbrowed, deep-sunken, long, and shallow. The door had a porch, and
+this porch was covered with creepers. In summer time climbing roses and
+honeysuckle bloomed there. The garden ran right up to the house, and
+touched it all round. The fragrant sweet-william, nestling against the
+walls, looked as though it were a natural fringe. Without the faintest
+sense of primness, or even of orderliness, everything had an air of
+being precisely where it ought to be, and conveyed somehow a suggestion
+of having been there always. The house looked less as if it had been
+built than as if it had grown, and this feeling was heightened by the
+vegetable growth about it and upon it--the clinging ivy, the green
+house-leek, the purple and golden moss on the roofs and walls. In the
+course of its three hundred years the Oak House had stood long enough to
+be altogether reconciled to nature, and half absorbed by it.
+
+In 1850--which, though it seem a long while ago, is well within human
+memory--and for many years before, the Oak House was tenanted by a
+farmer who bore the name of Fellowes, a sturdy and dogmatic personage,
+who was loud at the table of the market ordinary once a week, and for
+the most part silent for the rest of his life at home. The gray mare
+was the better horse. Excepting within doors at the Oak House, Fellowes
+ruled the hamlet. There were no resident gentry; the clergyman was
+an absentee; the tiny church was used only as a chapel-of-ease; and
+Fellowes was the wealthiest and most important personage for a mile or
+two. He was a little disposed to be noisy, and to bluster in his show of
+authority, and therefore fell all the more easily captive to his wife,
+who had a gift for the tranquil saying of unpleasant things which was
+reckoned quite phenomenal in Beacon Hargate. This formidable woman was
+ruled in turn by her daughter Bertha.
+
+Bertha, unless looked at through the eyes of susceptible young manhood,
+would by no means be pronounced formidable. She was country-bred and
+quite rustic; but there are refinements of rusticity; and for Beacon
+Hargate, Bertha was a lady. She would have been a lady anywhere
+according to her chances; for she was naturally sensitive to refining
+influences, and of a nature which, remembering how strong it was, was
+curiously tender.
+
+It was May, in the year 1850--mid-May--and the weather was precisely
+what mid-May weather ought to be, perfumed and softly fresh, with
+opposing hints of gaiety and languor in it. The birds were singing
+everywhere--a vocal storm, and the sheep--who can never express
+themselves as being satisfied in any weather--bleated disconsolately
+from the meadows. The clucking of fowls, the quacking of ducks, the very
+occasional grunt of some contented porker in the backward regions of
+the place, the stamp of a horse’s foot, and the rattle of a chain in
+a manger-ring--sounds quite unmusical in themselves--blended with the
+birds’ singing, and the thick humming of the bees, into an actual music
+in which no note was discordant. The day was without a cloud, and the
+soft light was diffused everywhere on a skyey haze of whitish blue.
+
+In this positively delightful weather, Bertha stood with folded hands
+in the porch of the Oak House (the floor and the far wall of the kitchen
+behind her patched with gleams of red and brown light), like the central
+figure of a picture framed in live green. She was pretty enough to be
+pleasant to look at; but her charms were mainly the growth of tranquil
+good temper and sound sense. Broad brow, gray eyes, resolute little
+chin, the mouth the best feature of the face, her expression thoughtful,
+serene, and self-possessed, the gray eyes a trifle inclined to dream
+wide-awake, hair of no particular colour, but golden in the sunlight.
+She stood leaning sideways, with one shoulder touching the trellis-work
+of the porch, and one pretty little foot crossed over the other, her
+head poised sideways and nestled into the ivy. She was looking far away,
+seeing nothing, and her folded hands drooped before her. A bridge, with
+a hand-rail on either side of it, crossed the stream and led from a
+meadow path to the garden. This meadow path was hidden--partly by the
+garden wall, and partly by the growth of alder and pollard at the side
+of the stream--and a man came marching along it, unobserved. Before he
+reached the bridge he brought his footsteps to a sudden halt, and sent a
+glance towards the porch. Seeing the girl there, sunk in day dreams, he
+slipped back into the shelter of the withies and took a good long look
+at her. Twice or thrice, though his feet did not quit the ground, he
+made a faint movement to go on again, and at length, after two or three
+minutes of indecision, he walked briskly to the foot of the bridge,
+threw open the little gate at the end of it, and, suffering it to fall
+with a clanking noise behind him, tramped across the hollow-resounding
+boards.
+
+At this sudden break upon the rural stillness--for, in spite of the
+chorus of the birds and the farmyard noises which mingled with it, the
+general effect was somehow of stillness and solitude--the girl looked
+round at the new-comer, drew herself up from her lounging attitude,
+placed her hands behind her and there re-folded them, and stood waiting,
+with an added flush of colour on her cheek. The new-comer strode along
+in a kind of awkward resoluteness, looking straight at the girl with a
+glance which appeared to embarrass her a little, though she returned it
+frankly enough.
+
+‘Here I am, you see,’ said the new-comer, halting before her.
+
+He was tallish, well-made, and of middle age. His expression was
+a trifle dogged, and for a man who came love-making he looked less
+prepossessing than he himself might have wished.
+
+‘Good afternoon, Mr. Thistlewood,’ said the girl, in a tone which a
+sensitive man might have thought purposely defensive.
+
+‘Is it yes or no to-day, Bertha?’ asked Mr. Thistlewood.
+
+‘It has always been no,’ she answered, looking down.
+
+‘Oh,’ he answered, ‘I’m perfectly well aware of that. It always has been
+no up till now, but that’s no reason why it should be no to-day. And if
+it’s no to-day that’s no reason why it should be no again this day three
+months. Maids change their minds, my dear.’
+
+‘It is a pity you should waste your time, Mr. Thistlewood,’ said Bertha,
+still looking down.
+
+‘As for wasting my time,’ returned John Thistle-wood, ‘that’s a thing as
+few can charge me with as a general rule. And in this particular case,
+you see, I can’t help myself. The day I see you married I shall make up
+my mind to leave you alone until such time as you might happen to be a
+widow, and if that should come to pass I should reckon myself free to
+come again.’
+
+‘It has always been no,’ said Bertha. ‘It is no to-day. It will always
+be no.’
+
+The words in themselves were sufficiently decisive, and the voice,
+though it had something soft and regretful in it, sounded almost as
+final as the words.
+
+‘Let’s look at it a bit, my dear,’ said John Thistle-wood, grasping in
+both hands the thick walking-stick he carried, and pressing it firmly
+against his thighs as he leaned a little forward and looked down upon
+her. ‘Why is it no? And if it’s no again to-day, why is it always going
+to be no?’
+
+‘I like you very well, Mr. Thistlewood,’ she answered, looking up at
+him, ‘but I don’t like you in a marrying way, and I never shall.’
+
+‘As for never shall,’ said he, ‘that remains to be seen.’
+
+He straightened himself as he spoke, and releasing the walking-stick
+with his left hand put the point of it softly, slowly, and strongly down
+upon the gravel, dinting the ground pretty deeply with the pressure.
+
+‘Let’s look at it a little further,’ he added.
+
+‘It is of no use,’ the girl answered pleadingly. ‘It hurts us both, and
+it can do no good at all.’
+
+‘Let’s look at it a bit further,’ he said again. ‘This day month you
+said there was nobody you’d seen you liked better than me. Is that true
+still?’
+
+‘It is quite true,’ she answered, ‘but it makes no difference.’
+
+‘That remains to be seen,’ said John Thistlewood again. ‘And as for not
+liking me in a marrying way, that’s a thing a maid can’t be supposed to
+know much of.’ He waited doggedly as if to hear her deny this, but she
+made no answer. ‘You’ve known me all your life, Bertha, and you never
+knew anything again me.’
+
+‘Never,’ she said, almost eagerly.
+
+‘I’m well-to-do,’ he went on stolidly, but with all his force, as if
+he were pushing against a wall too heavy to be moved by any pressure he
+could bring to bear against it, and yet was resolute to have it down.
+‘I’m not too old to be a reasonable match for a maid of your years.
+You’ve had my heart this five years I waited two afore I spoke at all
+There’s a many--not that I speak it in a bragging way--as would be
+willing enough to have me.’
+
+‘It’s a pity you can’t take a fancy to one of them,’ she said, with
+perfect simplicity and good faith.
+
+‘Perhaps it is,’ answered Thistlewood, with a dogged sigh; ‘but be that
+as it may, I can’t and shan’t. Where my fancy lies it stays. I didn’t
+give my heart away to take it back again. You’ll wed me yet, Bertha, and
+when you do you’ll be surprised to think you didn’t do it long before.’
+
+At this point the voice of a third person broke in upon the colloquy.
+
+‘That caps all!’ said the voice. ‘There’s Mr. Forbes, the Scotch
+gardener at my Lord Barfield’s, tells me of a lad in his parts as prayed
+the Lord for a good consate of himself. That’s a prayer as you’ll never
+find occasion t’offer, John Thistlewood.’
+
+‘Maybe not, Mrs. Fellowes,’ answered Thistlewood, addressing the owner
+of the voice, who remained invisible; ‘but I wasn’t speaking in a
+braggart way.’
+
+‘No--no,’ returned the still invisible intruder. ‘Wast humble enough
+about it, doubtless. You’m bound to tek a man’s own word about his own
+feelings. Who is to know ‘em if he doesn’t?’
+
+‘Just so,’ said Thistlewood, with great dryness. He appeared to be
+little if at all disturbed by the interruption, but Bertha was blushing
+like a peony.
+
+‘I sat quiet,’ said the girl’s mother, leisurely walking round the
+door with a half-finished gray worsted stocking depending from the
+knitting-needles she carried in both hands,--’ I sat quiet so as not
+to be a disturbance. It’s you for making love to a maid, I must allow,
+John.’
+
+The girl ran into the house and disappeared from view.
+
+‘It’s me for speaking my mind, at least, ma’am,’ returned John, with
+unaltered tranquil doggedness.
+
+‘Ah!’ responded the farmer’s wife; ‘you’re like a good many more of ‘em;
+you’d sooner not have what you want than go the right way to get it.’
+
+Thistlewood digested this in silence, and Mrs. Fellowes set the
+knitting-needles flashing.
+
+‘I’ve always fancied,’ he said in a little while, ‘as I had your
+goodwill in the matter.’
+
+‘You’ve got my goodwill, in a way to be sure,’ said the old woman.
+‘You’d mek the gell a goodish husband if her could find a fancy for
+you--but the fancy’s everything--don’t you see, John?’
+
+‘I’m not above taking advice, Mrs. Fellowes,’ said Thistlewood, digging
+at the gravel with his walking-stick. ‘Will you be so good as to tell me
+where I’m wrong?’
+
+‘There’s one particular as you’re wrong in,’ returned Mrs. Fellowes,
+knitting away with a determinedly uninteresting air, ‘and, I misdoubt
+me, you can’t alter it.’
+
+‘What’s that?’ asked Thistlewood, looking up at her suddenly.
+
+‘You’re the wrong man, John.’
+
+‘That remains to be seen,’ he answered, with the same dogged patience as
+before.
+
+‘You can’t win a maid’s heart by going at her as solemn as a funeral,’
+pursued the old woman. ‘If you’d ha’ begun sprightly with the gell, you
+might ha’ had a chance with her. “La!” says you, “what a pretty frock
+you’re a-wearing to-day;” or “How nice you do do up your hair for a
+certainty.”’
+
+‘I don’t look on marriage as a thing to be approached i’ that fashion,’
+said Thistlewood.
+
+‘Well,’ returned the old woman, clicking her needles with added
+rapidity, ‘I’ve always said there’s no end to the folly o’ men. D’ye
+hear that there cuckoo? Go and catch him wi’ shoutin’ at him. An’ when
+next you’re in want of toast at tay-time, soak your bread in a pan o’
+cold water.’
+
+Thistlewood stood for a time in a rather dogged-looking silence,
+sometimes glancing at the notable woman and glancing away again. Her
+eye expressed a triumph which, though purely dialectic, was hard for a
+disappointed lover to endure, even whilst he refused to recognise his
+disappointment.
+
+‘I should regard any such means of gettin’ into a maid’s good graces as
+being despisable,’ he said, after a while.
+
+‘Very well, my Christian friend,’ the farmer’s wife retorted, with a
+laugh. ‘Them as mek bread without barm must look to spoil the batch.’
+
+‘I was niver of a flatterin’ turn of mind,’ said Thistlewood.
+
+‘You niver was, John,’ responded Mrs. Fellowes, with an accent which
+implied something beyond assent.
+
+He flushed a little, and began to tap at his corduroyed leg with the
+stick he carried, at first with a look of shamefaced discomfiture, and
+then with resolution. He finished with a resounding slap, and looked up
+with a light in his eyes.
+
+‘I’m pretty hard to beat, ma’am,’ he said, ‘though I say it as should
+not. I’m not going to be conquered here if I can help it. And I look to
+have you and Mr. Fellowes on my side, as far as may be asked in reason.
+Her’ll find no better husband than I should be to her, I _am_ sure.
+There’s more than a wheedlin’ tongue required to mek a married woman
+happy. I’ve pretty well proved as I’m not changeable. There’s a strong
+arm to tek care of her. There’s a homely house with plenty in it.
+There’s a goodish lump at the bank, and there’s nothing heart can desire
+as her might not have by asking for it.’
+
+‘Well, John,’ said the farmer’s wife, clicking her needles cheerfully,
+‘I’ve not a word to say again the match. Win the wench and welcome. My
+dancin’ days is pretty nigh over, but I’ll tek the floor once more with
+pleasure, if you won’t be too long in mekin’ ready for me.’
+
+‘There’s nothing more to be done at present, I suppose,’ the lover said
+presently, ‘and so I’ll say good-bye for this afternoon, Mrs. Fellowes.’
+
+With this he turned upon his heel, and marching sturdily down the
+path and across the little bridge, disappeared behind the withies and
+pollards.
+
+The farmer’s wife waited a while until he was out of hearing, and then,
+without turning her head, shrilled out ‘Bertha!’ The girl came silently
+downstairs and joined her in the doorway. The mother pursued her
+knitting in silence, a faint flicker of a humorous smile touching her
+face and eyes now and again. At length she spoke, looking straight
+before her.
+
+‘Why woot’ent marry the man?’
+
+‘Mr. Thistlewood?’ asked Bertha, making the feeblest possible defence
+against this direct attack.
+
+‘Ay,’ said her mother, ‘Mr. Thistlewood to be sure. Why woot’ent marry
+him?’
+
+‘I like him well enough in a way,’ the girl answered ‘But I don’t like
+him that way!
+
+‘What way?’
+
+‘Why--in a marrying way,’ said Bertha.
+
+‘Pooh!’ answered the notable woman. ‘What’s a maid know how she’d like a
+man?’
+
+‘I should have the greatest respect for him,’ Bertha answered, wisely
+avoiding the discussion of this question, ‘if he wouldn’t come bothering
+me to marry him.’
+
+‘Ay! ‘said her mother, assenting with a philosophic air. ‘That’s a
+wench’s way. When a man wants nothing her’ll give him as much as her
+can spare. But look hither, my gell! You listen to the words of a old
+experienced woman. There’s a better love comes after the weddin’, if
+a gell marries a worthy solid man, than ever her knows before it. If a
+gell averts from a man that’s another matter. But if her can abide him
+to begin with, and if he’s a good man, her’ll be fond of him before her
+knows it.’
+
+‘I should never be fond of Mr. Thistlewood, mother,’ the girl answered,
+flushing hotly. ‘It’s of no use to speak about him.’
+
+‘Did the man ever mek love to you at all,’ the mother asked, ‘beyond
+comin’ here and barkin’, “Wool’t marry me?”’
+
+‘I wish you wouldn’t talk of him, mother,’ Bertha answered in a troubled
+voice. ‘I respect him very highly, but as for marrying him, it’s out of
+the question. I can’t do it.’
+
+‘Well, well,’ returned her mother, ‘nobody’s askin’ you to do anything
+o’ the sort. I’m trying to find your mind about him. It’s high time
+‘twas made up one way or other. You’ve come to a marriageable age.’
+
+‘I’m very well as I am,’ said Bertha, rather hastily. ‘I’m not in a
+hurry to be married.’
+
+‘You’ve never been much like other gells,’ said her mother, with a
+dry humorous twinkle which looked more masculine than feminine. ‘But I
+reckon you’ll be in about as much of a hurry as the rest on ‘em be when
+the right man comes.’
+
+At this moment a whistle of peculiar volume, mellowness, and flexibility
+was heard. The whistler was trilling ‘Come lasses and lads’ in tones as
+delightful as a blackbird’s.
+
+‘Is this him?’ said the old woman, turning upon her daughter.
+
+Bertha blushed, and turned away. The mother laughed. A light footstep
+sounded on the echoing boards of the little bridge, and the
+human blackbird, marching gaily in time to his tune, flourished a
+walking-stick in salutation as he approached.
+
+‘Good-afternoon, Mrs. Fellowes,’ cried the newcomer. ‘Good-afternoon,
+_Miss_ Fellowes.’
+
+They both returned his salutation, and he stood before them smilingly,
+holding his stick lightly by the middle, and swinging it hither and
+thither, as if keeping time to an inward silent tune. His feet were
+planted a little apart, he carried his head well back, and his figure
+was very alert and lithe. He made great use of his lips in talking, and
+whatever he said seemed a little overdone in emphasis. His expression
+was eager, amiable, and sensitive, and it changed like the complexion of
+water in variable weather. He was a bit of a dandy in his way, too. His
+clothes showed his slim and elastic figure to the best advantage, and a
+bright-coloured neckerchief with loose flying ends helped out a certain
+air of festal rural opera which belonged to him.
+
+‘I passed Thistlewood on my way here,’ he said, laughing brightly. ‘He
+looked as cheerful as a frog. Did y’ ever notice what a cheerful-looking
+thing a frog is?’
+
+He made a face ludicrously like the creature he mentioned. The old woman
+laughed outright, and Bertha smiled, though somewhat unwillingly.
+
+‘I don’t like to hear Mr. Thistlewood made game of, Mr. Protheroe,’ she
+said a moment later.
+
+‘Don’t you, Miss Fellowes?’ asked Mr. Protheroe. ‘Then it shan’t be done
+in your presence again.’
+
+‘That means it may be done out of my presence, I suppose,’ the girl said
+coldly.
+
+‘No, nor out of it,’ said the young fellow, bowing with something of a
+flourish, ‘if it displeases you.’
+
+‘Come in, Lane, my lad,’ said the mother, genially. ‘I’ve got the
+poultry to look after at this hour. Bertha ‘ll tek care of you till I
+come back again.’
+
+Lane Protheroe bowed again with the same gay flourish, and recovering
+himself from the bow with an upward swing of the head, followed the
+women-folk into the wide kitchen as if he had been crossing the floor in
+a minuet. If these airs of his had been assumed they would have touched
+the ridiculous, but they were altogether natural to him; and what
+with them and his smiling, changeful, sympathetic ways, he was a prime
+favourite, and seemed to carry sunshine into all sorts of company.
+
+When the mother had left the kitchen the girl seated herself
+considerably apart from the visitor, and taking up a book from a dresser
+beside her, began to turn over its pages, stopping now and again to read
+a line or two, and rather ostentatiously disregarding her companion.
+He sat in silence, regarding her with a grave face for a minute or
+thereabouts, and then, rising, crossed the room and placed himself
+beside her, bending over her, with one hand resting on the dresser. She
+did not look up in answer to this movement, but bent her head even a
+little more than before above the book.
+
+‘I’m glad to be left alone with you for a minute, Miss Fellowes,’ he
+began gently, and with a faint tremor and hesitation in his voice,
+‘because I’ve something very special and particular to say to you.’
+
+There he paused, and Bertha with a slight cough, which was a trifle too
+casual and unembarrassed to be real, said, ‘Indeed, Mr. Protheroe?’ and
+kept her eyes upon the book.
+
+‘They say a girl always knows,’ he went on, ‘and if that’s true you know
+already what I want to say.’
+
+He paused, but if he expected any help from her in the way either of
+assent or denial, he was disappointed. He stooped a little lower and
+touched her hand with a gentle timidity, but she at once withdrew it.
+
+‘You know I love you, Bertha? You know you’re dearer to me than all the
+whole wide world beside?’
+
+Still Bertha said nothing, but the hand that turned the leaves of the
+book trembled perceptibly.
+
+‘I’ve come to ask you if you’ll be my wife, dear! if you’ll let me make
+you my lifelong care and joy, my darling! You don’t guess how much I
+love you. You don’t know how much your answer means to me.’
+
+The girl rose, and, carrying the book with her, walked to the kitchen
+window and looked out upon the garden, the river, and the fields,
+without seeing anything. She was evidently agitated, and did not find
+an answer easily. Lane followed her, and when for a moment she dared
+to look up at him she encountered a look so tender, anxious, and ardent
+that she lowered her eyes in quick confusion. He seized her hand, and
+for a brief instant she let it rest in his.
+
+‘Speak to me,’ he murmured, caressingly and pleadingly. ‘Tell me.’
+
+‘I don’t understand you, Mr. Protheroe,’ the girl said pantingly.
+
+‘Not understand me, dear? ‘he whispered; ‘I am asking you to be my
+wife.’
+
+‘I understand that,’ she answered, drawing herself away from him,
+and speaking with difficulty. ‘It is _you_ I don’t understand.
+You--yourself.’
+
+‘Tell me how, darling,’ he said softly.
+
+‘You tell me,’ she said, lifting a pale and agitated face, ‘that I can’t
+guess how much my answer means to you. But you come here whistling and
+dancing, as you always come, as if you hadn’t a care upon your mind.’
+
+‘Don’t make that a reproach against me, dear,’ said he. ‘Why it was just
+the thought of you made me so happy.’
+
+She looked up at him with an expression of doubt and pain, and as their
+eyes met he caught one of her hands in both his, and held it.
+
+‘Dear Bertha!’ he said, with a sudden moisture in his eyes. ‘There is
+nobody so good. There is nobody so lovely.’
+
+She drew away from him again, though some sort of electric influence
+seemed to come out of him, and draw her strongly to him.
+
+‘I must wait,’ she said. ‘I--I don’t know you well enough. I don’t
+understand you. You are too light. You are too careless. I don’t know
+how far I can believe you.’
+
+‘Oh!’ he cried, ‘believe me altogether, dear. I love you with all my
+heart and soul!’
+
+She moved to the middle of the room, and sheltered herself behind a
+table which stood there.
+
+‘I hardly know whether you have a heart,’ she answered then. ‘You fancy
+you feel all you say,’ she added quickly. ‘You feel it for the minute.’
+
+He stood at the other side of the table with brows suddenly grown
+gloomy.
+
+‘I shall feel it all my life,’ he said. ‘It’s the one thing I’ve ever
+been in earnest about. I never thought I should feel as I do. If you
+like to wait, dear, before answering me, I’ll wait just as long as ever
+you please.’ His gloom was gone, and he was all eagerness and vivacity
+again. ‘There’s nothing I won’t do for your asking. I’ll cure every
+fault I’ve got. I’ll be everything you’d like to have me. Try me,
+darling. Wait and see. But give me only just a little bit of hope. Don’t
+send me away quite hungry. Tell me you care for me just a little--not
+as I care for you--I don’t expect that. It doesn’t stand to reason yet
+awhile you should.’
+
+There she shot one swift glance at him, averting her gaze at once.
+
+‘I won’t say I don’t like you,’ she answered with a candour half rustic,
+half characteristic of herself ‘But I won’t answer yes or no just yet.’
+
+‘Very well, dear,’ he answered tenderly. ‘You shall have time to know
+if I’m in earnest, or if I’ve taken nothing more than a passing fancy.
+Shall I ask you again this day six months?’
+
+‘I won’t promise you an answer then,’ she said. ‘I will answer you when
+I am certain.’
+
+‘You could care for me, then,’ he urged her, ‘if you were only quite
+sure I loved you, and always would love you? Why, Bertha, I’d put my
+hand in that fire to save you from a finger-ache. I’d jump into the
+Weale there if I thought I could make you happy by doing it. I’d live my
+whole life your servant for a smile a year.’
+
+His eyes flashed or moistened with every phrase, his gestures were
+superabundant and intense, and his voice was genuinely tender and
+impassioned.
+
+His ardent eyes and voice thrilled the girl, and yet she doubted him.
+There was a fear in her mind which she could not shake away.
+
+People in Beacon Hargate were not rich in opportunities for the study
+of the acted drama, but Bertha had seen a play or two in the great town
+hard by, and Lane looked and talked rather too much like a stage lover
+to her mind. In the unreal life behind the footlights lovers talked with
+just such a fluency, just such a tender fiery emphasis. In real life
+John Thistlewood came doggedly a-wooing with a shoulder propped against
+a doorpost, and had hard work to find a word for himself. If only that
+one absent element of faith could be imported into the business, Lane
+Protheroe’s fashion of courting was certain to be infinitely more
+delightful than John Thistlewood’s, but then the absent element was
+almost everything. And for poor Bertha the worst part of it seemed
+that she loved the man she doubted, and could not love the man in whose
+affection she held the profoundest faith. That the rough, clumsy, and
+persistent courtier loved her was one of the indisputable facts of life
+to her. She knew it just as surely as she knew that she was alive. She
+knew it, and the knowledge hurt her, for she could fancy nothing less
+hopeful than Thistle-wood’s wooing, and she was without a spark of mere
+vanity.
+
+‘I think it is because you say so much that I don’t feel quite able to
+believe it all,’ she said. ‘You feel it when you talk about it, but it
+seems to me as if you _had_ to talk before you get to feel it.’
+
+His brows bent down over gloomy eyes again, and he folded his arms as he
+looked at her. Once more poor Bertha thought of the stage lover she had
+seen, and a long-drawn sigh escaped her.
+
+‘I can’t think it’s all quite real,’ she said, almost desperately.
+
+‘You think I say too much?’ he retorted. ‘It seems to me as if I said
+too little. It seems to me as if there weren’t any words to speak such
+thoughts and feelings.’
+
+‘Is that because you don’t value the words? ‘she .’ asked him. ‘Don’t
+you think that if you felt what the words do mean that they’d seem
+enough for you?’
+
+‘I know I’m a good-for-nothing beggar,’ he answered, with a sudden air
+of weary self-loathing and disdain. ‘I know. I’ve got a way of taking
+everything in deadly earnest for an hour or two. But,’ with a sudden
+swerve into the track of self-justification, ‘if that makes you think
+I’m fickle and weak-willed, you’re all wrong, darling. There are some
+fellows--I know plenty--who go through life like a lot of oysters. They
+don’t feel anything--they don’t care about anything, or anybody. But,
+bless your heart, my dear, they never get doubted.’
+
+Bertha took this for a satiric dig at the absent Thistlewood, and spoke
+up for him, needlessly, as it happened.
+
+‘Still waters run deep, Mr. Protheroe.’
+
+‘Some of ‘em do,’ responded Mr. Protheroe, with profoundest gloom, which
+lightened suddenly into a smile as bright as sunshine. ‘But some of ‘em
+don’t run at all. And some of ‘em are as shallow as any puddle you’ll
+find along the road, only they’re so bemuddled you can’t see to the
+bottom of ‘em. You can plumb ‘em with your little finger, though, if you
+don’t mind soiling it.’
+
+Now this innocent generalisation seemed gratuitously offensive to the
+absent Thistlewood, and chilled Bertha greatly.
+
+‘That may be very true of some people,’ she responded; ‘but it isn’t
+true of all the quiet people in the world.. And I don’t think, Mr.
+Protheroe, that the people who make the greatest parade of their
+feelings are the people who really have the most to speak of.’
+
+‘Why, that’s true, too, of some people,’ returned Protheroe; ‘but there
+are all sorts in the world, dear. Some say a lot and feel a lot Some
+feel a lot and say nothing. Some say nothing and feel nothing. It may be
+a fault with me--I don’t know--but when I start to say a thing I want
+to say all of it. But surely a feeling isn’t less real because you don’t
+seem able to express it whatever words you choose.’
+
+‘Where the feeling’s sacred the words are sacred,’ Bertha objected.
+
+‘Tell me what it is you fear about me,’ he besought her, leaning across
+the table, and searching her face with his eyes. ‘You don’t believe
+I should have a wandering mind if you said yes, and we should once be
+married?’
+
+She had laid the book upon the table, and now betook herself to
+fingering the leaves again.
+
+‘I’ve no right to pick faults in you, or give you lessons, Mr.
+Protheroe.’
+
+‘Oh yes, you have,’ he answered. ‘All the right in the world. If you’ll
+take in hand to show me my faults, I’ll take in hand to cure ‘em so far
+as a man may.’
+
+‘I don’t think you’re fickle,’ said the girl hesitatingly; ‘but I do
+think you’re shallow, Mr. Protheroe.’
+
+‘Not a bit of it, dear,’ he protested. ‘I’m as deep as Gamck. As for
+your still waters running deep, it’d be a better proverb to my mind to
+say deep waters run still--at times. Niagara’s deepish, folks say that
+have seen it. That’s not to say that I even myself with Niagara, you’ll
+understand, though ‘tis in my nature to splash about a good deal. But
+all that apart, Bertha dear, try to make up your mind to take me as I
+am, and help me to make a man o’ myself.’
+
+At this point back came the farmer’s wife with a clatter of pails in
+the back kitchen to indicate her arrival in advance. Lane took his leave
+with a reluctant air, going away much more gravely than he had arrived.
+
+‘Well,’ said Mrs. Fellowes, drawing her knitting from a capacious pocket
+and falling to work upon it at once, ‘hast sent Number Two about his
+business?’
+
+Bertha cast an embarrassed look at her and blushed.
+
+‘Mother,’ she said, ‘you seem to find out everything.’
+
+‘Can find my way to the parish church by daylight,’ the elder woman
+answered with complacency. ‘But you tek care, my wench, whilst thee
+beest throwin’ all the straight sticks aside, as thee doesn’t pick up a
+crooked ‘un at the last. Thee hast a fancy for the lad, too, that’s as
+plain to be seen as the Beacon.’
+
+‘Oh!’ cried Bertha, reddening again. ‘I hope not.’
+
+‘For me, my gell,’ said her mother. ‘For me. And it’s outside my
+thinkin’ why a maid shouldn’t tek a fancy to him. A lad as is stiddy
+an’ handsome, and as blithe as sunshine! He’s as fond as a calf into the
+bargain.’
+
+She liked to hear him praised, and, woman-like, began to depreciate him
+faintly.
+
+‘I don’t think he’s very solid, mother,’ she said.
+
+The elder woman smiled at the transparent artifice, and refused to be
+entrapped by it.
+
+‘No,’ she answered. ‘Lane’s a bit of a butterfly, I will say. And Jack
+Thistlewood’s a bulldog. Mek your ch’ice betwixt ‘em while they’m there
+to be chose from. Which is it to be? Butterfly or bulldog?’
+
+But Bertha answered nothing.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Things may have changed of late years, but in those days the parish
+churchyard was the great meeting-place for lovers who as yet were
+undeclared or unaccepted. The youth and the maid were both there for
+a purpose altogether removed from love-making--the meeting had the
+advantage of being accidental and certain. It was a tacit assignation
+which was almost certain to be kept, and even the shyest of sweethearts
+would dare to walk homewards together a little of the way even in the
+lightest of summer evenings.
+
+When Sunday morning came, and the one musical bell began to tinkle,
+Bertha stood before her open bedroom window, tying her bonnet-ribbons at
+the glass, in the embarrassing certainty that both her lovers would be
+waiting outside the church to meet her. This certainty was the less
+to be endured, because Bertha had the sincerest desire to close with
+heavenly rather than with earthly meditations on a Sunday, but she could
+no more help being flustered by the thought of Lane Protheroe, and being
+chilled by the anticipation of Thistlewood’s look of bulldog fidelity,
+than she could help breathing. The girl’s trouble was that she could not
+give her heart to the man who commanded her respect, whilst it was drawn
+fluttering with all manner of electric palpitations towards another whom
+she thought infinitely less worthy.
+
+There was nothing in the world against Lane Protheroe in any serious
+sense. Nobody spoke or thought ill of him, or had ground for ill
+speaking or thinking. But it was generally conceded that he _was_ a
+butterfly kind of young fellow, and there was a general opinion that
+he wanted ballast. Rural human nature is full of candour of a sort, and
+Lane was accustomed to criticism. He took it with a bright carelessness,
+and in respect to the charge of wanting ballast was apt to answer
+that ballast was a necessary thing for boats that carried no cargo.
+Thistlewood was generally admitted to be a well-ballasted personage--a
+man steady, resolved, serious, entirely trustworthy.
+
+‘John Thistlewood’s word is as good as his bond,’ said one of his
+admirers one day in his presence.
+
+‘John Thistlewood’s word _is_ his bond,’ said John Thistlewood, ‘as any
+man’s ought to be.’
+
+People remembered the saying, and quoted it as being characteristic of
+the man,--a man cut roughly out of the very granite of fidelity.
+
+Surely, thought Bertha, a girl ought to esteem herself happy in being
+singled out by such a man. The cold surface covered so steady, so
+lasting a glow. And as for Lane--well, Lane’s heats seemed the merest
+flashes, intense enough to heat what was near them, but by no means
+enduring. There was danger that anything which was of a nature to keep
+on burning might catch fire at him, and when well lit might find that
+the creating heat had gone out, or had withdrawn itself. She knew
+herself, by instinct, faithful to the core, and if once she consented to
+love the man, she would have to go on doing it. That looked likely to be
+terrible, and she fought against herself continually. And she not only
+tried not to love the butterfly, but had tried her loyal hardest to love
+the bulldog. The last chance of success in the second enterprise went
+out finally when Thistlewood had once so far conquered his clumsy
+reticence of manner as actually to put his arm about her waist. Then
+every fibre of her body cried out against him, and she escaped him,
+shivering and thrilling with a repulsion so strong that it seemed like
+a crime to her. How dared she feel the touch of so estimable a man to be
+so hateful? But from that moment the thing was settled beyond a doubt.
+She could respect John Thistlewood, she could admire the solidity and
+faithfulness of his character--but, marry him? That was asking for more
+than nature could agree to.
+
+If Lane had only resembled John a little--ah! there was a glow of
+certainty called up by that fancy which might have been altogether
+delicious had the fancy been well grounded. If John had only been a
+little more like Lane? She was hardly so sure. Obviously, John was not
+the man for this girl to warm her heart at.
+
+The worst of it was that he would never find or look for another girl,
+and his long courtship, though it could never endear him, or even make
+him tolerable as a lover, served at least to have established a sort of
+claim upon her. The great faithful heart might break if she should
+throw herself away. The depth of his affection, as she realised it for
+herself, could only be understood by one capable of an equal passion.
+She never guessed, or came near to guessing, that her conception of him
+was the realisation of herself; but it is only great hearts which
+truly know what great hearts can be, and her profound conception of
+Thistle-wood’s fidelity was her own best certificate to faithfulness.
+
+The little musical bell went on tinkling as she walked across the
+fields. It had various rates of movement to indicate to distant
+worshippers the progress of the time, and she gave a careful ear to its
+warnings, so regulating her steps as only to enter the churchyard at the
+last minute.
+
+There sure enough were both John and Lane waiting to pay their morning
+salutation. Happily, to her own mind, there was time for no more than
+a mere hand-shaking and a good-morning, and she walked into the church,
+beautifully tranquil to look at, though she could hardly believe that
+all the congregation could not guess with what a startled feeling her
+heart had begun to beat. By and by the influences of the place and the
+service began to soothe her, though she only succeeded in excluding
+her lovers by a conscious process of forgetfulness which was not so far
+removed from memory as it might have been.
+
+The Thistlewood pew was a little to the front on her right, and the
+Protheroe pew a little to her front on the left, but she kept her
+eyes so studiously downcast that she got no glimpse of either, until a
+strange and altogether remarkable feeling of something missing surprised
+her into looking up. Her eyes went first to the Protheroe pew, and Lane
+was not there. Then in spite of herself she listened for Thistlewood’s
+voice in the Responses, and not detecting it, was impelled to look
+for him. He also was absent, and she began to quake a little. Was it
+possible they had stayed outside to quarrel? This fear would have been
+sufficiently serious at any time, but on a Sunday, during church hours,
+it magnified itself, which fact is in itself enough to prove that though
+the idea perturbed her she foresaw no very terrible consequences. It
+would be hateful to be quarrelled over, but both the combatants--if
+combatants they were to be--would respect her too much to proceed to
+extremities, and thereby make the quarrel public, and her a target for
+all tongues.
+
+John and Lane had met in the churchyard pretty early, and whilst there
+were friends to greet, and to pass the time of day with, things went
+smoothly enough. But as the churchgoers filed by ones and twos into the
+building, each began to be aware of a solitude which was peopled only
+by the disagreeable presence of the other. John, ostentatiously
+disregardful of his adversary, planted himself at the gate, so as to be
+before him in his greeting. Lane, rather unusually erect and martial in
+his walk, marched past him into the village roadway, and there loitered
+for the same intent. Thistlewood, recognising the meaning of this
+manouvre, strolled into the roadway, and doggedly planted himself a yard
+or two beyond the spot where his rival had halted. Lane, with an air to
+the full as ostentatiously and offensively dis-regardful as the other’s,
+marched past Thistlewood with half a dozen soldierly-looking strides,
+and bringing himself to an abrupt halt made a disdainful back at him.
+Again Thistlewood advanced, but this time he drew himself up a trifle
+behind his rival, and laid a finger on his shoulder.
+
+‘Well?’ said Protheroe, without turning his head.
+
+‘I shall want a word with thee by and by, my lad,’ Thistlewood said
+quietly.
+
+‘Have it now,’ replied Lane, settling his shoulders jauntily.
+
+‘There’s time in plenty afore us,’ Thistlewood answered, regarding him
+with supreme disfavour.
+
+The younger man looked straight before him with an exasperating aspect
+of indifference.
+
+‘When you like,’ he said.
+
+‘Very well,’ replied Thistlewood. ‘In five minutes’ time from now.’
+
+‘Church time,’ said Lane smilingly, surveying the landscape.
+
+‘Beest that keen set on the sermon?’ John inquired.
+
+‘Don’t know that I am,’ replied the enemy, rising a little on his toes,
+and then settling his shoulders anew.
+
+‘Five minutes’ time from now.’
+
+The jaunty airs and scornful disregard began to warm Thistlewood’s blood
+a little.
+
+‘Canst look a man i’ the face when thee talk’st to him? ‘he asked.
+
+‘Yes, bless your heart and soul alive!’ cried Lane, swaggering round and
+beaming on him.
+
+For half a minute they looked at each other, the one angry, resolute,
+and lowering, with head bent a little forward, his glance directed
+upward past his down-drawn brows, the other smiling with seeming
+sweetness and gaiety.
+
+Thistlewood seemed to restrain himself with something of an effort.
+
+‘We’ll talk together by and by,’ he said, and turning, deliberately
+walked back into the churchyard.
+
+For a few seconds Lane stood glorying, but on a sudden it occurred to
+him that his rival was behaving in a more dignified manner than himself,
+and this was a reflection not to be endured without instant action.
+So he marched back into the churchyard also, and left John in the
+foreground. When Bertha appeared her elder lover paid his respects
+first, and Lane came up afterwards, looking, as she remembered later on,
+prodigiously gloomy and resolved.
+
+The bell had been silent for a minute, and the curate’s voice had begun
+to drone within the building. The rivals were alone, and nobody was
+within sight or earshot.
+
+‘Shall we walk a pace or two, Mr. Protheroe?’ asked John.
+
+Mr. Protheroe, without speaking, sauntered out at the gate, vaulted a
+stile opposite, and paused in a field pathway. Thistlewood followed,
+throwing first one leg and then the other over the rail with a sort of
+laboured deliberation.
+
+‘Now,’ said Lane.
+
+‘We’ll walk on a little bit,’ answered Thistlewood, and there was
+silence for a minute or two as they strode along the grass. Then when
+they had reached the shelter of a little copse which hid them from the
+whole landscape on the church side, John said, ‘Now,’ in turn, and the
+two halted. Each was paler than common by this time, and Lane’s eyes
+sparkled, whilst the other’s burned steady with resentment.
+
+‘’Twixt man and man as is willing to come to understand one another, Mr.
+Protheroe,’ said Thistlewood, ‘a very few words suffices. I’ll have thee
+nor no man else poaching on my manor.’
+
+‘Well,’ Lane answered, ‘if ever I should arrive at owning a manor, I’d
+say the same. But I’d be sure of my title-deeds afore I took to warning
+other men off the ground.’
+
+‘Let’s talk plain English,’ said John, apparently quite untouched by
+this rejoinder.
+
+‘With all my heart,’ said his rival, ‘the plainer the better.’
+
+‘I find you very much i’ my way,’ Thistlewood began ponderously.
+
+‘I don’t find you a little bit in mine,’ Lane answered.
+
+‘You talk to sting,’ said Thistlewood, with dull dignity. ‘I want to
+talk so as to be understood. I find you very much i’ my way, as I was
+saying, and I won’t have you theer.’
+
+‘No?’
+
+‘No!’
+
+‘And how do you mean to set about getting rid of me?’
+
+‘I’ve set about harder jobs than that i’ _my_ time, lad.’
+
+‘Like enough. But how do you mean to set about this one?’
+
+‘All in good time,’ said Thistlewood. ‘Sha’st find out speedily.’
+
+‘Show me now,’ said Lane.
+
+A breach of the peace seemed imminent, but, ‘Afore thee and me comes
+to that,’ the elder answered, ‘I want thee to have fair warnin’. It’s
+unbecomin’ in a man to brawl over the maid he wants to marry---- I’m a
+man as never changed nor halted nor turned aside from anything he set
+his mind upon. I’ve been courtin’ Miss Fellowes now this three year. It
+stands to reason as a frivolish young chap like you can mek no count of
+how a man feels, or of what a man ‘ud do in a like case.’
+
+‘That stands to reason, does it?’ ‘It stands to reason,’ answered
+Thistlewood. ‘I suppose it stands to reason likewise that I am to stand
+to one side, and leave the road clear after this?’
+
+‘It’d be the wisest thing you ever did.’ ‘Well, now, Thistlewood, you’ll
+please understand that, for all so frivolous as I may be, I’m hardly
+that easy to be swayed. As for who has a right on the ground, it’s a
+mere piece of impudence to talk about it. That’s neither for me nor you
+to choose. If ever I get straight “No” I’ll go, but I’ll have it before
+I go, for that’s a man’s bounden duty to himself.’
+
+‘Understand thyself as bein’ warned away,’ said Thistlewood.
+
+‘Understand thy warning as being laughed at,’ answered Lane. ‘You talk
+plain English? So will I. You’ve got the wrong pig by the ear. You’re
+no better than a dog in the manger. You’ve always been spoken of up till
+now as a man to play fair, but now it strikes me you play very far from
+fair, and cut a poor figure. As for threats--a man who won’t take a
+hiding when it’s offered to him--what’s _he_ good for, I should like to
+know?’
+
+Here, as elsewhere, Mr. Protheroe was true to nature, and spoke with
+striking emphasis. He was quite red-hot with scorn at the imaginary
+fellow who would not take the proffered hiding, though a minute earlier,
+when he had told Thistlewood that he had the wrong pig by the ear, his
+manner had been marked by a cold and lofty superiority.
+
+‘Beest warned! ‘said Thistlewood, ‘that’s enough.’
+
+‘Not half enough, nor yet a quarter,’ cried Lane, with a bellicose air,
+not unmixed with swagger. ‘I’ve taught my hands to take care of my head,
+sir, and they’ll be ready to do it whenever the time occurs. But it
+always seemed a bit ridiculous to me to talk about fighting beforehand
+When the fight’s over there _is_ something to talk about.’
+
+‘You seem to be in a hurry for that there hiding,’ said Thistlewood.
+
+‘Hurry’s no word for it,’ the younger man responded, with cheerful
+alacrity.
+
+‘Very well,’ said the elder, taking off his hat and bestowing it
+carefully upon the grass, ‘sha’st have it.’
+
+Lane, for his part, threw down his hat, flourished his coat off, dropped
+it behind him, rolled up his sleeves, and waited whilst Thistlewood made
+his preparations more slowly. Protheroe set that mellow whistle of his
+to work on ‘The British Grenadiers,’ and his enemy smiled grimly to
+think how soon he would silence the music.
+
+Half a minute later they were standing foot to foot and eye to eye,
+the music already silenced. It would have been difficult from the mere
+aspect of the men to say on which side the advantage lay. In height and
+reach they were nearly equal, and, if Thistlewood’s weight and muscle
+were in his favour, Protheroe was as active as a cat.
+
+And here might have been recorded a bit of history to warm the blood of
+such as love and remember the old-fashioned manhood of England. We are
+grown too refined and civilised nowadays for the old rude arbitrament,
+and so fair play has ceased to be the Englishman’s motto in fighting,
+and the English rustic shoots and stabs like the rustic of other
+lands. All fighting is foolish, more or less, but we had the manliest,
+friendliest, most honourable, and least harmful way of doing it amongst
+all the sons of men, and so our Legislature killed out the ‘noble art’
+from amongst us, and brought us to the general ugly level.
+
+It was in the reign of the Tipton Slasher--which, as people learned in
+the history of manners will remember, was a longish time ago--when these
+two Britons stood up to arrange their differences after the fashion
+then in vogue. There was nobody to see fair play, and so they saw it
+for themselves, as all fighting Englishmen did when there was a code of
+honour to go by. It was not a mere affair of hammer and tongs, but very
+fair scientific fighting, the science vivified by enjoyment, and full of
+energy, but never forgotten for a second. The pleasure was keen on both
+sides, for from the beginning of their knowledge of each other these two
+had been in antagonism, and at the last it was a real treat to let all
+go and have at it.
+
+‘I was always a bit frivolous, as you said just now, Mr. Thistlewood,’
+Lane remarked in the first enforced pause of the combat, ‘but I’d like
+you to bear me witness that I stick to what I’m at while I’m at it.’
+
+This address was delivered pantingly, whilst the speaker lay flat upon
+his back on the grass, with his arms thrown out crosswise. Thistlewood
+disdained response, and sat with one great shoulder propped against a
+dwarf oak, breathing fast and hard. When this sign of distress had
+a little abated, he arose, and said ‘Time’ as if he had been a mere
+cornerman in the affair, and rather bored by it than otherwise. Lane
+rolled over on to his face, rose to his hands and knees, smiled at his
+adversary for a little while, as if to give him an appetite for the
+business in hand, and then got to his feet and made ready.
+
+Now for a man to hold his own at this particular form of fighting
+against an equal adversary for a bare five minutes argues five grand
+things for him, and these are chastity, temperance, hardihood, strength,
+and courage. It speaks well for these admirable qualities in both of
+them that Messrs. Thistlewood and Protheroe made a good hour of it. The
+advantages and disadvantages had been so equally distributed that by
+this time they were pretty nearly harmless to each other, but each was
+sustained by the hope of victory, and each would have died, and, for the
+matter of that, would have gone on dying, rather than yield the precious
+palm to the other.
+
+Now the clergyman who ministered to the spiritual wants of Beacon
+Hargate was never disposed to gorge his flock with too much doctrine
+at a time, and on this Sabbath had an invitation to luncheon at a great
+house some four or five miles away, and so treated his parishioners--to
+the scandal of some and the joy of others--to the shortest discourse
+they had ever heard from the pulpit. By this mischance it happened that
+the combatants were discovered by a silent male advance-guard of the
+home-returning congregation, who ran back--his footsteps soundless on
+the grass--to spread the splendid news. Sunday or week-day there was no
+more welcome break in the monotony of life in Beacon Hargate than that
+afforded by a fight. The time being church-time, and the combatants men
+of respectable position, lent piquancy to the event, of course, as who
+shall say me nay? The churchgoers, two or three farmers, Mr. Drake,
+the manager of Lord Barfield’s estates at Heydon Hey, and a handful of
+labourers came up, at first stealthily, and then more boldly, and looked
+on at the finish.
+
+It was plain that the fight had been severe, but it was equally plain
+that the best of it was over; and when Farmer Fellowes interposed as
+_amicus curio_, nobody but the two most concerned had any especial
+resentment against him.
+
+Even for them Farmer Fellowes had a crumb of comfort.
+
+‘Finish it another time, lads,’ he said. ‘Where’s the good o’ goin’ on
+wi’ it i’ this manner? Why a child might homber the pair on you. Get
+fresh an’ have another turn to-morrow, if the ‘casion’s worth it.’
+
+So the fight was left undecided after all, and the adversaries were
+led off to the neighbouring brook, where they made themselves as
+respectable to look at as they could before they took their several
+ways. They were unsightly for a week or two, and were close watched by
+their women folk lest they should renew the strife.
+
+Beacon Hargate knew perfectly well the reason of the battle, and Bertha
+was mightily disdainful and indignant over both her lovers, who, to her
+fancy, had disgraced themselves and her. Six days after the fight John
+Thistlewood’s business for once in a way, as well as his inclination,
+took him to Fellowes’s farm, and there Bertha (who for very shame had
+not quitted the house since Sunday) first saw the result of the fray.
+The stalwart farmer’s face was discoloured, and, in places, still
+swollen. She saw the wicked handiwork of Lane Protheroe, and vowed
+within herself that she would see that dreadful young man no more. She
+could have cried for pity of poor Mr. Thistlewood, who had been thus
+shamefully treated for the crime of being faithful in love.
+
+If John had known it, he had at this instant the best chance of being
+taken as Bertha’s husband he had ever had, or was like to find. But
+he was shamefaced about the matter, as heroes not uncommonly are with
+regard to their achievements, and was disposed to think himself at an
+even unusual disadvantage.
+
+Bertha stifled in her heart whatever tender sentiments Protheroe had
+inspired, and was prepared to pass him whenever she might meet him with
+such a manner as should indicate her new opinion of him beyond chance of
+mistake. Thistlewood had appeared on the Saturday, and on the Monday
+the fates threw her younger lover in her way. She discerned him from a
+distance, herself unseen. His figure dipped down into the hollow, and
+she could not see him again until they met at some turning or other of
+the tortuous lane. If pride had not forbidden it she could have turned
+to fly homewards, but she hardened her heart and went on until his
+footsteps sounded clearly on the stony road.
+
+Then he turned the corner, and she lifted one glance of superb disdain
+which melted suddenly under a terror-stricken pity. For this hero was
+worse battered than Number One had been, and one of those eyes, which
+had used to be so expressive and eloquent, was decorated by a shade.
+
+‘Oh, Lane!’ cried the girl, clasping her hands, and turning white with
+pity.
+
+‘Did I frighten you, my dear?’ said Lane. ‘It’s nothing. It’ll all be
+right in a day or two.’
+
+‘I hope so,’ she answered, recovering herself, and seizing on principle
+before it made away for ever. ‘I wish you to know that I think you
+have behaved very disgracefully, and I hope you will never speak to me
+again.’
+
+‘Why,’ said Lane, ‘that’s hard measure, Bertha; and as for behaving
+disgracefully--if a man threatens to punch your head you must give him
+the chance to punch it. That’s man’s law, anyhow, whether it’s woman’s
+or not.’
+
+‘I am sure Mr. Thistlewood is no quarreller,’ said Bertha, with great
+dignity and severity of demeanour. ‘It takes no great penetration to
+guess who began it.’
+
+‘There’s one thing I will say for him,’ returned Lane; ‘he’s a
+truth-telling fellow, to the best of my belief. Ask him who began it.
+He’ll tell you. Not that I should take any particular blame or shame for
+having begun it myself, but since that’s how you look at it, dear--why,
+I should like you to be satisfied.’
+
+‘Do you think, Mr. Protheroe,’ demanded Bertha, ‘that it’s the way to
+win a girl’s esteem to brawl about her in public on a Sunday?’
+
+‘That’s what Thistlewood said,’ Lane answered, with cunning simplicity.
+‘“It’s unbecoming,” said he, “in a man to brawl over the maid he wants
+to marry.”’
+
+‘I was certain he would say so, and think so,’ returned Bertha, with a
+sinking of the heart. She wanted grounds for pardoning Lane.
+
+‘Well,’ said Lane, with a retrospective air, ‘we talked for a while, and
+he was good enough to promise me a hiding if I didn’t keep out of his
+way--meaning, of course, at your father’s house. I didn’t seem to take
+it quite so meekly as he thought I ought to, and by and by says he, “You
+seem to be in a hurry for that hiding.” So I just made answer that hurry
+was no word for it, and then, the pair of us being keen set, we got to
+it. The day was an accident, and I daresay a piece of forgetfulness on
+both our sides. But you see, my dear, a man’s just as bound to guard his
+self-respect on a Sunday as on a week-day.’
+
+‘I have been very deeply wounded,’ said Bertha. ‘I wished to respect
+you both, and now I can respect neither of you. Good-morning, Mr.
+Protheroe.’
+
+Mr. Protheroe stood discomfited, and looked mournfully after her as she
+walked away. When she had disappeared round the bend of the road he sat
+down upon the bank and plucked grasses with mechanical fingers, turning
+the thing up and down in his mind for an hour or thereabouts. Suddenly
+he jumped to his feet and resumed his walk, smiling with head erect, and
+that mellow whistle of his rose on the air with jollity in every note of
+it, for it had broken upon his mind like sunshine to remember her first
+exclamation on seeing him. He was a young man who was in the habit
+of making sure of things, and he had never in his life been surer of
+anything than he felt about this. The name, the tone, the look, meant
+more than a common interest in him. She had called him ‘Lane’ for the
+first time in his life. She had clasped her hands, and turned pale at
+the sight of him. All this meant victory for his dearest hopes, and so
+he leapt to his feet, and marched off whistling like the throstle.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+Bertha pursued her way along the tortuous bridlepath with thoughts which
+resembled the way she travelled. Like the road, her fancy seemed to turn
+back upon itself pretty often and yet in the main it held in the same
+direction. Of course, fighting was a brutal business to a girl’s way
+of thinking, but then, when she came really to think of it; men
+were strange creatures altogether, half terribly glorious and half
+contemptible. Lane had endured all these injuries simply and merely
+because he loved her! She could have no conception of the possibilities
+of masculine joy in a fight for its own sake, or of the masculine sense
+of honour which compelled the meeting of a challenge half-way. Of course
+it was mightily unpleasant to be talked about, as the heroine of such a
+business. The village tongues had been busy, and would never altogether
+stop wagging for the remainder of her lifetime.
+
+The influence of long years of respect for Thistle-wood seemed to turn
+her mental steps backward now and then. That so quiet and retired a man,
+and so little given to proclaiming himself should have made the most
+sacred wishes of his heart a matter of common gossip was understandable
+only on one hypothesis. His love and his despair carried him out of
+himself. That, of course, was a daring thing for any girl to think, but
+then Bertha was bound to find reasons.
+
+Mainly, her mind was occupied in the reconstruction of her previous
+belief about Lane Protheroe. He also, it would seem, had manly qualities
+in him--could stand up to be beaten in the cause of the woman he loved.
+The blows hurt her so, in the mere fancy of them, that she more than
+once put up her hands to her face to guard it. By the time she had
+accomplished her errand, and was on the way back to her father’s
+farmhouse, she was all tenderness and forgiveness and admiration for the
+newly-revealed Lane, but then, as the fates would have it, just as she
+began to think of her cruelty to him, and of the terribly low spirits
+into which she must have thrown him, the familiar jocund whistle broke
+upon her ears, and when she stood still in a dreary amaze at this, she
+could hear the steps of the lover, who ought to have been altogether
+love-lorn, marching along in something very like a dance in time to his
+own music. What was one to think of such a man? She was back in a
+moment to her old opinion of him. No rooted feeling in him--no
+solidity--nothing to be sure of!
+
+She made haste home, and there shut herself in her own room and cried.
+Her mother walked upstairs, and finding the girl thus mournfully
+engaged, sat down tranquilly beside her and produced her knitting.
+The click of the needles had an effect of commonplace which helped to
+restore Bertha to her self-possession, and in a little time her tears
+ceased, and moving to the window she stood there looking out upon the
+landscape. The monotonous click of the needles ceased, and she knew that
+her mother had laid down her work in her lap and was regarding her. She
+turned, with a ghost of a smile.
+
+‘You’re thinkin’, no doubt, as you’re full o’ trouble, my wench,’ began
+the mother, ‘and it’s no manner o’ use in talkin’ to young folks to try
+an’ mek out as a thing as pains don’t hurt. But if you can only bring
+‘em t’ understand as it won’t hurt much by and by, you’ve done summat
+for ‘em, may be. What’s the trouble, wench? Come an’ tell thy mother.’
+
+‘It’s all over now, mother,’ said Bertha
+
+‘Not it,’ returned Mrs. Fellowes, ‘nor won’t be yet a while. Beesn’t one
+as cries for nothing, like most gells. I was niver o’ that kind myself.’
+
+Bertha would not, perhaps could not, make a confidante even of her
+mother in this matter, but Mrs. Fellowes had a remarkable faculty for
+striking human averages, and she got near the truth in her guesses.
+
+‘There’s one thing fixed and sure, my dear,’ she said, ‘and that is
+as follows: ayther you must find a mind to wed one of ‘em, or you must
+pluck up a spirit and tell ‘em you’ll wed nayther.’
+
+‘I have told Mr. Thistlewood that I can never marry him,’ said Bertha.
+
+‘And what about Lane?’ her mother asked her.
+
+‘I can never marry him either,’ the girl answered steadily. She had her
+voice under perfect control, but her averted face and the very lines of
+her figure enlightened the shrewd old mother.
+
+‘Hast told him so?’ she asked.
+
+‘I have told him,’ Bertha answered, ‘never to speak to me again.’
+
+‘Hoity, toity, deary me!’ cried the old woman. ‘And what says he to
+that?’
+
+‘He didn’t greatly seem to care,’ said Bertha, with a beautifully
+assumed air of indifference.
+
+‘Maybe he didn’t set such store by what you told him as to tek it in
+earnest?’
+
+‘Oh,’ said the girl, languidly and indifferently, ‘he knew I meant it.’
+
+‘And didn’t seem to care? My dear, you’re talkin’ of Lane Protheroe!’
+
+‘He cared for a minute, perhaps,’ Bertha said, her assumed indifference
+and languor tinctured with bitterness by this time. ‘He cared for a
+minute, perhaps; just as he does about everything. I heard him whistling
+an hour afterwards.’
+
+The disguise was excellent, and might have deceived a woman who had
+known her less intimately and watched her less closely, but it was
+transparent to the mother.
+
+‘That’s the trouble, is it?’ said Mrs. Fellowes, gravely betaking
+herself once more to her knitting. Bertha had been crying already, and
+had hard work to restrain herself. ‘Look here, my darlin’,’ the mother
+said, with unwonted tenderness of tone and manner, ‘if you can’t read
+your own mind, you must let a old experienced woman read it for you. The
+lad’s as the Lord made him. What we see in any o’ the men to mek a fuss
+about, the Lord in His mercy only knows; but, to my mind, Lane’s ‘the
+pick o’ ten thousand. He’s alive, and that’s more than _can_ be said
+of many on ‘em. He’s a clever lad, he’s well to look at, and he’s
+well-to-do.’
+
+‘Mother,’ cried the girl, almost passionately, her own pain wrung her
+so, ‘he has no heart. He cares for a thing one minute, and doesn’t care
+for it the next. He pretends--no, he doesn’t pretend--but he thinks he
+cares, and while he thinks it I suppose he does care. But out of sight
+is out of mind with him.’
+
+‘Makest most o’ thine own troubles, like the rest on us,’ said Mrs.
+Fellowes philosophically. But, in a moment, philosophy made way for
+motherly kindness, and, rising from her seat, she bestowed her knitting
+in a roomy pocket and put her arms about her daughter’s waist. ‘Art fond
+of the lad all the same,’ she said. ‘Ah, my dear, there’s nothin’ likely
+to be sorer than the natur as picks flies in the things it’s fond on.
+There’s a deal o’ laughin’ at them as thinks all their geese is swans,
+but they’re better off in the long run than them as teks all their swans
+to be geese.’
+
+Bertha said nothing, but she trembled a little under the caress, and her
+mother, observing this, released her, went back to her chair, and once
+more drew forth her knitting.
+
+‘I reckon,’ she said, after a pause, ‘as John Thistlewood’s had the
+spoiling of thee. Thee’st got to think so much o’ them bulldog ways of
+his’n, that nothin’ less ‘ll be of use to any man as comes a-courtin’.’
+
+‘Don’t talk about it any more, mother,’ said Bertha, with an air of
+weary want of interest. ‘I have said good-bye to both of them.’
+
+And there the interview ended.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+It became evident that Bertha was likely to have a troublesome time
+before her. First of all came John Thistlewood, dogged and resolute as
+ever, propping himself against the chimney-piece, flogging his gaitered
+legs with the switch he carried, and demanding Ay or No before his time.
+Bertha determined to treat him with some spirit.
+
+‘You don’t need me to tell you that I respect you very highly, Mr.
+Thistlewood. But you oughtn’t to need me to answer your question any
+more. I shall be obliged if you will be so good as not to ask it again.’
+
+‘I shall ask it,’ said the dogged John, ‘till it comes to be answered
+one way or another.’
+
+‘It has been answered almost often enough to my way of thinking,’ said
+Bertha.
+
+She had never been tart with Thistlewood until that moment, but he
+manifested no surprise or emotion of any kind.
+
+‘It never has been answered, an’ never will be till I see thee married,
+whether to me or another. When that day come to pass you’ve heard the
+last of my question.’
+
+Thus the dogged John; and he being disposed of for a while, came Lane.
+To him the persecuted maid was a little less severe than she had been,
+but she was inexorable.
+
+‘If you like to come here as a friend, Mr. Protheroe, in a few months’
+time, I daresay we shall all be very glad to see you.’
+
+‘Well,’ said Lane, with fine irrelevance, ‘as an enemy this is a house
+I shall never make a call at. But look at the matter for a minute, my
+darling----’
+
+‘You must not talk to me like that, Mr. Protheroe,’ Bertha said, with
+great coldness.
+
+‘Like what, my dear?’ asked the ingenious Lane.
+
+‘Like that, Mr. Protheroe,’ replied Bertha.
+
+‘I think it so often, that I’m afraid I’m bound to say it sometimes;
+but, if it offends, I hope you’ll forgive me. You know you _are_ my
+darling, don’t you? You know there isn’t a queen in the world I’d even
+with you if every hair of her head was hung with Koh-i-noors. “Out of
+the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh,” the Wise Man says. So, if
+I do let slip “my dear” or “my darling” now and then, you’ll know it’s
+accident, and you won’t take offence at it--will you?’
+
+This was agile but unsatisfactory.
+
+‘Please understand me, Mr. Protheroe,’ said Bertha, with rural dignity;
+‘you must not come here again until you can come merely as a friend.’
+
+‘Bertha! You can’t mean it! What have I done? What has changed you?’
+
+‘Mr Protheroe!’--the rural dignity made an insulted goddess of her to
+Lane’s fancy--‘what right have you to say that I have changed?’
+
+‘Why, Bertha,’ he said, meekly and strickenly, ‘wasn’t I to come in six
+months’ time and get an answer?’
+
+‘Will you oblige me by coming for your answer in six months’ time,’
+answered Bertha. ‘Good-afternoon, Mr. Protheroe.’
+
+Bertha thought herself more cruel to herself than to him. She knew how
+infinitely more cruel she was to Thistlewood, but that was not a thing
+to be avoided. She and he alike must suffer--she in giving pain and he
+in bearing it. Bertha’s heart ached over Lane, and the bitterness of it
+was to know that in a week or two the butterfly nature would have ceased
+to care. He was hotly in love to-day, no doubt, but he would be out
+of love to-morrow, may be, and in a month or two hotly in love again
+elsewhere.
+
+On the Sunday following these interviews dogged John was at church, and
+the butterfly Protheroe also. Thistlewood looked as he always
+looked, rudely healthy, and a masterpiece of masterfulness and sullen
+perseverance and resolve. Lane was pallid and miserable, and Bertha
+remarking him was compelled to fall back on the bitter consolation of
+her former thoughts. He would take it heavily for a day or two, and
+would then forget all about it. He cast a glance or two in Bertha’s
+direction, and his eyes were full of melancholy appeal. But for her
+certainty he would have moved her, for she was predisposed to be moved,
+and she had hardly expected to have had so much effect upon him.
+He walked dejectedly out of church at the close of the service, and
+Thistlewood half by accident shouldered him. He took it meekly, and made
+no sign.
+
+Two or three days later came a piece of news of the sort Bertha had
+expected. Mr. Protheroe was heard of as having made one of a picnic
+party in the neighbourhood of Heydon Hey, and of this party he was said
+to have been the life and soul. He was reported to have paid marked
+attentions to Miss Badger, daughter of a wealthy cheesemonger in Castle
+Barfield High Street. The young lady was rumoured to be possessed of
+great personal attractions, and a pretty penny, present and prospective.
+
+Foreseen as it was, the news stung a little when it came. Even the most
+butterfly-like of lovers might have waited a little longer!
+
+And yet next Sunday, when Bertha went to church, quite resolved not to
+waste so much as a glance upon him, he looked paler and more dejected
+than he had done a week ago. She looked in spite of herself--she must
+needs look at him,--and it was evident that as yet the cheesemonger’s
+daughter had found no way to cheer him. Thistlewood never altered. Those
+strong self-contained natures have a power upon themselves as they
+have on other people. He could last for years in solid and complete
+devotion--he could apparently wait for ever--and could yet hide from the
+eyes of the outer world the steady fires which burned within him.
+That butterfly nature of poor Lane’s forced Thistlewood’s virtues into
+prominence by contrast, and the girl had them almost constantly in her
+thoughts. There was nothing--she told herself remorsefully--that this
+typical piece of solidity and devotion would not do for her. Her faith
+in his attachment transcended bounds, and she felt it to be a thousand
+pities that she could not love him.
+
+It does not happen in every life-history that this sort of profound
+feeling finds an opportunity of proof, but in the story of the lives of
+John Thistlewood and Lane Protheroe this thing came to pass in such wise
+that he who ran might read the natures of the men, and know them once
+for all.
+
+Bulldog John had gone on doggedly courting, and butterfly Lane had taken
+to seeing too much convivial company in Heydon Hey and Castle Barfield,
+and there was a fear in Bertha’s mind that if her influence had not been
+permanent, it had at least started the young man on a track likely to
+prove disastrous. These emotional people, quick to feel and quick to
+forget, are hardly to be dealt with without danger.
+
+Lane’s dissipations must have been graver than even rumour gave them
+discredit for being. His midnight junketings had made a ghost of him,
+and to see him at any moment when he thought himself unobserved was
+to wonder how long such a mournful and broken young gentleman could
+possibly rouse himself to fill the part of King even in a rustic
+Bohemia.
+
+Autumn was on the land. The corn-shocks were standing in the stubbled
+fields, and the night air was full of gossamer, which twined itself
+about the faces of all wayfarers. Rural work had gone on merrily all
+day, and when the sun set silence fell, and darkness like a warm shroud.
+Lights flickered a while in the village and the farmhouse, and then went
+out one by one. The moon stole over the Beacon Hill, and looked mildly
+across the valley.
+
+There was not a breath of air stirring, and not a sound upon the night
+except for the placid and continual gurgle of the stream which had no
+voice at all by day. Yes. One other sound there was, a sound as of some
+one moving uneasily in a creaking chair. Creak, creak, creak It grew
+momently. Crackle, crackle, crackle. Still it grew. A tongue like the
+tongue of a snake--so light and fine and swift was it--flashed out of
+a crevice, and flew back again, flashed out again, and again withdrew.
+Then the snake’s body flashed out after it, and melted on the moonlit
+air. Another, and another, and another. Then a low roaring noise, and
+all the windows of the basement shone out ruby-coloured, and the moon
+looked bleared by contrast.
+
+A distant voice from the village called out ‘Fire!’ There was a crash
+of opening windows, a tumult of clapping doors, a storm of barking dogs,
+excited voices, hurrying feet.
+
+Old and young, male and female, robed anyhow, ran hard towards the
+farmhouse, and poured in a thunderous stream across the echoing wooden
+bridge which spanned the river. The farmhouse was a tower of flame,
+fantastic turrets springing here and there. The dry timbers, centuries
+old, made the best of food for fire, and the place flamed like a
+tar-barrel. The screams of doomed horses came with hideous uproar from
+the stables in the rear.
+
+The farmer and his wife, the men servants and the maid servants, were
+in the garden, all pale with fear and helpless; but the mother tore the
+night with calling on her daughter’s name.
+
+Bulldog John and his rival came last of all, though they ran like
+hounds, and they crossed the bridge and dashed through the crowd
+together.
+
+‘Oh, John,’ cried the agonised mother, clutching at him as though he
+were an ark of safety. ‘You’ll save her--won’t you? God help her! You’ll
+save her--won’t you, John?’
+
+One figure, black as night against the fierce glow of the flame, dashed
+across the space between the crowd and the farmhouse. It was hardly
+seen, and scarce believed in by those who thought they saw.
+
+‘John,’ cried the wretched mother, ‘you’ll save her! You as loved her
+so! You’ll save her!’
+
+There is no manhood in the world that needs to be ashamed to hang back
+from an enterprise so hopeless and so terrible. The woman shrieked and
+prayed--the man stood motionless with white face and staring eyes.
+
+Then came one wild cry from half a dozen throats at once, and next
+upleapt a roar that struck the noise of the fire out of being for an
+instant. For the figure, black against the fiery glow, was back again,
+by some such stupendous chance, or heaven-wrought miracle, as only
+desperate valour ever wins. A figure huddled in a blanket lay in his
+arms, and as he came racing towards the crowd they fell together.
+They were lifted and borne out of the circle of fierce heat and flying
+sparks.
+
+The house was left to burn, and every thought was centred on the rescuer
+and the rescued. The fresh air roused Bertha from her swoon, and at the
+first opening of her eyes and the first words she spoke the mother went
+as mad with joy as she had been with terror.
+
+‘Alive!--alive! Safe!--safe! And oh, my God! my Christian friends, it
+was the Butterfly as did it!’
+
+But it was a full month later when Lane Protheroe asked his first
+question,
+
+‘Where’s Bertha?’
+
+‘Hush! my dear, dear darlin’,’ said Mrs. Fellowes, her eyes brimful of
+tears. ‘Lie quiet, there’s a dear.’
+
+‘Where’s Bertha?’
+
+‘Safe and well, love; safe and well.’
+
+‘I’m thirsty,’ said the Butterfly.
+
+He was supplied with a cooling drink, and fell to sleep smiling, with
+unchanged posture. In half a dozen hours he woke again.
+
+‘Where’s Bertha?’
+
+‘Here, dearest.’
+
+And we leave them hand in hand, yearning on each other through their
+blissful tears.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s Bulldog And Butterfly, by David Christie Murray
+
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diff --git a/22273-0.zip b/22273-0.zip
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Bulldog and Butterfly, by David Christie Murray
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+Project Gutenberg's Bulldog And Butterfly, by David Christie Murray
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Bulldog And Butterfly
+       From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray
+
+Author: David Christie Murray
+
+Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22273]
+Last Updated: September 16, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BULLDOG AND BUTTERFLY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      BULLDOG AND BUTTERFLY
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By David Christie Murray
+    </h2>
+    <h4>
+      Author Of &lsquo;Aunt Rachel,&rsquo; &lsquo;The Weaker Vessel,&rsquo; Etc.
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Contents
+    </h2>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> IV </a>
+          </p>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Castle Barfield, Heydon Hey, and Beacon Hargate form the three points of a
+      triangle. Barfield is a parish of some pretensions; Heydon Hey is a
+      village; Beacon Hargate is no more than a hamlet. There is not much that
+      is picturesque in Beacon Hargate, or its neighbourhood. The Beacon Hill
+      itself is as little like a hill as it well can be, and acquires what
+      prominence it has by virtue of the extreme flatness of the surrounding
+      country. A tuft of Scotch firs upon its crest is visible from a distance
+      of twenty miles in some directions. A clear but sluggish stream winds
+      among its sedges and water-lilies round the western side of the Beacon
+      Hill, and washes the edge of a garden which belongs to the one survival of
+      the picturesque old times Beacon Hargate has to show.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Oak House was built for a mansion in the days of Queen Elizabeth, but
+      who built it nobody knows at this time of day, or, excepting perhaps a
+      hungry-minded antiquary or two, greatly cares to know. The place had been
+      partly pulled down, and a good deal altered here and there. Stables,
+      barns, cow-sheds, and such other outhouses as are needful to a farm had
+      been tacked on to it, or built near it; and all these appurtenances, under
+      the mellowing hand of time and weather, had grown congruous, insomuch that
+      the Oak House if stripped of them would have looked as bare even to the
+      unaccustomed eye as a bird plucked of its feathers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house faced the stream, and turned its back upon the Beacon with its
+      clump of fir-trees. It had chimneys enough for a village&mdash;an
+      extraordinary wealth of chimneys&mdash;&lsquo;twisted, fluted, castellated,
+      stacked together in conclave or poised singly about the gables. The front
+      of the house was crossed laterally and diagonally by great beams of
+      black-painted oak. The windows, which are full of diamonded panes, were
+      lowbrowed, deep-sunken, long, and shallow. The door had a porch, and this
+      porch was covered with creepers. In summer time climbing roses and
+      honeysuckle bloomed there. The garden ran right up to the house, and
+      touched it all round. The fragrant sweet-william, nestling against the
+      walls, looked as though it were a natural fringe. Without the faintest
+      sense of primness, or even of orderliness, everything had an air of being
+      precisely where it ought to be, and conveyed somehow a suggestion of
+      having been there always. The house looked less as if it had been built
+      than as if it had grown, and this feeling was heightened by the vegetable
+      growth about it and upon it&mdash;the clinging ivy, the green house-leek,
+      the purple and golden moss on the roofs and walls. In the course of its
+      three hundred years the Oak House had stood long enough to be altogether
+      reconciled to nature, and half absorbed by it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1850&mdash;which, though it seem a long while ago, is well within human
+      memory&mdash;and for many years before, the Oak House was tenanted by a
+      farmer who bore the name of Fellowes, a sturdy and dogmatic personage, who
+      was loud at the table of the market ordinary once a week, and for the most
+      part silent for the rest of his life at home. The gray mare was the better
+      horse. Excepting within doors at the Oak House, Fellowes ruled the hamlet.
+      There were no resident gentry; the clergyman was an absentee; the tiny
+      church was used only as a chapel-of-ease; and Fellowes was the wealthiest
+      and most important personage for a mile or two. He was a little disposed
+      to be noisy, and to bluster in his show of authority, and therefore fell
+      all the more easily captive to his wife, who had a gift for the tranquil
+      saying of unpleasant things which was reckoned quite phenomenal in Beacon
+      Hargate. This formidable woman was ruled in turn by her daughter Bertha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bertha, unless looked at through the eyes of susceptible young manhood,
+      would by no means be pronounced formidable. She was country-bred and quite
+      rustic; but there are refinements of rusticity; and for Beacon Hargate,
+      Bertha was a lady. She would have been a lady anywhere according to her
+      chances; for she was naturally sensitive to refining influences, and of a
+      nature which, remembering how strong it was, was curiously tender.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was May, in the year 1850&mdash;mid-May&mdash;and the weather was
+      precisely what mid-May weather ought to be, perfumed and softly fresh,
+      with opposing hints of gaiety and languor in it. The birds were singing
+      everywhere&mdash;a vocal storm, and the sheep&mdash;who can never express
+      themselves as being satisfied in any weather&mdash;bleated disconsolately
+      from the meadows. The clucking of fowls, the quacking of ducks, the very
+      occasional grunt of some contented porker in the backward regions of the
+      place, the stamp of a horse&rsquo;s foot, and the rattle of a chain in a
+      manger-ring&mdash;sounds quite unmusical in themselves&mdash;blended with
+      the birds&rsquo; singing, and the thick humming of the bees, into an actual
+      music in which no note was discordant. The day was without a cloud, and
+      the soft light was diffused everywhere on a skyey haze of whitish blue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this positively delightful weather, Bertha stood with folded hands in
+      the porch of the Oak House (the floor and the far wall of the kitchen
+      behind her patched with gleams of red and brown light), like the central
+      figure of a picture framed in live green. She was pretty enough to be
+      pleasant to look at; but her charms were mainly the growth of tranquil
+      good temper and sound sense. Broad brow, gray eyes, resolute little chin,
+      the mouth the best feature of the face, her expression thoughtful, serene,
+      and self-possessed, the gray eyes a trifle inclined to dream wide-awake,
+      hair of no particular colour, but golden in the sunlight. She stood
+      leaning sideways, with one shoulder touching the trellis-work of the
+      porch, and one pretty little foot crossed over the other, her head poised
+      sideways and nestled into the ivy. She was looking far away, seeing
+      nothing, and her folded hands drooped before her. A bridge, with a
+      hand-rail on either side of it, crossed the stream and led from a meadow
+      path to the garden. This meadow path was hidden&mdash;partly by the garden
+      wall, and partly by the growth of alder and pollard at the side of the
+      stream&mdash;and a man came marching along it, unobserved. Before he
+      reached the bridge he brought his footsteps to a sudden halt, and sent a
+      glance towards the porch. Seeing the girl there, sunk in day dreams, he
+      slipped back into the shelter of the withies and took a good long look at
+      her. Twice or thrice, though his feet did not quit the ground, he made a
+      faint movement to go on again, and at length, after two or three minutes
+      of indecision, he walked briskly to the foot of the bridge, threw open the
+      little gate at the end of it, and, suffering it to fall with a clanking
+      noise behind him, tramped across the hollow-resounding boards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this sudden break upon the rural stillness&mdash;for, in spite of the
+      chorus of the birds and the farmyard noises which mingled with it, the
+      general effect was somehow of stillness and solitude&mdash;the girl looked
+      round at the new-comer, drew herself up from her lounging attitude, placed
+      her hands behind her and there re-folded them, and stood waiting, with an
+      added flush of colour on her cheek. The new-comer strode along in a kind
+      of awkward resoluteness, looking straight at the girl with a glance which
+      appeared to embarrass her a little, though she returned it frankly enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Here I am, you see,&rsquo; said the new-comer, halting before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was tallish, well-made, and of middle age. His expression was a trifle
+      dogged, and for a man who came love-making he looked less prepossessing
+      than he himself might have wished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Good afternoon, Mr. Thistlewood,&rsquo; said the girl, in a tone which a
+      sensitive man might have thought purposely defensive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Is it yes or no to-day, Bertha?&rsquo; asked Mr. Thistlewood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It has always been no,&rsquo; she answered, looking down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Oh,&rsquo; he answered, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m perfectly well aware of that. It always has been
+      no up till now, but that&rsquo;s no reason why it should be no to-day. And if
+      it&rsquo;s no to-day that&rsquo;s no reason why it should be no again this day three
+      months. Maids change their minds, my dear.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It is a pity you should waste your time, Mr. Thistlewood,&rsquo; said Bertha,
+      still looking down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;As for wasting my time,&rsquo; returned John Thistle-wood, &lsquo;that&rsquo;s a thing as
+      few can charge me with as a general rule. And in this particular case, you
+      see, I can&rsquo;t help myself. The day I see you married I shall make up my
+      mind to leave you alone until such time as you might happen to be a widow,
+      and if that should come to pass I should reckon myself free to come
+      again.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It has always been no,&rsquo; said Bertha. &lsquo;It is no to-day. It will always be
+      no.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The words in themselves were sufficiently decisive, and the voice, though
+      it had something soft and regretful in it, sounded almost as final as the
+      words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s look at it a bit, my dear,&rsquo; said John Thistle-wood, grasping in
+      both hands the thick walking-stick he carried, and pressing it firmly
+      against his thighs as he leaned a little forward and looked down upon her.
+      &lsquo;Why is it no? And if it&rsquo;s no again to-day, why is it always going to be
+      no?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I like you very well, Mr. Thistlewood,&rsquo; she answered, looking up at him,
+      &lsquo;but I don&rsquo;t like you in a marrying way, and I never shall.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;As for never shall,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;that remains to be seen.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He straightened himself as he spoke, and releasing the walking-stick with
+      his left hand put the point of it softly, slowly, and strongly down upon
+      the gravel, dinting the ground pretty deeply with the pressure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s look at it a little further,&rsquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It is of no use,&rsquo; the girl answered pleadingly. &lsquo;It hurts us both, and it
+      can do no good at all.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s look at it a bit further,&rsquo; he said again. &lsquo;This day month you said
+      there was nobody you&rsquo;d seen you liked better than me. Is that true still?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It is quite true,&rsquo; she answered, &lsquo;but it makes no difference.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That remains to be seen,&rsquo; said John Thistlewood again. &lsquo;And as for not
+      liking me in a marrying way, that&rsquo;s a thing a maid can&rsquo;t be supposed to
+      know much of.&rsquo; He waited doggedly as if to hear her deny this, but she
+      made no answer. &lsquo;You&rsquo;ve known me all your life, Bertha, and you never knew
+      anything again me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Never,&rsquo; she said, almost eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m well-to-do,&rsquo; he went on stolidly, but with all his force, as if he
+      were pushing against a wall too heavy to be moved by any pressure he could
+      bring to bear against it, and yet was resolute to have it down. &lsquo;I&rsquo;m not
+      too old to be a reasonable match for a maid of your years. You&rsquo;ve had my
+      heart this five years I waited two afore I spoke at all There&rsquo;s a many&mdash;not
+      that I speak it in a bragging way&mdash;as would be willing enough to have
+      me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It&rsquo;s a pity you can&rsquo;t take a fancy to one of them,&rsquo; she said, with
+      perfect simplicity and good faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Perhaps it is,&rsquo; answered Thistlewood, with a dogged sigh; &lsquo;but be that as
+      it may, I can&rsquo;t and shan&rsquo;t. Where my fancy lies it stays. I didn&rsquo;t give my
+      heart away to take it back again. You&rsquo;ll wed me yet, Bertha, and when you
+      do you&rsquo;ll be surprised to think you didn&rsquo;t do it long before.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point the voice of a third person broke in upon the colloquy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That caps all!&rsquo; said the voice. &lsquo;There&rsquo;s Mr. Forbes, the Scotch gardener
+      at my Lord Barfield&rsquo;s, tells me of a lad in his parts as prayed the Lord
+      for a good consate of himself. That&rsquo;s a prayer as you&rsquo;ll never find
+      occasion t&rsquo;offer, John Thistlewood.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Maybe not, Mrs. Fellowes,&rsquo; answered Thistlewood, addressing the owner of
+      the voice, who remained invisible; &lsquo;but I wasn&rsquo;t speaking in a braggart
+      way.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No&mdash;no,&rsquo; returned the still invisible intruder. &lsquo;Wast humble enough
+      about it, doubtless. You&rsquo;m bound to tek a man&rsquo;s own word about his own
+      feelings. Who is to know &lsquo;em if he doesn&rsquo;t?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Just so,&rsquo; said Thistlewood, with great dryness. He appeared to be little
+      if at all disturbed by the interruption, but Bertha was blushing like a
+      peony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I sat quiet,&rsquo; said the girl&rsquo;s mother, leisurely walking round the door
+      with a half-finished gray worsted stocking depending from the
+      knitting-needles she carried in both hands,&mdash;&rsquo; I sat quiet so as not
+      to be a disturbance. It&rsquo;s you for making love to a maid, I must allow,
+      John.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl ran into the house and disappeared from view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It&rsquo;s me for speaking my mind, at least, ma&rsquo;am,&rsquo; returned John, with
+      unaltered tranquil doggedness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Ah!&rsquo; responded the farmer&rsquo;s wife; &lsquo;you&rsquo;re like a good many more of &lsquo;em;
+      you&rsquo;d sooner not have what you want than go the right way to get it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thistlewood digested this in silence, and Mrs. Fellowes set the
+      knitting-needles flashing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve always fancied,&rsquo; he said in a little while, &lsquo;as I had your goodwill
+      in the matter.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You&rsquo;ve got my goodwill, in a way to be sure,&rsquo; said the old woman. &lsquo;You&rsquo;d
+      mek the gell a goodish husband if her could find a fancy for you&mdash;but
+      the fancy&rsquo;s everything&mdash;don&rsquo;t you see, John?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m not above taking advice, Mrs. Fellowes,&rsquo; said Thistlewood, digging at
+      the gravel with his walking-stick. &lsquo;Will you be so good as to tell me
+      where I&rsquo;m wrong?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There&rsquo;s one particular as you&rsquo;re wrong in,&rsquo; returned Mrs. Fellowes,
+      knitting away with a determinedly uninteresting air, &lsquo;and, I misdoubt me,
+      you can&rsquo;t alter it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rsquo; asked Thistlewood, looking up at her suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You&rsquo;re the wrong man, John.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That remains to be seen,&rsquo; he answered, with the same dogged patience as
+      before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You can&rsquo;t win a maid&rsquo;s heart by going at her as solemn as a funeral,&rsquo; 
+      pursued the old woman. &lsquo;If you&rsquo;d ha&rsquo; begun sprightly with the gell, you
+      might ha&rsquo; had a chance with her. &ldquo;La!&rdquo; says you, &ldquo;what a pretty frock
+      you&rsquo;re a-wearing to-day;&rdquo; or &ldquo;How nice you do do up your hair for a
+      certainty.&rdquo;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t look on marriage as a thing to be approached i&rsquo; that fashion,&rsquo; 
+      said Thistlewood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; returned the old woman, clicking her needles with added rapidity,
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve always said there&rsquo;s no end to the folly o&rsquo; men. D&rsquo;ye hear that there
+      cuckoo? Go and catch him wi&rsquo; shoutin&rsquo; at him. An&rsquo; when next you&rsquo;re in want
+      of toast at tay-time, soak your bread in a pan o&rsquo; cold water.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thistlewood stood for a time in a rather dogged-looking silence, sometimes
+      glancing at the notable woman and glancing away again. Her eye expressed a
+      triumph which, though purely dialectic, was hard for a disappointed lover
+      to endure, even whilst he refused to recognise his disappointment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I should regard any such means of gettin&rsquo; into a maid&rsquo;s good graces as
+      being despisable,&rsquo; he said, after a while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Very well, my Christian friend,&rsquo; the farmer&rsquo;s wife retorted, with a
+      laugh. &lsquo;Them as mek bread without barm must look to spoil the batch.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I was niver of a flatterin&rsquo; turn of mind,&rsquo; said Thistlewood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You niver was, John,&rsquo; responded Mrs. Fellowes, with an accent which
+      implied something beyond assent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He flushed a little, and began to tap at his corduroyed leg with the stick
+      he carried, at first with a look of shamefaced discomfiture, and then with
+      resolution. He finished with a resounding slap, and looked up with a light
+      in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m pretty hard to beat, ma&rsquo;am,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;though I say it as should not.
+      I&rsquo;m not going to be conquered here if I can help it. And I look to have
+      you and Mr. Fellowes on my side, as far as may be asked in reason. Her&rsquo;ll
+      find no better husband than I should be to her, I <i>am</i> sure. There&rsquo;s
+      more than a wheedlin&rsquo; tongue required to mek a married woman happy. I&rsquo;ve
+      pretty well proved as I&rsquo;m not changeable. There&rsquo;s a strong arm to tek care
+      of her. There&rsquo;s a homely house with plenty in it. There&rsquo;s a goodish lump
+      at the bank, and there&rsquo;s nothing heart can desire as her might not have by
+      asking for it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, John,&rsquo; said the farmer&rsquo;s wife, clicking her needles cheerfully,
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve not a word to say again the match. Win the wench and welcome. My
+      dancin&rsquo; days is pretty nigh over, but I&rsquo;ll tek the floor once more with
+      pleasure, if you won&rsquo;t be too long in mekin&rsquo; ready for me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There&rsquo;s nothing more to be done at present, I suppose,&rsquo; the lover said
+      presently, &lsquo;and so I&rsquo;ll say good-bye for this afternoon, Mrs. Fellowes.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this he turned upon his heel, and marching sturdily down the path and
+      across the little bridge, disappeared behind the withies and pollards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer&rsquo;s wife waited a while until he was out of hearing, and then,
+      without turning her head, shrilled out &lsquo;Bertha!&rsquo; The girl came silently
+      downstairs and joined her in the doorway. The mother pursued her knitting
+      in silence, a faint flicker of a humorous smile touching her face and eyes
+      now and again. At length she spoke, looking straight before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Why woot&rsquo;ent marry the man?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Mr. Thistlewood?&rsquo; asked Bertha, making the feeblest possible defence
+      against this direct attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Ay,&rsquo; said her mother, &lsquo;Mr. Thistlewood to be sure. Why woot&rsquo;ent marry
+      him?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I like him well enough in a way,&rsquo; the girl answered &lsquo;But I don&rsquo;t like him
+      that way!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;What way?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Why&mdash;in a marrying way,&rsquo; said Bertha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Pooh!&rsquo; answered the notable woman. &lsquo;What&rsquo;s a maid know how she&rsquo;d like a
+      man?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I should have the greatest respect for him,&rsquo; Bertha answered, wisely
+      avoiding the discussion of this question, &lsquo;if he wouldn&rsquo;t come bothering
+      me to marry him.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Ay! &lsquo;said her mother, assenting with a philosophic air. &lsquo;That&rsquo;s a wench&rsquo;s
+      way. When a man wants nothing her&rsquo;ll give him as much as her can spare.
+      But look hither, my gell! You listen to the words of a old experienced
+      woman. There&rsquo;s a better love comes after the weddin&rsquo;, if a gell marries a
+      worthy solid man, than ever her knows before it. If a gell averts from a
+      man that&rsquo;s another matter. But if her can abide him to begin with, and if
+      he&rsquo;s a good man, her&rsquo;ll be fond of him before her knows it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I should never be fond of Mr. Thistlewood, mother,&rsquo; the girl answered,
+      flushing hotly. &lsquo;It&rsquo;s of no use to speak about him.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Did the man ever mek love to you at all,&rsquo; the mother asked, &lsquo;beyond
+      comin&rsquo; here and barkin&rsquo;, &ldquo;Wool&rsquo;t marry me?&rdquo;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I wish you wouldn&rsquo;t talk of him, mother,&rsquo; Bertha answered in a troubled
+      voice. &lsquo;I respect him very highly, but as for marrying him, it&rsquo;s out of
+      the question. I can&rsquo;t do it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well, well,&rsquo; returned her mother, &lsquo;nobody&rsquo;s askin&rsquo; you to do anything o&rsquo; 
+      the sort. I&rsquo;m trying to find your mind about him. It&rsquo;s high time &lsquo;twas
+      made up one way or other. You&rsquo;ve come to a marriageable age.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m very well as I am,&rsquo; said Bertha, rather hastily. &lsquo;I&rsquo;m not in a hurry
+      to be married.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You&rsquo;ve never been much like other gells,&rsquo; said her mother, with a dry
+      humorous twinkle which looked more masculine than feminine. &lsquo;But I reckon
+      you&rsquo;ll be in about as much of a hurry as the rest on &lsquo;em be when the right
+      man comes.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment a whistle of peculiar volume, mellowness, and flexibility
+      was heard. The whistler was trilling &lsquo;Come lasses and lads&rsquo; in tones as
+      delightful as a blackbird&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Is this him?&rsquo; said the old woman, turning upon her daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bertha blushed, and turned away. The mother laughed. A light footstep
+      sounded on the echoing boards of the little bridge, and the human
+      blackbird, marching gaily in time to his tune, flourished a walking-stick
+      in salutation as he approached.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Good-afternoon, Mrs. Fellowes,&rsquo; cried the newcomer. &lsquo;Good-afternoon, <i>Miss</i>
+      Fellowes.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They both returned his salutation, and he stood before them smilingly,
+      holding his stick lightly by the middle, and swinging it hither and
+      thither, as if keeping time to an inward silent tune. His feet were
+      planted a little apart, he carried his head well back, and his figure was
+      very alert and lithe. He made great use of his lips in talking, and
+      whatever he said seemed a little overdone in emphasis. His expression was
+      eager, amiable, and sensitive, and it changed like the complexion of water
+      in variable weather. He was a bit of a dandy in his way, too. His clothes
+      showed his slim and elastic figure to the best advantage, and a
+      bright-coloured neckerchief with loose flying ends helped out a certain
+      air of festal rural opera which belonged to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I passed Thistlewood on my way here,&rsquo; he said, laughing brightly. &lsquo;He
+      looked as cheerful as a frog. Did y&rsquo; ever notice what a cheerful-looking
+      thing a frog is?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He made a face ludicrously like the creature he mentioned. The old woman
+      laughed outright, and Bertha smiled, though somewhat unwillingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t like to hear Mr. Thistlewood made game of, Mr. Protheroe,&rsquo; she
+      said a moment later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t you, Miss Fellowes?&rsquo; asked Mr. Protheroe. &lsquo;Then it shan&rsquo;t be done
+      in your presence again.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That means it may be done out of my presence, I suppose,&rsquo; the girl said
+      coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No, nor out of it,&rsquo; said the young fellow, bowing with something of a
+      flourish, &lsquo;if it displeases you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Come in, Lane, my lad,&rsquo; said the mother, genially. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve got the poultry
+      to look after at this hour. Bertha &lsquo;ll tek care of you till I come back
+      again.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lane Protheroe bowed again with the same gay flourish, and recovering
+      himself from the bow with an upward swing of the head, followed the
+      women-folk into the wide kitchen as if he had been crossing the floor in a
+      minuet. If these airs of his had been assumed they would have touched the
+      ridiculous, but they were altogether natural to him; and what with them
+      and his smiling, changeful, sympathetic ways, he was a prime favourite,
+      and seemed to carry sunshine into all sorts of company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the mother had left the kitchen the girl seated herself considerably
+      apart from the visitor, and taking up a book from a dresser beside her,
+      began to turn over its pages, stopping now and again to read a line or
+      two, and rather ostentatiously disregarding her companion. He sat in
+      silence, regarding her with a grave face for a minute or thereabouts, and
+      then, rising, crossed the room and placed himself beside her, bending over
+      her, with one hand resting on the dresser. She did not look up in answer
+      to this movement, but bent her head even a little more than before above
+      the book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m glad to be left alone with you for a minute, Miss Fellowes,&rsquo; he began
+      gently, and with a faint tremor and hesitation in his voice, &lsquo;because I&rsquo;ve
+      something very special and particular to say to you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There he paused, and Bertha with a slight cough, which was a trifle too
+      casual and unembarrassed to be real, said, &lsquo;Indeed, Mr. Protheroe?&rsquo; and
+      kept her eyes upon the book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;They say a girl always knows,&rsquo; he went on, &lsquo;and if that&rsquo;s true you know
+      already what I want to say.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused, but if he expected any help from her in the way either of
+      assent or denial, he was disappointed. He stooped a little lower and
+      touched her hand with a gentle timidity, but she at once withdrew it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You know I love you, Bertha? You know you&rsquo;re dearer to me than all the
+      whole wide world beside?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still Bertha said nothing, but the hand that turned the leaves of the book
+      trembled perceptibly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve come to ask you if you&rsquo;ll be my wife, dear! if you&rsquo;ll let me make
+      you my lifelong care and joy, my darling! You don&rsquo;t guess how much I love
+      you. You don&rsquo;t know how much your answer means to me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl rose, and, carrying the book with her, walked to the kitchen
+      window and looked out upon the garden, the river, and the fields, without
+      seeing anything. She was evidently agitated, and did not find an answer
+      easily. Lane followed her, and when for a moment she dared to look up at
+      him she encountered a look so tender, anxious, and ardent that she lowered
+      her eyes in quick confusion. He seized her hand, and for a brief instant
+      she let it rest in his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Speak to me,&rsquo; he murmured, caressingly and pleadingly. &lsquo;Tell me.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t understand you, Mr. Protheroe,&rsquo; the girl said pantingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Not understand me, dear? &lsquo;he whispered; &lsquo;I am asking you to be my wife.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I understand that,&rsquo; she answered, drawing herself away from him, and
+      speaking with difficulty. &lsquo;It is <i>you</i> I don&rsquo;t understand. You&mdash;yourself.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Tell me how, darling,&rsquo; he said softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You tell me,&rsquo; she said, lifting a pale and agitated face, &lsquo;that I can&rsquo;t
+      guess how much my answer means to you. But you come here whistling and
+      dancing, as you always come, as if you hadn&rsquo;t a care upon your mind.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t make that a reproach against me, dear,&rsquo; said he. &lsquo;Why it was just
+      the thought of you made me so happy.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked up at him with an expression of doubt and pain, and as their
+      eyes met he caught one of her hands in both his, and held it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Dear Bertha!&rsquo; he said, with a sudden moisture in his eyes. &lsquo;There is
+      nobody so good. There is nobody so lovely.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew away from him again, though some sort of electric influence
+      seemed to come out of him, and draw her strongly to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I must wait,&rsquo; she said. &lsquo;I&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know you well enough. I don&rsquo;t
+      understand you. You are too light. You are too careless. I don&rsquo;t know how
+      far I can believe you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Oh!&rsquo; he cried, &lsquo;believe me altogether, dear. I love you with all my heart
+      and soul!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She moved to the middle of the room, and sheltered herself behind a table
+      which stood there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I hardly know whether you have a heart,&rsquo; she answered then. &lsquo;You fancy
+      you feel all you say,&rsquo; she added quickly. &lsquo;You feel it for the minute.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood at the other side of the table with brows suddenly grown gloomy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I shall feel it all my life,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;It&rsquo;s the one thing I&rsquo;ve ever been
+      in earnest about. I never thought I should feel as I do. If you like to
+      wait, dear, before answering me, I&rsquo;ll wait just as long as ever you
+      please.&rsquo; His gloom was gone, and he was all eagerness and vivacity again.
+      &lsquo;There&rsquo;s nothing I won&rsquo;t do for your asking. I&rsquo;ll cure every fault I&rsquo;ve
+      got. I&rsquo;ll be everything you&rsquo;d like to have me. Try me, darling. Wait and
+      see. But give me only just a little bit of hope. Don&rsquo;t send me away quite
+      hungry. Tell me you care for me just a little&mdash;not as I care for you&mdash;I
+      don&rsquo;t expect that. It doesn&rsquo;t stand to reason yet awhile you should.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There she shot one swift glance at him, averting her gaze at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I won&rsquo;t say I don&rsquo;t like you,&rsquo; she answered with a candour half rustic,
+      half characteristic of herself &lsquo;But I won&rsquo;t answer yes or no just yet.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Very well, dear,&rsquo; he answered tenderly. &lsquo;You shall have time to know if
+      I&rsquo;m in earnest, or if I&rsquo;ve taken nothing more than a passing fancy. Shall
+      I ask you again this day six months?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I won&rsquo;t promise you an answer then,&rsquo; she said. &lsquo;I will answer you when I
+      am certain.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You could care for me, then,&rsquo; he urged her, &lsquo;if you were only quite sure
+      I loved you, and always would love you? Why, Bertha, I&rsquo;d put my hand in
+      that fire to save you from a finger-ache. I&rsquo;d jump into the Weale there if
+      I thought I could make you happy by doing it. I&rsquo;d live my whole life your
+      servant for a smile a year.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes flashed or moistened with every phrase, his gestures were
+      superabundant and intense, and his voice was genuinely tender and
+      impassioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His ardent eyes and voice thrilled the girl, and yet she doubted him.
+      There was a fear in her mind which she could not shake away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      People in Beacon Hargate were not rich in opportunities for the study of
+      the acted drama, but Bertha had seen a play or two in the great town hard
+      by, and Lane looked and talked rather too much like a stage lover to her
+      mind. In the unreal life behind the footlights lovers talked with just
+      such a fluency, just such a tender fiery emphasis. In real life John
+      Thistlewood came doggedly a-wooing with a shoulder propped against a
+      doorpost, and had hard work to find a word for himself. If only that one
+      absent element of faith could be imported into the business, Lane
+      Protheroe&rsquo;s fashion of courting was certain to be infinitely more
+      delightful than John Thistlewood&rsquo;s, but then the absent element was almost
+      everything. And for poor Bertha the worst part of it seemed that she loved
+      the man she doubted, and could not love the man in whose affection she
+      held the profoundest faith. That the rough, clumsy, and persistent
+      courtier loved her was one of the indisputable facts of life to her. She
+      knew it just as surely as she knew that she was alive. She knew it, and
+      the knowledge hurt her, for she could fancy nothing less hopeful than
+      Thistle-wood&rsquo;s wooing, and she was without a spark of mere vanity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I think it is because you say so much that I don&rsquo;t feel quite able to
+      believe it all,&rsquo; she said. &lsquo;You feel it when you talk about it, but it
+      seems to me as if you <i>had</i> to talk before you get to feel it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His brows bent down over gloomy eyes again, and he folded his arms as he
+      looked at her. Once more poor Bertha thought of the stage lover she had
+      seen, and a long-drawn sigh escaped her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I can&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s all quite real,&rsquo; she said, almost desperately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You think I say too much?&rsquo; he retorted. &lsquo;It seems to me as if I said too
+      little. It seems to me as if there weren&rsquo;t any words to speak such
+      thoughts and feelings.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Is that because you don&rsquo;t value the words? &lsquo;she .&rsquo; asked him. &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t you
+      think that if you felt what the words do mean that they&rsquo;d seem enough for
+      you?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I know I&rsquo;m a good-for-nothing beggar,&rsquo; he answered, with a sudden air of
+      weary self-loathing and disdain. &lsquo;I know. I&rsquo;ve got a way of taking
+      everything in deadly earnest for an hour or two. But,&rsquo; with a sudden
+      swerve into the track of self-justification, &lsquo;if that makes you think I&rsquo;m
+      fickle and weak-willed, you&rsquo;re all wrong, darling. There are some fellows&mdash;I
+      know plenty&mdash;who go through life like a lot of oysters. They don&rsquo;t
+      feel anything&mdash;they don&rsquo;t care about anything, or anybody. But, bless
+      your heart, my dear, they never get doubted.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bertha took this for a satiric dig at the absent Thistlewood, and spoke up
+      for him, needlessly, as it happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Still waters run deep, Mr. Protheroe.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Some of &lsquo;em do,&rsquo; responded Mr. Protheroe, with profoundest gloom, which
+      lightened suddenly into a smile as bright as sunshine. &lsquo;But some of &lsquo;em
+      don&rsquo;t run at all. And some of &lsquo;em are as shallow as any puddle you&rsquo;ll find
+      along the road, only they&rsquo;re so bemuddled you can&rsquo;t see to the bottom of
+      &lsquo;em. You can plumb &lsquo;em with your little finger, though, if you don&rsquo;t mind
+      soiling it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now this innocent generalisation seemed gratuitously offensive to the
+      absent Thistlewood, and chilled Bertha greatly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That may be very true of some people,&rsquo; she responded; &lsquo;but it isn&rsquo;t true
+      of all the quiet people in the world.. And I don&rsquo;t think, Mr. Protheroe,
+      that the people who make the greatest parade of their feelings are the
+      people who really have the most to speak of.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Why, that&rsquo;s true, too, of some people,&rsquo; returned Protheroe; &lsquo;but there
+      are all sorts in the world, dear. Some say a lot and feel a lot Some feel
+      a lot and say nothing. Some say nothing and feel nothing. It may be a
+      fault with me&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;but when I start to say a thing I
+      want to say all of it. But surely a feeling isn&rsquo;t less real because you
+      don&rsquo;t seem able to express it whatever words you choose.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Where the feeling&rsquo;s sacred the words are sacred,&rsquo; Bertha objected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Tell me what it is you fear about me,&rsquo; he besought her, leaning across
+      the table, and searching her face with his eyes. &lsquo;You don&rsquo;t believe I
+      should have a wandering mind if you said yes, and we should once be
+      married?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had laid the book upon the table, and now betook herself to fingering
+      the leaves again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve no right to pick faults in you, or give you lessons, Mr. Protheroe.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Oh yes, you have,&rsquo; he answered. &lsquo;All the right in the world. If you&rsquo;ll
+      take in hand to show me my faults, I&rsquo;ll take in hand to cure &lsquo;em so far as
+      a man may.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;re fickle,&rsquo; said the girl hesitatingly; &lsquo;but I do think
+      you&rsquo;re shallow, Mr. Protheroe.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Not a bit of it, dear,&rsquo; he protested. &lsquo;I&rsquo;m as deep as Gamck. As for your
+      still waters running deep, it&rsquo;d be a better proverb to my mind to say deep
+      waters run still&mdash;at times. Niagara&rsquo;s deepish, folks say that have
+      seen it. That&rsquo;s not to say that I even myself with Niagara, you&rsquo;ll
+      understand, though &lsquo;tis in my nature to splash about a good deal. But all
+      that apart, Bertha dear, try to make up your mind to take me as I am, and
+      help me to make a man o&rsquo; myself.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point back came the farmer&rsquo;s wife with a clatter of pails in the
+      back kitchen to indicate her arrival in advance. Lane took his leave with
+      a reluctant air, going away much more gravely than he had arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; said Mrs. Fellowes, drawing her knitting from a capacious pocket
+      and falling to work upon it at once, &lsquo;hast sent Number Two about his
+      business?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bertha cast an embarrassed look at her and blushed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Mother,&rsquo; she said, &lsquo;you seem to find out everything.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Can find my way to the parish church by daylight,&rsquo; the elder woman
+      answered with complacency. &lsquo;But you tek care, my wench, whilst thee beest
+      throwin&rsquo; all the straight sticks aside, as thee doesn&rsquo;t pick up a crooked
+      &lsquo;un at the last. Thee hast a fancy for the lad, too, that&rsquo;s as plain to be
+      seen as the Beacon.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Oh!&rsquo; cried Bertha, reddening again. &lsquo;I hope not.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;For me, my gell,&rsquo; said her mother. &lsquo;For me. And it&rsquo;s outside my thinkin&rsquo; 
+      why a maid shouldn&rsquo;t tek a fancy to him. A lad as is stiddy an&rsquo; handsome,
+      and as blithe as sunshine! He&rsquo;s as fond as a calf into the bargain.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She liked to hear him praised, and, woman-like, began to depreciate him
+      faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;s very solid, mother,&rsquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elder woman smiled at the transparent artifice, and refused to be
+      entrapped by it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No,&rsquo; she answered. &lsquo;Lane&rsquo;s a bit of a butterfly, I will say. And Jack
+      Thistlewood&rsquo;s a bulldog. Mek your ch&rsquo;ice betwixt &lsquo;em while they&rsquo;m there to
+      be chose from. Which is it to be? Butterfly or bulldog?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bertha answered nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Things may have changed of late years, but in those days the parish
+      churchyard was the great meeting-place for lovers who as yet were
+      undeclared or unaccepted. The youth and the maid were both there for a
+      purpose altogether removed from love-making&mdash;the meeting had the
+      advantage of being accidental and certain. It was a tacit assignation
+      which was almost certain to be kept, and even the shyest of sweethearts
+      would dare to walk homewards together a little of the way even in the
+      lightest of summer evenings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Sunday morning came, and the one musical bell began to tinkle, Bertha
+      stood before her open bedroom window, tying her bonnet-ribbons at the
+      glass, in the embarrassing certainty that both her lovers would be waiting
+      outside the church to meet her. This certainty was the less to be endured,
+      because Bertha had the sincerest desire to close with heavenly rather than
+      with earthly meditations on a Sunday, but she could no more help being
+      flustered by the thought of Lane Protheroe, and being chilled by the
+      anticipation of Thistlewood&rsquo;s look of bulldog fidelity, than she could
+      help breathing. The girl&rsquo;s trouble was that she could not give her heart
+      to the man who commanded her respect, whilst it was drawn fluttering with
+      all manner of electric palpitations towards another whom she thought
+      infinitely less worthy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was nothing in the world against Lane Protheroe in any serious
+      sense. Nobody spoke or thought ill of him, or had ground for ill speaking
+      or thinking. But it was generally conceded that he <i>was</i> a butterfly
+      kind of young fellow, and there was a general opinion that he wanted
+      ballast. Rural human nature is full of candour of a sort, and Lane was
+      accustomed to criticism. He took it with a bright carelessness, and in
+      respect to the charge of wanting ballast was apt to answer that ballast
+      was a necessary thing for boats that carried no cargo. Thistlewood was
+      generally admitted to be a well-ballasted personage&mdash;a man steady,
+      resolved, serious, entirely trustworthy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;John Thistlewood&rsquo;s word is as good as his bond,&rsquo; said one of his admirers
+      one day in his presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;John Thistlewood&rsquo;s word <i>is</i> his bond,&rsquo; said John Thistlewood, &lsquo;as
+      any man&rsquo;s ought to be.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      People remembered the saying, and quoted it as being characteristic of the
+      man,&mdash;a man cut roughly out of the very granite of fidelity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surely, thought Bertha, a girl ought to esteem herself happy in being
+      singled out by such a man. The cold surface covered so steady, so lasting
+      a glow. And as for Lane&mdash;well, Lane&rsquo;s heats seemed the merest
+      flashes, intense enough to heat what was near them, but by no means
+      enduring. There was danger that anything which was of a nature to keep on
+      burning might catch fire at him, and when well lit might find that the
+      creating heat had gone out, or had withdrawn itself. She knew herself, by
+      instinct, faithful to the core, and if once she consented to love the man,
+      she would have to go on doing it. That looked likely to be terrible, and
+      she fought against herself continually. And she not only tried not to love
+      the butterfly, but had tried her loyal hardest to love the bulldog. The
+      last chance of success in the second enterprise went out finally when
+      Thistlewood had once so far conquered his clumsy reticence of manner as
+      actually to put his arm about her waist. Then every fibre of her body
+      cried out against him, and she escaped him, shivering and thrilling with a
+      repulsion so strong that it seemed like a crime to her. How dared she feel
+      the touch of so estimable a man to be so hateful? But from that moment the
+      thing was settled beyond a doubt. She could respect John Thistlewood, she
+      could admire the solidity and faithfulness of his character&mdash;but,
+      marry him? That was asking for more than nature could agree to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Lane had only resembled John a little&mdash;ah! there was a glow of
+      certainty called up by that fancy which might have been altogether
+      delicious had the fancy been well grounded. If John had only been a little
+      more like Lane? She was hardly so sure. Obviously, John was not the man
+      for this girl to warm her heart at.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The worst of it was that he would never find or look for another girl, and
+      his long courtship, though it could never endear him, or even make him
+      tolerable as a lover, served at least to have established a sort of claim
+      upon her. The great faithful heart might break if she should throw herself
+      away. The depth of his affection, as she realised it for herself, could
+      only be understood by one capable of an equal passion. She never guessed,
+      or came near to guessing, that her conception of him was the realisation
+      of herself; but it is only great hearts which truly know what great hearts
+      can be, and her profound conception of Thistle-wood&rsquo;s fidelity was her own
+      best certificate to faithfulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little musical bell went on tinkling as she walked across the fields.
+      It had various rates of movement to indicate to distant worshippers the
+      progress of the time, and she gave a careful ear to its warnings, so
+      regulating her steps as only to enter the churchyard at the last minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There sure enough were both John and Lane waiting to pay their morning
+      salutation. Happily, to her own mind, there was time for no more than a
+      mere hand-shaking and a good-morning, and she walked into the church,
+      beautifully tranquil to look at, though she could hardly believe that all
+      the congregation could not guess with what a startled feeling her heart
+      had begun to beat. By and by the influences of the place and the service
+      began to soothe her, though she only succeeded in excluding her lovers by
+      a conscious process of forgetfulness which was not so far removed from
+      memory as it might have been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Thistlewood pew was a little to the front on her right, and the
+      Protheroe pew a little to her front on the left, but she kept her eyes so
+      studiously downcast that she got no glimpse of either, until a strange and
+      altogether remarkable feeling of something missing surprised her into
+      looking up. Her eyes went first to the Protheroe pew, and Lane was not
+      there. Then in spite of herself she listened for Thistlewood&rsquo;s voice in
+      the Responses, and not detecting it, was impelled to look for him. He also
+      was absent, and she began to quake a little. Was it possible they had
+      stayed outside to quarrel? This fear would have been sufficiently serious
+      at any time, but on a Sunday, during church hours, it magnified itself,
+      which fact is in itself enough to prove that though the idea perturbed her
+      she foresaw no very terrible consequences. It would be hateful to be
+      quarrelled over, but both the combatants&mdash;if combatants they were to
+      be&mdash;would respect her too much to proceed to extremities, and thereby
+      make the quarrel public, and her a target for all tongues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John and Lane had met in the churchyard pretty early, and whilst there
+      were friends to greet, and to pass the time of day with, things went
+      smoothly enough. But as the churchgoers filed by ones and twos into the
+      building, each began to be aware of a solitude which was peopled only by
+      the disagreeable presence of the other. John, ostentatiously disregardful
+      of his adversary, planted himself at the gate, so as to be before him in
+      his greeting. Lane, rather unusually erect and martial in his walk,
+      marched past him into the village roadway, and there loitered for the same
+      intent. Thistlewood, recognising the meaning of this manouvre, strolled
+      into the roadway, and doggedly planted himself a yard or two beyond the
+      spot where his rival had halted. Lane, with an air to the full as
+      ostentatiously and offensively dis-regardful as the other&rsquo;s, marched past
+      Thistlewood with half a dozen soldierly-looking strides, and bringing
+      himself to an abrupt halt made a disdainful back at him. Again Thistlewood
+      advanced, but this time he drew himself up a trifle behind his rival, and
+      laid a finger on his shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well?&rsquo; said Protheroe, without turning his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I shall want a word with thee by and by, my lad,&rsquo; Thistlewood said
+      quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Have it now,&rsquo; replied Lane, settling his shoulders jauntily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There&rsquo;s time in plenty afore us,&rsquo; Thistlewood answered, regarding him
+      with supreme disfavour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The younger man looked straight before him with an exasperating aspect of
+      indifference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;When you like,&rsquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Very well,&rsquo; replied Thistlewood. &lsquo;In five minutes&rsquo; time from now.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Church time,&rsquo; said Lane smilingly, surveying the landscape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Beest that keen set on the sermon?&rsquo; John inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t know that I am,&rsquo; replied the enemy, rising a little on his toes,
+      and then settling his shoulders anew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Five minutes&rsquo; time from now.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The jaunty airs and scornful disregard began to warm Thistlewood&rsquo;s blood a
+      little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Canst look a man i&rsquo; the face when thee talk&rsquo;st to him? &lsquo;he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Yes, bless your heart and soul alive!&rsquo; cried Lane, swaggering round and
+      beaming on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For half a minute they looked at each other, the one angry, resolute, and
+      lowering, with head bent a little forward, his glance directed upward past
+      his down-drawn brows, the other smiling with seeming sweetness and gaiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thistlewood seemed to restrain himself with something of an effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;We&rsquo;ll talk together by and by,&rsquo; he said, and turning, deliberately walked
+      back into the churchyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a few seconds Lane stood glorying, but on a sudden it occurred to him
+      that his rival was behaving in a more dignified manner than himself, and
+      this was a reflection not to be endured without instant action. So he
+      marched back into the churchyard also, and left John in the foreground.
+      When Bertha appeared her elder lover paid his respects first, and Lane
+      came up afterwards, looking, as she remembered later on, prodigiously
+      gloomy and resolved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bell had been silent for a minute, and the curate&rsquo;s voice had begun to
+      drone within the building. The rivals were alone, and nobody was within
+      sight or earshot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Shall we walk a pace or two, Mr. Protheroe?&rsquo; asked John.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Protheroe, without speaking, sauntered out at the gate, vaulted a
+      stile opposite, and paused in a field pathway. Thistlewood followed,
+      throwing first one leg and then the other over the rail with a sort of
+      laboured deliberation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Now,&rsquo; said Lane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;We&rsquo;ll walk on a little bit,&rsquo; answered Thistlewood, and there was silence
+      for a minute or two as they strode along the grass. Then when they had
+      reached the shelter of a little copse which hid them from the whole
+      landscape on the church side, John said, &lsquo;Now,&rsquo; in turn, and the two
+      halted. Each was paler than common by this time, and Lane&rsquo;s eyes sparkled,
+      whilst the other&rsquo;s burned steady with resentment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;&rsquo;Twixt man and man as is willing to come to understand one another, Mr.
+      Protheroe,&rsquo; said Thistlewood, &lsquo;a very few words suffices. I&rsquo;ll have thee
+      nor no man else poaching on my manor.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; Lane answered, &lsquo;if ever I should arrive at owning a manor, I&rsquo;d say
+      the same. But I&rsquo;d be sure of my title-deeds afore I took to warning other
+      men off the ground.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s talk plain English,&rsquo; said John, apparently quite untouched by this
+      rejoinder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;With all my heart,&rsquo; said his rival, &lsquo;the plainer the better.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I find you very much i&rsquo; my way,&rsquo; Thistlewood began ponderously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t find you a little bit in mine,&rsquo; Lane answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You talk to sting,&rsquo; said Thistlewood, with dull dignity. &lsquo;I want to talk
+      so as to be understood. I find you very much i&rsquo; my way, as I was saying,
+      and I won&rsquo;t have you theer.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;No!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;And how do you mean to set about getting rid of me?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve set about harder jobs than that i&rsquo; <i>my</i> time, lad.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Like enough. But how do you mean to set about this one?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;All in good time,&rsquo; said Thistlewood. &lsquo;Sha&rsquo;st find out speedily.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Show me now,&rsquo; said Lane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A breach of the peace seemed imminent, but, &lsquo;Afore thee and me comes to
+      that,&rsquo; the elder answered, &lsquo;I want thee to have fair warnin&rsquo;. It&rsquo;s
+      unbecomin&rsquo; in a man to brawl over the maid he wants to marry&mdash;&mdash;
+      I&rsquo;m a man as never changed nor halted nor turned aside from anything he
+      set his mind upon. I&rsquo;ve been courtin&rsquo; Miss Fellowes now this three year.
+      It stands to reason as a frivolish young chap like you can mek no count of
+      how a man feels, or of what a man &lsquo;ud do in a like case.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That stands to reason, does it?&rsquo; &lsquo;It stands to reason,&rsquo; answered
+      Thistlewood. &lsquo;I suppose it stands to reason likewise that I am to stand to
+      one side, and leave the road clear after this?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It&rsquo;d be the wisest thing you ever did.&rsquo; &lsquo;Well, now, Thistlewood, you&rsquo;ll
+      please understand that, for all so frivolous as I may be, I&rsquo;m hardly that
+      easy to be swayed. As for who has a right on the ground, it&rsquo;s a mere piece
+      of impudence to talk about it. That&rsquo;s neither for me nor you to choose. If
+      ever I get straight &ldquo;No&rdquo; I&rsquo;ll go, but I&rsquo;ll have it before I go, for that&rsquo;s
+      a man&rsquo;s bounden duty to himself.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Understand thyself as bein&rsquo; warned away,&rsquo; said Thistlewood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Understand thy warning as being laughed at,&rsquo; answered Lane. &lsquo;You talk
+      plain English? So will I. You&rsquo;ve got the wrong pig by the ear. You&rsquo;re no
+      better than a dog in the manger. You&rsquo;ve always been spoken of up till now
+      as a man to play fair, but now it strikes me you play very far from fair,
+      and cut a poor figure. As for threats&mdash;a man who won&rsquo;t take a hiding
+      when it&rsquo;s offered to him&mdash;what&rsquo;s <i>he</i> good for, I should like to
+      know?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, as elsewhere, Mr. Protheroe was true to nature, and spoke with
+      striking emphasis. He was quite red-hot with scorn at the imaginary fellow
+      who would not take the proffered hiding, though a minute earlier, when he
+      had told Thistlewood that he had the wrong pig by the ear, his manner had
+      been marked by a cold and lofty superiority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Beest warned! &lsquo;said Thistlewood, &lsquo;that&rsquo;s enough.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Not half enough, nor yet a quarter,&rsquo; cried Lane, with a bellicose air,
+      not unmixed with swagger. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve taught my hands to take care of my head,
+      sir, and they&rsquo;ll be ready to do it whenever the time occurs. But it always
+      seemed a bit ridiculous to me to talk about fighting beforehand When the
+      fight&rsquo;s over there <i>is</i> something to talk about.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You seem to be in a hurry for that there hiding,&rsquo; said Thistlewood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Hurry&rsquo;s no word for it,&rsquo; the younger man responded, with cheerful
+      alacrity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Very well,&rsquo; said the elder, taking off his hat and bestowing it carefully
+      upon the grass, &lsquo;sha&rsquo;st have it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lane, for his part, threw down his hat, flourished his coat off, dropped
+      it behind him, rolled up his sleeves, and waited whilst Thistlewood made
+      his preparations more slowly. Protheroe set that mellow whistle of his to
+      work on &lsquo;The British Grenadiers,&rsquo; and his enemy smiled grimly to think how
+      soon he would silence the music.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half a minute later they were standing foot to foot and eye to eye, the
+      music already silenced. It would have been difficult from the mere aspect
+      of the men to say on which side the advantage lay. In height and reach
+      they were nearly equal, and, if Thistlewood&rsquo;s weight and muscle were in
+      his favour, Protheroe was as active as a cat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here might have been recorded a bit of history to warm the blood of
+      such as love and remember the old-fashioned manhood of England. We are
+      grown too refined and civilised nowadays for the old rude arbitrament, and
+      so fair play has ceased to be the Englishman&rsquo;s motto in fighting, and the
+      English rustic shoots and stabs like the rustic of other lands. All
+      fighting is foolish, more or less, but we had the manliest, friendliest,
+      most honourable, and least harmful way of doing it amongst all the sons of
+      men, and so our Legislature killed out the &lsquo;noble art&rsquo; from amongst us,
+      and brought us to the general ugly level.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in the reign of the Tipton Slasher&mdash;which, as people learned
+      in the history of manners will remember, was a longish time ago&mdash;when
+      these two Britons stood up to arrange their differences after the fashion
+      then in vogue. There was nobody to see fair play, and so they saw it for
+      themselves, as all fighting Englishmen did when there was a code of honour
+      to go by. It was not a mere affair of hammer and tongs, but very fair
+      scientific fighting, the science vivified by enjoyment, and full of
+      energy, but never forgotten for a second. The pleasure was keen on both
+      sides, for from the beginning of their knowledge of each other these two
+      had been in antagonism, and at the last it was a real treat to let all go
+      and have at it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I was always a bit frivolous, as you said just now, Mr. Thistlewood,&rsquo; 
+      Lane remarked in the first enforced pause of the combat, &lsquo;but I&rsquo;d like you
+      to bear me witness that I stick to what I&rsquo;m at while I&rsquo;m at it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This address was delivered pantingly, whilst the speaker lay flat upon his
+      back on the grass, with his arms thrown out crosswise. Thistlewood
+      disdained response, and sat with one great shoulder propped against a
+      dwarf oak, breathing fast and hard. When this sign of distress had a
+      little abated, he arose, and said &lsquo;Time&rsquo; as if he had been a mere
+      cornerman in the affair, and rather bored by it than otherwise. Lane
+      rolled over on to his face, rose to his hands and knees, smiled at his
+      adversary for a little while, as if to give him an appetite for the
+      business in hand, and then got to his feet and made ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now for a man to hold his own at this particular form of fighting against
+      an equal adversary for a bare five minutes argues five grand things for
+      him, and these are chastity, temperance, hardihood, strength, and courage.
+      It speaks well for these admirable qualities in both of them that Messrs.
+      Thistlewood and Protheroe made a good hour of it. The advantages and
+      disadvantages had been so equally distributed that by this time they were
+      pretty nearly harmless to each other, but each was sustained by the hope
+      of victory, and each would have died, and, for the matter of that, would
+      have gone on dying, rather than yield the precious palm to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the clergyman who ministered to the spiritual wants of Beacon Hargate
+      was never disposed to gorge his flock with too much doctrine at a time,
+      and on this Sabbath had an invitation to luncheon at a great house some
+      four or five miles away, and so treated his parishioners&mdash;to the
+      scandal of some and the joy of others&mdash;to the shortest discourse they
+      had ever heard from the pulpit. By this mischance it happened that the
+      combatants were discovered by a silent male advance-guard of the
+      home-returning congregation, who ran back&mdash;his footsteps soundless on
+      the grass&mdash;to spread the splendid news. Sunday or week-day there was
+      no more welcome break in the monotony of life in Beacon Hargate than that
+      afforded by a fight. The time being church-time, and the combatants men of
+      respectable position, lent piquancy to the event, of course, as who shall
+      say me nay? The churchgoers, two or three farmers, Mr. Drake, the manager
+      of Lord Barfield&rsquo;s estates at Heydon Hey, and a handful of labourers came
+      up, at first stealthily, and then more boldly, and looked on at the
+      finish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was plain that the fight had been severe, but it was equally plain that
+      the best of it was over; and when Farmer Fellowes interposed as <i>amicus
+      curio</i>, nobody but the two most concerned had any especial resentment
+      against him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even for them Farmer Fellowes had a crumb of comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Finish it another time, lads,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;Where&rsquo;s the good o&rsquo; goin&rsquo; on wi&rsquo; 
+      it i&rsquo; this manner? Why a child might homber the pair on you. Get fresh an&rsquo; 
+      have another turn to-morrow, if the &lsquo;casion&rsquo;s worth it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So the fight was left undecided after all, and the adversaries were led
+      off to the neighbouring brook, where they made themselves as respectable
+      to look at as they could before they took their several ways. They were
+      unsightly for a week or two, and were close watched by their women folk
+      lest they should renew the strife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beacon Hargate knew perfectly well the reason of the battle, and Bertha
+      was mightily disdainful and indignant over both her lovers, who, to her
+      fancy, had disgraced themselves and her. Six days after the fight John
+      Thistlewood&rsquo;s business for once in a way, as well as his inclination, took
+      him to Fellowes&rsquo;s farm, and there Bertha (who for very shame had not
+      quitted the house since Sunday) first saw the result of the fray. The
+      stalwart farmer&rsquo;s face was discoloured, and, in places, still swollen. She
+      saw the wicked handiwork of Lane Protheroe, and vowed within herself that
+      she would see that dreadful young man no more. She could have cried for
+      pity of poor Mr. Thistlewood, who had been thus shamefully treated for the
+      crime of being faithful in love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If John had known it, he had at this instant the best chance of being
+      taken as Bertha&rsquo;s husband he had ever had, or was like to find. But he was
+      shamefaced about the matter, as heroes not uncommonly are with regard to
+      their achievements, and was disposed to think himself at an even unusual
+      disadvantage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bertha stifled in her heart whatever tender sentiments Protheroe had
+      inspired, and was prepared to pass him whenever she might meet him with
+      such a manner as should indicate her new opinion of him beyond chance of
+      mistake. Thistlewood had appeared on the Saturday, and on the Monday the
+      fates threw her younger lover in her way. She discerned him from a
+      distance, herself unseen. His figure dipped down into the hollow, and she
+      could not see him again until they met at some turning or other of the
+      tortuous lane. If pride had not forbidden it she could have turned to fly
+      homewards, but she hardened her heart and went on until his footsteps
+      sounded clearly on the stony road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he turned the corner, and she lifted one glance of superb disdain
+      which melted suddenly under a terror-stricken pity. For this hero was
+      worse battered than Number One had been, and one of those eyes, which had
+      used to be so expressive and eloquent, was decorated by a shade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Oh, Lane!&rsquo; cried the girl, clasping her hands, and turning white with
+      pity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Did I frighten you, my dear?&rsquo; said Lane. &lsquo;It&rsquo;s nothing. It&rsquo;ll all be
+      right in a day or two.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I hope so,&rsquo; she answered, recovering herself, and seizing on principle
+      before it made away for ever. &lsquo;I wish you to know that I think you have
+      behaved very disgracefully, and I hope you will never speak to me again.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Why,&rsquo; said Lane, &lsquo;that&rsquo;s hard measure, Bertha; and as for behaving
+      disgracefully&mdash;if a man threatens to punch your head you must give
+      him the chance to punch it. That&rsquo;s man&rsquo;s law, anyhow, whether it&rsquo;s woman&rsquo;s
+      or not.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I am sure Mr. Thistlewood is no quarreller,&rsquo; said Bertha, with great
+      dignity and severity of demeanour. &lsquo;It takes no great penetration to guess
+      who began it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There&rsquo;s one thing I will say for him,&rsquo; returned Lane; &lsquo;he&rsquo;s a
+      truth-telling fellow, to the best of my belief. Ask him who began it.
+      He&rsquo;ll tell you. Not that I should take any particular blame or shame for
+      having begun it myself, but since that&rsquo;s how you look at it, dear&mdash;why,
+      I should like you to be satisfied.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Do you think, Mr. Protheroe,&rsquo; demanded Bertha, &lsquo;that it&rsquo;s the way to win
+      a girl&rsquo;s esteem to brawl about her in public on a Sunday?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That&rsquo;s what Thistlewood said,&rsquo; Lane answered, with cunning simplicity.
+      &lsquo;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s unbecoming,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;in a man to brawl over the maid he wants to
+      marry.&rdquo;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I was certain he would say so, and think so,&rsquo; returned Bertha, with a
+      sinking of the heart. She wanted grounds for pardoning Lane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; said Lane, with a retrospective air, &lsquo;we talked for a while, and
+      he was good enough to promise me a hiding if I didn&rsquo;t keep out of his way&mdash;meaning,
+      of course, at your father&rsquo;s house. I didn&rsquo;t seem to take it quite so
+      meekly as he thought I ought to, and by and by says he, &ldquo;You seem to be in
+      a hurry for that hiding.&rdquo; So I just made answer that hurry was no word for
+      it, and then, the pair of us being keen set, we got to it. The day was an
+      accident, and I daresay a piece of forgetfulness on both our sides. But
+      you see, my dear, a man&rsquo;s just as bound to guard his self-respect on a
+      Sunday as on a week-day.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I have been very deeply wounded,&rsquo; said Bertha. &lsquo;I wished to respect you
+      both, and now I can respect neither of you. Good-morning, Mr. Protheroe.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Protheroe stood discomfited, and looked mournfully after her as she
+      walked away. When she had disappeared round the bend of the road he sat
+      down upon the bank and plucked grasses with mechanical fingers, turning
+      the thing up and down in his mind for an hour or thereabouts. Suddenly he
+      jumped to his feet and resumed his walk, smiling with head erect, and that
+      mellow whistle of his rose on the air with jollity in every note of it,
+      for it had broken upon his mind like sunshine to remember her first
+      exclamation on seeing him. He was a young man who was in the habit of
+      making sure of things, and he had never in his life been surer of anything
+      than he felt about this. The name, the tone, the look, meant more than a
+      common interest in him. She had called him &lsquo;Lane&rsquo; for the first time in
+      his life. She had clasped her hands, and turned pale at the sight of him.
+      All this meant victory for his dearest hopes, and so he leapt to his feet,
+      and marched off whistling like the throstle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Bertha pursued her way along the tortuous bridlepath with thoughts which
+      resembled the way she travelled. Like the road, her fancy seemed to turn
+      back upon itself pretty often and yet in the main it held in the same
+      direction. Of course, fighting was a brutal business to a girl&rsquo;s way of
+      thinking, but then, when she came really to think of it; men were strange
+      creatures altogether, half terribly glorious and half contemptible. Lane
+      had endured all these injuries simply and merely because he loved her! She
+      could have no conception of the possibilities of masculine joy in a fight
+      for its own sake, or of the masculine sense of honour which compelled the
+      meeting of a challenge half-way. Of course it was mightily unpleasant to
+      be talked about, as the heroine of such a business. The village tongues
+      had been busy, and would never altogether stop wagging for the remainder
+      of her lifetime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The influence of long years of respect for Thistle-wood seemed to turn her
+      mental steps backward now and then. That so quiet and retired a man, and
+      so little given to proclaiming himself should have made the most sacred
+      wishes of his heart a matter of common gossip was understandable only on
+      one hypothesis. His love and his despair carried him out of himself. That,
+      of course, was a daring thing for any girl to think, but then Bertha was
+      bound to find reasons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mainly, her mind was occupied in the reconstruction of her previous belief
+      about Lane Protheroe. He also, it would seem, had manly qualities in him&mdash;could
+      stand up to be beaten in the cause of the woman he loved. The blows hurt
+      her so, in the mere fancy of them, that she more than once put up her
+      hands to her face to guard it. By the time she had accomplished her
+      errand, and was on the way back to her father&rsquo;s farmhouse, she was all
+      tenderness and forgiveness and admiration for the newly-revealed Lane, but
+      then, as the fates would have it, just as she began to think of her
+      cruelty to him, and of the terribly low spirits into which she must have
+      thrown him, the familiar jocund whistle broke upon her ears, and when she
+      stood still in a dreary amaze at this, she could hear the steps of the
+      lover, who ought to have been altogether love-lorn, marching along in
+      something very like a dance in time to his own music. What was one to
+      think of such a man? She was back in a moment to her old opinion of him.
+      No rooted feeling in him&mdash;no solidity&mdash;nothing to be sure of!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She made haste home, and there shut herself in her own room and cried. Her
+      mother walked upstairs, and finding the girl thus mournfully engaged, sat
+      down tranquilly beside her and produced her knitting. The click of the
+      needles had an effect of commonplace which helped to restore Bertha to her
+      self-possession, and in a little time her tears ceased, and moving to the
+      window she stood there looking out upon the landscape. The monotonous
+      click of the needles ceased, and she knew that her mother had laid down
+      her work in her lap and was regarding her. She turned, with a ghost of a
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You&rsquo;re thinkin&rsquo;, no doubt, as you&rsquo;re full o&rsquo; trouble, my wench,&rsquo; began
+      the mother, &lsquo;and it&rsquo;s no manner o&rsquo; use in talkin&rsquo; to young folks to try
+      an&rsquo; mek out as a thing as pains don&rsquo;t hurt. But if you can only bring &lsquo;em
+      t&rsquo; understand as it won&rsquo;t hurt much by and by, you&rsquo;ve done summat for &lsquo;em,
+      may be. What&rsquo;s the trouble, wench? Come an&rsquo; tell thy mother.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It&rsquo;s all over now, mother,&rsquo; said Bertha
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Not it,&rsquo; returned Mrs. Fellowes, &lsquo;nor won&rsquo;t be yet a while. Beesn&rsquo;t one
+      as cries for nothing, like most gells. I was niver o&rsquo; that kind myself.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bertha would not, perhaps could not, make a confidante even of her mother
+      in this matter, but Mrs. Fellowes had a remarkable faculty for striking
+      human averages, and she got near the truth in her guesses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;There&rsquo;s one thing fixed and sure, my dear,&rsquo; she said, &lsquo;and that is as
+      follows: ayther you must find a mind to wed one of &lsquo;em, or you must pluck
+      up a spirit and tell &lsquo;em you&rsquo;ll wed nayther.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I have told Mr. Thistlewood that I can never marry him,&rsquo; said Bertha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;And what about Lane?&rsquo; her mother asked her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I can never marry him either,&rsquo; the girl answered steadily. She had her
+      voice under perfect control, but her averted face and the very lines of
+      her figure enlightened the shrewd old mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Hast told him so?&rsquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I have told him,&rsquo; Bertha answered, &lsquo;never to speak to me again.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Hoity, toity, deary me!&rsquo; cried the old woman. &lsquo;And what says he to that?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;He didn&rsquo;t greatly seem to care,&rsquo; said Bertha, with a beautifully assumed
+      air of indifference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Maybe he didn&rsquo;t set such store by what you told him as to tek it in
+      earnest?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Oh,&rsquo; said the girl, languidly and indifferently, &lsquo;he knew I meant it.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;And didn&rsquo;t seem to care? My dear, you&rsquo;re talkin&rsquo; of Lane Protheroe!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;He cared for a minute, perhaps,&rsquo; Bertha said, her assumed indifference
+      and languor tinctured with bitterness by this time. &lsquo;He cared for a
+      minute, perhaps; just as he does about everything. I heard him whistling
+      an hour afterwards.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The disguise was excellent, and might have deceived a woman who had known
+      her less intimately and watched her less closely, but it was transparent
+      to the mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;That&rsquo;s the trouble, is it?&rsquo; said Mrs. Fellowes, gravely betaking herself
+      once more to her knitting. Bertha had been crying already, and had hard
+      work to restrain herself. &lsquo;Look here, my darlin&rsquo;,&rsquo; the mother said, with
+      unwonted tenderness of tone and manner, &lsquo;if you can&rsquo;t read your own mind,
+      you must let a old experienced woman read it for you. The lad&rsquo;s as the
+      Lord made him. What we see in any o&rsquo; the men to mek a fuss about, the Lord
+      in His mercy only knows; but, to my mind, Lane&rsquo;s &lsquo;the pick o&rsquo; ten
+      thousand. He&rsquo;s alive, and that&rsquo;s more than <i>can</i> be said of many on
+      &lsquo;em. He&rsquo;s a clever lad, he&rsquo;s well to look at, and he&rsquo;s well-to-do.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Mother,&rsquo; cried the girl, almost passionately, her own pain wrung her so,
+      &lsquo;he has no heart. He cares for a thing one minute, and doesn&rsquo;t care for it
+      the next. He pretends&mdash;no, he doesn&rsquo;t pretend&mdash;but he thinks he
+      cares, and while he thinks it I suppose he does care. But out of sight is
+      out of mind with him.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Makest most o&rsquo; thine own troubles, like the rest on us,&rsquo; said Mrs.
+      Fellowes philosophically. But, in a moment, philosophy made way for
+      motherly kindness, and, rising from her seat, she bestowed her knitting in
+      a roomy pocket and put her arms about her daughter&rsquo;s waist. &lsquo;Art fond of
+      the lad all the same,&rsquo; she said. &lsquo;Ah, my dear, there&rsquo;s nothin&rsquo; likely to
+      be sorer than the natur as picks flies in the things it&rsquo;s fond on. There&rsquo;s
+      a deal o&rsquo; laughin&rsquo; at them as thinks all their geese is swans, but they&rsquo;re
+      better off in the long run than them as teks all their swans to be geese.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bertha said nothing, but she trembled a little under the caress, and her
+      mother, observing this, released her, went back to her chair, and once
+      more drew forth her knitting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I reckon,&rsquo; she said, after a pause, &lsquo;as John Thistlewood&rsquo;s had the
+      spoiling of thee. Thee&rsquo;st got to think so much o&rsquo; them bulldog ways of
+      his&rsquo;n, that nothin&rsquo; less &lsquo;ll be of use to any man as comes a-courtin&rsquo;.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t talk about it any more, mother,&rsquo; said Bertha, with an air of weary
+      want of interest. &lsquo;I have said good-bye to both of them.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And there the interview ended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It became evident that Bertha was likely to have a troublesome time before
+      her. First of all came John Thistlewood, dogged and resolute as ever,
+      propping himself against the chimney-piece, flogging his gaitered legs
+      with the switch he carried, and demanding Ay or No before his time. Bertha
+      determined to treat him with some spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You don&rsquo;t need me to tell you that I respect you very highly, Mr.
+      Thistlewood. But you oughtn&rsquo;t to need me to answer your question any more.
+      I shall be obliged if you will be so good as not to ask it again.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I shall ask it,&rsquo; said the dogged John, &lsquo;till it comes to be answered one
+      way or another.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It has been answered almost often enough to my way of thinking,&rsquo; said
+      Bertha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had never been tart with Thistlewood until that moment, but he
+      manifested no surprise or emotion of any kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;It never has been answered, an&rsquo; never will be till I see thee married,
+      whether to me or another. When that day come to pass you&rsquo;ve heard the last
+      of my question.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the dogged John; and he being disposed of for a while, came Lane. To
+      him the persecuted maid was a little less severe than she had been, but
+      she was inexorable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;If you like to come here as a friend, Mr. Protheroe, in a few months&rsquo; 
+      time, I daresay we shall all be very glad to see you.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Well,&rsquo; said Lane, with fine irrelevance, &lsquo;as an enemy this is a house I
+      shall never make a call at. But look at the matter for a minute, my
+      darling&mdash;&mdash;&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;You must not talk to me like that, Mr. Protheroe,&rsquo; Bertha said, with
+      great coldness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Like what, my dear?&rsquo; asked the ingenious Lane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Like that, Mr. Protheroe,&rsquo; replied Bertha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I think it so often, that I&rsquo;m afraid I&rsquo;m bound to say it sometimes; but,
+      if it offends, I hope you&rsquo;ll forgive me. You know you <i>are</i> my
+      darling, don&rsquo;t you? You know there isn&rsquo;t a queen in the world I&rsquo;d even
+      with you if every hair of her head was hung with Koh-i-noors. &ldquo;Out of the
+      fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh,&rdquo; the Wise Man says. So, if I do
+      let slip &ldquo;my dear&rdquo; or &ldquo;my darling&rdquo; now and then, you&rsquo;ll know it&rsquo;s
+      accident, and you won&rsquo;t take offence at it&mdash;will you?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was agile but unsatisfactory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Please understand me, Mr. Protheroe,&rsquo; said Bertha, with rural dignity;
+      &lsquo;you must not come here again until you can come merely as a friend.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Bertha! You can&rsquo;t mean it! What have I done? What has changed you?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Mr Protheroe!&rsquo;&mdash;the rural dignity made an insulted goddess of her to
+      Lane&rsquo;s fancy&mdash;&lsquo;what right have you to say that I have changed?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Why, Bertha,&rsquo; he said, meekly and strickenly, &lsquo;wasn&rsquo;t I to come in six
+      months&rsquo; time and get an answer?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Will you oblige me by coming for your answer in six months&rsquo; time,&rsquo; 
+      answered Bertha. &lsquo;Good-afternoon, Mr. Protheroe.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bertha thought herself more cruel to herself than to him. She knew how
+      infinitely more cruel she was to Thistlewood, but that was not a thing to
+      be avoided. She and he alike must suffer&mdash;she in giving pain and he
+      in bearing it. Bertha&rsquo;s heart ached over Lane, and the bitterness of it
+      was to know that in a week or two the butterfly nature would have ceased
+      to care. He was hotly in love to-day, no doubt, but he would be out of
+      love to-morrow, may be, and in a month or two hotly in love again
+      elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the Sunday following these interviews dogged John was at church, and
+      the butterfly Protheroe also. Thistlewood looked as he always looked,
+      rudely healthy, and a masterpiece of masterfulness and sullen perseverance
+      and resolve. Lane was pallid and miserable, and Bertha remarking him was
+      compelled to fall back on the bitter consolation of her former thoughts.
+      He would take it heavily for a day or two, and would then forget all about
+      it. He cast a glance or two in Bertha&rsquo;s direction, and his eyes were full
+      of melancholy appeal. But for her certainty he would have moved her, for
+      she was predisposed to be moved, and she had hardly expected to have had
+      so much effect upon him. He walked dejectedly out of church at the close
+      of the service, and Thistlewood half by accident shouldered him. He took
+      it meekly, and made no sign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two or three days later came a piece of news of the sort Bertha had
+      expected. Mr. Protheroe was heard of as having made one of a picnic party
+      in the neighbourhood of Heydon Hey, and of this party he was said to have
+      been the life and soul. He was reported to have paid marked attentions to
+      Miss Badger, daughter of a wealthy cheesemonger in Castle Barfield High
+      Street. The young lady was rumoured to be possessed of great personal
+      attractions, and a pretty penny, present and prospective.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Foreseen as it was, the news stung a little when it came. Even the most
+      butterfly-like of lovers might have waited a little longer!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet next Sunday, when Bertha went to church, quite resolved not to
+      waste so much as a glance upon him, he looked paler and more dejected than
+      he had done a week ago. She looked in spite of herself&mdash;she must
+      needs look at him,&mdash;and it was evident that as yet the cheesemonger&rsquo;s
+      daughter had found no way to cheer him. Thistlewood never altered. Those
+      strong self-contained natures have a power upon themselves as they have on
+      other people. He could last for years in solid and complete devotion&mdash;he
+      could apparently wait for ever&mdash;and could yet hide from the eyes of
+      the outer world the steady fires which burned within him. That butterfly
+      nature of poor Lane&rsquo;s forced Thistlewood&rsquo;s virtues into prominence by
+      contrast, and the girl had them almost constantly in her thoughts. There
+      was nothing&mdash;she told herself remorsefully&mdash;that this typical
+      piece of solidity and devotion would not do for her. Her faith in his
+      attachment transcended bounds, and she felt it to be a thousand pities
+      that she could not love him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It does not happen in every life-history that this sort of profound
+      feeling finds an opportunity of proof, but in the story of the lives of
+      John Thistlewood and Lane Protheroe this thing came to pass in such wise
+      that he who ran might read the natures of the men, and know them once for
+      all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bulldog John had gone on doggedly courting, and butterfly Lane had taken
+      to seeing too much convivial company in Heydon Hey and Castle Barfield,
+      and there was a fear in Bertha&rsquo;s mind that if her influence had not been
+      permanent, it had at least started the young man on a track likely to
+      prove disastrous. These emotional people, quick to feel and quick to
+      forget, are hardly to be dealt with without danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lane&rsquo;s dissipations must have been graver than even rumour gave them
+      discredit for being. His midnight junketings had made a ghost of him, and
+      to see him at any moment when he thought himself unobserved was to wonder
+      how long such a mournful and broken young gentleman could possibly rouse
+      himself to fill the part of King even in a rustic Bohemia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Autumn was on the land. The corn-shocks were standing in the stubbled
+      fields, and the night air was full of gossamer, which twined itself about
+      the faces of all wayfarers. Rural work had gone on merrily all day, and
+      when the sun set silence fell, and darkness like a warm shroud. Lights
+      flickered a while in the village and the farmhouse, and then went out one
+      by one. The moon stole over the Beacon Hill, and looked mildly across the
+      valley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was not a breath of air stirring, and not a sound upon the night
+      except for the placid and continual gurgle of the stream which had no
+      voice at all by day. Yes. One other sound there was, a sound as of some
+      one moving uneasily in a creaking chair. Creak, creak, creak It grew
+      momently. Crackle, crackle, crackle. Still it grew. A tongue like the
+      tongue of a snake&mdash;so light and fine and swift was it&mdash;flashed
+      out of a crevice, and flew back again, flashed out again, and again
+      withdrew. Then the snake&rsquo;s body flashed out after it, and melted on the
+      moonlit air. Another, and another, and another. Then a low roaring noise,
+      and all the windows of the basement shone out ruby-coloured, and the moon
+      looked bleared by contrast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A distant voice from the village called out &lsquo;Fire!&rsquo; There was a crash of
+      opening windows, a tumult of clapping doors, a storm of barking dogs,
+      excited voices, hurrying feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old and young, male and female, robed anyhow, ran hard towards the
+      farmhouse, and poured in a thunderous stream across the echoing wooden
+      bridge which spanned the river. The farmhouse was a tower of flame,
+      fantastic turrets springing here and there. The dry timbers, centuries
+      old, made the best of food for fire, and the place flamed like a
+      tar-barrel. The screams of doomed horses came with hideous uproar from the
+      stables in the rear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmer and his wife, the men servants and the maid servants, were in
+      the garden, all pale with fear and helpless; but the mother tore the night
+      with calling on her daughter&rsquo;s name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bulldog John and his rival came last of all, though they ran like hounds,
+      and they crossed the bridge and dashed through the crowd together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Oh, John,&rsquo; cried the agonised mother, clutching at him as though he were
+      an ark of safety. &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll save her&mdash;won&rsquo;t you? God help her! You&rsquo;ll
+      save her&mdash;won&rsquo;t you, John?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One figure, black as night against the fierce glow of the flame, dashed
+      across the space between the crowd and the farmhouse. It was hardly seen,
+      and scarce believed in by those who thought they saw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;John,&rsquo; cried the wretched mother, &lsquo;you&rsquo;ll save her! You as loved her so!
+      You&rsquo;ll save her!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no manhood in the world that needs to be ashamed to hang back
+      from an enterprise so hopeless and so terrible. The woman shrieked and
+      prayed&mdash;the man stood motionless with white face and staring eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then came one wild cry from half a dozen throats at once, and next upleapt
+      a roar that struck the noise of the fire out of being for an instant. For
+      the figure, black against the fiery glow, was back again, by some such
+      stupendous chance, or heaven-wrought miracle, as only desperate valour
+      ever wins. A figure huddled in a blanket lay in his arms, and as he came
+      racing towards the crowd they fell together. They were lifted and borne
+      out of the circle of fierce heat and flying sparks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house was left to burn, and every thought was centred on the rescuer
+      and the rescued. The fresh air roused Bertha from her swoon, and at the
+      first opening of her eyes and the first words she spoke the mother went as
+      mad with joy as she had been with terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Alive!&mdash;alive! Safe!&mdash;safe! And oh, my God! my Christian
+      friends, it was the Butterfly as did it!&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was a full month later when Lane Protheroe asked his first
+      question,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Where&rsquo;s Bertha?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Hush! my dear, dear darlin&rsquo;,&rsquo; said Mrs. Fellowes, her eyes brimful of
+      tears. &lsquo;Lie quiet, there&rsquo;s a dear.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Where&rsquo;s Bertha?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Safe and well, love; safe and well.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo;m thirsty,&rsquo; said the Butterfly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was supplied with a cooling drink, and fell to sleep smiling, with
+      unchanged posture. In half a dozen hours he woke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Where&rsquo;s Bertha?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;Here, dearest.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And we leave them hand in hand, yearning on each other through their
+      blissful tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,1980 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Bulldog And Butterfly, by David Christie Murray
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Bulldog And Butterfly
+       From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray
+
+Author: David Christie Murray
+
+Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22273]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BULLDOG AND BUTTERFLY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BULLDOG AND BUTTERFLY
+
+By David Christie Murray
+
+Author Of 'Aunt Rachel,' 'The Weaker Vessel,' Etc.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+Castle Barfield, Heydon Hey, and Beacon Hargate form the three points
+of a triangle. Barfield is a parish of some pretensions; Heydon Hey is a
+village; Beacon Hargate is no more than a hamlet. There is not much that
+is picturesque in Beacon Hargate, or its neighbourhood. The Beacon Hill
+itself is as little like a hill as it well can be, and acquires what
+prominence it has by virtue of the extreme flatness of the surrounding
+country. A tuft of Scotch firs upon its crest is visible from a distance
+of twenty miles in some directions. A clear but sluggish stream winds
+among its sedges and water-lilies round the western side of the Beacon
+Hill, and washes the edge of a garden which belongs to the one survival
+of the picturesque old times Beacon Hargate has to show.
+
+The Oak House was built for a mansion in the days of Queen Elizabeth,
+but who built it nobody knows at this time of day, or, excepting perhaps
+a hungry-minded antiquary or two, greatly cares to know. The place
+had been partly pulled down, and a good deal altered here and there.
+Stables, barns, cow-sheds, and such other outhouses as are needful to
+a farm had been tacked on to it, or built near it; and all these
+appurtenances, under the mellowing hand of time and weather, had grown
+congruous, insomuch that the Oak House if stripped of them would have
+looked as bare even to the unaccustomed eye as a bird plucked of its
+feathers.
+
+The house faced the stream, and turned its back upon the Beacon with
+its clump of fir-trees. It had chimneys enough for a village--an
+extraordinary wealth of chimneys--'twisted, fluted, castellated, stacked
+together in conclave or poised singly about the gables. The front of
+the house was crossed laterally and diagonally by great beams of
+black-painted oak. The windows, which are full of diamonded panes, were
+lowbrowed, deep-sunken, long, and shallow. The door had a porch, and
+this porch was covered with creepers. In summer time climbing roses and
+honeysuckle bloomed there. The garden ran right up to the house, and
+touched it all round. The fragrant sweet-william, nestling against the
+walls, looked as though it were a natural fringe. Without the faintest
+sense of primness, or even of orderliness, everything had an air of
+being precisely where it ought to be, and conveyed somehow a suggestion
+of having been there always. The house looked less as if it had been
+built than as if it had grown, and this feeling was heightened by the
+vegetable growth about it and upon it--the clinging ivy, the green
+house-leek, the purple and golden moss on the roofs and walls. In the
+course of its three hundred years the Oak House had stood long enough to
+be altogether reconciled to nature, and half absorbed by it.
+
+In 1850--which, though it seem a long while ago, is well within human
+memory--and for many years before, the Oak House was tenanted by a
+farmer who bore the name of Fellowes, a sturdy and dogmatic personage,
+who was loud at the table of the market ordinary once a week, and for
+the most part silent for the rest of his life at home. The gray mare
+was the better horse. Excepting within doors at the Oak House, Fellowes
+ruled the hamlet. There were no resident gentry; the clergyman was
+an absentee; the tiny church was used only as a chapel-of-ease; and
+Fellowes was the wealthiest and most important personage for a mile or
+two. He was a little disposed to be noisy, and to bluster in his show of
+authority, and therefore fell all the more easily captive to his wife,
+who had a gift for the tranquil saying of unpleasant things which was
+reckoned quite phenomenal in Beacon Hargate. This formidable woman was
+ruled in turn by her daughter Bertha.
+
+Bertha, unless looked at through the eyes of susceptible young manhood,
+would by no means be pronounced formidable. She was country-bred and
+quite rustic; but there are refinements of rusticity; and for Beacon
+Hargate, Bertha was a lady. She would have been a lady anywhere
+according to her chances; for she was naturally sensitive to refining
+influences, and of a nature which, remembering how strong it was, was
+curiously tender.
+
+It was May, in the year 1850--mid-May--and the weather was precisely
+what mid-May weather ought to be, perfumed and softly fresh, with
+opposing hints of gaiety and languor in it. The birds were singing
+everywhere--a vocal storm, and the sheep--who can never express
+themselves as being satisfied in any weather--bleated disconsolately
+from the meadows. The clucking of fowls, the quacking of ducks, the very
+occasional grunt of some contented porker in the backward regions of
+the place, the stamp of a horse's foot, and the rattle of a chain in
+a manger-ring--sounds quite unmusical in themselves--blended with the
+birds' singing, and the thick humming of the bees, into an actual music
+in which no note was discordant. The day was without a cloud, and the
+soft light was diffused everywhere on a skyey haze of whitish blue.
+
+In this positively delightful weather, Bertha stood with folded hands
+in the porch of the Oak House (the floor and the far wall of the kitchen
+behind her patched with gleams of red and brown light), like the central
+figure of a picture framed in live green. She was pretty enough to be
+pleasant to look at; but her charms were mainly the growth of tranquil
+good temper and sound sense. Broad brow, gray eyes, resolute little
+chin, the mouth the best feature of the face, her expression thoughtful,
+serene, and self-possessed, the gray eyes a trifle inclined to dream
+wide-awake, hair of no particular colour, but golden in the sunlight.
+She stood leaning sideways, with one shoulder touching the trellis-work
+of the porch, and one pretty little foot crossed over the other, her
+head poised sideways and nestled into the ivy. She was looking far away,
+seeing nothing, and her folded hands drooped before her. A bridge, with
+a hand-rail on either side of it, crossed the stream and led from a
+meadow path to the garden. This meadow path was hidden--partly by the
+garden wall, and partly by the growth of alder and pollard at the side
+of the stream--and a man came marching along it, unobserved. Before he
+reached the bridge he brought his footsteps to a sudden halt, and sent a
+glance towards the porch. Seeing the girl there, sunk in day dreams, he
+slipped back into the shelter of the withies and took a good long look
+at her. Twice or thrice, though his feet did not quit the ground, he
+made a faint movement to go on again, and at length, after two or three
+minutes of indecision, he walked briskly to the foot of the bridge,
+threw open the little gate at the end of it, and, suffering it to fall
+with a clanking noise behind him, tramped across the hollow-resounding
+boards.
+
+At this sudden break upon the rural stillness--for, in spite of the
+chorus of the birds and the farmyard noises which mingled with it, the
+general effect was somehow of stillness and solitude--the girl looked
+round at the new-comer, drew herself up from her lounging attitude,
+placed her hands behind her and there re-folded them, and stood waiting,
+with an added flush of colour on her cheek. The new-comer strode along
+in a kind of awkward resoluteness, looking straight at the girl with a
+glance which appeared to embarrass her a little, though she returned it
+frankly enough.
+
+'Here I am, you see,' said the new-comer, halting before her.
+
+He was tallish, well-made, and of middle age. His expression was
+a trifle dogged, and for a man who came love-making he looked less
+prepossessing than he himself might have wished.
+
+'Good afternoon, Mr. Thistlewood,' said the girl, in a tone which a
+sensitive man might have thought purposely defensive.
+
+'Is it yes or no to-day, Bertha?' asked Mr. Thistlewood.
+
+'It has always been no,' she answered, looking down.
+
+'Oh,' he answered, 'I'm perfectly well aware of that. It always has been
+no up till now, but that's no reason why it should be no to-day. And if
+it's no to-day that's no reason why it should be no again this day three
+months. Maids change their minds, my dear.'
+
+'It is a pity you should waste your time, Mr. Thistlewood,' said Bertha,
+still looking down.
+
+'As for wasting my time,' returned John Thistle-wood, 'that's a thing as
+few can charge me with as a general rule. And in this particular case,
+you see, I can't help myself. The day I see you married I shall make up
+my mind to leave you alone until such time as you might happen to be a
+widow, and if that should come to pass I should reckon myself free to
+come again.'
+
+'It has always been no,' said Bertha. 'It is no to-day. It will always
+be no.'
+
+The words in themselves were sufficiently decisive, and the voice,
+though it had something soft and regretful in it, sounded almost as
+final as the words.
+
+'Let's look at it a bit, my dear,' said John Thistle-wood, grasping in
+both hands the thick walking-stick he carried, and pressing it firmly
+against his thighs as he leaned a little forward and looked down upon
+her. 'Why is it no? And if it's no again to-day, why is it always going
+to be no?'
+
+'I like you very well, Mr. Thistlewood,' she answered, looking up at
+him, 'but I don't like you in a marrying way, and I never shall.'
+
+'As for never shall,' said he, 'that remains to be seen.'
+
+He straightened himself as he spoke, and releasing the walking-stick
+with his left hand put the point of it softly, slowly, and strongly down
+upon the gravel, dinting the ground pretty deeply with the pressure.
+
+'Let's look at it a little further,' he added.
+
+'It is of no use,' the girl answered pleadingly. 'It hurts us both, and
+it can do no good at all.'
+
+'Let's look at it a bit further,' he said again. 'This day month you
+said there was nobody you'd seen you liked better than me. Is that true
+still?'
+
+'It is quite true,' she answered, 'but it makes no difference.'
+
+'That remains to be seen,' said John Thistlewood again. 'And as for not
+liking me in a marrying way, that's a thing a maid can't be supposed to
+know much of.' He waited doggedly as if to hear her deny this, but she
+made no answer. 'You've known me all your life, Bertha, and you never
+knew anything again me.'
+
+'Never,' she said, almost eagerly.
+
+'I'm well-to-do,' he went on stolidly, but with all his force, as if
+he were pushing against a wall too heavy to be moved by any pressure he
+could bring to bear against it, and yet was resolute to have it down.
+'I'm not too old to be a reasonable match for a maid of your years.
+You've had my heart this five years I waited two afore I spoke at all
+There's a many--not that I speak it in a bragging way--as would be
+willing enough to have me.'
+
+'It's a pity you can't take a fancy to one of them,' she said, with
+perfect simplicity and good faith.
+
+'Perhaps it is,' answered Thistlewood, with a dogged sigh; 'but be that
+as it may, I can't and shan't. Where my fancy lies it stays. I didn't
+give my heart away to take it back again. You'll wed me yet, Bertha, and
+when you do you'll be surprised to think you didn't do it long before.'
+
+At this point the voice of a third person broke in upon the colloquy.
+
+'That caps all!' said the voice. 'There's Mr. Forbes, the Scotch
+gardener at my Lord Barfield's, tells me of a lad in his parts as prayed
+the Lord for a good consate of himself. That's a prayer as you'll never
+find occasion t'offer, John Thistlewood.'
+
+'Maybe not, Mrs. Fellowes,' answered Thistlewood, addressing the owner
+of the voice, who remained invisible; 'but I wasn't speaking in a
+braggart way.'
+
+'No--no,' returned the still invisible intruder. 'Wast humble enough
+about it, doubtless. You'm bound to tek a man's own word about his own
+feelings. Who is to know 'em if he doesn't?'
+
+'Just so,' said Thistlewood, with great dryness. He appeared to be
+little if at all disturbed by the interruption, but Bertha was blushing
+like a peony.
+
+'I sat quiet,' said the girl's mother, leisurely walking round the
+door with a half-finished gray worsted stocking depending from the
+knitting-needles she carried in both hands,--' I sat quiet so as not
+to be a disturbance. It's you for making love to a maid, I must allow,
+John.'
+
+The girl ran into the house and disappeared from view.
+
+'It's me for speaking my mind, at least, ma'am,' returned John, with
+unaltered tranquil doggedness.
+
+'Ah!' responded the farmer's wife; 'you're like a good many more of 'em;
+you'd sooner not have what you want than go the right way to get it.'
+
+Thistlewood digested this in silence, and Mrs. Fellowes set the
+knitting-needles flashing.
+
+'I've always fancied,' he said in a little while, 'as I had your
+goodwill in the matter.'
+
+'You've got my goodwill, in a way to be sure,' said the old woman.
+'You'd mek the gell a goodish husband if her could find a fancy for
+you--but the fancy's everything--don't you see, John?'
+
+'I'm not above taking advice, Mrs. Fellowes,' said Thistlewood, digging
+at the gravel with his walking-stick. 'Will you be so good as to tell me
+where I'm wrong?'
+
+'There's one particular as you're wrong in,' returned Mrs. Fellowes,
+knitting away with a determinedly uninteresting air, 'and, I misdoubt
+me, you can't alter it.'
+
+'What's that?' asked Thistlewood, looking up at her suddenly.
+
+'You're the wrong man, John.'
+
+'That remains to be seen,' he answered, with the same dogged patience as
+before.
+
+'You can't win a maid's heart by going at her as solemn as a funeral,'
+pursued the old woman. 'If you'd ha' begun sprightly with the gell, you
+might ha' had a chance with her. "La!" says you, "what a pretty frock
+you're a-wearing to-day;" or "How nice you do do up your hair for a
+certainty."'
+
+'I don't look on marriage as a thing to be approached i' that fashion,'
+said Thistlewood.
+
+'Well,' returned the old woman, clicking her needles with added
+rapidity, 'I've always said there's no end to the folly o' men. D'ye
+hear that there cuckoo? Go and catch him wi' shoutin' at him. An' when
+next you're in want of toast at tay-time, soak your bread in a pan o'
+cold water.'
+
+Thistlewood stood for a time in a rather dogged-looking silence,
+sometimes glancing at the notable woman and glancing away again. Her
+eye expressed a triumph which, though purely dialectic, was hard for a
+disappointed lover to endure, even whilst he refused to recognise his
+disappointment.
+
+'I should regard any such means of gettin' into a maid's good graces as
+being despisable,' he said, after a while.
+
+'Very well, my Christian friend,' the farmer's wife retorted, with a
+laugh. 'Them as mek bread without barm must look to spoil the batch.'
+
+'I was niver of a flatterin' turn of mind,' said Thistlewood.
+
+'You niver was, John,' responded Mrs. Fellowes, with an accent which
+implied something beyond assent.
+
+He flushed a little, and began to tap at his corduroyed leg with the
+stick he carried, at first with a look of shamefaced discomfiture, and
+then with resolution. He finished with a resounding slap, and looked up
+with a light in his eyes.
+
+'I'm pretty hard to beat, ma'am,' he said, 'though I say it as should
+not. I'm not going to be conquered here if I can help it. And I look to
+have you and Mr. Fellowes on my side, as far as may be asked in reason.
+Her'll find no better husband than I should be to her, I _am_ sure.
+There's more than a wheedlin' tongue required to mek a married woman
+happy. I've pretty well proved as I'm not changeable. There's a strong
+arm to tek care of her. There's a homely house with plenty in it.
+There's a goodish lump at the bank, and there's nothing heart can desire
+as her might not have by asking for it.'
+
+'Well, John,' said the farmer's wife, clicking her needles cheerfully,
+'I've not a word to say again the match. Win the wench and welcome. My
+dancin' days is pretty nigh over, but I'll tek the floor once more with
+pleasure, if you won't be too long in mekin' ready for me.'
+
+'There's nothing more to be done at present, I suppose,' the lover said
+presently, 'and so I'll say good-bye for this afternoon, Mrs. Fellowes.'
+
+With this he turned upon his heel, and marching sturdily down the
+path and across the little bridge, disappeared behind the withies and
+pollards.
+
+The farmer's wife waited a while until he was out of hearing, and then,
+without turning her head, shrilled out 'Bertha!' The girl came silently
+downstairs and joined her in the doorway. The mother pursued her
+knitting in silence, a faint flicker of a humorous smile touching her
+face and eyes now and again. At length she spoke, looking straight
+before her.
+
+'Why woot'ent marry the man?'
+
+'Mr. Thistlewood?' asked Bertha, making the feeblest possible defence
+against this direct attack.
+
+'Ay,' said her mother, 'Mr. Thistlewood to be sure. Why woot'ent marry
+him?'
+
+'I like him well enough in a way,' the girl answered 'But I don't like
+him that way!
+
+'What way?'
+
+'Why--in a marrying way,' said Bertha.
+
+'Pooh!' answered the notable woman. 'What's a maid know how she'd like a
+man?'
+
+'I should have the greatest respect for him,' Bertha answered, wisely
+avoiding the discussion of this question, 'if he wouldn't come bothering
+me to marry him.'
+
+'Ay! 'said her mother, assenting with a philosophic air. 'That's a
+wench's way. When a man wants nothing her'll give him as much as her
+can spare. But look hither, my gell! You listen to the words of a old
+experienced woman. There's a better love comes after the weddin', if
+a gell marries a worthy solid man, than ever her knows before it. If a
+gell averts from a man that's another matter. But if her can abide him
+to begin with, and if he's a good man, her'll be fond of him before her
+knows it.'
+
+'I should never be fond of Mr. Thistlewood, mother,' the girl answered,
+flushing hotly. 'It's of no use to speak about him.'
+
+'Did the man ever mek love to you at all,' the mother asked, 'beyond
+comin' here and barkin', "Wool't marry me?"'
+
+'I wish you wouldn't talk of him, mother,' Bertha answered in a troubled
+voice. 'I respect him very highly, but as for marrying him, it's out of
+the question. I can't do it.'
+
+'Well, well,' returned her mother, 'nobody's askin' you to do anything
+o' the sort. I'm trying to find your mind about him. It's high time
+'twas made up one way or other. You've come to a marriageable age.'
+
+'I'm very well as I am,' said Bertha, rather hastily. 'I'm not in a
+hurry to be married.'
+
+'You've never been much like other gells,' said her mother, with a
+dry humorous twinkle which looked more masculine than feminine. 'But I
+reckon you'll be in about as much of a hurry as the rest on 'em be when
+the right man comes.'
+
+At this moment a whistle of peculiar volume, mellowness, and flexibility
+was heard. The whistler was trilling 'Come lasses and lads' in tones as
+delightful as a blackbird's.
+
+'Is this him?' said the old woman, turning upon her daughter.
+
+Bertha blushed, and turned away. The mother laughed. A light footstep
+sounded on the echoing boards of the little bridge, and the
+human blackbird, marching gaily in time to his tune, flourished a
+walking-stick in salutation as he approached.
+
+'Good-afternoon, Mrs. Fellowes,' cried the newcomer. 'Good-afternoon,
+_Miss_ Fellowes.'
+
+They both returned his salutation, and he stood before them smilingly,
+holding his stick lightly by the middle, and swinging it hither and
+thither, as if keeping time to an inward silent tune. His feet were
+planted a little apart, he carried his head well back, and his figure
+was very alert and lithe. He made great use of his lips in talking, and
+whatever he said seemed a little overdone in emphasis. His expression
+was eager, amiable, and sensitive, and it changed like the complexion of
+water in variable weather. He was a bit of a dandy in his way, too. His
+clothes showed his slim and elastic figure to the best advantage, and a
+bright-coloured neckerchief with loose flying ends helped out a certain
+air of festal rural opera which belonged to him.
+
+'I passed Thistlewood on my way here,' he said, laughing brightly. 'He
+looked as cheerful as a frog. Did y' ever notice what a cheerful-looking
+thing a frog is?'
+
+He made a face ludicrously like the creature he mentioned. The old woman
+laughed outright, and Bertha smiled, though somewhat unwillingly.
+
+'I don't like to hear Mr. Thistlewood made game of, Mr. Protheroe,' she
+said a moment later.
+
+'Don't you, Miss Fellowes?' asked Mr. Protheroe. 'Then it shan't be done
+in your presence again.'
+
+'That means it may be done out of my presence, I suppose,' the girl said
+coldly.
+
+'No, nor out of it,' said the young fellow, bowing with something of a
+flourish, 'if it displeases you.'
+
+'Come in, Lane, my lad,' said the mother, genially. 'I've got the
+poultry to look after at this hour. Bertha 'll tek care of you till I
+come back again.'
+
+Lane Protheroe bowed again with the same gay flourish, and recovering
+himself from the bow with an upward swing of the head, followed the
+women-folk into the wide kitchen as if he had been crossing the floor in
+a minuet. If these airs of his had been assumed they would have touched
+the ridiculous, but they were altogether natural to him; and what
+with them and his smiling, changeful, sympathetic ways, he was a prime
+favourite, and seemed to carry sunshine into all sorts of company.
+
+When the mother had left the kitchen the girl seated herself
+considerably apart from the visitor, and taking up a book from a dresser
+beside her, began to turn over its pages, stopping now and again to read
+a line or two, and rather ostentatiously disregarding her companion.
+He sat in silence, regarding her with a grave face for a minute or
+thereabouts, and then, rising, crossed the room and placed himself
+beside her, bending over her, with one hand resting on the dresser. She
+did not look up in answer to this movement, but bent her head even a
+little more than before above the book.
+
+'I'm glad to be left alone with you for a minute, Miss Fellowes,' he
+began gently, and with a faint tremor and hesitation in his voice,
+'because I've something very special and particular to say to you.'
+
+There he paused, and Bertha with a slight cough, which was a trifle too
+casual and unembarrassed to be real, said, 'Indeed, Mr. Protheroe?' and
+kept her eyes upon the book.
+
+'They say a girl always knows,' he went on, 'and if that's true you know
+already what I want to say.'
+
+He paused, but if he expected any help from her in the way either of
+assent or denial, he was disappointed. He stooped a little lower and
+touched her hand with a gentle timidity, but she at once withdrew it.
+
+'You know I love you, Bertha? You know you're dearer to me than all the
+whole wide world beside?'
+
+Still Bertha said nothing, but the hand that turned the leaves of the
+book trembled perceptibly.
+
+'I've come to ask you if you'll be my wife, dear! if you'll let me make
+you my lifelong care and joy, my darling! You don't guess how much I
+love you. You don't know how much your answer means to me.'
+
+The girl rose, and, carrying the book with her, walked to the kitchen
+window and looked out upon the garden, the river, and the fields,
+without seeing anything. She was evidently agitated, and did not find
+an answer easily. Lane followed her, and when for a moment she dared
+to look up at him she encountered a look so tender, anxious, and ardent
+that she lowered her eyes in quick confusion. He seized her hand, and
+for a brief instant she let it rest in his.
+
+'Speak to me,' he murmured, caressingly and pleadingly. 'Tell me.'
+
+'I don't understand you, Mr. Protheroe,' the girl said pantingly.
+
+'Not understand me, dear? 'he whispered; 'I am asking you to be my
+wife.'
+
+'I understand that,' she answered, drawing herself away from him,
+and speaking with difficulty. 'It is _you_ I don't understand.
+You--yourself.'
+
+'Tell me how, darling,' he said softly.
+
+'You tell me,' she said, lifting a pale and agitated face, 'that I can't
+guess how much my answer means to you. But you come here whistling and
+dancing, as you always come, as if you hadn't a care upon your mind.'
+
+'Don't make that a reproach against me, dear,' said he. 'Why it was just
+the thought of you made me so happy.'
+
+She looked up at him with an expression of doubt and pain, and as their
+eyes met he caught one of her hands in both his, and held it.
+
+'Dear Bertha!' he said, with a sudden moisture in his eyes. 'There is
+nobody so good. There is nobody so lovely.'
+
+She drew away from him again, though some sort of electric influence
+seemed to come out of him, and draw her strongly to him.
+
+'I must wait,' she said. 'I--I don't know you well enough. I don't
+understand you. You are too light. You are too careless. I don't know
+how far I can believe you.'
+
+'Oh!' he cried, 'believe me altogether, dear. I love you with all my
+heart and soul!'
+
+She moved to the middle of the room, and sheltered herself behind a
+table which stood there.
+
+'I hardly know whether you have a heart,' she answered then. 'You fancy
+you feel all you say,' she added quickly. 'You feel it for the minute.'
+
+He stood at the other side of the table with brows suddenly grown
+gloomy.
+
+'I shall feel it all my life,' he said. 'It's the one thing I've ever
+been in earnest about. I never thought I should feel as I do. If you
+like to wait, dear, before answering me, I'll wait just as long as ever
+you please.' His gloom was gone, and he was all eagerness and vivacity
+again. 'There's nothing I won't do for your asking. I'll cure every
+fault I've got. I'll be everything you'd like to have me. Try me,
+darling. Wait and see. But give me only just a little bit of hope. Don't
+send me away quite hungry. Tell me you care for me just a little--not
+as I care for you--I don't expect that. It doesn't stand to reason yet
+awhile you should.'
+
+There she shot one swift glance at him, averting her gaze at once.
+
+'I won't say I don't like you,' she answered with a candour half rustic,
+half characteristic of herself 'But I won't answer yes or no just yet.'
+
+'Very well, dear,' he answered tenderly. 'You shall have time to know
+if I'm in earnest, or if I've taken nothing more than a passing fancy.
+Shall I ask you again this day six months?'
+
+'I won't promise you an answer then,' she said. 'I will answer you when
+I am certain.'
+
+'You could care for me, then,' he urged her, 'if you were only quite
+sure I loved you, and always would love you? Why, Bertha, I'd put my
+hand in that fire to save you from a finger-ache. I'd jump into the
+Weale there if I thought I could make you happy by doing it. I'd live my
+whole life your servant for a smile a year.'
+
+His eyes flashed or moistened with every phrase, his gestures were
+superabundant and intense, and his voice was genuinely tender and
+impassioned.
+
+His ardent eyes and voice thrilled the girl, and yet she doubted him.
+There was a fear in her mind which she could not shake away.
+
+People in Beacon Hargate were not rich in opportunities for the study
+of the acted drama, but Bertha had seen a play or two in the great town
+hard by, and Lane looked and talked rather too much like a stage lover
+to her mind. In the unreal life behind the footlights lovers talked with
+just such a fluency, just such a tender fiery emphasis. In real life
+John Thistlewood came doggedly a-wooing with a shoulder propped against
+a doorpost, and had hard work to find a word for himself. If only that
+one absent element of faith could be imported into the business, Lane
+Protheroe's fashion of courting was certain to be infinitely more
+delightful than John Thistlewood's, but then the absent element was
+almost everything. And for poor Bertha the worst part of it seemed
+that she loved the man she doubted, and could not love the man in whose
+affection she held the profoundest faith. That the rough, clumsy, and
+persistent courtier loved her was one of the indisputable facts of life
+to her. She knew it just as surely as she knew that she was alive. She
+knew it, and the knowledge hurt her, for she could fancy nothing less
+hopeful than Thistle-wood's wooing, and she was without a spark of mere
+vanity.
+
+'I think it is because you say so much that I don't feel quite able to
+believe it all,' she said. 'You feel it when you talk about it, but it
+seems to me as if you _had_ to talk before you get to feel it.'
+
+His brows bent down over gloomy eyes again, and he folded his arms as he
+looked at her. Once more poor Bertha thought of the stage lover she had
+seen, and a long-drawn sigh escaped her.
+
+'I can't think it's all quite real,' she said, almost desperately.
+
+'You think I say too much?' he retorted. 'It seems to me as if I said
+too little. It seems to me as if there weren't any words to speak such
+thoughts and feelings.'
+
+'Is that because you don't value the words? 'she .' asked him. 'Don't
+you think that if you felt what the words do mean that they'd seem
+enough for you?'
+
+'I know I'm a good-for-nothing beggar,' he answered, with a sudden air
+of weary self-loathing and disdain. 'I know. I've got a way of taking
+everything in deadly earnest for an hour or two. But,' with a sudden
+swerve into the track of self-justification, 'if that makes you think
+I'm fickle and weak-willed, you're all wrong, darling. There are some
+fellows--I know plenty--who go through life like a lot of oysters. They
+don't feel anything--they don't care about anything, or anybody. But,
+bless your heart, my dear, they never get doubted.'
+
+Bertha took this for a satiric dig at the absent Thistlewood, and spoke
+up for him, needlessly, as it happened.
+
+'Still waters run deep, Mr. Protheroe.'
+
+'Some of 'em do,' responded Mr. Protheroe, with profoundest gloom, which
+lightened suddenly into a smile as bright as sunshine. 'But some of 'em
+don't run at all. And some of 'em are as shallow as any puddle you'll
+find along the road, only they're so bemuddled you can't see to the
+bottom of 'em. You can plumb 'em with your little finger, though, if you
+don't mind soiling it.'
+
+Now this innocent generalisation seemed gratuitously offensive to the
+absent Thistlewood, and chilled Bertha greatly.
+
+'That may be very true of some people,' she responded; 'but it isn't
+true of all the quiet people in the world.. And I don't think, Mr.
+Protheroe, that the people who make the greatest parade of their
+feelings are the people who really have the most to speak of.'
+
+'Why, that's true, too, of some people,' returned Protheroe; 'but there
+are all sorts in the world, dear. Some say a lot and feel a lot Some
+feel a lot and say nothing. Some say nothing and feel nothing. It may be
+a fault with me--I don't know--but when I start to say a thing I want
+to say all of it. But surely a feeling isn't less real because you don't
+seem able to express it whatever words you choose.'
+
+'Where the feeling's sacred the words are sacred,' Bertha objected.
+
+'Tell me what it is you fear about me,' he besought her, leaning across
+the table, and searching her face with his eyes. 'You don't believe
+I should have a wandering mind if you said yes, and we should once be
+married?'
+
+She had laid the book upon the table, and now betook herself to
+fingering the leaves again.
+
+'I've no right to pick faults in you, or give you lessons, Mr.
+Protheroe.'
+
+'Oh yes, you have,' he answered. 'All the right in the world. If you'll
+take in hand to show me my faults, I'll take in hand to cure 'em so far
+as a man may.'
+
+'I don't think you're fickle,' said the girl hesitatingly; 'but I do
+think you're shallow, Mr. Protheroe.'
+
+'Not a bit of it, dear,' he protested. 'I'm as deep as Gamck. As for
+your still waters running deep, it'd be a better proverb to my mind to
+say deep waters run still--at times. Niagara's deepish, folks say that
+have seen it. That's not to say that I even myself with Niagara, you'll
+understand, though 'tis in my nature to splash about a good deal. But
+all that apart, Bertha dear, try to make up your mind to take me as I
+am, and help me to make a man o' myself.'
+
+At this point back came the farmer's wife with a clatter of pails in
+the back kitchen to indicate her arrival in advance. Lane took his leave
+with a reluctant air, going away much more gravely than he had arrived.
+
+'Well,' said Mrs. Fellowes, drawing her knitting from a capacious pocket
+and falling to work upon it at once, 'hast sent Number Two about his
+business?'
+
+Bertha cast an embarrassed look at her and blushed.
+
+'Mother,' she said, 'you seem to find out everything.'
+
+'Can find my way to the parish church by daylight,' the elder woman
+answered with complacency. 'But you tek care, my wench, whilst thee
+beest throwin' all the straight sticks aside, as thee doesn't pick up a
+crooked 'un at the last. Thee hast a fancy for the lad, too, that's as
+plain to be seen as the Beacon.'
+
+'Oh!' cried Bertha, reddening again. 'I hope not.'
+
+'For me, my gell,' said her mother. 'For me. And it's outside my
+thinkin' why a maid shouldn't tek a fancy to him. A lad as is stiddy
+an' handsome, and as blithe as sunshine! He's as fond as a calf into the
+bargain.'
+
+She liked to hear him praised, and, woman-like, began to depreciate him
+faintly.
+
+'I don't think he's very solid, mother,' she said.
+
+The elder woman smiled at the transparent artifice, and refused to be
+entrapped by it.
+
+'No,' she answered. 'Lane's a bit of a butterfly, I will say. And Jack
+Thistlewood's a bulldog. Mek your ch'ice betwixt 'em while they'm there
+to be chose from. Which is it to be? Butterfly or bulldog?'
+
+But Bertha answered nothing.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Things may have changed of late years, but in those days the parish
+churchyard was the great meeting-place for lovers who as yet were
+undeclared or unaccepted. The youth and the maid were both there for
+a purpose altogether removed from love-making--the meeting had the
+advantage of being accidental and certain. It was a tacit assignation
+which was almost certain to be kept, and even the shyest of sweethearts
+would dare to walk homewards together a little of the way even in the
+lightest of summer evenings.
+
+When Sunday morning came, and the one musical bell began to tinkle,
+Bertha stood before her open bedroom window, tying her bonnet-ribbons at
+the glass, in the embarrassing certainty that both her lovers would be
+waiting outside the church to meet her. This certainty was the less
+to be endured, because Bertha had the sincerest desire to close with
+heavenly rather than with earthly meditations on a Sunday, but she could
+no more help being flustered by the thought of Lane Protheroe, and being
+chilled by the anticipation of Thistlewood's look of bulldog fidelity,
+than she could help breathing. The girl's trouble was that she could not
+give her heart to the man who commanded her respect, whilst it was drawn
+fluttering with all manner of electric palpitations towards another whom
+she thought infinitely less worthy.
+
+There was nothing in the world against Lane Protheroe in any serious
+sense. Nobody spoke or thought ill of him, or had ground for ill
+speaking or thinking. But it was generally conceded that he _was_ a
+butterfly kind of young fellow, and there was a general opinion that
+he wanted ballast. Rural human nature is full of candour of a sort, and
+Lane was accustomed to criticism. He took it with a bright carelessness,
+and in respect to the charge of wanting ballast was apt to answer
+that ballast was a necessary thing for boats that carried no cargo.
+Thistlewood was generally admitted to be a well-ballasted personage--a
+man steady, resolved, serious, entirely trustworthy.
+
+'John Thistlewood's word is as good as his bond,' said one of his
+admirers one day in his presence.
+
+'John Thistlewood's word _is_ his bond,' said John Thistlewood, 'as any
+man's ought to be.'
+
+People remembered the saying, and quoted it as being characteristic of
+the man,--a man cut roughly out of the very granite of fidelity.
+
+Surely, thought Bertha, a girl ought to esteem herself happy in being
+singled out by such a man. The cold surface covered so steady, so
+lasting a glow. And as for Lane--well, Lane's heats seemed the merest
+flashes, intense enough to heat what was near them, but by no means
+enduring. There was danger that anything which was of a nature to keep
+on burning might catch fire at him, and when well lit might find that
+the creating heat had gone out, or had withdrawn itself. She knew
+herself, by instinct, faithful to the core, and if once she consented to
+love the man, she would have to go on doing it. That looked likely to be
+terrible, and she fought against herself continually. And she not only
+tried not to love the butterfly, but had tried her loyal hardest to love
+the bulldog. The last chance of success in the second enterprise went
+out finally when Thistlewood had once so far conquered his clumsy
+reticence of manner as actually to put his arm about her waist. Then
+every fibre of her body cried out against him, and she escaped him,
+shivering and thrilling with a repulsion so strong that it seemed like
+a crime to her. How dared she feel the touch of so estimable a man to be
+so hateful? But from that moment the thing was settled beyond a doubt.
+She could respect John Thistlewood, she could admire the solidity and
+faithfulness of his character--but, marry him? That was asking for more
+than nature could agree to.
+
+If Lane had only resembled John a little--ah! there was a glow of
+certainty called up by that fancy which might have been altogether
+delicious had the fancy been well grounded. If John had only been a
+little more like Lane? She was hardly so sure. Obviously, John was not
+the man for this girl to warm her heart at.
+
+The worst of it was that he would never find or look for another girl,
+and his long courtship, though it could never endear him, or even make
+him tolerable as a lover, served at least to have established a sort of
+claim upon her. The great faithful heart might break if she should
+throw herself away. The depth of his affection, as she realised it for
+herself, could only be understood by one capable of an equal passion.
+She never guessed, or came near to guessing, that her conception of him
+was the realisation of herself; but it is only great hearts which
+truly know what great hearts can be, and her profound conception of
+Thistle-wood's fidelity was her own best certificate to faithfulness.
+
+The little musical bell went on tinkling as she walked across the
+fields. It had various rates of movement to indicate to distant
+worshippers the progress of the time, and she gave a careful ear to its
+warnings, so regulating her steps as only to enter the churchyard at the
+last minute.
+
+There sure enough were both John and Lane waiting to pay their morning
+salutation. Happily, to her own mind, there was time for no more than
+a mere hand-shaking and a good-morning, and she walked into the church,
+beautifully tranquil to look at, though she could hardly believe that
+all the congregation could not guess with what a startled feeling her
+heart had begun to beat. By and by the influences of the place and the
+service began to soothe her, though she only succeeded in excluding
+her lovers by a conscious process of forgetfulness which was not so far
+removed from memory as it might have been.
+
+The Thistlewood pew was a little to the front on her right, and the
+Protheroe pew a little to her front on the left, but she kept her
+eyes so studiously downcast that she got no glimpse of either, until a
+strange and altogether remarkable feeling of something missing surprised
+her into looking up. Her eyes went first to the Protheroe pew, and Lane
+was not there. Then in spite of herself she listened for Thistlewood's
+voice in the Responses, and not detecting it, was impelled to look
+for him. He also was absent, and she began to quake a little. Was it
+possible they had stayed outside to quarrel? This fear would have been
+sufficiently serious at any time, but on a Sunday, during church hours,
+it magnified itself, which fact is in itself enough to prove that though
+the idea perturbed her she foresaw no very terrible consequences. It
+would be hateful to be quarrelled over, but both the combatants--if
+combatants they were to be--would respect her too much to proceed to
+extremities, and thereby make the quarrel public, and her a target for
+all tongues.
+
+John and Lane had met in the churchyard pretty early, and whilst there
+were friends to greet, and to pass the time of day with, things went
+smoothly enough. But as the churchgoers filed by ones and twos into the
+building, each began to be aware of a solitude which was peopled only
+by the disagreeable presence of the other. John, ostentatiously
+disregardful of his adversary, planted himself at the gate, so as to be
+before him in his greeting. Lane, rather unusually erect and martial in
+his walk, marched past him into the village roadway, and there loitered
+for the same intent. Thistlewood, recognising the meaning of this
+manouvre, strolled into the roadway, and doggedly planted himself a yard
+or two beyond the spot where his rival had halted. Lane, with an air to
+the full as ostentatiously and offensively dis-regardful as the other's,
+marched past Thistlewood with half a dozen soldierly-looking strides,
+and bringing himself to an abrupt halt made a disdainful back at him.
+Again Thistlewood advanced, but this time he drew himself up a trifle
+behind his rival, and laid a finger on his shoulder.
+
+'Well?' said Protheroe, without turning his head.
+
+'I shall want a word with thee by and by, my lad,' Thistlewood said
+quietly.
+
+'Have it now,' replied Lane, settling his shoulders jauntily.
+
+'There's time in plenty afore us,' Thistlewood answered, regarding him
+with supreme disfavour.
+
+The younger man looked straight before him with an exasperating aspect
+of indifference.
+
+'When you like,' he said.
+
+'Very well,' replied Thistlewood. 'In five minutes' time from now.'
+
+'Church time,' said Lane smilingly, surveying the landscape.
+
+'Beest that keen set on the sermon?' John inquired.
+
+'Don't know that I am,' replied the enemy, rising a little on his toes,
+and then settling his shoulders anew.
+
+'Five minutes' time from now.'
+
+The jaunty airs and scornful disregard began to warm Thistlewood's blood
+a little.
+
+'Canst look a man i' the face when thee talk'st to him? 'he asked.
+
+'Yes, bless your heart and soul alive!' cried Lane, swaggering round and
+beaming on him.
+
+For half a minute they looked at each other, the one angry, resolute,
+and lowering, with head bent a little forward, his glance directed
+upward past his down-drawn brows, the other smiling with seeming
+sweetness and gaiety.
+
+Thistlewood seemed to restrain himself with something of an effort.
+
+'We'll talk together by and by,' he said, and turning, deliberately
+walked back into the churchyard.
+
+For a few seconds Lane stood glorying, but on a sudden it occurred to
+him that his rival was behaving in a more dignified manner than himself,
+and this was a reflection not to be endured without instant action.
+So he marched back into the churchyard also, and left John in the
+foreground. When Bertha appeared her elder lover paid his respects
+first, and Lane came up afterwards, looking, as she remembered later on,
+prodigiously gloomy and resolved.
+
+The bell had been silent for a minute, and the curate's voice had begun
+to drone within the building. The rivals were alone, and nobody was
+within sight or earshot.
+
+'Shall we walk a pace or two, Mr. Protheroe?' asked John.
+
+Mr. Protheroe, without speaking, sauntered out at the gate, vaulted a
+stile opposite, and paused in a field pathway. Thistlewood followed,
+throwing first one leg and then the other over the rail with a sort of
+laboured deliberation.
+
+'Now,' said Lane.
+
+'We'll walk on a little bit,' answered Thistlewood, and there was
+silence for a minute or two as they strode along the grass. Then when
+they had reached the shelter of a little copse which hid them from the
+whole landscape on the church side, John said, 'Now,' in turn, and the
+two halted. Each was paler than common by this time, and Lane's eyes
+sparkled, whilst the other's burned steady with resentment.
+
+''Twixt man and man as is willing to come to understand one another, Mr.
+Protheroe,' said Thistlewood, 'a very few words suffices. I'll have thee
+nor no man else poaching on my manor.'
+
+'Well,' Lane answered, 'if ever I should arrive at owning a manor, I'd
+say the same. But I'd be sure of my title-deeds afore I took to warning
+other men off the ground.'
+
+'Let's talk plain English,' said John, apparently quite untouched by
+this rejoinder.
+
+'With all my heart,' said his rival, 'the plainer the better.'
+
+'I find you very much i' my way,' Thistlewood began ponderously.
+
+'I don't find you a little bit in mine,' Lane answered.
+
+'You talk to sting,' said Thistlewood, with dull dignity. 'I want to
+talk so as to be understood. I find you very much i' my way, as I was
+saying, and I won't have you theer.'
+
+'No?'
+
+'No!'
+
+'And how do you mean to set about getting rid of me?'
+
+'I've set about harder jobs than that i' _my_ time, lad.'
+
+'Like enough. But how do you mean to set about this one?'
+
+'All in good time,' said Thistlewood. 'Sha'st find out speedily.'
+
+'Show me now,' said Lane.
+
+A breach of the peace seemed imminent, but, 'Afore thee and me comes
+to that,' the elder answered, 'I want thee to have fair warnin'. It's
+unbecomin' in a man to brawl over the maid he wants to marry---- I'm a
+man as never changed nor halted nor turned aside from anything he set
+his mind upon. I've been courtin' Miss Fellowes now this three year. It
+stands to reason as a frivolish young chap like you can mek no count of
+how a man feels, or of what a man 'ud do in a like case.'
+
+'That stands to reason, does it?' 'It stands to reason,' answered
+Thistlewood. 'I suppose it stands to reason likewise that I am to stand
+to one side, and leave the road clear after this?'
+
+'It'd be the wisest thing you ever did.' 'Well, now, Thistlewood, you'll
+please understand that, for all so frivolous as I may be, I'm hardly
+that easy to be swayed. As for who has a right on the ground, it's a
+mere piece of impudence to talk about it. That's neither for me nor you
+to choose. If ever I get straight "No" I'll go, but I'll have it before
+I go, for that's a man's bounden duty to himself.'
+
+'Understand thyself as bein' warned away,' said Thistlewood.
+
+'Understand thy warning as being laughed at,' answered Lane. 'You talk
+plain English? So will I. You've got the wrong pig by the ear. You're
+no better than a dog in the manger. You've always been spoken of up till
+now as a man to play fair, but now it strikes me you play very far from
+fair, and cut a poor figure. As for threats--a man who won't take a
+hiding when it's offered to him--what's _he_ good for, I should like to
+know?'
+
+Here, as elsewhere, Mr. Protheroe was true to nature, and spoke with
+striking emphasis. He was quite red-hot with scorn at the imaginary
+fellow who would not take the proffered hiding, though a minute earlier,
+when he had told Thistlewood that he had the wrong pig by the ear, his
+manner had been marked by a cold and lofty superiority.
+
+'Beest warned! 'said Thistlewood, 'that's enough.'
+
+'Not half enough, nor yet a quarter,' cried Lane, with a bellicose air,
+not unmixed with swagger. 'I've taught my hands to take care of my head,
+sir, and they'll be ready to do it whenever the time occurs. But it
+always seemed a bit ridiculous to me to talk about fighting beforehand
+When the fight's over there _is_ something to talk about.'
+
+'You seem to be in a hurry for that there hiding,' said Thistlewood.
+
+'Hurry's no word for it,' the younger man responded, with cheerful
+alacrity.
+
+'Very well,' said the elder, taking off his hat and bestowing it
+carefully upon the grass, 'sha'st have it.'
+
+Lane, for his part, threw down his hat, flourished his coat off, dropped
+it behind him, rolled up his sleeves, and waited whilst Thistlewood made
+his preparations more slowly. Protheroe set that mellow whistle of his
+to work on 'The British Grenadiers,' and his enemy smiled grimly to
+think how soon he would silence the music.
+
+Half a minute later they were standing foot to foot and eye to eye,
+the music already silenced. It would have been difficult from the mere
+aspect of the men to say on which side the advantage lay. In height and
+reach they were nearly equal, and, if Thistlewood's weight and muscle
+were in his favour, Protheroe was as active as a cat.
+
+And here might have been recorded a bit of history to warm the blood of
+such as love and remember the old-fashioned manhood of England. We are
+grown too refined and civilised nowadays for the old rude arbitrament,
+and so fair play has ceased to be the Englishman's motto in fighting,
+and the English rustic shoots and stabs like the rustic of other
+lands. All fighting is foolish, more or less, but we had the manliest,
+friendliest, most honourable, and least harmful way of doing it amongst
+all the sons of men, and so our Legislature killed out the 'noble art'
+from amongst us, and brought us to the general ugly level.
+
+It was in the reign of the Tipton Slasher--which, as people learned in
+the history of manners will remember, was a longish time ago--when these
+two Britons stood up to arrange their differences after the fashion
+then in vogue. There was nobody to see fair play, and so they saw it
+for themselves, as all fighting Englishmen did when there was a code of
+honour to go by. It was not a mere affair of hammer and tongs, but very
+fair scientific fighting, the science vivified by enjoyment, and full of
+energy, but never forgotten for a second. The pleasure was keen on both
+sides, for from the beginning of their knowledge of each other these two
+had been in antagonism, and at the last it was a real treat to let all
+go and have at it.
+
+'I was always a bit frivolous, as you said just now, Mr. Thistlewood,'
+Lane remarked in the first enforced pause of the combat, 'but I'd like
+you to bear me witness that I stick to what I'm at while I'm at it.'
+
+This address was delivered pantingly, whilst the speaker lay flat upon
+his back on the grass, with his arms thrown out crosswise. Thistlewood
+disdained response, and sat with one great shoulder propped against a
+dwarf oak, breathing fast and hard. When this sign of distress had
+a little abated, he arose, and said 'Time' as if he had been a mere
+cornerman in the affair, and rather bored by it than otherwise. Lane
+rolled over on to his face, rose to his hands and knees, smiled at his
+adversary for a little while, as if to give him an appetite for the
+business in hand, and then got to his feet and made ready.
+
+Now for a man to hold his own at this particular form of fighting
+against an equal adversary for a bare five minutes argues five grand
+things for him, and these are chastity, temperance, hardihood, strength,
+and courage. It speaks well for these admirable qualities in both of
+them that Messrs. Thistlewood and Protheroe made a good hour of it. The
+advantages and disadvantages had been so equally distributed that by
+this time they were pretty nearly harmless to each other, but each was
+sustained by the hope of victory, and each would have died, and, for the
+matter of that, would have gone on dying, rather than yield the precious
+palm to the other.
+
+Now the clergyman who ministered to the spiritual wants of Beacon
+Hargate was never disposed to gorge his flock with too much doctrine
+at a time, and on this Sabbath had an invitation to luncheon at a great
+house some four or five miles away, and so treated his parishioners--to
+the scandal of some and the joy of others--to the shortest discourse
+they had ever heard from the pulpit. By this mischance it happened that
+the combatants were discovered by a silent male advance-guard of the
+home-returning congregation, who ran back--his footsteps soundless on
+the grass--to spread the splendid news. Sunday or week-day there was no
+more welcome break in the monotony of life in Beacon Hargate than that
+afforded by a fight. The time being church-time, and the combatants men
+of respectable position, lent piquancy to the event, of course, as who
+shall say me nay? The churchgoers, two or three farmers, Mr. Drake,
+the manager of Lord Barfield's estates at Heydon Hey, and a handful of
+labourers came up, at first stealthily, and then more boldly, and looked
+on at the finish.
+
+It was plain that the fight had been severe, but it was equally plain
+that the best of it was over; and when Farmer Fellowes interposed as
+_amicus curio_, nobody but the two most concerned had any especial
+resentment against him.
+
+Even for them Farmer Fellowes had a crumb of comfort.
+
+'Finish it another time, lads,' he said. 'Where's the good o' goin' on
+wi' it i' this manner? Why a child might homber the pair on you. Get
+fresh an' have another turn to-morrow, if the 'casion's worth it.'
+
+So the fight was left undecided after all, and the adversaries were
+led off to the neighbouring brook, where they made themselves as
+respectable to look at as they could before they took their several
+ways. They were unsightly for a week or two, and were close watched by
+their women folk lest they should renew the strife.
+
+Beacon Hargate knew perfectly well the reason of the battle, and Bertha
+was mightily disdainful and indignant over both her lovers, who, to her
+fancy, had disgraced themselves and her. Six days after the fight John
+Thistlewood's business for once in a way, as well as his inclination,
+took him to Fellowes's farm, and there Bertha (who for very shame had
+not quitted the house since Sunday) first saw the result of the fray.
+The stalwart farmer's face was discoloured, and, in places, still
+swollen. She saw the wicked handiwork of Lane Protheroe, and vowed
+within herself that she would see that dreadful young man no more. She
+could have cried for pity of poor Mr. Thistlewood, who had been thus
+shamefully treated for the crime of being faithful in love.
+
+If John had known it, he had at this instant the best chance of being
+taken as Bertha's husband he had ever had, or was like to find. But
+he was shamefaced about the matter, as heroes not uncommonly are with
+regard to their achievements, and was disposed to think himself at an
+even unusual disadvantage.
+
+Bertha stifled in her heart whatever tender sentiments Protheroe had
+inspired, and was prepared to pass him whenever she might meet him with
+such a manner as should indicate her new opinion of him beyond chance of
+mistake. Thistlewood had appeared on the Saturday, and on the Monday
+the fates threw her younger lover in her way. She discerned him from a
+distance, herself unseen. His figure dipped down into the hollow, and
+she could not see him again until they met at some turning or other of
+the tortuous lane. If pride had not forbidden it she could have turned
+to fly homewards, but she hardened her heart and went on until his
+footsteps sounded clearly on the stony road.
+
+Then he turned the corner, and she lifted one glance of superb disdain
+which melted suddenly under a terror-stricken pity. For this hero was
+worse battered than Number One had been, and one of those eyes, which
+had used to be so expressive and eloquent, was decorated by a shade.
+
+'Oh, Lane!' cried the girl, clasping her hands, and turning white with
+pity.
+
+'Did I frighten you, my dear?' said Lane. 'It's nothing. It'll all be
+right in a day or two.'
+
+'I hope so,' she answered, recovering herself, and seizing on principle
+before it made away for ever. 'I wish you to know that I think you
+have behaved very disgracefully, and I hope you will never speak to me
+again.'
+
+'Why,' said Lane, 'that's hard measure, Bertha; and as for behaving
+disgracefully--if a man threatens to punch your head you must give him
+the chance to punch it. That's man's law, anyhow, whether it's woman's
+or not.'
+
+'I am sure Mr. Thistlewood is no quarreller,' said Bertha, with great
+dignity and severity of demeanour. 'It takes no great penetration to
+guess who began it.'
+
+'There's one thing I will say for him,' returned Lane; 'he's a
+truth-telling fellow, to the best of my belief. Ask him who began it.
+He'll tell you. Not that I should take any particular blame or shame for
+having begun it myself, but since that's how you look at it, dear--why,
+I should like you to be satisfied.'
+
+'Do you think, Mr. Protheroe,' demanded Bertha, 'that it's the way to
+win a girl's esteem to brawl about her in public on a Sunday?'
+
+'That's what Thistlewood said,' Lane answered, with cunning simplicity.
+'"It's unbecoming," said he, "in a man to brawl over the maid he wants
+to marry."'
+
+'I was certain he would say so, and think so,' returned Bertha, with a
+sinking of the heart. She wanted grounds for pardoning Lane.
+
+'Well,' said Lane, with a retrospective air, 'we talked for a while, and
+he was good enough to promise me a hiding if I didn't keep out of his
+way--meaning, of course, at your father's house. I didn't seem to take
+it quite so meekly as he thought I ought to, and by and by says he, "You
+seem to be in a hurry for that hiding." So I just made answer that hurry
+was no word for it, and then, the pair of us being keen set, we got to
+it. The day was an accident, and I daresay a piece of forgetfulness on
+both our sides. But you see, my dear, a man's just as bound to guard his
+self-respect on a Sunday as on a week-day.'
+
+'I have been very deeply wounded,' said Bertha. 'I wished to respect
+you both, and now I can respect neither of you. Good-morning, Mr.
+Protheroe.'
+
+Mr. Protheroe stood discomfited, and looked mournfully after her as she
+walked away. When she had disappeared round the bend of the road he sat
+down upon the bank and plucked grasses with mechanical fingers, turning
+the thing up and down in his mind for an hour or thereabouts. Suddenly
+he jumped to his feet and resumed his walk, smiling with head erect, and
+that mellow whistle of his rose on the air with jollity in every note of
+it, for it had broken upon his mind like sunshine to remember her first
+exclamation on seeing him. He was a young man who was in the habit
+of making sure of things, and he had never in his life been surer of
+anything than he felt about this. The name, the tone, the look, meant
+more than a common interest in him. She had called him 'Lane' for the
+first time in his life. She had clasped her hands, and turned pale at
+the sight of him. All this meant victory for his dearest hopes, and so
+he leapt to his feet, and marched off whistling like the throstle.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+Bertha pursued her way along the tortuous bridlepath with thoughts which
+resembled the way she travelled. Like the road, her fancy seemed to turn
+back upon itself pretty often and yet in the main it held in the same
+direction. Of course, fighting was a brutal business to a girl's way
+of thinking, but then, when she came really to think of it; men
+were strange creatures altogether, half terribly glorious and half
+contemptible. Lane had endured all these injuries simply and merely
+because he loved her! She could have no conception of the possibilities
+of masculine joy in a fight for its own sake, or of the masculine sense
+of honour which compelled the meeting of a challenge half-way. Of course
+it was mightily unpleasant to be talked about, as the heroine of such a
+business. The village tongues had been busy, and would never altogether
+stop wagging for the remainder of her lifetime.
+
+The influence of long years of respect for Thistle-wood seemed to turn
+her mental steps backward now and then. That so quiet and retired a man,
+and so little given to proclaiming himself should have made the most
+sacred wishes of his heart a matter of common gossip was understandable
+only on one hypothesis. His love and his despair carried him out of
+himself. That, of course, was a daring thing for any girl to think, but
+then Bertha was bound to find reasons.
+
+Mainly, her mind was occupied in the reconstruction of her previous
+belief about Lane Protheroe. He also, it would seem, had manly qualities
+in him--could stand up to be beaten in the cause of the woman he loved.
+The blows hurt her so, in the mere fancy of them, that she more than
+once put up her hands to her face to guard it. By the time she had
+accomplished her errand, and was on the way back to her father's
+farmhouse, she was all tenderness and forgiveness and admiration for the
+newly-revealed Lane, but then, as the fates would have it, just as she
+began to think of her cruelty to him, and of the terribly low spirits
+into which she must have thrown him, the familiar jocund whistle broke
+upon her ears, and when she stood still in a dreary amaze at this, she
+could hear the steps of the lover, who ought to have been altogether
+love-lorn, marching along in something very like a dance in time to his
+own music. What was one to think of such a man? She was back in a
+moment to her old opinion of him. No rooted feeling in him--no
+solidity--nothing to be sure of!
+
+She made haste home, and there shut herself in her own room and cried.
+Her mother walked upstairs, and finding the girl thus mournfully
+engaged, sat down tranquilly beside her and produced her knitting.
+The click of the needles had an effect of commonplace which helped to
+restore Bertha to her self-possession, and in a little time her tears
+ceased, and moving to the window she stood there looking out upon the
+landscape. The monotonous click of the needles ceased, and she knew that
+her mother had laid down her work in her lap and was regarding her. She
+turned, with a ghost of a smile.
+
+'You're thinkin', no doubt, as you're full o' trouble, my wench,' began
+the mother, 'and it's no manner o' use in talkin' to young folks to try
+an' mek out as a thing as pains don't hurt. But if you can only bring
+'em t' understand as it won't hurt much by and by, you've done summat
+for 'em, may be. What's the trouble, wench? Come an' tell thy mother.'
+
+'It's all over now, mother,' said Bertha
+
+'Not it,' returned Mrs. Fellowes, 'nor won't be yet a while. Beesn't one
+as cries for nothing, like most gells. I was niver o' that kind myself.'
+
+Bertha would not, perhaps could not, make a confidante even of her
+mother in this matter, but Mrs. Fellowes had a remarkable faculty for
+striking human averages, and she got near the truth in her guesses.
+
+'There's one thing fixed and sure, my dear,' she said, 'and that is
+as follows: ayther you must find a mind to wed one of 'em, or you must
+pluck up a spirit and tell 'em you'll wed nayther.'
+
+'I have told Mr. Thistlewood that I can never marry him,' said Bertha.
+
+'And what about Lane?' her mother asked her.
+
+'I can never marry him either,' the girl answered steadily. She had her
+voice under perfect control, but her averted face and the very lines of
+her figure enlightened the shrewd old mother.
+
+'Hast told him so?' she asked.
+
+'I have told him,' Bertha answered, 'never to speak to me again.'
+
+'Hoity, toity, deary me!' cried the old woman. 'And what says he to
+that?'
+
+'He didn't greatly seem to care,' said Bertha, with a beautifully
+assumed air of indifference.
+
+'Maybe he didn't set such store by what you told him as to tek it in
+earnest?'
+
+'Oh,' said the girl, languidly and indifferently, 'he knew I meant it.'
+
+'And didn't seem to care? My dear, you're talkin' of Lane Protheroe!'
+
+'He cared for a minute, perhaps,' Bertha said, her assumed indifference
+and languor tinctured with bitterness by this time. 'He cared for a
+minute, perhaps; just as he does about everything. I heard him whistling
+an hour afterwards.'
+
+The disguise was excellent, and might have deceived a woman who had
+known her less intimately and watched her less closely, but it was
+transparent to the mother.
+
+'That's the trouble, is it?' said Mrs. Fellowes, gravely betaking
+herself once more to her knitting. Bertha had been crying already, and
+had hard work to restrain herself. 'Look here, my darlin',' the mother
+said, with unwonted tenderness of tone and manner, 'if you can't read
+your own mind, you must let a old experienced woman read it for you. The
+lad's as the Lord made him. What we see in any o' the men to mek a fuss
+about, the Lord in His mercy only knows; but, to my mind, Lane's 'the
+pick o' ten thousand. He's alive, and that's more than _can_ be said
+of many on 'em. He's a clever lad, he's well to look at, and he's
+well-to-do.'
+
+'Mother,' cried the girl, almost passionately, her own pain wrung her
+so, 'he has no heart. He cares for a thing one minute, and doesn't care
+for it the next. He pretends--no, he doesn't pretend--but he thinks he
+cares, and while he thinks it I suppose he does care. But out of sight
+is out of mind with him.'
+
+'Makest most o' thine own troubles, like the rest on us,' said Mrs.
+Fellowes philosophically. But, in a moment, philosophy made way for
+motherly kindness, and, rising from her seat, she bestowed her knitting
+in a roomy pocket and put her arms about her daughter's waist. 'Art fond
+of the lad all the same,' she said. 'Ah, my dear, there's nothin' likely
+to be sorer than the natur as picks flies in the things it's fond on.
+There's a deal o' laughin' at them as thinks all their geese is swans,
+but they're better off in the long run than them as teks all their swans
+to be geese.'
+
+Bertha said nothing, but she trembled a little under the caress, and her
+mother, observing this, released her, went back to her chair, and once
+more drew forth her knitting.
+
+'I reckon,' she said, after a pause, 'as John Thistlewood's had the
+spoiling of thee. Thee'st got to think so much o' them bulldog ways of
+his'n, that nothin' less 'll be of use to any man as comes a-courtin'.'
+
+'Don't talk about it any more, mother,' said Bertha, with an air of
+weary want of interest. 'I have said good-bye to both of them.'
+
+And there the interview ended.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+It became evident that Bertha was likely to have a troublesome time
+before her. First of all came John Thistlewood, dogged and resolute as
+ever, propping himself against the chimney-piece, flogging his gaitered
+legs with the switch he carried, and demanding Ay or No before his time.
+Bertha determined to treat him with some spirit.
+
+'You don't need me to tell you that I respect you very highly, Mr.
+Thistlewood. But you oughtn't to need me to answer your question any
+more. I shall be obliged if you will be so good as not to ask it again.'
+
+'I shall ask it,' said the dogged John, 'till it comes to be answered
+one way or another.'
+
+'It has been answered almost often enough to my way of thinking,' said
+Bertha.
+
+She had never been tart with Thistlewood until that moment, but he
+manifested no surprise or emotion of any kind.
+
+'It never has been answered, an' never will be till I see thee married,
+whether to me or another. When that day come to pass you've heard the
+last of my question.'
+
+Thus the dogged John; and he being disposed of for a while, came Lane.
+To him the persecuted maid was a little less severe than she had been,
+but she was inexorable.
+
+'If you like to come here as a friend, Mr. Protheroe, in a few months'
+time, I daresay we shall all be very glad to see you.'
+
+'Well,' said Lane, with fine irrelevance, 'as an enemy this is a house
+I shall never make a call at. But look at the matter for a minute, my
+darling----'
+
+'You must not talk to me like that, Mr. Protheroe,' Bertha said, with
+great coldness.
+
+'Like what, my dear?' asked the ingenious Lane.
+
+'Like that, Mr. Protheroe,' replied Bertha.
+
+'I think it so often, that I'm afraid I'm bound to say it sometimes;
+but, if it offends, I hope you'll forgive me. You know you _are_ my
+darling, don't you? You know there isn't a queen in the world I'd even
+with you if every hair of her head was hung with Koh-i-noors. "Out of
+the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh," the Wise Man says. So, if
+I do let slip "my dear" or "my darling" now and then, you'll know it's
+accident, and you won't take offence at it--will you?'
+
+This was agile but unsatisfactory.
+
+'Please understand me, Mr. Protheroe,' said Bertha, with rural dignity;
+'you must not come here again until you can come merely as a friend.'
+
+'Bertha! You can't mean it! What have I done? What has changed you?'
+
+'Mr Protheroe!'--the rural dignity made an insulted goddess of her to
+Lane's fancy--'what right have you to say that I have changed?'
+
+'Why, Bertha,' he said, meekly and strickenly, 'wasn't I to come in six
+months' time and get an answer?'
+
+'Will you oblige me by coming for your answer in six months' time,'
+answered Bertha. 'Good-afternoon, Mr. Protheroe.'
+
+Bertha thought herself more cruel to herself than to him. She knew how
+infinitely more cruel she was to Thistlewood, but that was not a thing
+to be avoided. She and he alike must suffer--she in giving pain and he
+in bearing it. Bertha's heart ached over Lane, and the bitterness of it
+was to know that in a week or two the butterfly nature would have ceased
+to care. He was hotly in love to-day, no doubt, but he would be out
+of love to-morrow, may be, and in a month or two hotly in love again
+elsewhere.
+
+On the Sunday following these interviews dogged John was at church, and
+the butterfly Protheroe also. Thistlewood looked as he always
+looked, rudely healthy, and a masterpiece of masterfulness and sullen
+perseverance and resolve. Lane was pallid and miserable, and Bertha
+remarking him was compelled to fall back on the bitter consolation of
+her former thoughts. He would take it heavily for a day or two, and
+would then forget all about it. He cast a glance or two in Bertha's
+direction, and his eyes were full of melancholy appeal. But for her
+certainty he would have moved her, for she was predisposed to be moved,
+and she had hardly expected to have had so much effect upon him.
+He walked dejectedly out of church at the close of the service, and
+Thistlewood half by accident shouldered him. He took it meekly, and made
+no sign.
+
+Two or three days later came a piece of news of the sort Bertha had
+expected. Mr. Protheroe was heard of as having made one of a picnic
+party in the neighbourhood of Heydon Hey, and of this party he was said
+to have been the life and soul. He was reported to have paid marked
+attentions to Miss Badger, daughter of a wealthy cheesemonger in Castle
+Barfield High Street. The young lady was rumoured to be possessed of
+great personal attractions, and a pretty penny, present and prospective.
+
+Foreseen as it was, the news stung a little when it came. Even the most
+butterfly-like of lovers might have waited a little longer!
+
+And yet next Sunday, when Bertha went to church, quite resolved not to
+waste so much as a glance upon him, he looked paler and more dejected
+than he had done a week ago. She looked in spite of herself--she must
+needs look at him,--and it was evident that as yet the cheesemonger's
+daughter had found no way to cheer him. Thistlewood never altered. Those
+strong self-contained natures have a power upon themselves as they
+have on other people. He could last for years in solid and complete
+devotion--he could apparently wait for ever--and could yet hide from the
+eyes of the outer world the steady fires which burned within him.
+That butterfly nature of poor Lane's forced Thistlewood's virtues into
+prominence by contrast, and the girl had them almost constantly in her
+thoughts. There was nothing--she told herself remorsefully--that this
+typical piece of solidity and devotion would not do for her. Her faith
+in his attachment transcended bounds, and she felt it to be a thousand
+pities that she could not love him.
+
+It does not happen in every life-history that this sort of profound
+feeling finds an opportunity of proof, but in the story of the lives of
+John Thistlewood and Lane Protheroe this thing came to pass in such wise
+that he who ran might read the natures of the men, and know them once
+for all.
+
+Bulldog John had gone on doggedly courting, and butterfly Lane had taken
+to seeing too much convivial company in Heydon Hey and Castle Barfield,
+and there was a fear in Bertha's mind that if her influence had not been
+permanent, it had at least started the young man on a track likely to
+prove disastrous. These emotional people, quick to feel and quick to
+forget, are hardly to be dealt with without danger.
+
+Lane's dissipations must have been graver than even rumour gave them
+discredit for being. His midnight junketings had made a ghost of him,
+and to see him at any moment when he thought himself unobserved was
+to wonder how long such a mournful and broken young gentleman could
+possibly rouse himself to fill the part of King even in a rustic
+Bohemia.
+
+Autumn was on the land. The corn-shocks were standing in the stubbled
+fields, and the night air was full of gossamer, which twined itself
+about the faces of all wayfarers. Rural work had gone on merrily all
+day, and when the sun set silence fell, and darkness like a warm shroud.
+Lights flickered a while in the village and the farmhouse, and then went
+out one by one. The moon stole over the Beacon Hill, and looked mildly
+across the valley.
+
+There was not a breath of air stirring, and not a sound upon the night
+except for the placid and continual gurgle of the stream which had no
+voice at all by day. Yes. One other sound there was, a sound as of some
+one moving uneasily in a creaking chair. Creak, creak, creak It grew
+momently. Crackle, crackle, crackle. Still it grew. A tongue like the
+tongue of a snake--so light and fine and swift was it--flashed out of
+a crevice, and flew back again, flashed out again, and again withdrew.
+Then the snake's body flashed out after it, and melted on the moonlit
+air. Another, and another, and another. Then a low roaring noise, and
+all the windows of the basement shone out ruby-coloured, and the moon
+looked bleared by contrast.
+
+A distant voice from the village called out 'Fire!' There was a crash
+of opening windows, a tumult of clapping doors, a storm of barking dogs,
+excited voices, hurrying feet.
+
+Old and young, male and female, robed anyhow, ran hard towards the
+farmhouse, and poured in a thunderous stream across the echoing wooden
+bridge which spanned the river. The farmhouse was a tower of flame,
+fantastic turrets springing here and there. The dry timbers, centuries
+old, made the best of food for fire, and the place flamed like a
+tar-barrel. The screams of doomed horses came with hideous uproar from
+the stables in the rear.
+
+The farmer and his wife, the men servants and the maid servants, were
+in the garden, all pale with fear and helpless; but the mother tore the
+night with calling on her daughter's name.
+
+Bulldog John and his rival came last of all, though they ran like
+hounds, and they crossed the bridge and dashed through the crowd
+together.
+
+'Oh, John,' cried the agonised mother, clutching at him as though he
+were an ark of safety. 'You'll save her--won't you? God help her! You'll
+save her--won't you, John?'
+
+One figure, black as night against the fierce glow of the flame, dashed
+across the space between the crowd and the farmhouse. It was hardly
+seen, and scarce believed in by those who thought they saw.
+
+'John,' cried the wretched mother, 'you'll save her! You as loved her
+so! You'll save her!'
+
+There is no manhood in the world that needs to be ashamed to hang back
+from an enterprise so hopeless and so terrible. The woman shrieked and
+prayed--the man stood motionless with white face and staring eyes.
+
+Then came one wild cry from half a dozen throats at once, and next
+upleapt a roar that struck the noise of the fire out of being for an
+instant. For the figure, black against the fiery glow, was back again,
+by some such stupendous chance, or heaven-wrought miracle, as only
+desperate valour ever wins. A figure huddled in a blanket lay in his
+arms, and as he came racing towards the crowd they fell together.
+They were lifted and borne out of the circle of fierce heat and flying
+sparks.
+
+The house was left to burn, and every thought was centred on the rescuer
+and the rescued. The fresh air roused Bertha from her swoon, and at the
+first opening of her eyes and the first words she spoke the mother went
+as mad with joy as she had been with terror.
+
+'Alive!--alive! Safe!--safe! And oh, my God! my Christian friends, it
+was the Butterfly as did it!'
+
+But it was a full month later when Lane Protheroe asked his first
+question,
+
+'Where's Bertha?'
+
+'Hush! my dear, dear darlin',' said Mrs. Fellowes, her eyes brimful of
+tears. 'Lie quiet, there's a dear.'
+
+'Where's Bertha?'
+
+'Safe and well, love; safe and well.'
+
+'I'm thirsty,' said the Butterfly.
+
+He was supplied with a cooling drink, and fell to sleep smiling, with
+unchanged posture. In half a dozen hours he woke again.
+
+'Where's Bertha?'
+
+'Here, dearest.'
+
+And we leave them hand in hand, yearning on each other through their
+blissful tears.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Bulldog And Butterfly, by David Christie Murray
+
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