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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57503 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+IRRESOLUTE CATHERINE
+
+
+
+IRRESOLUTE CATHERINE
+
+BY VIOLET JACOB
+(MRS. ARTHUR JACOB)
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE SHEEPSTEALERS," "AYTHAN WARING," ETC.
+
+LONDON
+JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
+1908
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1908, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+          CHAPTER I
+                            PAGE
+BETHESDA                       9
+
+          CHAPTER II
+A NIGHT OF STARS              37
+
+          CHAPTER III
+TALGWYNNE FAIR                73
+
+          CHAPTER IV
+ACTION                       101
+
+          CHAPTER V
+PENCOED                      121
+
+          CHAPTER VI
+CATHERINE OPENS THE GATE     151
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+BETHESDA
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+BETHESDA
+
+A DULL patter of sheep's hurrying feet came from behind a small knoll
+that jutted into the track along the mountain. The level plateau was
+wide and smooth below the towering slopes, and the threads of water
+crossing it at intervals had laid the underlying rock bare. As the
+sound neared, a travelling flock came round the knoll, herded thickly
+together and running before a man on horseback like clouds scudding
+before a gale. Forty pairs of light-coloured eyes, with their clear
+black bar of pupil, stared limpidly into space, and the backs of the
+flock bobbed and heaved as the hundred and sixty little cloven hoofs
+set their mark on the earthy places over which they passed.
+
+Heber Moorhouse, pressing hard on their heels, shouted now and again,
+swinging the rope's end he carried and leaning far out of his saddle
+as he drove the stragglers in. The rough-coated, weedy-looking pony
+under him cantered on, stubborn in face and obedient in limb to the
+rider's hand and balance. 'Black Heber' could bring in his sheep as
+easily without his dog as with him.
+
+It was nothing in his colouring that had earned him the title by which
+some spoke of him, for his hair was of the same indefinite shade as
+that of many of his neighbours, and his eyes were rather light than
+dark. But they had a fire, on occasion, that suggested dark things
+even to the ardent and sober Baptist community to which he belonged.
+Though he was a young man he looked older than his years by reason of
+his gauntness and his thin beard. He had sole charge of the flock on a
+fair-sized sheep farm, and was counted by his employer a responsible,
+if inconveniently independent, fellow. He was a convinced chapel-goer,
+rather bigoted and with qualities which made certain wildnesses in him
+doubly marked by contrast.
+
+He looked wild enough this afternoon, with his battered, wide-brimmed
+hat and the arm which swung the rope-end showing sharply against the
+sky. He was a figure which by no stretch of imagination could be
+supposed to belong to the valley lying below his feet, rich,
+chequered, and green; its soft luxuriance pertained to another world
+from that which had given birth to this crude son of action.
+
+The afternoon was wearing on and he was anxious to get the crowd in
+front of him to its destination in a pen farther along the plateau;
+when the sheep were off his hands there would be other matters calling
+him, and his mind was running on far before the flock.
+
+Meanwhile, as he rode on the mountain turf, a little concourse of
+people waited about among the trees at the head of the dingle farther
+on. Where a primitive cart-road plunged through a grove of alders, a
+two-storied house, scarcely more pretentious than a cottage, stood
+back from it, facing the passer-by and parted from him by a wide yard.
+An obliterated signboard, high on the rough-cast wall, showed that the
+building had formerly been a house of entertainment, while it offered
+no clue to the device it had once borne, nor suggested the name,
+"Bethesda," by which it was now known. What gave the place
+significance was the stream of water which crossed the road on its
+downward course and dived in among the trees, falling from level to
+level, and disappearing in the thicket of hazels and undergrowth.
+
+Opposite to the house, but on the farther side of the way, a paved
+channel was cut from the stream to a square pool the sides of which
+were walled by slabs of stone. From this another channel led to the
+edge of the high ground, but at the present moment it was blocked by a
+single slab, the removal of which would drain the basin dry. The inlet
+from the main flow was controlled in like manner, and now both these
+sluices were closed and more than three feet of water lay in the pool,
+dark, and spotted with islands of bursting bubbles. A couple of
+two-wheeled vehicles rested on their shafts in the yard, while the
+beasts belonging to them, tethered upon the grass, got all they could
+out of their situation.
+
+As Heber emerged from the outhouse in which he had tied up his pony to
+approach the pool, two persons were standing apart from the rest, with
+their backs turned to him, and he went towards a thick place, from
+which he could see them without being noticed. The woman was a young,
+slight creature, soft-eyed, and with a swift gentleness of movement
+unlike that of the working class to which she belonged. Her clear skin
+flushed when her companion spoke to her as she stood by him holding a
+hymn-book and nervously turning its leaves. She had a sensitive mouth
+and when she looked down her lashes rested in a broad fringe upon her
+cheek.
+
+The other was a human being of a very different type, a man of ruddy
+complexion, with white teeth showing in a pleasant smile when he
+spoke; he was well dressed and had the assured bearing of one who
+expects well of the world. Moorhouse watched the pair from where he
+stood in the background of alder stems. It was easy now to see why he
+was called 'Black Heber.'
+
+As more people arrived at the spot the girl seemed to shrink closer to
+the man beside her; and when three women went off alone towards the
+house, she gave her book into his hand and prepared to follow them.
+
+"It's time now," she said tremulously. "I must go. You'll follow soon,
+Charles."
+
+"I suppose you must have your way, Catherine," he said.
+
+He looked after her as she disappeared and the door of the old inn
+closed behind her. Then a dark-coated man held up his hand for silence
+and the whole assembly went down upon its knees; Heber, too, knelt in
+his brake of alder. The dark-coated man began to pray aloud.
+
+The prayer had continued a little time when Charles, who was looking
+eagerly towards the house from under the hand with which he had
+covered his face, saw the four women emerge again and come across the
+yard.
+
+They approached slowly, one behind the other, a grey-headed woman
+first; and there was something in the solemn demeanour of each that
+sent Charles Saunders's mind back to the woodcuts of martyrdoms and
+executions he had seen as a boy in his school history-books. This
+half-barbarous scene was heightening the barrier which his slightly
+superior station had raised between himself and Catherine Dennis,
+though he was to be married to her in a week, and though he believed
+it to have fallen altogether. He frowned as the prayer ceased and he
+took his hands from his eyes. So far as he was anything, he was a
+Baptist by force of parentage and tradition, though the doctrine of
+total immersion appealed neither to him nor to his family.
+Nevertheless, he had promised her that he would embrace it
+practically, and he glanced at the small knot of men who awaited their
+turn to be baptized and with whom he was to present himself when the
+women came up from the pool.
+
+The quiet figures stood modestly in a row behind the minister,
+Catherine and the grey-haired woman together; the girl's colour was
+mounting and fading again in her face. She looked over for a moment at
+her affianced husband, and he could see the exaltation that burned in
+her eyes, suggesting to him more than ever the idea of martyrdom. That
+sexless exaltation divided her from him too. He shifted from foot to
+foot and a smouldering anger was in him. It grew as he noticed that,
+though the other three wore boots and stockings, she had slipped her
+feet into a pair of shoes only and her bare ankles could be seen under
+her stuff petticoat. Heber's eyes, which looked dark indeed, were set
+on her, and, as Saunders suddenly perceived him among the trees, the
+anger kindled in him like a flame.
+
+He knew little of the man, scarcely more than that he was Catherine's
+old lover, and that the two had parted because of some trivial
+disagreement; but he had once drawn from her the admission that she
+had been afraid of Black Heber. Saunders, who worked for a well-to-do
+cattle-breeding uncle, whom he was eventually to succeed in business,
+was made of a different stuff from the tall shepherd whose ways were
+in the hill; and though the two men belonged to the same sect they did
+not go to the same chapel, for Saunders worshipped in Llangarth, where
+he and his relation lived and drove their trade. Heber's looks
+suggested a rebellion against all with which the other held, and the
+independence that clothed him as a garment irked the richer man; for
+he had a mortifying certainty that if the other envied him at all, it
+was on Catherine's account alone. There was annoyance in the thought
+that Heber Moorhouse would not have exchanged his sheep and his life
+of exertion and hardship--the cold winter snow and starlight of the
+mountain, its burning, shadeless summer heats--for the advantages
+which had placed himself high in the consideration of Catherine's few
+friends. Catherine was an orphan and her lot in life that of a
+maidservant at a humble farm. She had caught Charles's affections in
+spite of every prejudice he possessed and the fact spoke well for the
+strength of his feelings.
+
+The minister was beginning the opening line of a hymn. His voice was
+not strong, but the first sharp note pierced the silence of the trees
+and threw the murmur of falling water into the background. The sound
+gathered volume as one and then another of the congregation struck in.
+Saunders alone was silent; he had a rich voice which agreed with his
+generous type of looks and he was fond of using it; but he stood dumb
+in his place as verse after verse rose and fell. It seemed to him as
+if everything--voices, prayers, the very trees and the air of the
+early autumn afternoon--was conspiring to make a show of the girl who
+was his own and who was set in front of these scores of eyes,
+conspicuous, with her bare ankles.
+
+As the last words of the hymn died out the minister stepped down into
+the water. It swirled round his middle, for he was a small man, and
+lapped against the stone sides of the pool; and the oddness of his
+appearance as he stood, fully dressed, in the confined space, with
+only the upper half of him visible, brought a smile to the lips of a
+few present to whom the sight was strange.
+
+Catherine was the last of the four to descend into the pool, and she
+paused before entering it to help her grey-headed predecessor up the
+slope of the bank. The old woman was bewildered from the shock of the
+immersion, and her teeth chattered as the girl supported her for a
+moment before her companions led her away to the house. The minister
+looked after the retreating women with some concern. Every eye was
+upon Catherine, who had drawn the shawl she wore more tightly about
+her and stood waiting for the support of her pastor's hand. For a
+minute her heart quailed at the coming chill and her lips trembled;
+then she put forward one white ankle and found herself clinging to the
+man's sleeve, and up to her waist in the pool. Her grasp loosened as
+she felt her feet and she joined her hands together while he lifted
+his voice, calling on God to look down on this woman, His servant, who
+stood forth to be baptized before the little congregation of the
+faithful. She did not unclasp her hands as he put one arm round her
+while he gently forced her backwards with the other; her eyes were
+closed as the water rose about her throat and over her forehead. Just
+as she disappeared completely under the surface the minister put his
+foot on a loose stone on the floor of the paved place and slipped. He
+regained his balance in a moment, but as Catherine felt his support
+waver, panic took her, and she made a convulsive effort to rise. The
+water gripped at her shawl and the sudden weight almost dragged her
+down.
+
+She had fastened the heavy covering securely, but it broke loose and
+floated, half submerged, on the pool. She stood up, pale and
+terrified, in her white shift and thick petticoat. The linen clung,
+dripping, to her shoulders and bosom, outlining every curve of her
+body, and her loosened hair fell in a coil to her elbows. The minister
+drew the shawl from the water and wrapped it about her.
+
+Saunders had come a few paces nearer, and as she regained the bank the
+girl could see, even through the streams pouring from her hair, his
+look of steady rage. She hurried quickly into the house: the tears
+were mingling with the colder drops that washed her cheeks. She sank
+down on a chair, in the room where the other women were putting on
+their dry clothes, and sobbed. One of them came to her and began to
+unfasten her wet shift. A dry one lay in a corner, with her stockings
+and the rest of her garments; she sobbed on, heeding no one, for her
+thoughts were with the angry man outside. She was very timid and she
+had looked forward to this day as to a day of happiness.
+
+At the brink of the pool the men who were awaiting baptism were taking
+off their coats and boots and Saunders stood back again as he saw them
+making their preparations. The wrath which the sight of Catherine's
+bare ankles and her thinly veiled body had raised turned every
+instinct in revolt against the rite he had witnessed. His foolish
+promise to share in it had been given in the glamour of some tender
+moment and he felt it would be impossible to redeem it. The whole
+thing disgusted him; he took his religion and its forms more as a
+matter of course than as a matter of conviction; and baptism by
+immersion struck him now as an absurdity for a man--a positive
+indecency for a woman. As he saw the minister looking towards him he
+turned away, and went, in a tumult of revulsion, in among the trees.
+He would have no part with these people.
+
+He felt a wide difference between himself and these men and women of
+the hillside; and he would take care that his wife should have no more
+to do with them. She had no relations, fortunately, to beset her with
+their influence.
+
+He strode over the channel which was the outlet of the pool, his head
+down, his angry look fixed on the ground. He would have turned his
+back upon Bethesda, there and then, had he not told Catherine that he
+would walk home with her to the farmhouse at which she served. He knew
+that most of the congregation was aware of his intention to be
+baptized to-day, and he could not endure the well-meaning glances of
+inquiry that followed him. He hated every creature in it.
+
+He reached a large alder whose divided stems rose from a wet place,
+dark with that touch of the unhallowed which is the charm of alder
+trees; Heber was leaning against the trunk amid the thick brush of
+leaves. He was so appropriate a figure to his surroundings that an
+imaginative person might have been startled. Saunders, who had for the
+time being forgotten his existence, stopped. He was not imaginative,
+but Heber--or, rather, the religious aspect of him--stood in his mind
+for everything he was rebelling against now; for at this moment
+Charles felt ready to become an infidel. The other aspect of
+Heber--the one which had been uppermost while he watched the woman he
+loved from the alder brake--only struck him as the man spoke.
+
+"I thought ye were to go down to the water alongside o' her," he said.
+"I would ha' done better for her than that."
+
+There was savage contempt in his voice.
+
+"_You!_" exclaimed the other, catching his breath; "_you_, indeed!"
+
+"Yes, I."
+
+"Ah! you scoundrel!" cried Saunders suddenly, "you black scoundrel,
+hiding there among the trees with your eyes on another man's girl!"
+
+"She won't be yours long," replied Heber.
+
+"No, that she won't!" shouted Saunders, "not if she's going to keep up
+wi' you folks on the hill! not if she's to make a show of herself and
+a shame! not if she's to go a different way to heaven from me that's
+to be her husband! What'll take me there'll take her too, and she
+shall know it!"
+
+His voice was so loud that many of the congregation were turning in
+his direction. By this time the minister had come up from the water
+and was speaking to the newly baptized persons who were standing about
+him. Catherine and the three women waited afar off in the yard of the
+inn.
+
+Charles controlled himself and his voice dropped. He went off to the
+house, skirting the limits of the crowd.
+
+"I must be going home now," said the girl nervously, as he joined her.
+
+He made no reply, merely starting off down the road and bidding her
+come quickly. The people beside the pool had begun to talk and laugh,
+now that the business that had brought them together was over, and the
+sound of their loosened tongues made him hurry out of earshot. When
+they had gone a little way he turned upon Catherine. The fact that she
+had made no mention of his broken promise showed her to be entirely
+conscious of his mood.
+
+"You're angry with me," she said as he was about to speak.
+
+"Why did you come out i' the face of all the people without your
+stockings and without your gown? What took you that you couldn't be
+decent and modest like the other women? There were you in your smock
+for all these gaping fellows to see--good-for-nothing rascals like
+that Black Heber sneaking there among the trees--damn him! I have no
+mind for my wife to be a sight for the like of him!"
+
+Catherine looked up at him with an agonised face.
+
+"I was ashamed of you--that's what I was," continued he, "and I'll
+have no more of it! I tell you to be done with all these common folk
+that can't get baptized without making a parade and a show of
+themselves. I wonder that an honest old grandmother like the woman
+beside you should let you go out of the house like that."
+
+"But my shawl came off," protested Catherine, who was now crying
+bitterly; "the water pulled it away from me."
+
+"And where was your gown that should have kept you decent?"
+
+"I've only got one," sobbed the girl, "an' I was afraid to spoil it;
+I've been pinching an' saving to buy my wedding dress, and there's
+only this one to my back. Mrs. Job lent me her shawl that I mightn't
+spoil what I've got."
+
+Charles hardly knew what to say. In his heart he really acquitted
+Catherine of the immodest behaviour with which he had charged her, but
+his humour demanded an outlet. What really wrung his withers was his
+smarting sense of the gulf between himself and the community from
+which he was taking a wife. His origin was no higher than that of the
+people whose voices he could still hear as they chatted round the
+precincts of Bethesda, but his uncle's business had led him into a
+more sophisticated class, and he had identified himself passionately
+with it. In this access of contempt and wrath he had been stung into
+positive fury by the meeting with Heber Moorhouse; for he was a
+jealous man, and the thought that the girl he loved had been the
+promised wife of such an one as Black Heber was more than he could
+bear. It had almost made him hate Catherine.
+
+They walked on in silence. She turned her face from him and wept on;
+and Saunders's sense of justice was beginning to be touched--as the
+sense of justice in the weak so often is--not by the actual rights
+of the matter, but by his own sentiments. He grew a little less
+furious. By the time they neared their destination he put out his hand
+and drew her closer to him.
+
+"There, there," he said, speaking more gently, "we'll say no more
+about it. You'll have more than one gown, I'll go bail, when we're man
+an' wife."
+
+Catherine Dennis's existence had been dependent upon the will of
+others ever since she could remember and no thought of rebellion
+against her lover's unreasonableness came to her. A so-called aunt had
+brought her up and at her death she had gone into service; she had
+never had any choice in her course of life until 'Black Heber' had
+found his way into it. Even the quarrel which parted them had been the
+work of a third person, and Catherine had suffered and wept in secret
+and been barely consoled by those who never ceased telling her that he
+was a wild fellow and that she was well rid of him.
+
+Only one person had taken a different line, and that was Mrs. Job
+Williams who lived near Pencoed Chapel, on the lower slope of the
+Black Mountain.
+
+"Mrs. Job," as she was called by her neighbours, was a sharp-featured,
+middle-aged matron, whose absolute ascendency over her husband had
+made him almost a negligible quantity with his acquaintance. Her own
+personality was so marked, and the impression she made upon the minds
+of her neighbours so keen, that it was considered a lucky thing for
+Catherine Dennis, tossed about, as she was, to have found anchorage in
+'Mrs. Job's' goodwill. Her mission was to keep the little Baptist
+Chapel of Pencoed in order, and she lived in a cottage beside the
+green track connecting that place with the more frequented ways along
+the hill. She was a fervent Baptist and it was owing to her that
+Catherine had been brought into the community. Only her feeling of
+responsibility for the girl's soul had prevented her from turning her
+angular back upon her when Heber arrived one evening at her door, and
+she discovered that the two had parted; she had wrestled sorely with
+herself in her determination to keep friendly with Catherine, and that
+responsibility was probably the one thing that could have enabled her
+to do so. The girl was impressionable and excitable; she was
+determined that it should not be her fault if the lamb she had brought
+into the fold wandered back into the Church. She it was who had
+influenced Catherine to persuade Saunders to be rebaptized in Bethesda
+pool. Mrs. Job's heart was hot within her, for she liked the shepherd
+more than she did most people. She had no child and the lonely visions
+that came to her of the son she might have borne wore the face of
+Black Heber.
+
+And now Catherine's wedding was only a few days off. It was to take
+place at an early hour in the morning and she was to sleep at Mrs.
+Job's house on the preceding night. But though her prospects were so
+good and though she was leaving a life of hard work for one of
+comparative ease; though Charles's wrath had cooled during their long
+walk, she stood at the gate of the farm looking after him with a
+downcast heart. She had expected to be so happy, but it had been a day
+of tears. He had not said a word about his broken promise, and she had
+not found courage to speak of it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A NIGHT OF STARS
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A NIGHT OF STARS
+
+ON the night before Catherine Dennis's wedding the spangled sky
+spread, still and cloudless, above Pencoed Chapel. The plain
+squareness of the house of worship, and the treeless stretch
+surrounding it and Mrs. Job's cottage hard by, looked all the plainer
+for the white points of light that burned in remote solemnity over the
+mountain. The building, but for the one insignificant dwelling, was,
+as it were, the solitary feature in a bare world; and the starlight on
+the grey walls gave them an even greater austerity than they had by
+day.
+
+In the moonless night the gravestones round the chapel, having no
+shadows to throw them into relief, were merged into general neutrality
+with the grass. The sharpest things in earth or heaven were the angles
+of Cassiopeia's Chair, high among the constellations, which seemed not
+to look down on the sleep-bound world but to be turning from it,
+consciously aloof in their unwavering detachment; a sight to affect
+some not at all; to oppress some by the comparison of infinitude with
+their own individualities; to raise others, by that very comparison,
+to the height of ecstasy--the dim foreknowledge of what that true
+sense of proportion must be which swallows the individual into the
+immutable and divine.
+
+At the back of Mrs. Job's house the small barn, which had been made
+habitable as a lodging for travelling preachers, contained a single
+light; and Mrs. Job, whose eye had caught the glimmer, crossed the
+intervening space in the darkness and pushed the door open. Catherine
+Dennis rose from her knees at the bedside and faced her, startled,
+with parted lips. Though it was late she had not undressed, and, for a
+girl on the eve of her wedding to a man she was supposed to love, her
+look was curious. Perhaps she stood in awe of the morrow and of the
+changes it must bring. There was an air of tension hanging over the
+bare little room with its scanty, rough furnishings. Catherine's hat
+lay on the bed; it was as if she had touched nothing, displaced
+nothing, since she entered the place; only the depressions made by her
+elbows on the bedcover were so deep they looked like dark pools in the
+coarse white material.
+
+She confronted Mrs. Job with the face of one caught in some evil act.
+The woman's sharp eyes took in every detail of the scene. She indulged
+in no useless comment, for it was not her way.
+
+"Well," said she, as though waiting for Catherine to speak.
+
+"I couldn't rest--I don't think I can sleep," said the girl.
+
+"Ah, you've made your bed and you must lie on it," said Mrs. Job
+grimly.
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"You've made a bed that'll be hard," she continued, "not for your body
+but your soul. You've taken a man that may give you down to lie on an'
+trouble to wake to."
+
+She seated herself bolt upright upon the single chair the room
+contained. In the candlelight her thin, sharp nose looked sharper.
+
+"You'll be goin' back to the Church next," she added conclusively.
+
+"But Charles is a Baptist," said Catherine.
+
+"A Baptist? A Baptist?" cried the other; "he's nothin'--not him--but a
+lukewarm Christian. And you who might have been married to Heber!"
+
+She looked at the girl as though she were dust beneath her feet; she
+could not understand her. She had never yet mentioned Black Heber's
+name to the harassed little bride-elect; but she seemed likely to make
+up for that omission now.
+
+"_That_ was a man," she went on, "not a soft, blow-hot-an'-cold fellow
+that could behave to ye like Saunders behaved at Bethesda! Heber's a
+man of his word, an' you broke your word to him, an' Saunders broke
+his word to you; yes, an' will again too. If he can't keep faith wi'
+his sweetheart what'll he do with his wife?"
+
+"But he's a very good-living man," began Catherine.
+
+"That may be," cried Mrs. Job, raising her voice; "but there's no
+religion in him! He don't care for nothin' but his cattle an' his
+money an' his buyin' an' sellin' an' layin' up riches. What's the use
+o' that when his heart's proud before God an' the truth's not in him?
+Maybe ye'll live to find it out, girl. An' when ye do, don't come to
+me. Don't tell me I didn't warn ye. This is a sad night for ye,
+Catherine Dennis, an' to-morrow may be a sadder day, if I'm not
+mistaken.
+
+"But I've warned ye," she said, rising; "an' may be the Lord robbed ye
+o' your sleep this night that I might bring home the warning."
+
+She lifted the latch and paused on the threshold, looking back into
+the room like some ominous, uncouth shadow between Catherine and the
+star-set night outside. Her steps were audible crossing the space
+between the barn and her own house, and the bang of the door, and the
+loud scrape of the key as she locked it, had a suggestive finality
+that awed the listener sitting alone with the guttering candle.
+
+Catherine remained crouched where she was; she did not go to bed, for
+her body seemed as numb and frozen as her heart. The sound of the
+shutting door brought home the truth that another door had closed for
+good and all; though Mrs. Job befriended her still and was giving her
+the hospitality of her roof on this last night of her girlhood, she
+was as much cut off from her as if she had openly declared herself an
+enemy. Catherine understood that. She felt herself lost, somehow, in
+the incalculable ways of life; she knew herself to be timid and
+irresolute to an absolutely fatal degree and she clung all the more to
+any hand that was stretched forward.
+
+She wondered why she had parted from Heber Moorhouse; for, in spite of
+the half-hearted fear with which his uncommon personality and decided
+doings inspired her, she had liked him better than Saunders. He might
+look like an outlaw, but he was an honest man. Why had she listened to
+her mistress at the farm when she told her nobody but a born fool
+would refuse Charles Saunders? Heber was a proud man, she knew; an
+unforgiving one, she believed. No doubt he hated her now and Mrs. Job
+was turning away from her for ever. She remembered Charles's bitter
+words and heavy-browed rage on the way home from Bethesda. She had
+seen a new Charles that day. Was that the man she was to live with the
+rest of her life, and for whose sake she was parting with her old ways
+and her old friends? He had said a good deal to her about the home he
+was going to give her and enumerated its comforts and glories many
+times; and she had listened with pleasure and looked forward to the
+realisation of his pictures; but now she did so no more. These things
+were untried, terrible, full of pitfalls. And worse than any vision
+she could raise, or any misgiving about her betrothed, was the
+half-superstitious belief growing on her that she was doing wrong.
+
+Catherine's fears had been worked on as much by Mrs. Job's grim
+appearance and the menace in her voice as by any words she had said.
+She was dazed and weary, so weary that the effort of undressing was
+too much for her slackened will. There was no clock in the barn to
+tell her how the hours went by, or how many lay between her and
+to-morrow's fate. It seemed that everything had passed out of her
+control and that she could only be still, a sad, helpless heap, her
+hands clasped round her knees and her head bowed on the footboard of
+the wooden bedstead. And this was the eve of her wedding!
+
+She did not know how long she had stayed there when there was a sound
+outside which made her sit upright to listen. Before she could collect
+her wits, a smart, short rap fell upon the door and a hand passed over
+the outside of it as though groping for the latch.
+
+Despairing fear seized Catherine. She did not move nor answer and her
+heart bounded in her as though it would beat her side to pieces. As
+the knock sounded again she hid her face in her palms. When she looked
+up the door was open, and a tall figure stood on the threshold, with a
+star looking over either shoulder out of the patch of fathomless sky
+framed in the doorway.
+
+She could not even scream as Heber Moorhouse strode towards her, but
+she was aware of a horse which stood outside and the warm contact of a
+man's hands as they closed over her own.
+
+"I've come for ye, Catherine," he said, drawing her to her feet.
+
+She tried to free her hands, but he held them fast.
+
+"Saunders shan't have ye," he went on. "When he comes to Pencoed in
+the morning there'll be nobody to meet him but Mrs. Job. You're coming
+with me."
+
+"I can't--I can't--" she exclaimed desperately.
+
+"He shan't have you," said Heber again, as if he had not heard her.
+"D'ye think I've ridden all this way for nothing?"
+
+"It's too late. There's nought to be done now," cried the girl.
+"Go--go, Heber. Let me be! Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?"
+
+"You'll do what I bid you. Come, Catherine; it's best done first as
+last. I've got a cloak for you there on the saddle."
+
+The horse moved outside, and the sound sent Black Heber to the door.
+All was as still as death, and he turned back.
+
+"There's no time to lose," said he. "Come, be a good girl."
+
+As he spoke an imperceptible stir of air flicked at the candle-flame
+and its shine struck on the gold ring with a device of clasped hands
+on Catherine's finger. He took her almost roughly by the wrist.
+
+"Take that off," he said; "you'll need it no more."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Take it off," he repeated again, standing over her.
+
+She hesitated and then obeyed.
+
+It looked as though the action had decided her fate. He took the ring
+from her and laid it on the table.
+
+"Saunders 'll find it there safe," he observed, smiling, "and it's all
+he'll find."
+
+He drew her outside to the high doorstep, and, taking the cloak from
+the strap on the saddle, he put it round her. She was as passive as if
+the loss of her ring had mesmerised her. She felt destiny slipping
+from her hold and the relief from its weight was well-nigh grateful to
+her in her bewilderment. But she was being forced to do a terrible
+thing, and she could not even tell whether or no it was against her
+will. If only Mrs. Job would come back and either bid her go with this
+man or save her from him!
+
+It was not Heber's mountain pony that waited outside, but a big, dark
+horse, seeming colossal to Catherine in the uncertainty of the night.
+While she stood on the step he leaped into the saddle.
+
+"Now," said he, "put your foot on mine and come."
+
+She drew back, a last protest on her lips; as it left them he leaned
+down and gripped her by both arms.
+
+"Step up," he said.
+
+The stone slab she stood on was a fair height above the level of the
+horse's feet, and, as she set her foot upon the shepherd's boot, he
+swung her up in front of him and turned the beast's head from the
+barn. She gave a cry, clinging to him as they moved forward, and his
+arm tightened round her, drawing her close.
+
+"I won't let ye drop, my dear," said he: "no fear o' that, Catherine.
+We're going to Talgwynne."
+
+"To Talgwynne?"
+
+"To my father's house. Nobody'll meddle with us there and we'll leave
+it man and wife before long."
+
+As they crossed the yard and turned the corner of Mrs. Job's house
+stillness lay on the world round them as the tide lies on the sands.
+But it was a strange thing that when they were a few yards distant on
+the green road past Pencoed Chapel, a latch was raised softly in the
+cottage.
+
+And, as the tread of the dark horse died away, Mrs. Job, like Sarah in
+the Scriptures, stood behind the door and laughed.
+
+     *   *   *   *   *
+
+Black Heber set his face to the open stretches below the mountain.
+Above, treading the paths of the sky, the planets wheeled on their way
+towards morning; the constellations had turned a little. The night, as
+it approached its zenith, had lightened under the dominance of the
+shining groups with their myriad companions.
+
+Catherine was so slight that the double weight made small difference
+to the animal which carried the pair. Heber's strong clasp held her
+firmly in front of him in the large country saddle, and as she grew
+more accustomed to the horse's movements she sat more upright, looking
+into the darkness. To her eyes it was darkness positive, though to her
+discarded but inalienable lover, with his keen shepherd's sight and
+his familiarity with every rood of the ground in all aspects and
+circumstances of weather, season, and hour, it was only comparative.
+It struck her that she would not have felt so secure with Charles
+under like conditions, though he considered himself a finer horseman
+and though he was such a well-appointed figure when he rode into the
+market-town on his sleek hackney. She would hardly have been a woman
+had the thought not given her pleasure. They turned towards the hill
+as the track opened into unconfined wideness. They had spoken little
+and no caress had passed between the reunited couple; Heber had not so
+much as kissed the woman in his arms. His attention was centred on the
+dark course he was steering, or fixed on landmarks only visible to his
+practised gaze. Nothing moved upon the hill-slopes rising on their
+left hand to bank themselves against the stars.
+
+The horse was a fast walker and they had kept to a foot's pace the
+whole way. All at once a stone, loosened perhaps from its bed on a
+higher level by the foot of some grazing sheep, came rolling down the
+hillside. They could hear it coming almost from the start of its
+downward career, though in the darkness it was impossible to guess at
+what point it might cross their way. The horse cocked his ears and
+sidled, and Heber shortened his rein, holding the girl as in a vice.
+
+The thing bounded across their path, a dim, shapeless, momentary flash
+of grey on its irresponsible journey from nowhere to nowhere, and the
+startled beast planted his forefeet and would have turned but for
+Heber's strong hand and the grip of his knees. As she felt the swerve,
+Catherine threw her arms round the rider with a sob of terror and
+clung to him with her face buried in his shoulder.
+
+Then it was as if madness had entered into Black Heber with her clasp
+and the close pressure of her cheek; and the mountain air that blew on
+his forehead stung him with its associations of freedom, and space,
+and action. He gave a shout that rang against the slopes and sent the
+horse forward at a gallop.
+
+They rushed on through the night; in the starlight the animal took his
+way safely along the smooth turf. There was no obstacle and no rough
+ground in the whole of the stretch before them. Wild exultation filled
+Heber, and his right arm was wound round the slight creature, who was
+as a child in his hold. As long as they galloped thus, so long, he
+knew, she would cling to him; there was room in his mind for nothing
+but the insane desire to race on for ever with the hill air smiting
+his face and her arms about him. No, indeed, Saunders should not have
+her! He laughed aloud to think of his discovery in the morning.
+
+It was well enough for him to laugh, and gallop, and exult, and to
+give free play to the spirit of madness that the events of the night
+had awakened in his wild heart, but Catherine was almost fainting. She
+had lost all power of speech and could only strain her trembling body
+convulsively to him; her breath was coming in sobs, stifled by the
+contact of his coat. At every moment she thought to be dashed into the
+night-stricken void through which they were rushing. The wind of their
+pace tore at her hair and was cold on her neck. The echoes of their
+flying hoof-beats were flung back from the hill.
+
+They raced on. They were nearing the end of the mountain when Heber
+pulled up and she ventured to raise her head and turn her cramped
+limbs. She was shaking all over. "Put me down," she entreated; but she
+could scarcely finish her sentence for the kisses with which he was
+covering her lips, her cheeks, the loosened hair upon her brow.
+Saunders had never kissed her like that. She dared not struggle, for
+the last half-mile had worn her out and she was afraid of falling; she
+could only pray to be allowed to walk.
+
+He set her upon the ground at last, and dismounted beside her. It was
+some time before he could persuade her that she must go forward if she
+did not want to spend the night upon the hills. She was completely
+unnerved, and when she finally suffered him to put her in the saddle
+he led the horse on, walking at its head. She sat with her knee
+crooked on the saddle-tree, her white face drooping with fatigue; two
+great plaits of hair were falling to her waist.
+
+The appalling complications that life can weave round its victims had
+never been brought home to her so forcibly before: she was too tired
+and frightened even to think of the end of this crazy journey or of
+what would be its results; she was adrift and cut off from every one
+but the wild man who walked in front with his hand on the bridle. Her
+back ached and she was bewildered and cold.
+
+They plodded on till they had left the hill behind and were on the
+road. Two o'clock was striking from the tower of Talgwynne church as
+they entered the little town, and the sound rang over the empty
+street. Heber stopped at a door in a by-lane, and bidding Catherine
+remain on horseback, he flung a handful of small stones against an
+upper window. The casement was opened with some caution and a head was
+thrust out. Catherine started as she heard a woman speak.
+
+"It's me," said Heber; "let me in."
+
+Before he had ended his request the head was withdrawn, and in a few
+minutes the door opened like a yawning mouth in the whitewashed wall.
+The woman ran back for a light. Black Heber lifted Catherine from the
+saddle, and she followed him in.
+
+The striking of matches came from an adjacent room, and, when the
+light flared up, the girl found herself looking into a flagged kitchen
+from which emanated the faint warmth of a half-dead fire. The woman
+who had admitted them was bending over the lamp she was lighting, with
+its chimney, which she had taken off, in her hand; she replaced it,
+screwing up the wick, and turned to Heber.
+
+Her expression as she caught sight of the girl behind him was
+singular, and she neither came forward nor spoke a word, but stood
+looking at the shepherd, her reddish hair taking a redder glow from
+the lamp. The colour ran up to her face and remained in a bright spot
+on each of her high cheek-bones. Faint lines about her mouth and jaw
+showed that she had passed her freshest youth, though her full figure
+and unfaded eyes held all the attraction of womanhood in the
+mid-thirties. She had hurried on a few clothes, but her bodice was
+carelessly fastened and strained across her full bosom. When she
+turned her attention to Catherine she seemed to be looking down at her
+from a height.
+
+"Here's my girl, Catherine Dennis," said Heber shortly. "Ye'll not
+refuse her a bed to-night, Susannah."
+
+There was a tentative ring through his words which Catherine had not
+heard before.
+
+"There's no bed but mine," said the other.
+
+"She's dead tired," added Heber. "Where's father?"
+
+"Asleep," answered Susannah. "It's nigh on morning."
+
+Without more ado he turned, leaving the women together, and mounted
+the stair outside the kitchen door.
+
+The elder of the two pushed forward a chair with grudging hospitality
+and motioned to the unexpected guest to take it. Catherine drew near
+to what warmth there was left; she had been meek enough through all
+Heber's vagaries, but there was something in her companion's manner
+that stirred her blood, and her spirit was rising. Susannah threw some
+wood upon the red embers in the grate and raked the bottom bar. Then
+she stood with one hand on her hip, regarding Catherine, until the
+silence became so irksome that the girl felt herself forced to speak.
+
+"I'll stay here by the fire," she said. "I don't need a bed."
+
+The other had made no offer of sharing her own with the stranger, but
+the bare idea of being alone with Susannah in the dark frightened
+Catherine. The tacit antagonism between them was stronger with each
+breath they drew.
+
+For a few minutes the sound of voices continued overhead and was heard
+through the ceiling, and then the shepherd came down again. He went up
+to Catherine and took her hand.
+
+"You'll stay here," said he, "an' I'll go home wi' the horse. I'll
+settle wi' them at the farm and be back in a day or two, an' the
+minister 'll do the rest. Give me a kiss, Catherine."
+
+Had she wished to refuse him, the intuitive knowledge that the other
+woman would gladly have disputed her claim on Heber made her consent.
+He kissed her heartily.
+
+"What did uncle say?" demanded Susannah, watching the pair with her
+defiant eyes.
+
+Heber laughed. "Never you mind, my dear. You take care o' my girl, and
+I'll tell you when I come back."
+
+He went out, followed by Susannah, and mounted the horse. Susannah
+shut the house door and locked it behind him.
+
+Then she stole upstairs without returning to the kitchen and leaned
+out of her window till long after he had turned the corner of the
+bylane. She did not want to sleep when at last she lay down; but it
+was no concern for the chilled and lonely guest at the hearth below
+that kept her waking.
+
+Catherine sat on by the fire, so tired that the silence fallen on the
+house with the shutting of Susannah's window was a relief. She was
+aching, and her limbs felt the strain of that gallop along the edge of
+the hill. Surely there never was a woman so hard driven by the
+caprices of contrary winds as she; never a bride who was to watch the
+dawning of her expected wedding-day in such an untoward plight. Above
+her head enmity--there was small doubt of that--and now Heber was
+miles away. He had appeared, only to drag her from the beaten path to
+the altar and to disappear again, leaving her stranded. Though, even
+now, she did not actually regret Saunders, her soul was overwhelmed by
+the things she had heard about the shepherd before the breaking of her
+troth with him. People had called him "a wild man," shaking their
+heads, but she had never been able to reconcile the accusation with
+his strict principles and religious zeal. Out of chapel and in it he
+was not the same man, though no one had yet made any definite
+allegation against him. Labels play a large part in the imagination of
+youth and she was young enough to be desperately impressed by
+discrepancies and contradictions. Her association with him had been
+short, and ran smoothly till its breaking, but she had learnt little
+about men from it. Until their quiet courtship had begun, her lot had
+been entirely with women. Her mistress had not given her much
+latitude, and Heber had been seldom to the farm; their walks to and
+from Pencoed chapel on Sundays had been almost the only meetings of
+the engaged pair. The man who had dismounted at the door of Mrs. Job's
+barn and whirled her, terrified, through the starlight, could not have
+existed in those untroubled Sabbaths. He could not be the same person
+as the Heber she had known. She did not suspect that, though he had
+always existed, she had never seen him. A like puzzle had dismayed her
+in Saunders; the same chameleon-like habit of turning, under new
+circumstances, into a different being. Her simple philosophy and
+experience had given her nothing with which to meet these problems.
+
+She had sat some time when there was a movement above and a step came
+quietly down the stairs. Catherine straightened herself, her eyes
+dilating as Susannah entered. She carried no light, but the
+intermittent flame in the grate played on her, alternately hiding and
+revealing her face. She sat down at the table, leaning her elbow on
+it, and her companion did not need the sudden illumination starting
+from the fire to make her aware of her expression.
+
+"I've heard about you," said Susannah.
+
+Catherine turned away her head. It seemed to her that her best refuge
+was in silence.
+
+"There's not much Heber hides from me," continued the other; "it isn't
+for nothing he comes back to his father's house time and again as he
+do. He's reckoned a good son, is Heber."
+
+The sly scorn of her laugh ran like an electric current through the
+kitchen.
+
+"I mind when he parted wi' you," she went on. "He come back to me. I
+knew he'd come. 'That's over, my dear,' says he, 'an' over for good
+an' all, too. A false woman's better found out before the ring's on
+her hand.' An' false you are, too," added Susannah loudly--"to Heber
+first and to Saunders last."
+
+"But here I am all the same," rejoined Catherine, her spirit roused
+where another woman was concerned.
+
+Susannah laughed again.
+
+"Well, why not?" she cried; "no one knows better nor me _why_ you're
+here. Heber's not one to let the paying of his debts slip out of his
+mind. 'Saunders shall never have her,' says he. 'I'll be even wi'
+Saunders.' And like enough he'll be even wi' you, too, Catherine
+Dennis. Are you goin' to stop here waitin' for him? Maybe you'll have
+to wait longer than you think."
+
+Defiance died out of the girl's face, and a chill went to her heart as
+this new and dreadful idea reached her. Through the darkness Susannah
+heard the catch of her breath. She rose, and coming close to
+Catherine, she knelt down and thrust a stick from the bundle lying in
+the chimney-corner between the bars. She crouched, devouring the other
+with her fierce look as the fire blazed up.
+
+"It's not a white-faced thing like you that's the match for a man like
+him," she added.
+
+Her companion watched her, fascinated. She felt small and poor in the
+presence of Susannah's bold womanhood. The angles which the wear of
+life and work had begun to accentuate strengthened, by contrast, her
+untamed generosity of line. Her red lips were drawn back a little from
+her even teeth, and her hair, tousled by contact with her pillow,
+burned in hotter colours in the glow which came from the grate.
+
+She had repelled Catherine so completely, that only at this moment did
+she strike her as a creature of possible attraction, something more
+than a mere sordid, sexless influence. But, with the warm light and
+some undercurrent in Susannah's voice and talk, there came to the
+younger woman a new view of her companion. This throb of revelation
+was still quick in her when Susannah spoke again.
+
+"Yes, you may wait," she said slowly; "you may sit and wait--and
+you'll know something more at the end nor you do now. Have I lived
+here for nigh upon three years under the old man's roof for nothin'?
+Is Heber my own cousin for nothin'? D'ye think because I haven't got a
+white face an' soft ways that no man has ever looked at me? D'ye
+believe that when Heber comes home it's uncle that he comes for?"
+
+She rose to her feet, and as she did so she shook her head, and her
+rolled-up hair fell and hung below her waist. She picked up the horn
+comb that clattered down upon the hearthstone.
+
+"Look!" she cried, holding out the tangled mass. Her arm was at full
+stretch, and as the ends of hair slipped away from between palm and
+fingers, the sleeve of her coarse night-smock slipped back too and her
+thick, round arm showed through the sleeve as a patch of the white
+moon through the drifting of dusky cloud.
+
+It began to dawn on Catherine that she was more than the sport of her
+own evil luck; she was a pawn in the hands of Heber and of this
+strange woman, who was making her, in spite of herself, feel her
+almost brutal fascination. What could she do in such a trap? Even she,
+with her timid, simple experiences, could guess that Susannah loved
+her cousin, and her heart quailed at the bitter thought which was
+assuming a certainty; it was revenge only that had prompted the
+shepherd to snatch her from the man who had supplanted him, while she
+had supposed, in her folly, that he loved her still; it was a double
+revenge that Black Heber was wreaking on herself and on Saunders. The
+blood ran to her face as she remembered his kisses at the end of their
+headlong ride. He had but sought to make her humiliation more
+complete. How meekly she had followed him out of the door at Pencoed!
+She had distrusted herself all her life; and now she must despise
+herself too, as she sat, a deluded fool, in front of Susannah, who
+knew all, and was mocking her because of the knowledge.
+
+When people have been a long time in learning some elementary truth,
+the lesson, once made plain, takes complete hold of them. Catherine
+had never yet attempted to act for herself and now she saw that she
+must awake from her passiveness and free herself, once and for all,
+from the web in which she was taken. As she looked at Susannah she
+pierced beyond her into a new sequence of ideas. She had been hunted
+into a corner because she had been too ready to run. All the people
+she had known were so much stronger than she was that she had given up
+her own will to theirs without a struggle. Her mistress at the farm,
+Mrs. Job, Heber, and now Susannah; none of these suffered themselves
+to be dragged about by circumstances and by others as she had done.
+She was having hard measure from them all and it was time that,
+independently of them all, she should choose her own life. Only
+intense physical exhaustion kept her from running out of the house,
+yet again, into the night, where she might be alone with her biting
+mortification. The same roof should not shelter herself and Susannah.
+
+Perhaps a shade of pity smote the elder woman at the sight of her
+white cheeks and her heavy eyes, dark with weariness. She took her by
+the shoulder.
+
+"There," she said, "come you in here and lie down or you'll be dead
+afore morning."
+
+She opened a door and pushed her into a tiny room in which the flicker
+from the kitchen fire showed the outline of a mattress on the floor.
+Susannah bade her lie down while she fetched a covering and she
+obeyed; she would have liked to rebel, but her fatigue was too great.
+When the elder woman left her she lay still for a space, her one
+thought of escape. Then she slept, worn out; to-morrow--somehow--she
+would begin the world for herself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+TALGWYNNE FAIR
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+TALGWYNNE FAIR
+
+ON the second morning after Heber and Catherine disturbed the sleeping
+house, Talgwynne was also shaken out of its accustomed quiet by its
+half-yearly horse-fair. But for the usual market this was the little
+town's one explosion of business and pleasure; sheep and cattle
+changed hands every week within sound of the clock on the square
+church tower in larger or smaller quantities, but it was only in
+spring and autumn that mountain ponies, hackneys, and carthorses
+enlivened the place by their transitory presence.
+
+On these occasions the west side of the town was by far its most
+cheerful point, for the road sprawled out into the country, and, for a
+flat quarter of a mile, was set apart as a show-ground by those who
+had horses to sell. A rough fringe of grass on either side of the way
+was the rallying place of the solid, who came to buy; the idle, who
+came to look on; and the light-minded, who would assemble to jeer and
+to goad unskilful horsemen with taunts and advice. After mid-day the
+roadsides would be strewn with hats, wisps of straw, broken clay pipes
+and the persons of those who had already succumbed to the pleasures of
+the fair.
+
+To Heber's father, crippled by rheumatism and well on in years, this
+gathering was not a thing to be missed, for it was his one link with
+the world as he had known it all the days of his life. The stream on
+which he had plied in youth and manhood had taken an outward bend, as
+it does for the very aged, and had left him on that sad, isolated
+piece of shore which is the last resting-place for their living feet.
+But Talgwynne fair could still give him the faces of a few old cronies
+and the wry pleasure he could still experience at the sight of younger
+men compulsorily parting company with their saddles.
+
+He sat on a log, sheltered from the fresh wind by the hedge at his
+back, with Susannah, to whom both horses and riders were interesting,
+beside him. Though old Moorhouse was remarkable by reason of his
+stature, which years and rheumatism had only slightly disguised, and
+his niece, because of a vivid, indefinable something, which arrested
+both male and female eyes, the couple was too ordinary a sight to
+attract notice from regular haunters of the fair, and only a few
+strangers let their minds wander from business to glance at them. The
+interest of most people appeared to be centred in a prosperous-looking
+man whose face was unfamiliar to Susannah, as he loitered with a knot
+of farmers standing by their gigs on the grass. So many glances
+followed him that she remarked on it to a lad who was watching him
+with a half-curious grin and an elbow which jogged the ribs of a
+neighbouring friend.
+
+"That's him--Charles Saunders," replied the young fellow; "come to
+look for 'is wench, a' s'pose. You be a bit behind the times, missus."
+
+The two friends went off into the victorious crow which is the yokel's
+recognition of another's discomfiture.
+
+Susannah checked the exclamation on her tongue; there was hardly any
+one in the world at that moment who interested her so much, and she
+rose and pressed forward a little to get a better view of Charles,
+whom she had never seen. As she surveyed him she wavered between her
+sense of his inferiority to Heber as a masculine creature, and her
+surprise that Catherine should have attracted so important a suitor.
+She edged nearer to the group in which he stood, but the passing and
+repassing of animals, and the varied sounds of the fair, prevented her
+from hearing anything that was said by himself or by his companions.
+Business was getting brisker as the sun climbed the sky, and it was
+evident that Saunders and his friends were waiting for a horse to be
+trotted out from the crowd choking the road at the entrance to the
+town.
+
+She stood lost in contemplation of Catherine's jilted bridegroom. So
+many things were surging in her mind that the shouts along the road
+were unheeded, and she only realised, when a hand pulled her back to
+the grass, that a horse was almost upon her.
+
+Roars of laughter were gathering density, like a snowball on its
+career, and for an instant she imagined herself and her threatened
+mishap to be their cause. A wrathful flush was on her cheek and it was
+only on the beast's return journey that the redoubled merriment
+undeceived her.
+
+Every one was standing back to have a fuller view of the passing
+horseman. He was a long, elderly man, whose appearance and demeanour
+made the horse under him a mere adjunct to himself and commerce a
+secondary matter. The lightning trot that formed his charger's chief
+qualification was of such incredible swiftness that he had gone by
+almost before the onlookers knew what had happened. In order that this
+should not degenerate into a canter, the rider had laid himself
+forward on the leggy creature's neck, and was firmly grasping its
+ears, from between which his own face, crowned by a pot hat and framed
+in streaming whiskers, stared into futurity. Behind him, the bellying
+skirts of an old greatcoat flew high above tail and crupper and a gale
+of laughter ran alongside him as he went, hanging in his wake like
+rubbish in the draught of an express train.
+
+Susannah had some humour, but it was of that unreliable sort which
+flies from its owner at a personal touch, and not even the passage of
+such a figure across her vision could divert her eyes from Saunders.
+It did not escape her observation that, though he opened his mouth and
+shouted with the rest of the world, he shut it again quickly; and
+that, while his companions closed in on the road to get a last view of
+the horseman as he disappeared into the town, he alone kept his place.
+It was clear that he was pre-occupied; and the sullen uneasiness of
+his expression when he was separated from his friends told the woman
+who watched him something of his mind.
+
+As the day went on, and horse after horse was led or ridden out for
+the benefit of the farmers, old Moorhouse's stiff limbs were growing
+uneasy on his log and he summoned his niece and began to move
+homeward. Susannah was obliged to go with him, but she determined to
+return when she had left him within safe distance of his own door; for
+she had spread his midday bread and cheese on the kitchen table before
+leaving the house, and there were possibilities waiting for her in
+Talgwynne of which she had not dreamed as she set out for the fair. By
+hook or by crook, she meant to have a word with Saunders.
+
+Her uncle moved slowly, and the crowd made it so difficult for them to
+get on, that they were forced to take the most devious way to avoid
+it. Though she did not enter the house, it was almost an hour before
+she found herself in the town and once more in the middle of the
+throng. There was no sign of Saunders, and she guessed that he was
+still on the road; but she stayed where she was, keeping as much as
+possible in the background and shunning those acquaintances whom she
+saw. She told herself that he must return to fetch his horse, for she
+knew, by his splashed leggings and the whip under his arm, that he had
+ridden to the fair. There would be a better chance of attracting his
+attention quietly in the hurly-burly than on the open road.
+
+She was standing in the shadow of a doorway when at last she saw him
+and observed a greater geniality on his face. He was flushed, and his
+hat sat at a more cheerful angle; and though his assured and steady
+manner of threading the maze of people held him above all suspicion of
+being drunk, Susannah suspected that he had been bolstering his fallen
+spirits in the popular way. She edged again into the moving mass of
+humanity and soon found herself close to him. He seemed to be
+searching for some person, for it was nearly impossible to catch his
+eye. She plucked him boldly by the sleeve.
+
+Saunders turned round at once. She was as completely unknown to him as
+he had been to her a few hours ago; but, thanks to a couple of visits
+to the Hand of Friendship, his downhearted uneasiness had given way to
+a more venturesome outlook on the world. Though Susannah wore a plain
+black jacket and an unsuggestive hat, both of which had seen better
+days, there was in her appearance that demand for attention from the
+other sex which certain women carry with them wherever they go and
+however they are clothed. Her direct eyes challenged those of Charles,
+which now had a roving expression absent from them in the morning.
+
+"Well, my dear," said he easily.
+
+"What'll you give me for a bit o' news?" asked Susannah, answering his
+look in kind. Her hand was still on his arm and she gave it a little
+shake.
+
+Saunders smiled. He did not quite know what to say in reply, nor what
+turn he wished the situation to take; it seemed to have several
+possibilities.
+
+"It's good news, too," continued she, "and maybe I'll give it you for
+nothin'. You've been used very bad, Mr. Saunders."
+
+Charles's countenance changed. The certainty that he was a marked man
+had dogged him all day. He had come to Talgwynne very unwillingly,
+because his uncle, who wanted a horse, and whom he could not afford to
+disoblige, had sent him to the fair to look for something suitable. He
+had read in every face how completely his misfortunes were public
+property, though the Hand of Friendship had helped to put his
+humiliation from him for a little while. Every one he met knew how he
+had arrived at Pencoed on his wedding morning to find himself there on
+a fool's errand. No living creature had seen Catherine go; and all
+that he or any one had been able to drag from Mrs. Job was the
+admission that she had heard a horse pass her cottage long after she
+was snug in bed. She had risen and stared into the darkness, but,
+seeing nothing, had returned to her rest. As for the girl, she had
+bidden her good-night, leaving her safe in the barn, hours before.
+
+Charles had cursed and stormed. Heber came to his mind even before he
+heard his detested name upon the lips of the best man, who spoke his
+suggestion boldly. But there was no clue, no trace; nothing but the
+marks of horse's feet printed about Mrs. Job's barn-door and crossing
+the yard, only to lose themselves on the hard turf of the mountain.
+While to every one possessed of the rudiments of good sense, these
+were proofs of the shepherd's complicity, Heber was quietly at his
+business at the farm. The best man, whose curiosity, draped in the
+cloak of friendship for Saunders, urged him to the place, brought back
+this news. But there was no sign of Catherine.
+
+The sting of wounded pride was so sharp on Charles that the idea of a
+search for the lost woman was far from him, and he was loud in his
+resolve not to stir an inch in pursuit. Had he been able to injure
+Heber he would have done so willingly, but Catherine should go free.
+She had proved herself no fit wife for a man of his sort, and it was
+not for him to take her back at a gift--not now. His tongue moved with
+unclean freedom as he made known his opinion.
+
+"Yes, you've been used shameful, but you'll have the laugh o' them
+yet, and I'll help you to get it, if you'll listen to me," continued
+Susannah. "I can tell you that much. Come you out of the crowd a bit.
+We can't speak private enough here."
+
+Charles looked round suspiciously, first on the elbowing mass and then
+on the unknown woman at his side; not far off he saw one of the
+farmers with whom he had been in company that morning. Certainly it
+would not do to discuss his affairs in such publicity. Had his head
+been perfectly clear he might not have been minded to discuss them at
+all, but as it was, the mixture of sympathy and knowingness in
+Susannah's voice had its effect. If she had been a man he would have
+shaken her off, cursing her for her impudence; but he liked women, and
+there was something about this one that impressed him and took his
+fancy too. As he hesitated his name was shouted across the way.
+
+"Here! let me go--I must be off!" he exclaimed, turning from her.
+"There's a horse coming out for me to see."
+
+The friend who had hailed him shouted again.
+
+"There's a man just come who'll fetch him out for you," he called, his
+hands trumpet-wise about his mouth; "you go up the road, Charlie, and
+he'll bring him along!"
+
+Saunders looked round for Susannah, but she was no longer beside him
+and was already pushing her way on the pavement towards the western
+entrance to the town. He followed, more slowly, and found her waiting
+where the houses ended. She was panting a little. She fell into step
+with him, and together they made for the place where old Moorhouse had
+sat earlier in the day.
+
+"Here's my news," said Susannah. "_I know where Catherine Dennis is._"
+
+"I don't care a damn where she is, not I!" burst out Charles. "She's
+with Heber Moorhouse that's been sneakin' after her these months past!
+That's no news to me."
+
+His companion paid no heed to the string of adjectives with which he
+prefixed the shepherd's name.
+
+"That she's not," replied she, with finality.
+
+"Don't tell me lies!" cried Saunders, hurrying on as though to get rid
+of her, "what's the use of that? _I_ don't want to know what's come of
+her; another man's leavings are no good to the likes of me! Heber's
+got her now, and he can keep her, an' welcome too."
+
+"He's not got her, I tell you! And he won't neither, if you're any
+kind of a man."
+
+Charles cast a searching look upon her, stopping in the middle of the
+road. His face was a little more flushed than when they started.
+
+"You mind me, Mr. Saunders," said Susannah, stopping too and planting
+herself in front of him. "The night afore the wedding Heber brought
+her to our house an' knocked me out o' my bed to let him in. As white
+as a sheet she was, for he'd ridden with her the whole way from
+Pencoed, an' she was fit to lie down and die on the floor. I was sorry
+for the poor thing; that I was. He left her there without so much as a
+word, and she sat like a ghost by the fire until I made her lie down
+an' sleep. I give her my own bed to lie in, Mr. Saunders. She were
+that afraid of Heber she couldn't rest for shakin' an' tremblin', an'
+it was easy enough to see she'd come sore against her will. It was
+that old witch at Pencoed Chapel that turned her out--she's always
+been a friend o' Heber's, has Mrs. Job; and between her and Heber,
+what could the poor thing do?"
+
+The puzzled astonishment on Charles's face grew as she unfolded her
+blending of lies, facts, and half truths.
+
+"And there she is, and Heber's to come back for her as soon as he
+can."
+
+"What's Heber got to do with you?" interrupted Charles, pushing his
+hat back on his forehead. "Who are you? What the devil have you got to
+do with me either?"
+
+"I'm his own cousin," replied Susannah, "I live in his father's
+house."
+
+"You come and take her away," continued she, dropping her voice and
+coming closer; "she frettin' sore for you, Mr. Saunders. She dursn't
+go back to Mrs. Job, an' she hasn't got a penny piece in her pocket.
+Heber knows that well enough, and he's no fear but she's safe till he
+comes."
+
+"_I_ don't want her!" he exclaimed again; "she's gone and disgraced
+herself, woman."
+
+"You can pay him back in his own coin," urged Susannah, as if she had
+not heard his last words, "you've got a finer chance o' that than any
+man ever had before. You found the nest empty yourself----"
+
+She paused and broke into a laugh, which made his hot face grow
+hotter.
+
+"Come you, Mr. Saunders," she went on; "be a man. When it's too late
+you'll be sorry there's anybody alive can laugh at you for gettin' the
+worst of it like you've done. My! the talk I've heard this morning!
+You're too well known in these parts for a thing like that to pass off
+easy."
+
+Had there been no Hand of Friendship in Talgwynne, Susannah might
+merely have succeeded in irritating Charles without producing any
+effect; his brain was muddled, though in a slight degree, by what he
+had drunk, and he was in that unbraced humour in which rapid changes
+of mind are possible. But he was annoyed too, and his vanity, which
+had been so bitterly assailed, was as likely to turn him in one
+direction as in another. The two had come to a standstill, when the
+beat of hoofs made them look back.
+
+The expected horse was emerging from between the houses in a series of
+capers and pig-jumps that promised the man on its back an interesting
+ride. Saunders had examined it in the fair, but, as the small boy in
+charge had orders not to mount himself, the owner, a very old man, had
+been obliged to look round for some one with pretensions to
+horsemanship before the young, excitable animal could be trotted out
+for Charles to see. Though everybody was not minded for the
+responsibility, the difficulty had been overcome at last. While
+Saunders watched the approaching rider, Susannah broke into an
+exclamation, and, running towards a gap in the hedge, concealed
+herself behind the trunk of a tree, which grew upon the bank.
+
+"Afraid of horses, are ye?" called Saunders jeeringly, after her.
+
+Susannah feared very few things; but she had sharp sight, and the man
+on the horse was Heber.
+
+As the fact dawned on Charles his expression changed. He stood at the
+road-side, thrusting his hands into his pockets and feeling as though
+he would choke.
+
+Heber had been too much occupied, hand and eye, to observe Susannah,
+but, as he drew near, the other man thought he could see a look of
+triumph on his face. The shepherd had induced the horse to be quiet
+and the creature trotted collectedly, a fine, strong, short-legged bay
+with a blaze and two white stockings. But Saunders had no eye for its
+paces, for the wrath he felt at the sight of Heber overcame him,
+business instincts and all. For any heed that Heber took of him he
+might have been a signpost or a milestone. Moorhouse turned back about
+fifty yards farther on and came by again at a canter. This time
+Saunders imagined that he was smiling.
+
+"Take him away! I don't want to see him again!" he roared after the
+retreating man.
+
+Heber turned in his saddle and looked back. Charles was sure of the
+smile now.
+
+"Go on! take him away, I tell you!" he yelled, waving his arm. He
+could almost have pelted him from the nearest stone-heap. Heber rode
+quietly on into the town.
+
+The moment that he was out of sight, Susannah came from behind the
+tree, her eyes shining.
+
+"Come with me--now--this minute!" she cried. "There's no time to lose!
+Another half hour and it'll be too late. He's sure to come to the
+house as soon as his business is done. I'd no notion he was to be at
+the fair."
+
+"You might have guessed it," said Saunders roughly.
+
+"He told me, no more nor the night he came with Catherine, that none
+o' them were to be down from the farm."
+
+They set out together without another word. The sight of the shepherd
+had done more to make up Charles's mind than all Susannah's arguments
+and persuasions. She had escaped so narrowly from being seen by Heber
+in Charles's company that she now piloted her companion to the cottage
+through the same quiet ways she had traversed in the morning with her
+uncle.
+
+She entered the house and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving
+Saunders in the passage. He stood waiting there like a keeper who has
+just put his ferret down a rabbit-hole in a warren. In concert with
+Susannah's tones he could hear the gruff quaver of the old man, and he
+listened impatiently for Catherine's voice. His agitation was great,
+for might not the next footfall in the by-street outside be Heber's
+tread? At last, getting no summons, he pushed in.
+
+Susannah was facing him, silent. Old Moorhouse, sitting at the hearth,
+took his pipe out of his mouth.
+
+"Her be gone," said he; "her be'ant here. When I come from the fair
+her were gone."
+
+The spark of excitement in his face had developed, for a moment, some
+latent likeness to his son. It struck Charles Saunders like a blow,
+and he turned round, slamming the door, and went out into the street.
+
+He never doubted that Heber had forestalled him again. It wanted but
+this to put the crown on his injuries, the fool's cap on his pride!
+With some vague, whirling idea of seeking the man who had played him
+the same trick twice, he made through the unfamiliar outskirts for the
+centre of the town, his head down, looking neither to right nor left;
+and, because he did not know his way, he took the exact course by
+which Susannah had brought him. Had he gone straight towards the
+market-place he would have met Heber hurrying to his father's door.
+Unexpectedly, and at a moment's notice, the shepherd had been sent to
+the fair by his employer, and his native thoroughness had forbidden
+him to seek Catherine before his business was despatched. He had been
+asked as a favour to trot out the horse just as he was starting for
+the cottage; and now, having delivered the beast again to the boy in
+charge, he was making up for the delay with a zest that his meeting
+with Saunders had done nothing to lessen. Charles had scarcely been
+gone five minutes when Heber's hand was on the latch.
+
+Susannah had persuaded her uncle to go upstairs and rest upon his bed;
+she had not told him that Heber was in the town, and she had her own
+reasons for hoping that father and son would not meet.
+
+Heber entered and looked round.
+
+"Where is she?" he asked blankly.
+
+"Gone," said Susannah.
+
+"_Gone?_" cried he.
+
+The woman could scarcely hide the smile that touched her mouth.
+
+"Charles Saunders was here," she said. "They're gone."
+
+For one moment the shepherd stood dumb. Then he also turned and rushed
+out of the house.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ACTION
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ACTION
+
+IT was almost noon on the day before Talgwynne fair when Catherine
+Dennis opened her eyes; she tried to sit up, but her head ached so
+unpleasantly that she sank back at once and lay still. Her body and
+limbs were so stiff that it was a torment to move, and when Susannah
+came in and offered her food she could scarcely eat, though she had
+tasted nothing for the last eighteen hours. When her own resolve to
+escape returned to her mind, she knew herself to be, for the time
+being at least, quite incapable of carrying it out.
+
+The milk, with a plate of bread, had been left on the floor beside her
+mattress, and she forced herself to eat and drink, knowing that she
+must collect what strength she could muster if her feet were to carry
+her away from the cottage and out of Talgwynne. To go to-day was out
+of the question, but she determined to take any chance she could get
+of slipping off unnoticed on the morrow.
+
+She had no plans beyond her settled desire to turn her back on her own
+humiliation and on Susannah, who had brought it home to her. She would
+hide herself wherever she could, or tramp the roads as a beggar sooner
+than be obliged to accept the grudging hospitality of Heber's cousin.
+The idea of waiting under those scornful eyes for the man who might
+never come was worse than destitution--worse than the workhouse. As
+the day wore on and she was able to get up and sit by the fireside at
+old Moorhouse's invitation, she formed a vague scheme of crossing the
+Wye and trying for shelter and employment in one of the villages over
+the Radnorshire border. She could get no speech of the old man, for
+Susannah was never out of the kitchen and would hear every word she
+said to him, every question she put. There was a faded glimmer of
+amusement in his look, too, as it rested on her--his son's dupe. She
+was more and more certain of her own part. Her only wish was never
+again to meet any one she had known; but the first problem of escape
+was beset with such great difficulty that she could hardly see beyond
+it. She knew that Susannah would let her go willingly, but she wished
+nobody to know so much as the direction of her own road to oblivion.
+Black Heber had forsaken her, but it was just possible that Saunders
+might be upon her track. She had not a tear for Saunders, though even
+now, amid the stress of mortified pain, her heart swelled as she
+thought of the shepherd. Perhaps--perhaps he loved her yet, in spite
+of all Susannah had said. Her eyes filled. But she could not risk it
+and wait; her pride, once roused, had scourged her so cruelly that it
+had terrified her into slavery.
+
+From the talk of uncle and niece she learned that Talgwynne fair would
+take place next day and that both were going to it. That should be her
+chance. She would profess herself too tired to accompany them, should
+they invite her to do so, and as soon as they should be safely gone
+she would make her venture. She had never been in the little town, but
+her country eye knew the points of the compass and the direction in
+which the river Wye ran. She would trust to luck and to what sagacity
+she had in finding her way. Talgwynne lay high, and if she followed
+the fall of the ground, with her face towards the river, which she had
+seen daily from Pencoed, she would find her bearings and be able, when
+she reached the Brecon high road, to ask her way to the bridge at
+Losbury village, over which she would get into Radnorshire. The day
+passed slowly and she went early to her mattress in the little room.
+That prison should not contain her much longer.
+
+The fair was in full swing next morning as she closed the door behind
+her and hurried along the by-street. The whole world had been drawn as
+one man to the centre of attraction, and she scarcely met a living
+creature until she was far into the country. She knew her direction
+well, once she was out of Talgwynne, for the Black Mountain was a
+landmark by which it was easy to guide herself. She could see the
+identical smooth stretch on which she had galloped with Heber
+Moorhouse, and she was soon in a lane which she felt sure must bring
+her down upon the high road. Stiff and weary as she still was, she
+pressed on with no goal but Losbury bridge and nothing but chance as a
+friend. Chance only stood between her and destitution.
+
+She plodded on for some time, knowing that she could not long keep to
+the beaten tracks and remain unseen; soon the dispersing fair would
+pour men, women and animals along every road and lane. The sound of
+some one following her on horseback made Catherine's heart jump into
+her mouth. She rushed on and climbed over a gate, which was
+fortunately only a few paces in front, and concealed herself behind
+the hedge, crouching and peering between the leaves like some
+frightened animal. She held her breath as Charles Saunders rode past
+her hiding-place at the hurrying nondescript pace of one whose
+prudence forbids him to trot downhill while his feelings will not
+allow him to walk.
+
+Saunders had lost his flushed appearance; he was pale now and his head
+was perfectly clear. As he had not fallen in with Heber while on his
+way from Moorhouse's cottage, he was firmly persuaded that the
+shepherd had returned for Catherine before he reached it with
+Susannah. Though the buying and selling had not abated, and the fair
+would rage on for another couple of hours, he shook the dust of
+Talgwynne off his feet, embittered by his own folly in listening to
+the impudent woman who had made him forget what was due to himself and
+led him into fresh ignominy and defeat. His enmity against the
+shepherd was more keen than ever. His lips closed and unclosed as
+though in speech with his rival.
+
+As the sound of his going died away, the girl raised herself and
+looked over the gate at his retreating figure. She felt as if she
+never wished to see a man again. They were creatures moved by some
+hidden spring that she could not divine nor understand--she, who stood
+perplexed on the outskirts of life. Passion and jealousy and the deep
+workings, set astir by womankind, of that primæval combat of male with
+male were unlearned lessons.
+
+She rose and pursued her way along the fields, afraid to return to the
+lane, and resolving afresh, since she had seen Charles, not to venture
+out upon the high-road till dusk. Then she reflected that her pocket
+was empty and that when dusk came her prospects would be no better.
+Her goal was Losbury bridge; but she would have to travel some way on
+the other side of it before she reached the village she had in her
+mind. There was a post office there, she knew, for she had once been
+in it, and she meant to ask the post-mistress if there was anybody in
+the place who needed a girl to do servant's work. It was a forlorn
+hope, but Catherine had burned her boats; and, with the pathetic
+trustfulness of youth, she did not believe that the world would let
+her starve. For a coward, she had grown bold indeed.
+
+The foregoing day had poured with rain, and the grass was wet and
+heavy. She was so determined to keep far from all thoroughfares that
+she was obliged to go many times out of the straight line. She pushed
+her way through hedges and thickets and found herself, when the
+afternoon was well advanced, in sight of the road. Her feet were
+soaked, her boots coated with mud; and her skirts were soaked too, for
+a smart shower had caught her in the open. The skies had become
+overcast, and she shivered as she sat resting in the seclusion of a
+hollow.
+
+Tears began to roll down her cheeks; excitement and wounded pride and
+the novelty of a definite object had kept her up; but at last these
+guides and supporters were losing their hold and her heart was sinking
+in the face of the cheerless outlook. Her teeth chattered and her head
+felt like lead. When she got up she was shaking so much that she had
+to lean against a tree. She dared not think of the miles between her
+and that little village over Losbury bridge, and she could not afford
+to await the falling of the light as she had meant to do before
+trusting herself to the open road. Down below her was yet one more
+pasture, and then she must emerge on the highway and take her chance
+of meeting some wayfarer who might recognise her. She plodded on,
+thinking less of that risk than of the increasing misery of dragging
+herself forward. A climb down a steep hedge-grown bank would bring her
+out not fifty yards from the whitewashed walls of a toll-house. Half a
+mile east of it was Losbury bridge, spanning a reach of the river
+above the flat, green meadows.
+
+She looked up and down the road as she stood on the bank and bent back
+the strong suckers in the gap she had chosen; there was not a human
+creature within sight. A white milestone was on the hither side of the
+white toll and the white gates which barred the way. The window stared
+towards her up the vacant thoroughfare after the sleepless, vigilant
+fashion of toll-house windows. She began to scramble down, clinging to
+the tough whips of hazel; there was a cluster of nuts just by her
+shoulder, and she paused to gather it. She was not hungry, but she
+might be hungry yet and thankful for so much as a few filberts. As she
+turned, stretching out her disengaged hand, her foot went from under
+her. She was not the only person who had made a passage through that
+gap, and the wet mud had been trodden into a slide by some one else's
+heel. The springy bough flew upwards, tearing itself from her grasp as
+she slipped and fell.
+
+She lay at the roadside with one foot doubled beneath her. Movement
+brought a feeling of such deathly sickness that she raised her head
+only to drop it again on the moss of the bank. She felt sure that her
+leg must be broken, and, not daring to stir, forgot all but the black,
+imminent fear of pain; the moment's despair was enough for her without
+the additional bewilderment of looking further.
+
+She gathered her wits again to consider how long it might be before
+some one passed, and she prayed for the sound of human approach as
+earnestly as she dreaded it. But for the distant bark of a dog, the
+encompassing rural life might have been extinct and she herself in the
+desert of Sahara.
+
+At last she was able to look up. Her leg could still move, she found,
+and she got herself into a less cramped position. Timidly she touched
+her ankle; it was already swollen, but, if it was not really broken,
+she might try to get as far as the toll. With the help of the tangled
+growth on the bank, she drew herself until she sat upright, and saw
+that a short, broad figure was standing in front of the gate
+contemplating her in an attitude suggesting interest, suspicion, and
+the power to deal forcibly with anything. The woman--if woman it
+were--stood, sharply outlined against the white bars, feet planted
+wide apart, arms akimbo, and head at an attentive and purposeful
+angle. Catherine raised herself on one arm and called as loudly as she
+could, then, as a twinge of pain shot through her foot, she lay back
+once more against the bank.
+
+A minute afterwards she raised her eyes to a round, snub-nosed face
+within a yard of her own. It was surmounted by a man's felt hat,
+secured in its place by a piece of twine which was tied in a careful
+bow under the chin. The loops of the bow were drawn to exact evenness
+and the long ends hung down over a person shaped much like a beehive.
+The notion that she had never seen any one wearing so many clothes
+wandered across the girl's dazed brain.
+
+"By Pharaoh! I thought ye was market-peart!" exclaimed a voice whose
+depth, coming from a petticoated being, made Catherine start.
+"Watchin' ye, I were, to see how soon ye'd plump down again, once ye
+was up."
+
+"I've hurt my foot," said the girl, with a catch in her breath--"maybe
+it's broken."
+
+"It's the 'edge that's broken," observed the other, looking up into
+the gap. "Where d'ye come from?"
+
+"Talgwynne," replied Catherine, the zealous caution of her day
+forgotten.
+
+"Talgwynne?" shouted her companion. "There's a good many'll copy ye
+comin' from Talgwynne! Elijah Jones o' the Bush went by in 'is cart
+not an hour since, singin' like a bird, an' Mrs. Jones 'oldin' 'im so
+as 'e couldn't be sprawlin' over the 'orse's tail. 'E'd been out three
+times between this and the last turnin', so her told me. 'By Pharaoh'!
+says I, '_I'd_ larrup 'im'! When 'e 'eard that 'e was nigh out o' the
+cart an' over the dashboard again."
+
+"But I'm afeared my ankle's broken," said Catherine irrelevantly.
+
+Her face was so grey and pinched that the woman's suspicions changed
+to concern; she put a stout arm under her and managed to raise her
+till she stood upright.
+
+"Try if ye can't 'obble," said she, as they stood clinging together.
+
+The girl obeyed and found that by resting her whole weight on her
+companion's shoulder she could move forward, and the two set off
+towards the toll as best they could. It was painful work, but relief
+at the discovery that her bones were whole gave Catherine courage, and
+her white lips were taking a little colour as they neared the house.
+Above the conspicuous window was a black board which displayed in
+white lettering, '_Maria Cockshow_, _Tollkeeper_'; and as Catherine
+saw it she remembered hearing that a tollkeeper's widow from
+Herefordshire, of whose looks and dealings rumour had strange tales,
+was in charge of one of the gates near Losbury. It was, presumably, on
+the shoulder of this person that she now leaned.
+
+At their approach a white, smooth-haired dog of dubious ancestry burst
+from regions behind the toll, and with the indecent instinct of low
+breeding for the disastrous and unusual, set about its aggravation by
+a storm of high-pitched barks. Catherine almost fell as Mrs. Cockshow
+ducked down without warning, and, snatching up a stone from the road,
+sent it thundering against the dog's ribs.
+
+"That'll 'elp ye 'ome!" said she, as the animal dived with a yell
+under the lowest bar of the gate.
+
+There was a shed behind the house, with a considerable patch of
+garden; and the honest smell of the manure-heap proclaimed the
+neighbourhood of live stock to instructed noses. The dog was waiting
+for the two women at the door with his tail tucked in. His senseless
+face and the horrid length of leg that raised his body high above the
+ground did not suggest youth, and reminded the observer less of a
+puppy than of a foolish person on stilts. He followed, unabashed, but
+without raising his tail, as Catherine and Mrs. Cockshow entered. A
+person skilful to notice could have gained some clue to the
+toll-woman's character from his demeanour; for even this vulgar
+creature might be supposed to know his world.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PENCOED
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PENCOED
+
+AS Heber's appearance at her door in search of Catherine convinced
+Susannah that the girl had fled alone, she longed to rush after his
+rival and tell him of her discovery. She had not doubted that
+Catherine was with the shepherd. The moment she realised that there
+was still a chance of bringing Saunders and the truant together, her
+spirits, which had been dashed to the earth on finding the bird flown,
+rose again, and she cast about for some means of communicating with
+Charles. Her only anxiety was lest the two men should meet in the town
+and the shepherd learn how she had deceived him. She could but trust
+to chance to prevent that; and, had she known it, chance had proved
+kind, for Charles went straight to the Hand of Friendship, and,
+mounting his horse without a word to anybody, set his angry face
+homewards. In the course of the harassed evening which followed,
+Susannah made up her mind to write to him.
+
+Most people thought it a curious thing that Susannah's destiny seemed
+to have nothing better in store than attendance upon a half-crippled
+old man. But most people scarcely realise as a truth that, to the
+accomplishment of any end, no matter how obvious or how commonplace,
+there is required a procession of acquiescent circumstances which
+would make the observer giddy, could he see it. Any human being who
+meets a stranger in the road has only to think of the chain of
+chances--each of which has fulfilled itself--to be forged before that
+meeting can be brought about, and of the one link whose lack would be
+the undoing of the whole. We speak of 'the hour and the man' as though
+they were the only ingredients of fate, and as if their simultaneous
+appearance were all that was needed. But the hour may come and the man
+with it, and some untoward arrangement of detail may triumph over
+both.
+
+Everything had gone smoothly with Susannah but the one detail of her
+own temperament. She had grasped life with both hands, caring no whit
+how much good others got out of it and thinking only of the passing
+day. She could not remember the time when masculine eyes had not
+followed her, and now, though her sun had passed its zenith, they
+followed her still. It was nearly three years since she had arrived to
+keep house for her uncle and so been thrown against her cousin Heber.
+Though few men had come to close quarters with her disturbing
+personality without feeling its influence, the shepherd, unlike others
+in this as in most of his ways, had treated her with the plain
+friendliness he might have shown to a man. Perhaps it was this that
+made Susannah feel for him what she had never felt for the many who
+had courted her and whom she had looked upon as mere pleasant
+accessories of life.
+
+She was not a woman given to recognising failure under any
+circumstances; where a man was concerned, never. Heber had touched her
+imagination--and she had more of it than is given to most women of her
+class--and her heart too. She would bring him to her yet, she promised
+herself. There was a power in her that hard work and a cramped life
+had not been able to destroy. The consciousness of femininity in a
+working woman, should it be alive when its necessary function of
+attracting a mate and securing a home is accomplished, seldom survives
+the birth of her first child. Susannah Moorhouse had neither mate nor
+child; but it is possible that, had she gone through the ordeal of
+acquiring both, that consciousness would have endured, damaged,
+perhaps, but living still. There were some large qualities in her and
+persistence was one of them, though its roots were in her settled
+belief in herself. She meant to employ every means to attain her
+desire. She sought no witch and brewed no potion, though superstition
+still lurked in the crevices of the country and one or two aged people
+professed themselves able to heal cattle and to deal with scalds,
+unrequited affection and other human difficulties, by the mild charms
+they practised.
+
+But Susannah's trust was in none of these; she knew herself to stand,
+by virtue of some indefinable quality, in a different relationship to
+men from that of the women about her. She would draw the man of her
+choice to her by that unnamed force which she knew herself to possess
+and which she had put forth so often in idleness. It was no wonder
+that her neighbours, shrewish spinsters and toiling mothers of
+families, had not a good word for her; the gulf between them was so
+great.
+
+Though Heber's engagement to Catherine was a staggering blow to her,
+its breaking came soon enough to give her courage again. Nay, there
+was a fatalism in her that had, perhaps, preserved her from
+superstition by taking superstition's place; and it suggested to her
+mind, preoccupied as it was with one idea, that larger powers than her
+own were playing into her hands. When she heard that Charles Saunders
+was to marry the girl she had never seen, and was more than ever
+curious to see, she resolved to possess her soul in patience. She
+smiled, standing before the cheap square of looking-glass that hung on
+her wall. There were lines in the face before her to which she would
+fain have been blind, but there were other things too. And all comes
+to him who waits. She meant to wait--not passively, but intelligently.
+Then Black Heber had brought the girl he loved, and, with the
+miraculous blindness of manhood, had given her into the charge of the
+woman who loved him.
+
+If Susannah's views of life were more enterprising than those of her
+neighbours her education had not differed from theirs, so it was a
+laborious business to her to write a letter. She went through a good
+deal of mental exercise before she lost sight of it in the maw of the
+local postman's bag.
+
+
+     "MISTER SAUNDERS, Sir," she had begun:
+
+          "I take the liberty of writing these few lines. Mister
+     Saunders you may spose Catherine Dennis is gone with Heber, but
+     not she. He nows no more nor you where shes gone. She run from
+     here for fere of him sir, if you look you will find her yet.
+
+               "No more from your welwisher,
+
+                    "SUSANNAH MOORHOUSE."
+
+
+Whether or no she expected an answer to this letter, she hoped for
+one; and when some days passed and brought no sign from Charles, she
+began to grow restless. Heber had not returned, though, hitherto, he
+had always contrived to pay a weekly visit to his father, if but for
+five minutes. He was the old man's favourite son and the only one of
+four brothers who lived within reach.
+
+The uncertainty as to what was going on began to prey upon Susannah's
+nerves. Events which meant so much to her had run quickly enough of
+late to make inaction doubly unbearable; and, if she could not see
+Saunders, she must at least see her cousin. Pencoed Chapel was the
+only place in which she was sure of meeting him, and she informed her
+uncle that she meant to go there on the following Sunday.
+
+The distance from Talgwynne put walking out of the question; but she
+descended from the farm gig in which an acquaintance had driven her as
+near to Pencoed as wheels could go, to make the rest of her way on
+foot. She had been obliged to start early to reach the chapel in time
+for the meeting, and as she neared it the sound of singing came to her
+on the wind. She paused outside the door; looking stealthily in, and
+seeing the tall figure of Black Heber, she slipped noiselessly into a
+seat.
+
+The little, box-like building was half full of men and women; elderly
+people, for the most part, in dark-coloured clothes. The windows,
+which were small, with diamond leaded panes set low in the walls, let
+in an even light on their subdued homeliness.
+
+Apart from them, at a table covered with faded red cloth, was the same
+man who had baptized Catherine in the pool at Bethesda.
+
+The hymn was a long one and the singers were well embarked on it; the
+predominance of men in the gathering gave it a fulness and strength of
+sound; and, as it was one immensely popular in the district, its
+solemn rhythm and swaying time were marred by no uncertainties. Heber
+stood in a line with Susannah, by the opposite wall, head and
+shoulders above the other worshippers, his eyes fixed on his book. She
+could hear his strong, melodious voice separately, fervent, and
+steady; and she listened to it as a person by a river's side will
+listen to the tune of one particular eddy in the full underlying rush
+of water.
+
+It was easy to see, here in the quietness of the chapel, how much more
+of youth there was in the man than in the impression he gave to
+others. He was little over thirty and the lines on his face were not
+lines of care, but the marks traced by exposure and hard exercise. His
+eyes were the narrowed eyes of men who look over long distances in
+rigorous weathers, and if his thin beard hid jaw and chin, the outline
+of his chest and shoulders was sharp and young. Now and again he would
+look up, throwing back his head as he sent a note from his expanded
+lungs into the swell of the hymn. The words that floated out round her
+had neither interest nor meaning for Susannah; for her there was only
+a single person, a single voice, under that roof. They had reached the
+last lines:
+
+
+    "Ye men of God, lift up your souls,
+        Nor halt with failing breath;
+     Yet one more stream before us rolls,
+        The dark blue flood of death.
+
+     Across its waves our pathway lies,
+        The hosts go on before;
+     And Zion's city meets our eyes
+        Set on the other shore."
+
+
+As the singing ceased, Heber shut his book and looked round like one
+awakened, straight at Susannah. The act was so spontaneous that
+neither he nor the woman, whose gaze was fixed on him, had time to
+return from the widely separated regions in which their respective
+souls roamed.
+
+In that instant there was revealed to the shepherd the thing that he
+had never suspected. Perhaps the feelings roused by the strenuous,
+half-militant spirit of the hymn and the beat of its swinging music
+had lighted the whole range of his imagination; perhaps the shock of
+the contrast between that seen by his inner and his outer vision
+quickened it; in any case, the passion in Susannah's face shot its
+message across the chapel and he stood stock still while the rest of
+the congregation sat down. Then he thought of his cousin and Catherine
+as he had seen them that night in the kitchen at Talgwynne, and the
+blood ran hot to his tanned face.
+
+Black Heber was not vain; he had no time for vanity, had it been in
+him; nevertheless, Susannah's look pierced to his inactive, remote
+self-consciousness. He resumed his seat, feeling as if a rough hand
+had taken him by the collar. When a man without vanity loves a woman
+as much as he loved Catherine Dennis, the unasked favour of another is
+only a gyve to be shaken off. Unreturned love must be worn either as a
+fetter or as a decoration; and though there are many men whose pride
+it is to go through life decked out in the cheap jewellery of the
+affections, the shepherd was not one of them. Had he found time to
+think of such things they would have irritated him. He did not care
+for ornaments; he only cared for freedom and for getting what he
+wanted. Though he believed himself to have lost Catherine for good and
+all, his freedom remained; and he felt now as though Susannah menaced
+it.
+
+The religious emotion that had such a hold upon his character was gone
+for the time being and during the rest of the meeting he followed what
+was going on mechanically, his mind struggling with problems that took
+him far from the place in which he sat and the sermon to which his
+ears were deaf. He was nothing if not shrewd, and he was groping on
+the edge of a new suspicion. He was perplexed and disturbed, for the
+two facts of Susannah's love for him--almost incredible as he found
+that love--and Catherine's flight from her house struck him as
+pregnant ones when taken together. He remembered his cousin's odd want
+of cordiality when she received the girl. He resolved to evade her, if
+he could, when his neighbours dispersed.
+
+Mrs. Job, who was in chapel, was occupied with his affairs too. It was
+some time since she had seen the shepherd; and the last sign she had
+had of him was the sound of his horse's tread on the night when he had
+ridden from Pencoed with Catherine. Though she had no acquaintance
+with Susannah, she knew her by sight and was one of the few who had
+observed her stealing into the place of worship. It did not take her
+long to make the discovery that the stranger had come neither to pray,
+nor to listen, nor to sing.
+
+From where she sat, Susannah's face was perfectly plain to her, and
+when she saw how her eyes were set on her cousin, and how no movement
+of his, no turn of the head, no tone of the voice, escaped her, the
+devout Mrs. Job ignored her Bible and let her thoughts dwell,
+unrebuked, upon the pair. What revealed itself to the shepherd
+revealed itself with a thousandfold more conviction to her. She was
+not accustomed to take much notice of love at any time; but her warm
+affection for Heber made her acutely alive to everything that
+concerned him. While she was assured that Catherine Dennis was not
+good enough for him, Susannah's air brought revulsion to her Puritan
+nature. She began to dislike her with all her strength.
+
+Almost at the final words of the final prayer Heber rose from his
+place and made for the door, and Susannah, who was on her knees with
+the rest of the assembly, had not courage to follow; for she was
+hemmed in by a woman and two men, who had entered later than herself,
+and who knelt immovably by her side. The shepherd gained the doorstep
+just as the minister's voice ceased, and one or two people looked up,
+curious at his unusual haste. He was often the last to go.
+
+He crossed the grass road hurriedly and went to the other side of Mrs.
+Job's house. From an outsider's point of view the deed was
+ignominious, but his plain intention was to avoid Susannah, and, as
+usual, he took the most direct way of doing it. He had meant to spend
+a little time with his friend, but he left her dwelling behind him and
+hurried towards the nearest dingle. Beside his distaste for the
+discovery he had made, the sight of his cousin brought back his
+trouble afresh.
+
+Susannah and Mrs. Job came out of the chapel at the same moment. The
+former looked round in search of Heber. He was nowhere to be seen and
+she wondered if he had gone into her companion's cottage; with that
+probability in her mind, she bid her good-day, introducing herself as
+a member of the shepherd's family.
+
+Mrs. Job replied shortly to her greeting and made no comment on the
+information. They went across the grass, side by side, and when they
+had reached the doorstep without any suggestion of hospitality passing
+between them, the younger woman spoke again.
+
+"Is Heber here?" she asked, nodding towards the walls.
+
+"I'll see," said the other; and with that she entered, leaving her
+companion outside.
+
+Susannah's lips closed in an angry line; it was evident that she was
+to get no encouragement. She was ignorant of the reason for this plain
+hostility; but it only made her more certain that her suspicion was
+correct and that the shepherd was not far off.
+
+Mrs. Job reappeared, holding the door open to show a portion of her
+face--no more.
+
+"He be'ant here," she called.
+
+But Susannah was not to be baffled so easily.
+
+"Can ye give me a drink o' water?" she inquired. "It's dry work coming
+up the hill."
+
+The door was shut on her and she heard the pump working in the yard.
+Apparently the latch was not to be lifted again, for when Mrs. Job
+returned she came round the side of the house and handed her the
+desired drink.
+
+Susannah swallowed the water, feeling as if it would choke her.
+
+"Thank ye," she said.
+
+And, as the elder woman put out her hand to take the empty cup, she
+dashed it on the ground at their feet. The china flew into shivers on
+the step.
+
+She went off along the track, leaving the other speechless, and when
+she had gone a little way she sat down on the turf and looked back.
+Mrs. Job had gone in and the chapel-goers were dispersing; black
+figures scattered in retreating groups towards different quarters of
+the landscape. Heber was with none of them and no one was going in her
+own direction. It seemed as if they, with Mrs. Job and the shepherd,
+were in the conspiracy against her. At last she rose and set out for
+the place at which she was to find the gig. Her eyes were dry, because
+she was too furious for tears.
+
+About an hour afterwards Heber's perturbed wanderings came to an end:
+he approached Pencoed again. It was not only Susannah's demeanour and
+its suggestion that annoyed him, for, in his heart, he blamed her for
+having let slip his regained treasure. It was an illogical feeling,
+because he never doubted that Catherine had gone with Saunders, and
+gone willingly, repenting the rash step she had taken. He did not
+overlook the difference between himself and the richer man, though he
+despised Charles. He had managed to convey news of what had happened
+to Mrs. Job, and his heart was so sore that he longed for the sympathy
+of the uncompromising and undemonstrative person whose partisanship
+never failed him.
+
+There was a grim explosiveness in Mrs. Job's manner as he entered the
+house, though she listened patiently while he gave her the history of
+Talgwynne fair-day. Her husband stole in, anxious for a pipe beside
+the fire, but she motioned him out; her relentless predominance in the
+household was a matter of course, and Job departed as humbly as he had
+come.
+
+"Maybe it's not Saunders as is at the bottom o' this," said she, when
+the shepherd was silent. "Mind you, Heber, I've got eyes in my head,
+an' ears too--not so long as some folks, but long enough to hear from
+here to Talgwynne! Ah! That cousin o' yours be a bit o' stuff to burn
+yer fingers wi', an' no mistake. I know that!"
+
+Moorhouse frowned and his companion took his frown for a sign of
+dissent. She raised her sharp nose higher.
+
+"What's wrong wi' her?" he asked.
+
+"Wrong wi' her? She've got her eye on you! An' I've got mine on _her_,
+an' had in chapel, too. I can see a thing or two, b'lieve me!"
+
+His brows drew still closer together.
+
+"What made ye run out o' chapel like that?" demanded Mrs. Job, coming
+closer. "It cost me a good chinay cup, that run o' yours did. She just
+up wi' her hand an' down wi' the cup on the stones an' bruk it to
+pieces--if it had been my head my lady would ha' been better pleased,
+her would--askin' me for a drink. A drink indeed! Her wanted to get
+into the house to see if ye was in it. But her didn't know _me!_"
+
+She gave him no time for comment.
+
+"_I_ saw her watchin' ye i' the chapel," she went on, "an' _I_ heard
+o' her walkin' about Talgwynne fair wi' Saunders! Where was ye, Heber,
+that day?"
+
+"I wasn't no more'n an hour i' the town," said he, "an' I'd business
+to do afore I could get to father's----"
+
+"And Catherine was gone, sure enough, by then," broke in the other;
+"an' if ye tell me that baggage didn't get rid o' her I won't believe
+ye, that's all! Her may be wi' Saunders an' her mayn't."
+
+If these new lights were dazzling the shepherd, they showed him his
+vague suspicions in more definite shape. He stood staring at Mrs. Job
+as if he could see into her brain. Mentally she travelled faster than
+he did, but he was following.
+
+"The sooner I get after Susannah the better," he said, as he turned
+away.
+
+"D'ye think _she'll_ tell ye the truth? Go home, ye foondy feller, an'
+don't be wastin' shoe-leather!" she exclaimed loudly.
+
+He said nothing but the obstinate determination on his face spoke
+volumes.
+
+After he passed the window a horrible fear shook her.
+
+"You take up wi' that baggage at Talgwynne, an' I've done wi' you!"
+she cried after him.
+
+Black Heber never swore; it was against his particular assortment of
+principles. But his lips moved as he passed out of earshot. He was on
+the nearest way to Talgwynne, and he knew that he must overtake his
+cousin if she were on foot; he knew also, from Mrs. Job's story of the
+broken cup, that she had not started homewards at once. It was not
+likely that she would tell him the truth, but he had a mad hope of
+wresting it from her; how, he did not know. At any rate, he might
+gather something from her bearing. He would be very cautious.
+
+At last he saw her ahead of him. She did not hear his approach on the
+turf until he was close to her.
+
+Her heart beat tumultuously as they walked on together. She could not
+understand why he had avoided her only to pursue her afterwards. The
+silence by which each was seeking to compel the other's speech was
+broken by the shepherd.
+
+"You've had no chance to tell me anything, Susannah," he began.
+
+"About Catherine? There's nothing to tell. I'm main sorry for ye,
+that's all. They were gone when uncle and me got home from the fair."
+
+"How d'ye know she be gone with Saunders? I went from the door like a
+fool in my haste, but maybe I'm wiser now."
+
+Susannah had provided herself with answers for all emergencies.
+
+"She left a bit o' paper with writing on the kitchen table. '_Charles
+Saunders is come_,' says she, '_an' I'm gone wi' him._' No more nor
+that. Not a word of thanks to me, either."
+
+"What did ye do with it?" exclaimed he, stopping short.
+
+"Burnt it."
+
+Heber made a smothered exclamation.
+
+"But Saunders was at the fair till afternoon," said he, at the end of
+a long pause, during which neither had looked at the other.
+
+"I heard that. I s'pose he came back."
+
+To the shepherd's practical mind there were discrepancies of time in
+Susannah's account that he could not adjust. When he had reached
+Talgwynne he had found the best part of the fair over; for noon saw
+business ebb in the little hillside place. His tardy appearance had
+been hailed with interest, and he was immediately secured to ride a
+horse for the inspection of a man who, he was told, had been all day
+in the town. The recollection of these facts sprang up to assort
+itself very ill with his companion's words. He made up his mind to get
+to Talgwynne on the first possible chance of absenting himself from
+his work and to see what he could elicit from his father. He could not
+tell how far the old man might be in Susannah's confidence. He did not
+speak of his intention to her, and it struck him, when he turned to
+take his way up the hill and they stood within sight of the waiting
+gig, that she made no suggestion of his coming. It was the first time
+in his recollection of her that she had seen him without pressing him
+to come soon.
+
+They had reached a dip in the ground which hid the wayside cottage
+where the gig with Susannah's friends was drawn up. She had looked for
+the expression of greater resentment from him, but he had cursed
+neither fate nor Saunders. He spoke of Catherine's desertion of him
+almost as if it had happened to some one else. There was no excitement
+in his manner, even little concern; and, for a man who had so few
+scruples about strong measures when they suited him, he seemed to
+accept his defeat with curious calmness. If he had flung away from his
+father's door with every sign of uncalculating bitterness, he was
+different now. She told herself with triumph that he had taken
+Catherine's measure at last. Perhaps Susannah paid too little heed to
+those inconsistencies in him which surprised others.
+
+As they parted she held out her hand and looked up at him with
+half-closed, half-mocking eyes.
+
+"Ah--you'll forget her in time, Heber," she said, her fingers clinging
+to his as he touched them. She raised her face till it was close to
+his own.
+
+He thrust her away with one short, frightfully definite word.
+
+When she got into the gig a few minutes afterwards she was as white as
+a sheet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CATHERINE OPENS THE GATE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CATHERINE OPENS THE GATE
+
+TEN days had passed since the sturdy widow led her guest across the
+threshold, and Catherine, with the remains of a badly twisted ankle,
+was still under her roof. She had been molested by nobody. One of her
+two lovers supposed her to be with the other; Mrs. Job did not know
+where she was; and Susannah, equally ignorant, was only interested in
+knowing where she was not.
+
+The attraction of opposites had done its work between Mrs. Cockshow
+and her housemate, for the two women were excellent friends. The
+human-heartedness of the elder one, and her permanent fancy for other
+people's business, made her deaf when Catherine began to speak of
+leaving the place. She was still very lame and the toll-woman was
+right when she took Pharaoh to witness that to travel on foot would be
+insanity. Besides which, where was she going to? The question was
+unanswerable; and finally it was settled between them that the
+cleaning of the house, the cooking, and the minding of that mob of
+fowls which dwelt at the bottom of the garden should devolve upon
+Catherine, indefinitely, in return for her keep.
+
+In this arrangement of Mrs. Cockshow's, convenience and charity, like
+righteousness and peace, kissed each other. Her whole interest was
+found outside her own walls; the road was her passion, her world; and
+those who went up and down on it her pictures, her newspapers, and,
+very often, her victims. To bandy words with her was the act of a
+fool; and so well was this understood that the ridicule which her
+strange appearance evoked when she first came into residence by the
+gate had died a natural but by no means lingering death, and gossip
+had taken its place. This was for the best, because the latter was
+satisfactory to all, while the former had only been satisfactory to
+Mrs. Cockshow.
+
+The thing that suited Catherine's patroness best in their arrangement
+was that the girl could be left in charge of the gate while she went
+to Llangarth market. She was a woman of some means, who did a small
+trade in eggs and poultry, and the difficulty of leaving her post on
+Thursdays had been a weekly annoyance; for a market day was a
+foretaste of Paradise to her. She owned a stout, aged pony of her late
+husband's which she occasionally hired out to her neighbours for odd
+jobs, and she now looked forward to journeying in comfort to the very
+fountain-head of gossip. Besides this, it was delightful to her to
+have under her roof the heroine of an episode of which she had been
+almost the first to hear. She had dragged Catherine's secret from her
+in the early hours of their acquaintance, and thought a great deal
+more of her companion when she learnt that she had eluded two of the
+opposite sex.
+
+Mrs. Cockshow did not believe in men. Her own husband had drunk
+heavily and persistently; and she had had time to visit his sins upon
+him before he escaped into the next world. She was well acquainted
+with Charles Saunders, and slightly so with Black Heber, for both had
+passed through her gate at various times.
+
+"Take care ye don't let the sun go over the 'ill, all the same," she
+had said to Catherine; for though a despiser of men, she was an
+advocate of marriage. To her, matrimony, with the whip hand, was the
+ideal life.
+
+So far, she had kept her tongue quiet on the subject of her guest.
+Perhaps it pleased her to hug to her heart the gratification of
+knowing more than any one else; to pet her knowledge, so to speak,
+before using it as a boast. Catherine had been kept a prisoner indoors
+for several days by her ankle, and when she went outside the walls it
+was only to tend the poultry or to hang out the washing in the garden.
+Never had so much washing been seen on the toll-house hedges before,
+though Mrs. Cockshow, to whom soap was not important, eyed the display
+contemptuously. Her cleanings consisted generally of what the
+country-side called "a lick and a promise." The toll-house hid
+Catherine from prying eyes on the road as she went about her business
+in the garden, and she began to feel secure in her very public
+retreat.
+
+Between herself and Bungo, the white cur dog, no great friendship
+existed. The girl was fond of all animals; but her efforts to be on
+easy terms with this one had been useless, for he persisted in looking
+with imperishable distrust at her out of his blinking eyes and
+galloping away whenever she spoke to him. He would follow her to the
+garden at a servile distance; but the first words she threw him would
+send him flying across the cabbage beds, from the safe side of which
+he would stun her ears with his insane barking. In Mrs. Cockshow, who
+had hurled enough stones at him to pave a yard, he had implicit trust;
+but he took each movement of Catherine's hand for a menace.
+
+She had just returned from her hens one morning, with Bungo sneaking
+in her wake, when she heard Mrs. Cockshow in loud altercation on the
+road. The shrill, high voice of an old man was contending with that of
+the widow, and Catherine ran to the window in the upper storey,
+attracted by the increasing noise. Judging by the part that the word
+"fourpence" played in the storm, the dispute was about money, and the
+girl knew the toll-woman well enough to be sure that there could be
+but one issue to the combat. She smiled, hearing the baffled fury in
+the old man's tone, as the gate swung open for the wheels that went
+grinding through it.
+
+"A pint o' fourpences would be no more account to me nor a pint o'
+ditchwater!" he screamed. "I've _thousands_ to leave behind me when I
+go, I have!"
+
+"An', by Pharaoh, I've got more than that!" cried Mrs. Cockshow at the
+pitch of her lungs. "I've the world to leave be'ind me when I go!"
+
+Catherine, at her vantage point in the upper window, pulled the
+curtain aside as the gate closed, only to jump back as though she had
+been fired at; for Bungo, who had joined his owner and was at the
+farther side of the road, fell into a frenzy of barking as he heard
+her movement at the open casement and saw her figure. The eyes of all
+went upward. The old man in the gig below was Saunders's uncle, and
+Catherine was looking straight into the upturned face of Charles.
+
+When the gig had rolled on without any action on his part, she
+breathed again freely. Mrs. Cockshow standing in her favourite spot in
+the middle of the road, watched the vehicle out of sight, and when a
+bend hid it she came close under the toll-house walls.
+
+"'E's 'ad enough o' you!" she called up, her broad face all one smile.
+"Did ye see the bald 'eaded old mawkin sittin' up beside 'im? If the
+young feller's no better nor 'im, ye did well to give 'im the slip.
+I've seen the old devil drivin' 'is cattle along this road many a
+time. A proud look and a 'igh stomach 'e 'as, too; but that don't keep
+'im from bastin' their ribs wi' a common stick cut out o' the
+'edge--can't spare so much as would buy a decent bit o' ash plant. 'E
+don't 'ave no cattle-man neither, an' 'im screechin' about 'is
+thousands! They do say 'e starved 'is wife too. I know them that's
+seen 'er----"
+
+At this point the widow discovered herself to be shouting up into an
+empty room; for Catherine had come out and was standing behind her,
+with a scared face.
+
+Mrs. Cockshow turned on her.
+
+"Silly wench that ye be!" she exclaimed. "It's better to be sure than
+sorry. I tell ye 'e 'ates the very sight of ye now, an' no wonder too.
+Go an' get the dinner. It's nigh upon twelve, and Bungo 'asn't 'ad a
+bite to-day. Come in, ye whelp!"
+
+The last sentence was addressed, in a murderous tone, to the white
+dog, who wagged his tail. He took it for a caress.
+
+Mrs. Cockshow arose next morning in her most jovial humour. It was
+Thursday; and now, for the first time for months, she was dispensing
+with the services of that neighbour who called to take her eggs to
+market and was looking forward to carrying them there herself.
+Catherine also was happy; for the two Saunderses had driven by last
+evening on their return journey, without so much as a look at the
+toll-house windows, and she was sure the widow was right in saying
+that Charles now hated the sight of her.
+
+She was not afraid that Heber would pass, though she knew that he went
+on Thursdays to Llangarth; for his way thither from the hill farm
+joined the highroad some way east of the toll. She sighed. Could she
+see him, while remaining invisible herself, she knew that she would
+secretly be glad. But, admitting that, she put him from her thoughts
+with a heightened colour. Since Susannah's plain speaking, she had
+never let her mind dwell on the shepherd; yet she had learned of late
+that if her pride had been cruelly handled, her heart had fared little
+better. She could not think, looking back, how she had ever liked or
+tolerated Saunders. She was bitter against Black Heber, as well she
+might be; but she hated him and loved him at the same moment. For the
+first time, the simple girl was in a terribly complicated state of
+mind.
+
+Mrs. Cockshow had tied on her late husband's hat with a new piece of
+twine and loaded her person yet more completely with clothes. Before
+she climbed into the antiquated side-saddle on her pony's back, she
+went to the roadside and began to fill the most accessible of her
+pockets with stones. While so engaged, she directed Catherine, who
+looked on with astonishment, to shut the gate and tie the animal to
+it. The girl obeyed, and when the widow approached, bulging more
+strangely than usual, she helped her to mount. Mrs. Cockshow used the
+toll bars as a horse-block. Then the egg basket was handed up to her,
+a switch cut from the hedge, and Catherine was bidden to attend to the
+needs of passers and to suffer no one to shirk payment. Before the
+rider was out of sight, Bungo burst with a yell from the toll-house
+and began to follow, raising a trail of dust as he went.
+
+In one moment Mrs. Cockshow had turned and the air was one hail of
+flying stones, while, through the cloud sent up by the sudden facing
+about of the pony, her arm could be seen whirling above her head like
+the arm of a mounted drummer through the smoke of battle; and as, in
+the blinding hurricane of hard metal and abuse, Bungo flew homewards
+like the greyhound which had evidently been too intimate with his
+grandmother, Catherine realised as she had never realised before, the
+infinite forethought of her protectress. She shut the dog into the
+house and sat down to await her first summons from the public.
+
+Mrs. Cockshow gained Llangarth without further inconvenience. Many
+looks followed her as she rode up the street; but though there was a
+smile on most faces, no one addressed her with levity. Having disposed
+of the pony, she disappeared with her basket into the market-place.
+
+The market had drawn more than one of the actors in our story to
+Llangarth; for Charles and his uncle were among those inspecting
+cattle in the street, and Heber, who had come on horseback to take
+some sheep to the railway station, was in the town too.
+
+Instead of answering Susannah's letter Saunders had put it into the
+fire, for he was resolved that the episode of his acquaintance with
+Catherine Dennis should be closed for good and all. He was ashamed of
+it now, and felt that he had deserved all he got for meddling with a
+woman so far beneath him in every possible way. There was some comfort
+in assuring himself that he was well out of it and that he would take
+care never to get into such a position again. He felt little
+resentment against her; not because he was broad-minded or forgiving,
+but because his rancour was so completely concentrated on Heber that
+it put everything else out of his head. He would never forgive the
+smile he had seen on the shepherd's face as he looked back at him from
+the saddle on the Talgwynne road. It was constantly in his mind, and
+he was thinking of it as he came out of the post-office door when his
+business with the cattle was over. He turned down the street and saw
+his enemy, who was on his way from the station, coming to meet him.
+
+Heber looked grim and weary as he approached. Since Sunday, when he
+had parted from Susannah, he had had no chance of leaving his work
+either to question his father at Talgwynne or to make any other
+attempt at discovering where Catherine had hidden herself. He did not
+know what to believe; his doubt of his cousin's truthfulness was
+strong and his opinion of Mrs. Job's wisdom great. Yet, as he looked
+back in cold blood at their ride in the dark and at his own roughness,
+he could not help seeing some likelihood in the girl's return to his
+rival. He was not accustomed to considering himself from the
+outside--few primitive men are; but he had thought a good deal as he
+went about his business in the solitudes of the mountains; and failure
+will open new vistas to those who are not eaten up by vanity. Though
+not given to succumbing to circumstances, Heber was tried by the
+enforced patience and inaction of the last week and his heart was
+heavy in him.
+
+If Susannah's letter had produced no effect on Charles, it had given
+him the keen pleasure of knowing that Heber was made a fool of as well
+as himself. The whole look of the man as he came to meet him sent the
+warmth of satisfaction through Saunders, because it suggested to him
+that he was out of spirits with the world. As the distance lessened
+between them his own expression proclaimed the feeling; and back again
+to his mind came the vision of their last meeting and Heber's smile.
+It was his turn to smile now. He stopped.
+
+"Well, have ye found her yet?" he asked.
+
+The shepherd made no pretence of misunderstanding him; his methods
+were too direct for that, and even the engrafted genteelness of
+Charles's points of view could not blind him to a certain nobility in
+the coarsely clad, weather-beaten fellow, which struck him at that
+moment as an additional outrage on himself.
+
+"I know where I won't find her, and that's wi' you," said Heber, at a
+venture.
+
+Charles was sharp enough to see where a vulnerable point would lie,
+and the overmastering longing to wound Heber inspired his tongue.
+
+"And that's where you're wrong," said he. "I've got her safe enough,
+and I'll keep her too--for a bit."
+
+The pupils of the shepherd's eyes seemed to be contracting as Saunders
+watched his face with an ecstatic sense of the success of his own
+words.
+
+"If I follow ye till midnight," Heber said, at last, "I'll see whether
+ye speak truth."
+
+He spoke with a slow, cold emphasis.
+
+Charles was a little disconcerted. Were the other to keep his word he
+would be likely to prove the falseness of his statement; were he to
+precede him to his house he would certainly do so. He suspected that
+Heber knew where he lived.
+
+"You'll have some way to go, then," said he. "A decent man doesn't
+keep his wench under other folks' noses. If you've a mind to see
+Catherine, I'll not stop you. I'm going out to see her myself, an'
+perhaps the sight of the pair of us'll please her."
+
+As he spoke, Saunders's eyes twinkled, for he was due at a village out
+in the neighbourhood and was going to start almost immediately in the
+gig. If Moorhouse chose to annoy him by following him, he would let
+him have the wild-goose chase he deserved for his pains; and as he
+left the shepherd standing in the street he could hardly keep himself
+from bursting out laughing. He looked over his shoulder. Heber was a
+few paces behind.
+
+When Charles entered his house he saw that the shepherd was going to
+carry out his threat, for he was standing on the pavement watching him
+from the other side of the way; and as he emerged again to go into the
+stable behind the dwelling to fetch his gig, he was a little
+disappointed at finding that Heber had disappeared. But when he had
+harnessed the cob and was driving out of the yard his cheerfulness
+returned, for Heber had apparently only gone to get his horse--the
+same which had carried him and Catherine to Talgwynne--and was waiting
+for him at the end of the street. Just as Charles was starting, his
+uncle called after him to stop, as he meant to accompany him; and
+little as he desired the old man's company at the present juncture, he
+had no choice but to accept it. He drove out of the town and on to the
+Brecon road, with the trotting hoofs of the shepherd's horse following
+steadily with a rhythmic beat that kept exact pace behind the gig,
+neither increasing nor slackening.
+
+It was only when they had left Llangarth behind that it occurred to
+Charles what an egregious fool he had been. When he lured Heber after
+him he had forgotten that, in order to reach his destination, he would
+have to pass through Mrs. Cockshow's tollgate.
+
+How he had perpetrated such an imbecility was beyond his
+understanding. On ordinary occasions he reached the village he was
+bound for by turning off the highway into a lane on the near side of
+the gate; but he remembered now that this was under repair and barred,
+and that he could only proceed by a cart track half a mile beyond the
+tollhouse. There was nothing for him to do but to put the best face he
+could on the business and to go forward. It was impossible to turn
+back because of his uncle's presence beside him; for the old man was
+not in his confidence, and Catherine's face at the window yesterday
+had conveyed nothing to him. He did not know her by sight. He was
+aware of the trick that his nephew's intended bride had played him,
+and, because he had never favoured the marriage, he had made some very
+sour jokes on the subject. As they neared the toll Charles prayed that
+he might not have the chance of making more.
+
+Still the tireless hoofs beat on behind them. Once he glanced back.
+Heber was rising and falling mechanically in his stirrups with the
+swing of the big horse's trot, apparently less interested in him and
+his gig than in the fields on either side. They went by the mouth of
+the closed lane. The bars were up and workmen were laying a seemingly
+interminable drain-pipe along the very middle of it.
+
+As the little white house came in sight Saunders stared earnestly
+before him for Mrs. Cockshow and felt in his waistcoat pocket for the
+gate-money. The widow was usually in the road, but to-day there was no
+sign of her familiar and unforgettable shape. He drew a sharp breath
+of annoyance. There would be shouting and waiting and all sorts of
+untoward delays; possibly a fresh battle between Mrs. Cockshow and his
+uncle. The latter was muttering already and beginning to look, as he
+did when excited, like a crazy hen.
+
+Heber sat, immovable and unconcerned, on his horse when they pulled
+up, and Saunders raised his voice in the customary manner of
+travellers. The shepherd's money was in his fingers, but when
+Catherine came out of the tollhouse he almost dropped it into the
+dust.
+
+For an instant the suspicion that Charles's hateful insinuations were
+true came to him like a cold blast. The girl hesitated, and then, with
+a glance at the occupants of the gig, approached him first, holding
+out her hand for the toll money. He leaned down towards her.
+
+"What be you doing here, Catherine? How be you come here?"
+
+She shrank back. There was suppressed vehemence in his tone.
+
+"Don't be afeared o' me," he exclaimed, "I won't hurt ye, my girl."
+
+"I live wi' Mrs. Cockshow," she faltered. "She's at the market."
+
+"Come on, come on, ye slut!" screamed Saunders's uncle. "Am I to wait
+here all day for you to be sweetheartin' wi' every vagabond feller on
+the road?"
+
+Heber had dismounted, and as Catherine, bewildered, was about to obey
+the cattle-breeder, he held her back. He took no notice of the
+outburst, but he led her up to the side of the gig on which Charles
+sat.
+
+"Tell me the truth, Catherine," he said, "be you livin' wi' this man
+or be you not?"
+
+"_Livin_' with him--with _him?_" she exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, you be hussy enough for anything, I'll be bound!" cried the old
+man's shrill voice. "Let me go on, I tell 'e; open the gate! Who cares
+a damn who ye be livin' with?"
+
+"He told me, not an hour back, that he was keepin' you," continued
+Black Heber, unmoved, pointing at Charles. "Be that true? Answer me,
+girl."
+
+"It's a lie," cried Catherine, in a shaking voice. "So help me God,
+it's a lie!"
+
+He loosed his hold on her.
+
+"Open the gate, Catherine," said he quietly. Then he took Charles's
+cob by the head and looked up at its driver.
+
+"Will ye drive on, like the lyin' cur ye are, or will ye come down now
+and have it out wi' me?"
+
+"Let my horse go!" screamed the cattle-breeder. "Who be you, ye thief,
+stopping me an' my nephew in the road?"
+
+Charles bent forward and cut at Heber with his whip.
+
+"Go on, then, if you be afeared," said the shepherd, taking his hand
+from the bit. "It's the wisest choice that you've made. And every time
+ye see me, ye can remember that I know the coward ye are."
+
+"He's forgotten to pay," said Catherine blankly to the shepherd as
+they watched the gig disappear. "Oh! what'll Mrs. Cockshow say?"
+
+Black Heber made no suggestion. There was only one question just then
+which interested him, and he could read its answer in Catherine's
+face.
+
+"I'll tie up the horse and come in wi' you," said he. "Maybe I'd best
+wait and explain it to her."
+
+
+__________
+
+Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+This transcription is based on a set of images digitized by Google
+from a copy made available by the New York Public Library and posted
+by Google at:
+
+     https://books.google.com/books?id=MqUiAAAAMAAJ
+
+The same set of images are also posted by the HathiTrust Digital
+Library at:
+
+     https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008665603
+
+The cover image is courtesy of the National Library of Scotland.
+
+The following changes were made to the printed text:
+
+-- p. 26: speaking to the newly baptzied persons--Changed "baptzied"
+to "baptized".
+
+-- p. 30: as the sense of justice in in the weak so often is--Deleted
+the second "in".
+
+-- p. 83: and maybe I'll give it you for nothin.'--Moved the
+apostrophe before the period.
+
+-- p. 86: on the pavement towards the western entrance to the
+town--Added a period at the end of the sentence.
+
+-- p. 88: The night afore the wedding Heber brought her to our house
+'an knocked me out o' my bed--Changed "'an" (for "and") to "an'".
+
+-- p. 114: an' Mrs. Jones oldin' 'im so as 'e couldn't be sprawlin'
+over the 'orse's tail.--Added an apostrophe at the beginning of
+"oldin'".
+
+-- p. 160: she knew that he went on Thursdays to Langarth--Changed
+"Langarth" to "Llangarth".
+
+-- p. 172: "I live wi' Mrs. Cockshow," she faltered. She's at the
+market."--Added an opening double quotation mark before "She's".
+
+-- p. 172: he held her back, He took no notice of the
+outburst--Changed the comma after "back" to a period.
+
+Alternate spellings within the text, such as "by-lane"/"bylane" and
+"toll-house"/"tollhouse," have been preserved.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Irresolute Catherine, by Violet Jacob
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57503 ***